Re: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN
Hi Christopher, Christopher J. Wolff wrote: Jane, This brings up a good point about IM. IMHO, IM is a security risk and I am establishing a company standard where users behind the firewall are prohibited from using IM, IRC, and peer-to-peer file sharing programs. My opinion is that these types of programs contribute more to lack of productivity than to real problem solving. I think the road you've chosen is a tough one. A great many people have contributed to this who are far more experienced than I. I believe we won't see IM going away. Everyone uses it, and like all humans, make it forbidden and the people in your company will view it as all the more desirable. There are a great many management tapes and videos and books out there, and they basically say the same thing. Trust your people to do their job and don't worry if they play games or talk on IM. Measure them by the metrics you've given them. And don't sweat the small stuff. (Easy to say, I know.) My teenager can play a computer game, chat with his friends through IM and talk on the phone, all while he's writing his science report. And the reports not all that bad because I proof everything he turns in (except the French). As long as his grades are in the A-B range, I restrict nothing. well, almost nothing. But if his grades drop . . . the ax comes down. If the issue is viruses, there are a great many ways to screen viruses even through IM. I trust our staff to be sure they are all implemented. My two cents, for what its worth. I've tried micro managing and it never never (I'm restraining myself from saying never 20 times) works. So my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve a substantial network support purpose or are they more of a distraction, allowing staff to communicate with friends, relatives, drifters, interlopers on company time? I think people do this anyway, we used to chat around the coffee pot. I think its funny when office mates are chatting away on IM. People cannot produce 24/7 or even 8/5. They have to take a break every hour or so. Human nature. We have a game room here at work . . . People are going to play, so create the environment where they can. Opps, got my own deadline slipping now! Hope you can resolve this soon. Jane Regards, Christopher J. Wolff, VP CIO Broadband Laboratories http://www.bblabs.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Pawlukiewicz Jane Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2002 12:06 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: How important is the PSTN Hi all, Thanks so much for all the great answers. (Could everyone please stop telling me that im = instant messaging). I knew I should've never gotten out of bed this morning. Anyway, 75% of the respondents said the phone is critical. 25% said some form of IM is critical. Just in case anyone was curious. Is it me or is it very quiet in here today? Jane begin:vcard n:Pawlukiewicz;Jane tel;cell:703 517-2591 tel;fax:703 289-5814 tel;work:703 289-5307 x-mozilla-html:FALSE org:Booz Allen Hamilton;Visit us on the Internet: a href=http://boozallen.com;BoozOnline/a adr:;; version:2.1 email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] title:Senior Consultant fn:Jane Pawlukiewicz end:vcard
Re: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN
On Wed, 26 Jun 2002, Rizzo Frank wrote: : Chris, : : By IM I assume you're referring to Instant Messaging as an ideal, not : any particular protocol or vendor implementation. Which begs the : question, is IM is a risk because Christopher J. Wolff, VP CIO a : self-proclaimed tier 1 provider, says so, or because you have facts to : prove it, which you neglected to post? IRC and AIM have been : scrutinized pretty heavily and I can't think of any inherent flaws : (other than lack of out-of-box for support for encryption... but is the : PSTN really any more secure?). Just buggy clients under-educated users : opt to install. Your proprietary information is on someone else's server and it's up to them not to 'use' it. PSTN doesn't keep your info on a server or backed up somewhere. Don't be so snippy in public. Do it in private if you must do it... scott
Re: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN
Thus spake Scott Weeks [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your proprietary information is on someone else's server and it's up to them not to 'use' it. There are IM products which a company can set up internally for exactly this reason. For public IM servers, you're not obligated to give proprietary information other than your email address. PSTN doesn't keep your info on a server or backed up somewhere. I'm quite sure the telco has records of who I am and where I live, and they use that information on a regular basis to bill me. They also sell the information to others and a variety of other things they're allowed to do by law. Yahoo and AOL are benign by comparison. S
Re: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN
On Wed, 26 Jun 2002, Stephen Sprunk wrote: : Thus spake Scott Weeks [EMAIL PROTECTED] : Your proprietary information is on someone else's server and it's up to : them not to 'use' it. : : There are IM products which a company can set up internally for exactly this : reason. For public IM servers, you're not obligated to give proprietary : information other than your email address. : : PSTN doesn't keep your info on a server or backed up somewhere. : : I'm quite sure the telco has records of who I am and where I live, and they : use that information on a regular basis to bill me. They also sell the : information to others and a variety of other things they're allowed to do by : law. Yahoo and AOL are benign by comparison. But Frank was speaking of AIM, etc. Not an internal server... : prove it, which you neglected to post? IRC and AIM have been : scrutinized pretty heavily and I can't think of any inherent flaws And Christopher was talking about network operations info on IM... : So my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve : a substantial network support purpose or are they more of a The propritary information I was talking about is the conversation itself. Details of your network, the problems you're having with it, config snippets sent back and forth, etc... The phone company doesn't keep your conversations on a server. Lastly, I'm not pro telco by any stretch of the imagination (ask anyone who's been in the NOC with me during an outage. :) and I don't like those assanine (sp?) things they do with our info at all. scott
