Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

German Ministry of Education Throws Away PCs For 190,000 € Due To Infection

Posted by Unknown on from the burn-it-with-fire dept.

An anonymous reader writes "German IT magazine Heise reports (original in German) that the Ministry of Education in Schwerin had a Conficker virus infection on 170 machines, that was dealt with by simply throwing them on the trash. Other German authorities have now decided that 'the approach taken is not up to the principle of efficiency and economy' and that the 187,300 Euro invested in this radical form of virus removal were inappropriate. The ministry had earlier estimated the cost of cleaning their desktops and servers by more conventional means to 130,000 Euro."

11 of 347 comments (clear)

  1. Far cheaper options by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Install Linux. Cost $0 + admins' time -- almost certainly less than trying to remove and clean infected systems.

    Forget about virus infections for the near future.

    1. Re:Far cheaper options by Cenan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Install Linux. Cost $0 + admins' time -- almost certainly less than trying to remove and clean infected systems.

      Forget about virus infections for the near future.

      They already had licenses to the Windows installations so the cost equation would be the same, it only differs if you assume they would try to clean the infection and not simply install Windows after format c:

      What the [admin's time] factor expands to is another thing, and hardly favors the GNU/Linux approach. If the idiots are dumb enough to throw out new PCs because of a virus infection, they most certainly are too dumb to install anything but Windows.

      --
      ... whatever ...
    2. Re:Far cheaper options by Nerdfest · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Apparently the Ministry of Education in Schwerin did not, and they're still dealing with the consequences.

    3. Re:Far cheaper options by Drakonblayde · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm sure a large part of the decision to toss em in the garbage was because someone wanted new gear. Can't forget about the political element to an IT infrastructure.

    4. Re:Far cheaper options by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's equally crap on both, you mean. SAP's UI is Satan's sick joke on humanity.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    5. Re:Far cheaper options by Ash+Vince · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Install Linux. Cost $0 + admins' time -- almost certainly less than trying to remove and clean infected systems.

      Forget about virus infections for the near future.

      Of course the admins time probably adds up to about $300 per machine.

      Seriously, I can completely believe this story because it would probably take someone at least an hour to clean the PC. It is also quite easy to believe that a government department or big company who outsourced their IT would be paying more per hour for technical staff than they would for a new PC.

      This is especially true if you asked the IT outsourcing company to provide a cast iron assurance that the virus was removed with some sort of penalty clause if their was a reinfection. The quote you would get back would be prohibitively expensive because the any company with any sense would run a mile from providing such a ridiculous guarantee.

      All of sudden what sounds like a 5 minute job to someone with some technical skills and has a 99% success rate has become such a headache to the bean counters that demanded a 100% success rate that they decide throwing the machines in the bin is actually cheaper. Of course this is ridiculous, but I have heard of things far more ridiculous when government middle management gets involved in IT decisions.

      In public sector management you hardly ever get rewarded for things coming in under budget like you do in the private sector but you get torn to shreds if anything ever goes wrong so the whole thing ends up being ridiculously risk averse in the extreme.

      --
      I dont read /. to RTFA, I read /. to offend people in ignorance.
    6. Re:Far cheaper options by RabidReindeer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ps. I doubt your secretary can tell which OS they're running in the first place

      Then you're an idiot. Just because someone doesn't understand technology doesn't mean they don't know when their menu items are in different places or when the nice obvious icon they had becomes some in-joke about Klingons.

      secretary: OK. so what do you mean that "this new ribbon bar is all you need"? Where'd my "print" menu go???

  2. Money well spent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If its 130,000 euros to fix a virus infection and 187300 to upgrade AND fix the virus infection, then you may as well upgrade.

    The real problem here is the 130,000 euros to fix a virus infection.

    1. Re:Money well spent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No matter what OS you use (considering the OS licence is already paid)... How can the format of the drive + reinstall for 170 machines cost 130k$

      Quick estimate: IT guy is paid 100$/h (gross overestimate) and can reinstall 1 machine per hour (gross overestimate)... Total: 17k$

      How the fuck do they estimate 10x that???

  3. The cheap solution? by Mad-Bassist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why not use this as a way to teach the kids how to install the OS from scratch?

    --
    "The only legitimate use of a computer is to play games." - Eugene Jarvis
  4. They ain't dumb by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the idiots are dumb enough to throw out new PCs because of a virus infection, they most certainly are too dumb to install anything but Windows

    I don't think that they are dumb

    Actually, they are smart

    1. It ain't their money --- the money is from the gummint

    2. By throwing the thing away they save all the effort to reformat the disk and to re-install the Windows OS, plus softwares

    3. With the computer dumped, they will get to enjoy newer computers --- again, the money came from the gummint

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !