> > I'm glad you're doing it the "right" way, compared to the way I
> did it. :-)
> > http://www.sciencenews.org/20000304/bob1.asp
> Aaron, its *because* of your experience that I am going the
> slow legal way. {8-] Otherwise I mighta just sent out GIMPS
> as an enclosure and thought little of it. I never did really get much
> management attention until I pointed out that a clever programmer
> could *already be using* spare CPU cycles on our machines and
> we wouldnt even know it, unless we had our own, well controlled
> background process to keep tabs on that.
>
> Those of you who work in big companies, feel free to give your
> IT manager a few sleepless nights with that line of reasoning, then
> hand her your clever solution... {8^D spike
Glad I could help. I really don't want to see *anyone* go through what I've
gone through. That's why when Ivars Peterson asked if I wanted to make any
comments for his article, I basically just advised anyone who would listen
that they had darn better go through the proper channels.
Through my contract work, I can't count how many times I saw people who
installed their own software onto their work PC. For the most part, whether
the employees had local admin access or not (or on Win9x boxes), there was a
written policy that stated that no "outside" software could be installed.
Period.
I just happened to be in the unfortunate situation of breaking this rule,
not just on one computer but on many.
So...even if you have installed something you consider trivial, if you did
it without authorization and your company has a policy about that, that
qualifies as "exceeding authorized access" and of course, as I've found out,
damages do not have to be physical damages, or "making the machines run
slow", but can include the cost to remove the software. So if some tech has
to come uninstall that software, and that tech gets paid $15 bucks an hour,
they can charge you for it. Just try and keep the "damage" amount under
$1000 dollars to avoid prosecution under federal law. :-)
On that note...best wishes to all! :-) I don't mean to be such a downer
about all that, but really, if anything, US WEST's reaction just goes to
show how uptight some companies are about things.
Aaron
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