Suresh,
You know from our sparring on similar issues in the past that I am
fundamentally in disagreement with you in this regard.
Suresh Ramasubramanian proclaimed:
> 1. ICQ, IRC (and even IM clients like yahoo / aol / msn), and Napster, etc can
> be used for file sharing - and hence are one of the largest sources of worms /
> virii entering a network. Getting rid of them (at least on doze boxes) saves
> you a lot of time cleaning up infected computers (and getting hacked after the
> virus opens up ports on your NT server)
Email can be used for file sharing too. So can FTP and HTTP. Are you
going to close down acess to those services too? Draconian net
administration is no solution for lack of discipline on the part of your
users. Your energies are spent much moe productively if you could
educate your users on basic online safety (don't run J. Random Cracker's
exes. Disable macros in Office. Do not run excecutables you get in
email etc.).
> 2. They are total bandwidth hogs - espeically as people leave them on all the
> time and sometimes have four or five windows popping up. Makes it rather
> tough to upload an oracle database of over 400 megs in size when somebody is
> downloading MP3s and chatting to a half dozen of his friends at the same time.
As I've indicated... mp3s can be downloaded through FTP/HTTP. People
can chat using java clients through their browsers. The list of
possible "infractions" is endless. Besides, what is so wrong with
someone chatting w/ their friends through work? They do take some of
their work home, don't they?
Get more bandwidth. People communicating with each other produce
ideas. Trust your employees. They'll trust you.
> 3. My employer pays nearly Rs.4 lakhs per month for bandwidth (a DSL and a
> 64 kbps leased line). When you look at an office leased line in those terms,
> you will definitely see the point (or your boss will make you see it when he
> realizes the fact)
And the return on the Rs 4 lakh investment through the employees
improving their knowledge is priceless. How can you place a price on
the time i spend in #debian on irc.debian.org? It is very possible that
I might learn something during my time on #debian that might be useful
in me doing my job tomorrow. In fact, this has happened numerous times
in my case.
Thaths
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