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Don't Network Administrators Require Privacy?
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that Recently their company has decided to move the IT staff out of their offices to make room for the Service Department. The move has placed the IT staff in cubicles that all face inward and lack, obviously, the ability to lock their doors at night. This is, to them, an obvious breach in security and privacy for what may be sensitive network information. Have any other Slashdot readers dealt with this sort of problem before? If so, what specific information was best suited to rectify these security concerns?
Quit trying to make up bogus reasons as to why you don't want to be in a cube and just tell your boss, "I don't want to be in a cube." If it's a dealbreaker for you, resign. Next they'll be moving you down into the basement and taking away your red stapler.
The obvious answer is simply to wage war against any other units in the business that oppose your using that private space, or plans for world domination for instance. I saw it in a dilbert comic once, they have never steered me wrong before.
Happy Noodle Boy says "F###ing doughnut! Mock me? You fried cyclops!!"
We ran into a similar issue at work. Our argument to keep our locked office was that since we have access to all the files on the network, under the HIPPA laws we're required to keep our workstations in a secured area like HR since confidential employee information could potentially be displayed on our screens. Don't know if it's true or not, but it let us keep our office.
Seriously, boo hoo. I don't mean to be a jerk, but BFD. Virtually every cubicle I've ever seen has drawers and cabinets that lock, and if you're a network admin you probably have a laptop anyways right? If you read your disaster recovery or even security plan (if you've got one) you'll probably find that all staff who have laptops are supposed to bring them home.
Could someone look over your shoulder? I guess... but there are people out there (like say, me, or employees at any other benefits outsourcing company) that have access to literally thousands or even millions of people's date of birth, SSN, etc etc. We get along just fine, so will you.
I mean, sucks you lost your office... I remember mine, it was nice.
Actuaries - making accountants look interesting since 1949
Where I work we have the same situation. However all of IT (security, network and so on) is in the same office area. In order to secure the area they just put up a wall and secure card access. That way the only people in there are the IT people. If you can't trust your IT staff, than they don't have any business being your IT staff. That way the risk is still there, but you don't have anyone other than IT in the area to begin with.
Bullshit. Once you have physical access to the PC you can compromise it.
"sensitive network information."
Uhuh. Would this sensitive network information be the log of all those websites you network admins visited last month, and that copy of Quake 4 you installed on the Company Mail Server?
Just because you guys are the only ones who have access to the firewall logs doesn't mean we don't know what you get up to.
Draw up a budget proposal for whatever locking file cabinets, secure equipment cabinets, Kensington locks (better than nothing...) and desktop security software that you'll need to ensure the security and functionality of your information systems. Keep in mind that this includes not only malicious snoopers but also cleaning staff that snag cables with their vacuum cleaners, and take whatever precautions are necessary.
Be thorough, but don't make stuff up. Don't make it a turf war, just make it clear that you're working to protect the systems that you're responsible.
Come up with this proposal, and an estimate of the costs, and request that Accounting begin soliciting bids from vendors. And then lightly suggest that this would not be necessary if you could have good locking offices.
Keep in mind, though, that private offices are only effective if they are truly private. If they're not always proerly locked, or if too many people have the keys, then you'll be the worst kind of office hypocrite.
All our IT group works in one room. Out front there's desks for our students to filter incomming people and deal with low level requests. There's also a big workbench down one side for systems we are fiddling with. Then in the back there's two cube partitions that hold the 4 staff. Two desks per partition, facing each other.
Know what? I actually like it. We have almost no staff meetings and part of the reason is we are all there and can talk to each other as needed. In fact usually we work with at least one headphone off so we can hear what's going on and stay informed. If someone is doing something that needs a lot of concentration, headphones go on and they get left alone.
It works really well, and means there's one central location people go to for computer support.
As for privacy, from what? Anything remotely private isn't in my desk, it's on my computer. Well, we all have root so we can all get in to each other's shit if we want. The room itself locks to keep others out at night, of course, but as for my coworkers, well if I can't trust them to not mess with my stuff, they probably shouldn't be employed anyhow. Any of us could, if we wanted, wreak massive havok having the root password to all servers, the enable password to all switches, etc.
Sounds like just so much whining to me.
Whether or not this is correct, you should organize a demonstration of how easy it is to:
Of course, invite everyone who is someone in the company to this demo, including people like the CEO and CFO. In short, people who care about data security.
And whatever you do, keep a paper trail, by sending emails to the power-that-be, keeping a paper copy, and be as courteous and professional as can be, while being firm that this situation is unnaceptable. Please remember that these are probably not technical people. But they will understand that some data should stay inside...
