Re: [vox] lugod faq update: broadband in davis

[Rick Moen <rick@lMAPSinuxmafia.com>]

Quoting ME (dugan@passwall.com):

> To agree with this assertion, it has also happened nationwide at
> universities. Networking/IT departments decided that they should be
> able to have the root password to linux boxes in dorms because they
> were servers. In some cases, the Networking/IT staff at the
> universities would back down from this when they were told that MS
> Windows and Mac OS were also servers if the definition of a server
> included offering services such as file sharing. 

Universities are accustomed to pushing around campus-resident students.
It's like dealing with the company store in a single-industry town.
That's one reason why I made a point of living off-campus when I was an
undergrad, even though Princeton U. housing bureaucrats attempted to
tell me that underclassmen weren't "allowed" to do so.  (I informed them
that they were mistaken.  ;->  Funny how not living there gave them
effectively no leverage.)

I suppose someone living in the dorms and confronted with some campus
NOC flunky's demand for his root password _could_ respond with a lengthy
agreement whereby the university assumes full legal responsibility for
any damage to data or programs (and full responsibility for network
activity) resulting in any way from their use of root access.  That
would probably result in an amusing Mexican standoff, since college
admins are notoriously allergic to accountability.  (Rules and
consequences are for _other_ people.)

-- 
"Is it not the beauty of an asynchronous form of discussion that one can go and 
make cups of tea, floss the cat, fluff the geraniums, open the kitchen window 
and scream out it with operatic force, volume, and decorum, and then return to 
the vexed glowing letters calmer of mind and soul?" -- The Cube, forum3000.org
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