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Remote Management and User Consequences?
NNWizard asks: "I work in a large university in Belgium where the people in charge of university computer systems want to install LANDesk on every single computer connecting to the university network. The aim is to be able to manage software and provide centralized remote user support. In the old days, every department had computer guys dedicated to the department, and they knew all about the users and their needs. Now, they want to make the management of computer resources global. In most non-engineering faculties this is well accepted, however in the Applied Sciences Faculty the users are computer savvy -- they do not like the idea of giving out control of their computers to people they don't know. What experience does Slashdot have with such a situation? Was the deployment of LANDesk (or a similar software package) a good or a bad thing for the users? How were the privacy issues tackled? Were people still able to use their computers the way they wanted to use them?"
We simply use the freeware version of RealVNC. When employees first join, they have to give up rights to "privacy" for the I.T. people. We respect official business, but unless it's someone high up in the company is working on some sensitive information, we typically assert our authority as our workers should only be working on official business.
If you are concerned about privacy, I'd look into something simple like VNC if you have the management software to know who's using what computer when. It works VERY well with us and is very versatile--I can't tell you how many times it has saved our butts from having to drive 300 miles when we just put a VNC connection over an SSH tunnel at a remote jobsite.
I gotta say: As an admin, I enjoy having the ability to remotely see what's going on on my machines. If they're users' desktops, it's much easier to just get a view of their screen (think PC-Anywhere) than to keep asking them what they see now only to get half answers and useless replies.
That having been said, what the university wants to do is 1) completely different and b) a Very Bad Thing. In my case, *I* am the admin and the machines are *MINE* . The university is looking to force anyone who wants to use its network to give them root on their machines? Puh-lease. It's time for departments who don't want to lose control of their PCs at this university to start looking for an outside ISP. Chances are there's already money in the budget for it: they probably kick in to the general IT infrastructure budget already.
-J
People who believe that they 'know about computers' are the biggest problems from an administration standpoint. Of all of my users, the ones who don't think they know how to manage their computer end up doing a lot less damage than those users who think they know what they are doing.
And the worse part is, people who THINK they know all about computers are also the ones who will blame YOU when they hose their installation of Windows. Frankly, I find it unlikely that these engineers need the control of their computers. More likely they want to install unapproved software and various adware bullcrap which will bring your network to a crawl.
I say this from experience. Initially I thought it would be OK to give some 'expert' users local admin rights, so that they wouldn't have to call the help desk in those situations where they simply want to install real player to listen to Rush Limbaugh or whatever else these dopes do. However, they instantly manage to get spyware, trojans, keyloggers, and other worms and viruses. They do this despite fully updated Microsoft Spyware (granted, it is a beta) and fully updated antivirus software.
It is only recently, as we moved to managed antivirus software, that I began to understand the amount of damage these people were doing. I now get reports of virus activity, and I am never going to make the mistake of giving a user local admin rights again. It is easy to do, but they will abuse it, and taking it away is 1000x as hard as just sticking to a policy of never doing it. Once you give in they will know that you can bend the policy, and when you take it away you are telling them through your actions that you don't trust them to know what they are doing.
And the one thing these people always think is that they somehow know what they are doing.
Let me make it a simple maxim: 'If you are not responsible for the maintenance of a computer, you WILL NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES have administrator rights on said computer.'
I don't have any experience with LanDesk, but I think remote management/remote control software in general isn't so bad. If it's just remote control, that really isn't any big deal and comes in quite handy if you ever do have to call them for help.
If they completely lock down the machines and take away your admin privilges, well that's life and it can be good or bad. Most often this is only a problem if need to install software and once this has been deployed for a short time and things are running more smoothly again this, too, should be relatively painless; just call or send an e-mail and someone can type in the password and install it. This kinda depends on the strength of your IT department, though. When I was in highschool the instructors machines were secured tightly and there wasn't enough staff to assist in installing software, preventing teachers from getting work done occasionaly. That was an extreme case, though (1 guy, hired as the Video Productions instructor, doing IT for the whole building...) I would expect that in your case it shouldn't be too painful.
As a disclaimer, I am an IT guy and our engineering college at the university has it's own IT group that engineering student fees pay for. I know our professors (and students) were less happy when IT was managed by the main campus group; we're more responsive and less politically hampered.
What I'd prefer, is something cross-platform that would let my user's dial me. Really, there's not much need to poke into a user's machine when no help is needed, and for the mostpart I have a heck of a time dealing with friend's who have VNC, but haven't configured the router, etc to let me in.
I control my own inbound routing, so having the ability to control which connections are sent through the routing machine to my PC would make it much easier for me to have other's "dial-out" for assistance from me... rather than having them configure a router to allow me to "dial-in" to their machine.
Something to consider that may not directly apply here, but will in related fields, is the legality of a non-authorized person having access to data, even though they administer a system. Specificaly, it is against HIPPA regulations for someone to look at medical records without permission or need for their job. For example, an IT guy would not be allowed to look at a medical record on someone's screen, if, say, they remoted in (or walked by, or had network access to a share).
