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SETI@Home Install Leads To School Tech Supervisor's Resignation

Posted by timothy on from the totally-worth-it dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Apparently the most prolific of users in the SETI@Home community has resigned his job as a school technology supervisor after it was revealed he had the software installed on some 5000 school machines. The school claims to have lost $1 million in upkeep on the affected machines."

5 of 621 comments (clear)

  1. Oops by wamerocity · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I did this at my brothers company too. I thought that the program "ran on minimal resources" while the computers were being used. But shortly after installing them on a dozen programs, everyone was complaining about how slow their computers were, so I had to covertly remove them to hide the true reason why they were slow. Lesson learned. At least it didn't cost me my job.

    --
    "Thank you for using Stop-n-Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2008"
  2. Re:Commendable... by Matheus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    RTFA It says in the article that "the software was authorized by a previous administration". He did ask (supposedly) and was allowed.

    By running all of the school machines at 100% load the school used more power and network then they would have otherwise and so this situation did "cost" them. The fact that he was given approval will probably shield him from any legal action regardless of the 'change of administration'. Where they got the $1M number I'm guessing is straight out of their posteriors but who knows over 10 years what the real delta probably was.. they are just laying the groundwork for a potential lawsuit, restitution or just a cooler news headline.

    My favorite part of the article is the fact his wife sounds like she thought he was *directly spending all of his time at work searching for aliens. He should probably tell his wife how his fleet of software toys work. Gave me a good chuckle which is always worth the article read.

  3. Re:Commendable... by DragonWriter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I would not resign. I'd tell them, "Sorry I'll uninstall everything,"

    According to the more complete article on the story, "Former administrators, including former superintendent Joyce Lutrey, knew about the software and told Niesluchowski to remove it" and "[h]e assured them he had removed it". So, I'm guessing, that's why "I'm sorry and I'll remove it now" wouldn't have been an adequate response, even if SETI@Home was the only problem issue, and there wasn't the porn issue, and the issue of the school equipment at his house apparently being used in his home-based business.

  4. Re:Commendable... by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Linky http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/147847

    hopeful4higley wrote:

    Gee, it seems rather odd to me that all of the blame is being placed on one person when Brad was clearly told that he was not in charge earlier this year when David Lignon, (who happens to be partially related to Dr. Birdwell) was put in charge of the entire IT dept and all of Brads team were basically told not to ask questions but do what was told of them. This is just a small example of how things are run around there.

    The problems in the classroom with computers or not being able to enter grades could have alot to do with the fact that they keep changing systems and the person that used to assist the teachers was forced to leave as well this year. How about the fact that most of the IT department walked out earlier this year???? Yep, blame it all on one person, that seems to be easier than just fixing the problems in the district.

    Dr. Birdwell, do you ever take blame for ANYTHING? You are not the only one living a nightmare, the entire staff (past, present) as well as the parents and most important, the students have lived a nightmare for the last 4 years as well. You had an opportunity to jump ship and go to Wyoming last year and ASKED to stay here for stability. THe only ones that seem to have stability are yourself and your posse of friends and family YOU have brought on board. Instead of pointing fingers, take a long hard look in the mirror and ask if YOU have made a positive difference.

    ... and ...

    0xym0r0n wrote:

    higleyknight09: 'A school computer should be used 8 hours a day for 183 days. Not 24 hours a day for 365 day that is six times more than normal. Of course computers would eventually fail.'

    Hate to burst your bubble, but computers will always fail. Not to mention that there is even the argument that turning PC's off causes more damage than letting them run 24/7, mostly when talking about the hard drives. If the district wanted PC's that wouldn't fail they certainly shouldn't have gone with laptops.

    They would also not spend an alleged $15,000 in consulting services to find out what could easily be told to them by their own tech department. Which I would also have to say that, that figure alone seems shady to me.

    Your other assumption is that the shutdown button is removed via the image and that this was done intentionally by Mr. Niesluchowski in order to run SETI 24/7, possible yes... but impossible to prove. There are other things that need to be done, such as staff connecting remotely to fix issues, updates that can be pushed, ect ect. However, the shutdown option being removed is not a result of the image yet a policy set against users.

    It's unfortunate that the majority of posts I read simply follow the assumptions made by such horrid reporting skills and like a mindless drone, babble on and on about how bad this guy is. I mean, it's not like teachers install unapproved software that plagues half the district with unseen malware and viruses... oh but I guess the loses estimated by that would never even be considered by people so eager to jump down the throats of others.

    The analysis of these findings of coarse will never be displayed, being that the true energy driven cost of damages would be a simple calculation of the cost per computer would be total watt usage - usage of standard pc in the same environment. As opposed to the method that probably was used, which was amount of watts used during non-school hours(estimated to the worst degree).

    The biggest thing though, that none of you know is, did he have permission to deploy said software at one point in time? Or that he had permission to have hardware at his place of residence. See, it's so easy to read a column in a newspaper and say 'Wow! That guy needs to be put away.'. So continue to post on this topic, yet.. you have higley in your name an

  5. Re:Commendable... by DragonWriter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    However, in the meager amount of facts presented, it was said that he had gotten permission from a previous supervisor.

    His wife says that in TFA. In the more complete, newspaper-sourced story, the district says that a the problems had come to the previous administrator, who had ordered the software removed, and that the tech supervisor who is now under investigation claimed, at the time, to have removed it as directed. Now, as far as I know there is no public concrete evidence of who is telling the truth here, but its worth noting that the wife could be telling the truth as she knows it and the district could be telling the truth, the only thing required for that to be true is for the tech supervisor to have lied to his wife to make himself look persecuted when the trouble started coming down, and for her to trust him. And how hard is that to believe?