1. Because it can eat up a tremendous amount of bandwidth and storage space. 2. You will, when you allow your user base to uncontrollably saturate it. 3. If you knowingly allow illegal activity on services you provide and control, you become culpable to it.
- When these issues sneak up and surprise you, you will be scrambling for control as well as facing a very annoyed user base who suddenly doesnt understand why you are taking all of their "rights" from them when shit hits the fan. And yes, shit will hit the fan. FWIW, I have seen the torrent habits of a few VIP users absolutely destroy network connectivity. Yes, with the right equipment you can shape traffic and kinda control it - but its a mistake (see item #3). Your boss's knowledge of IT matters is highly suspect. -- Espi On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 8:24 PM, Kish N Kepi <[email protected]> wrote: > We keep a lax environment – our users are local admins on their Windows > laptops and we not stop them from installing any software they want – the > only caveat I ever say is ‘don’t be stupid’. And yes, we are a hi-tech > house, well beyond the startup stage. > > > > During a conversation about potential changes to the way we do backups > today, I stated that the current back up routine specifically excludes most > media files, and also that I’d used psexec to kill utorrent processes. My > boss, who is actually quite knowledgeable in IT matters, had a response > surprised me: why? Why not backup the media files? Why not allow torrent > traffic? His points were as follows: > > 1. We give them laptops and smartphones and expect them to be > available at all hours of the day – that’s convergence of home and office > life – why shouldn’t we backup the photos of their kids, pets and vacations > too? > > 2. Do we have bandwidth issues? We have a broad link to the internet > and only at periodic peaks do we hit anywhere near our limit > > 3. Legality of torrents? Really? How many people care about the > legality? > > 4. Malware? We have other protections in place. > > > > I couldn’t come up with any answers that sounded reasonable to me, so at > this stage, we’re planning increase our backup storage capacity. > > > > Does anyone here have answers that I lack? Sorry for cross-posting, but I > this question is bothering me, and I know that many people in this for a > have strong, well-formed (and well-expressed) opinions > > > > Kish n Kepi >
