Slashdot Mirror
P2P Programs on K-12 Networks?
deque_alpha asks: "I am a system administrator for a small K-12 public school district. I am taking over after a bunch of goofballs have really messed things up, the technology department is in utter disarray. I have near infinite problems, but the hairiest are with people sucking up what little bandwidth we have, introducing virii, downloading warez, and generally causing problems with P2P file sharing programs. I don't generally have a problem with these programs, but they are not an appropriate use of the limited bandwidth of a K-12 institution as they provide little in the way of an educational resource, not to mention the legal liability they potentially introduce. The rub lies in that these people are teachers, and I have virtually no policy to back me up if I come down on them, but shutting them down is neccesary to maintain harmony (and legality) on the network. I don't have the authority to pen new policies myself, and my supervisor cannot to be counted on to do it either. Have any of you been in this position before? How would you approach solving it without totally alienating your users? How do you broach the subject of introducing new policies with supervisors?"
You've got problems with p2p users and virus idiots? Just block all the relevant p2p ports and blame it on a computer virus. Then sit back and watch the two groups destroy each other.
This is becoming the stock answer to every question in existence.
"Say, how do you show that every simply connected manifold is homeomorphic to the 3-sphere?"
"I don't know, but I'm sure it's possible with a properly configured linux server/firewall along with some kind of proxy program."