Just my 0.02 US$ here of course, IANAL, but I am a sysadmin.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
The fun solution to that problem is to act like his secretary but follow through with 0 of the requests. Give this to him? Oh sure. Is he in his office? No, he's out for the day. His car is being towed? Ok, I'm calling him now. *smirk*
If anyone complains, blame it on their incompetence.
The "secure your computer" idea is obvious enough. There are other subtle problems though.
The "looking over your shoulder" problem is more difficult to deal with than you might think. More than once I've had issues with users stalking up behind me and reading my screen before I even knew they were there. (the really rude ones ask questions about what they've read) I could be doing any number of sensitive things - sending someone an email discussing the layoffs that are scheduled for next week, chatting with someone sending them their new account password, drafting a memo to someone outlining new security policy... posting the new router passwords on a secure filestore... any of these and more could be serious breaches of security and privacy if observed by the wrong people, and as another poster mentioned, could violate state or federal laws.
It's really a design problem to set up a cubicle where the user faces away from their door. For one, they can either look at their visitor OR their computer, but not both. I always prefer looking at my monitor, and then off to its side to see my guest. This also allows me to look up information for them without having to turn my back on them. Intelligent cubicle design has the desk on the left or right of the doorway, not opposite it. If your desk is opposite your cubicle doorway, tell your HR to get a clue. The best cubicle design is of course to have to walk around your desk and sit down, facing the doorway as well as your monitor, but I'll recognize that not every company has the space or the funds for such large cubicles.
As for physical security, that's another matter in itself. The best design is of course to have every computer imaged identically, with network login and home folder, and to allow no one to store their own information on the local hard drive. This seldom goes completely followed, and all sorts of things wind up on the local drives. Besides being a backup risk, anyone with physical access when you are away from your cubicle can rummage through your hard drive. Some I.T. are paranoid even of the nighttime janitors and clean the I.T. room themselves so they don't have to give out another key. But for that I'd say if you don't have janitorial staff you can trust at least that much, you need to find new janitors.
And of course if the fileserver is in your cubicle with you, that opens up a whole new can of worms. (and if not, why is your office away from the server room?) On that note I will say one thing I am against... leaving the server with an account logged in on it. I see that where I work sometimes, and it bothers me. I like that extra layer of security on top of physical security, and knowing someone with a key can play with the server is not my idea of a Good Thing(tm).
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Again, on Dilberts advice... You should probably hum west side story and have a dance fight.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
1. Don't write down passwords.
2. Lock up sensetive information.
3. Have a wild cougar patrol the datacenter at night.
I'll go ahead and give you a little.
I'm a network admin and not only am I part of the small percentage in our company that has an office, I'm part of an even smaller percentage that has a locking door. For me, it might not be completely necessary but it's desired for 3 reasons:
1) Work space - At any one time I might be working on 2 or 3 laptops and desktops while loading a server or configuring a router, etc. I need the space to set it all up. I have a counter top that runs along 2.5 walls of my office and a long table on the blank wall and it's all often occupied. My office doubles as my shop/lab.
2) Security - I have stacks of laptops, hard drives, routers, switches, etc. stored in my office and with our growth, more coming in every day. It's not that someone couldn't steal this stuff from elsewhere in our facilies, it's just that it's much easier to get to in my office. No unplugging, unbolting, etc. Just grab a stack of laptops and go. I've seen cabinets mentioned in other posts but I have too much stuff going on and if I was in one of our cubes I'd be lucky to fit 1 cabinet.
3) Peace and quiet - Between the useless chatter, relentless phone calls, streaming music and other noises, I can hardly hear myself think out there (cube world). Not to mention the drive through questions. Everybody and their little brother feels the need to stop by my office and ask a question on their way by. I don't mind it all the time. In fact I'm quite sociable, open and helpful but when I'm troubleshooting a tough problem or working on a project I just don't like to be disturbed. I generally deal with user issues in the morning and work on projects in the afternoon and evening. After lunch, when I close my door, everyone knows not to come knockin unless their problem is preventing them from completing their work.
That's my 47 cents.
MG
ROT-13 isn't secure enough these days given the massive ammount of computing power at everyones fingertips. Double or even quad ROT-13 encoding is usually enough these days.
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
Do NOT think that those locks are security in anything but name. They exist solely to satisfy insurance companies that you "lock" things up.
Actually, that's not why those cheap locks exist. They are there so that people don't have to put up "don't open this even if you're just looking for a stapler" notices all over the place.
The common bathroom lock is a good example. It's easily bypassed because it's not there to seriously defend the bathroom. It's there as a "this is off-limits for the time being" notice.
