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?"

Comments

I'd Lie like hell...

[GOD_ALMIGHTY]

Seriously, use those english classes for something good. Start blocking ports left and right, shutting stuff off at the routers and tell them it's a system problem on their machine and you'll fix it when you get around to it.

If they're as clueless as the teachers and students I had in K-12, you'll have no problems whatsoever.

Besides, how exactly is the pansy ass administration going to get the balls to audit if they can't be bothered to come up with some decent guidlines.

Just figure out a hitlist of things to blame it on. M$, Real, Kazaa, Spyware.... whatever.

I'd be suprised as hell if you got caught.

Double BIlling?

[sterno]

Say, what happens if an educational institution buys a machine from an OEM that pre-installs Windows on them? Aren't they, in effect, paying for that same copy twice?

If I was in charge of buying computers for a school I'd certainly want a price reduction because I'm not about to pay twice for that OS.