;-)
This is a tough line. Someone other than the authorized personnel needs access to the files to be able to do the techie admin stuff. At the same time, they should not be looking stuff up, as it's illegal and an invasion of privacy. The whole thing of "Who's PC is it, ITs or the User's" adds another party, the person profiled in the data on that system. (Usually, it's the employer's PC, but that doesn't stop users, esp. ones with Dr. sized egos, from feeling & acting otherwise.)
I've worked in a hospital using Seagate / Funk Software Proxy. We had it set so that we could remote to a desktop, but the user had to grant permission to see the screen. Usually, this resulted in a decent situaton and an understanding - the user would clear all sensitive data from the screen before accepting, and if they got surley and decided not to accept, they got pushed to the bottom of the priority list (and they knew it). In return, the IT staff didn't abuse this ability, and for the most part would rather read slashdot than check out someone's PC.
The whole thing is not about better support, privacy, security, whatsoever. People are using the Internet since two decades. No, those who deploy such software and restrictions only want to secure their jobs. It is that simple.
As for your questions, I don't think the privacy question needs to really become an issue. Pretty much every place I've worked in IT or Tech Support, I've had system privileges that gave me access to damn near anything on institution-owned equipment, from the president's e-mail to the custodian's bowling-league stats. And I've told them that... with the assurance that even though I could get at this stuff, I had no intention of doing so. I'm too busy to monitor people's private stuff and it's none of my damn business. I tell them that techies are just like janitors: we have keys to everything. {shrug}
What's likely (hell: inevitable) to become an issue is autonomy. If people have to come to you to do things they're used to being able to do themselves, they'll understandably resent you for it. The only solution I can suggest to that problem is to give them the same level of service they're used to getting from themselves. e.g. If they want some software installed, you get the software installed. ASAP. (This is why you probably need more staff.) If you make it clear to them that you're trying not to get in the way of their work, they'll resent it less. And when you can't deliver, or have to say "no", they'll hopefully be more understanding if they know it's not just you being a control freak or lazy or not caring.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
We do something similar. All the computers that go out to users are locked down with DeepFreeze, with TightVNC installed (with a nice Helpdesk icon on the desktop). We don't do remote management, just remote control and remote support.
The staff just love it. When they have a problem, can't remember how to do something, or come across a strange error message they don't understand, they just call the helpdesk, start TightVNC, give us their IP, and we take control of their desktop. We can show then how to do things, read the error messages for ourselves, watch as they go through the steps. Cuts our call times down, gives the users a greater sense of support, and virtually eliminates the "spend 20 minutes driving to a site to spend 5 minutes fixing the problem" kinds of workorders. Now, the onsite techs are only sent out for major problems.
But, I've worked in three somewhat different academic research environments.
1 - One central admin for all the desktop machines in a massive department, no one else gets root on any machine.
2 - One central admin who is mostly an advisor, people are allowed to administer their own desktop machines if they want.
3 - Free-for-all, in which most groups have one or two principle computer gurus who handle multi user servers and almost everyone administers their own desktop machines.
#3 is far and away the best. In #2, no one that I knew of actually took them up on the remote administration option, essentially reducing it to #3. #1 was a nightmate for everyone. When the deparment computing committee tried to talk everyone into switching to something closer to #1, we all resisted fiercely and eventually they backed down.
In an environment where people are actually using their computers as research tools, rather than as expensive notepads with which to writeup the results of their research, it pays to place control at the lowest feasible level. Every time a user is forced to ask someone else to fiddle with software, it adds *days* to what should be simple tasks.
Sure, you create an occasional security risk when a bad user fails to install patches. But, there's no comparison between the number of man hours spent on dealing with those sort of incidents and the amount of wasted energy in trying forcing every minor change to go through a central administrator.
In a computer lab or a corporate environment, you might be able to make a case for central administration. For academics, it's just crazy. (And I suspect enforcing it will just drive everyone to switch to personal laptops instead, in addition to pissing them all off.)
I'm not familiar with LANDesk, but I assume it's similar to VNC. I do use DameWare at work, which is VNC on steroids.
It can install itself on the client, and you can do a lot remotely without bringing up the screen of the luser. I respect their privacy and often try and fix stuff in the background while they do their job. If I need to have their screen I phone them up and ask for permission. Then I go in and they see a big warning that I remotely took control.
In the beginning I was worried that the lusers would question privacy, but none have done so since I installed DameWare a year ago. When asked, they feel confident in that popup warning.
As a single admin responsible for 10 servers and 260 lusers spread across 6 locations (two of which require boat for access, one require a 2 hour drive...) this is absolutely godsent. Those long travels are replaced with radio links and remote management and everyone is happy.
Before this the luser had to wait up to weeks for me to find time to dedicate an entire day to traveling and fixing their small problem.
Cheap too!
For patches I use WSUS and for software deployment I use Group Policy (AD is the directory service around here, Windows on desktops, but mostly Linux servers).
The choice to shell out money for what's essentially VNC?
Or, what's the difference?
If you google LanDesk you'll see it's a full desktop support package, along the lines of Novell's ZenWorks product line: remote control, application deployment, desktop imaging, etc, etc, etc. VNC only fills one piece of that puzzle.