This is not a dream, not a dream...we are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9.
It could be far worse....just be happy they didn't hire someone in New Delhi to administer your servers.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
You are asking about privacy, not about the limited access of specific company-owned information.
You are NOT entitled to privacy in the workplace. You are entitled to limit access to your work materials to those employees that have the need to know.
Two completely different concepts.
You can run IT from a cubicle, there is nothing terrible about that. If you are going to type in a password, look over your shoulder and make sure nobody is watching you. Access to the machine itself is no issue since you are not going to put your servers in your own office, they go to their own room. If you were running all the servers from your office then you are not as smart as you think you are.
Regardless of server OS, you can manage it from anywhere, there is no need to be sitting in front of the damn machine.
As for privacy, when you signed your offer letter and you agreed to follow company guidelines, you pretty much signed away any hope of privacy in the workplace. The boss can listen to your phone calls, can read your mail and read your paperwork. Yes, your boss can read your personal email if you are trying to read it from your workstation at the office. It is the company's computer and you are using the company's resources for personal reasons.
Now, say you are a programmer or a DBA, then you need a bit more shielding from prying eyes. But the plain IT folks? Nah, they can sit outside like everyone else.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
How about this: Late at night, I come in to work - notice that you are not at your desk, and attach a hardware keyboard sniffer to your keyboard. A few days later, I mosy over and disconnect it.
What do I have at that point? Enough info for a serious carreer boost!
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
Nice post.
> But for that I'd say if you don't have janitorial staff you can trust at least that much, you need to find new janitors.
I disagree. I think your colleagues are making a very prudent move by cleaning those rooms themselves. It's not about trust, it's about money. A janitorial position is simply not worth passing up a hefty bribe.
Fun example: My sister went to school in Ghana for a year. Going price for a human to do menial labor is about $5/month (or something like that,) so the school kept four people watching the international dorm 24/7. Going price to get into the international dorm: about $20. After a "break-in" the guards get fired, take a paid month off, find another shitty job. The burgler gets a laptop to fence. Everyone's happy.
Now, if the school had one person on duty 24/7, and that person was making $20/month, then that person might start valueing the job over bribes. Job security in a position paying 4x what you could get anywhere else is worth a lot more than one month's pay.
Even ignoring the difference in salary, an IT person has a lot invested in their career that a janitor does not. So they're going to be intrinsically much harder to bribe. Even if you get a dishonest one.
Just rock it old school. Place a motion detector with a light, just like people put on their homes near the driveway, facing your office door. Keep your office dark (you do anyway right?) and when people walk in, boom, you're hit with a 100W floodlamp. No amount of sneaky walking defeats that.
Failing that you can rig the motion sensor to a pair of wires, wire it to a steel-framed chair you sit in, and have it shock you when they walk in. Even better, wire the door handle on your office with it, then you'll hear them yell every time they open the door.
Yeah, and that's the overpriced ThinkGeek one. I've seen them cheaper than that $10, and even free at trade shows.
I think that most professional geeks need to come to grips with reality. If you're in IT, you probably think you're more important than you really are, while management probably thinks you're less important than you really are. This, obviously, adds up to a huge disparity, and causes plenty of conflict when these two distorted realities butt heads.
I'm sure some will look at this and say "no, really, I'm that important", but really, you're not. First, think about how many other people have exactly as much value as you do to the business. Unless you're in a very, very small shop, there's more than one person doing critical IT things in the first place. Then consider the people who produce whatever it is that your business does. It's popular in geek circles to complain that those people don't understand that they wouldn't be able to do their jobs without us geeks. Well, here's a news flash: you wouldn't have that job to do without them.
Next, try to remove that built-in Dilbert filter you've developed, and take a critical look at your immediate management. Now, your manager may be just as utterly useless as the stereotypes one would normally apply, but more often than not, that's an unfair stereotype. I know for certain that without my team lead or our group's manager, who both know how to work within the corporate political system to get things done, I would have been either downsized because upper management had no idea whether I was of any use, or I would have been fired for pissing off enough people.
You should also consider what those other departments really do (outside of the automatic reaction you probably have to that question, which is almost certainly along the lines of "annoy me" or "piss me off"). Sure, without the network guys, lots of things wouldn't get done; what wouldn't get done without this other department? "Service Department" is sufficiently generic that I have no idea what they do, but contrary to the common jokes about it, businesses aren't usually in the habit of hiring people to do nothing. Or take the Sales department, which is one of the bigger targets of IT vitriol. The individuals may often deserve it, or they may not (I've known some incredibly slimy sales guys in my life), but either way: the business needs customers. Without the IT guys, the sales guys would lack email, IM, and possibly even the productivity tools they use daily, but without the sales guys, nobody would be paying the IT guys' salaries.
For reference, I've only ever worked in one place where the IT staff got offices instead of cubicles, and that's mainly because there weren't any cubicles anywhere in our small office space. Not to mention the fact that it was about a 25-person ISP, and our customer base was primarily in a few counties. Oh, and they've since been gobbled up by a much larger competitor, had their employees laid off, and moved operations to another state.
I think, ultimately, that the submitter (and the GP) need a reality check. Despite what years in IT have led you to believe, you're not the most important preson in the organization and you're never going to be viewed as such. Millions of people get their jobs done just fine within cubicles. And for the GP: if you have a server in your cube or office, you're just asking for it anyway.
I am a locksmith. I work with file cabinets and cube drawers all the time. Those locks you link to are specifically for one particular brand of medium-security, fire-rated, burglary-safe type file cabinets, not cubicle furniture. The crap-ass locks on cubicle drawers and cabinets, even the more expensive Steelcase stuff, simply cannot be improved. They're cheap chinese junk of one-off designs that don't lend themselves to retrofitting anything decent. Furthermore, a better lock doesn't do squat for security when your drawers and cabinets are made of cheap sheetmetal and particle board. If someone were stupid enough to install (say) an expensive MAS Hamilton electronic safe lock on a standard steelcase desk drawer, I would almost pay money for the chance to show him how his costly upgrade could be bypassed with a flat blade screwdriver.
Cube furniture isn't secure. Expensive locks ain't the answer.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I haven't had an office in 10 years! Not since getting a high paying job for one of the Fortune 100. Nothing but cubicles for as far as the eye can see! Office space is reserved on the outer perimeter where the windows are. Anyone with an office is a manager of at least 100 people. If they have a corner office then they have those managers reporting to them and they are ultimately responsible for several hundred employees. Were it not for the skylights there would be no sunlight in the cubical farm. The good thing is conference rooms are on the outer wall as well so you can kinda stare out the window during boring meetings.
IT people are in cubicles and have been for at least 20 years. The servers are locked up in secured environmentally controlled data centers. You wouldn't want to work there, it sucks typing when your hands are freezing. The noise of the cooling fans and air conditioning is pretty darn loud too.
Due to Sarbanes/Oxley the customer data is secured to such a ridiculous degree that the IT staff doesn't have access to production data anymore! Yeah, that's right, the IT staff cannot see production data! When there is a problem we have to request a special temporary user name that expires in like 8 eight hours. That id is issued to you and the password is reset. You then use that account to examine the production system. Everything that account sees or does is logged extensively. When you are done, you give the account back and it's reset. If you forget, it will expire soon enough. Those with access to issue the accounts and reset them are at the highest levels of security and are located in our mainframe operations center where they are under constant surveillance including by closed circuit digital cameras. These guys have to go through several card access points to reach the data center. They are not even in cubicles but what looks like a college lecture hall of desks on stepped risers with projection screens on the main wall. Looks like a NASA control center. This helps a lot in major outages to have all the experts in the same room.
The call center staff obviously has access to production client data because they need to. But that doesn't mean they aren't being watched all the time. Every read is logged and if it's found that they should not be reading that customers data at that time, they will be caught. Random audits are performed constantly. We have a special investigations team which is constantly on the lookout for potential fraudsters, etc.
Security performs periodic physical security audits. i.e. going around looking for people who keep their ID/Passwords under their keyboards or on post-it notes; leaving their desks unlocked, leaving confidential information out in the open, etc. This happens at night after most people go home.
Cell phones with cameras and USB devices are forbidden in some places. The call center computers USB ports have been filled with an insulating epoxy from a hot glue gun. Of course that doesn't stop someone from writing down notes and sticking it in their pants. I mean if Sandy Berger can enter the national archives and stuff top secret documents down his pants and walk right out then so can a call center employee who makes less then $15 / hour. What the hot glue in the USB / Firewire slot does is stop someone from moving gigabytes of data out the door in one move. There are also no CD/DVD burners in the call center for the same reason.
Arguing security isn't a good thing, it will just lead to a security crackdown that isn't going to stop someone whose diligent and determined. It will just inconvenience you further... Take a look at those 4 Chinese Spies they just caught in California! They worked for defense contractors and gave away military secrets to the Chinese. I mean if we can't stop our military secrets from walking how can we stop everyday business data theft and industrial or corporate espionage?