Re: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN
On Tue, Jun 25, 2002 at 12:16:48PM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: [snip] This brings up a good point about IM. IMHO, IM is a security risk and I am establishing a company standard where users behind the firewall are prohibited from using IM, IRC, and peer-to-peer file sharing programs. My opinion is that these types of programs contribute more to lack of productivity than to real problem solving. So my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve a substantial network support purpose or are they more of a distraction, allowing staff to communicate with friends, relatives, drifters, interlopers on company time? Do such things contribute to time not spent on purely company-focused efforts? Undoubtedly. Is such lost time offset by happy employees? I think so. Additionally, I know I for one have picked up at _least_ as much useful knowledge from idling among really smart folk on IRC as I have from any other public forum, mailing lists included. IRC can be an _excellent_ forum for education. Like any tool, the utility or hazard mainly depends on those using it. I'm not sure the time you will gain by flatly denying use of these common tools to be worth the ill will garnered. Just my opinion, of course. -- -= Scott Francis || darkuncle (at) darkuncle (dot) net =- GPG key CB33CCA7 has been revoked; I am now 5537F527 illum oportet crescere me autem minui msg03060/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN
On Tue, Jun 25, 2002 at 11:33:55PM +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Doug Barton wrote: Would a secure (probably via SSL) chat client be considered a valuable item in this sphere? (Note, blatant self interest involved in this question, feel free to respond off list.) Jabber can do SSL for IM, and there is an irc-like encrypted chat called silc. You may also want to examine one of the several IRC hacks that incorporate SSL. The one I occasionally visit is suidnet http://www.suidnet.org. -- -= Scott Francis || darkuncle (at) darkuncle (dot) net =- GPG key CB33CCA7 has been revoked; I am now 5537F527 illum oportet crescere me autem minui msg03061/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN
On Tue, 25 Jun 2002, Christopher J. Wolff wrote: So my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve a substantial network support purpose or are they more of a distraction, allowing staff to communicate with friends, relatives, drifters, interlopers on company time? We find IRC and IM invaluable. Set up a private irc server behind the firewall, and use crypto-hard ICQ like licq. (if you use windoze you are probably out of luck though) -Dan -- [-] Omae no subete no kichi wa ore no mono da. [-]
Re: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN
So my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve a substantial network support purpose or are they more of a distraction, allowing staff to communicate with friends, relatives, drifters, interlopers on company time? I disagree. I have spent many hours in a noisy datacenter on IM, when the phone was right next to me. It is difficult to hear and the IM allows me to scroll back to see commands that have been sent. IM make collaboration so much easier. I have been in a chat room at 3am with developers, techs, VP's etc, and it was easier than a conference call. Instead of banning, you should be looking into a secure IM client. Several companies make secure clients that also link up to the major players via a gateway. IM isn't going away, I imagine you will see lots of backlash if you try to ban it. jas
Re: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN
On Tuesday 25 June 2002 12:16 pm, Christopher J. Wolff wrote:
Jane,
This brings up a good point about IM. IMHO, IM is a security risk and I
am establishing a company standard where users behind the firewall are
prohibited from using IM, IRC, and peer-to-peer file sharing programs.
My opinion is that these types of programs contribute more to lack of
productivity than to real problem solving.
99% agreed. I've seen more viruses float in via {insert PtP here) than I'd
care to think about.
So my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve
a substantial network support purpose or are they more of a distraction,
allowing staff to communicate with friends, relatives, drifters,
interlopers on company time?
We support a number of international clients who don't necessarily have the
best English-speaking skills. In these cases we find ICQ/AIM/IRC/etc... to
be a necessity. Trying to work with a customer to debug kernel compile
errors via telephone from the relative un-comfort of a loud/windy
datacenter in broken English does NOT work.
Grant
--
Grant A. Kirkwood - grant(at)tnarg.org
Fingerprint = D337 48C4 4D00 232D 3444 1D5D 27F6 055A BF0C 4AED
Re: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN
PGP Corporate Desktop can help with ICQ if you are a Windows user. -ren, who prefers IRC At 12:24 PM 6/25/2002 -0700, Dan Hollis wrote: On Tue, 25 Jun 2002, Christopher J. Wolff wrote: So my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve a substantial network support purpose or are they more of a distraction, allowing staff to communicate with friends, relatives, drifters, interlopers on company time? We find IRC and IM invaluable. Set up a private irc server behind the firewall, and use crypto-hard ICQ like licq. (if you use windoze you are probably out of luck though) -Dan -- [-] Omae no subete no kichi wa ore no mono da. [-]
RE: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN
Christopher, There are three questions here - are IM programs a security risk, is number one. The second is, how does IM come into the network support/communications equation. The third is, how much time gets wasted using IM or IRC? Peer to peer file sharing probably has no place in the business world. It's a leisure thing, and can open you up to liability. On the other hand, who wants to be the software police, more than is absolutely necessary? As far as IM and IRC - many folks find them vital to running and troubleshooting networks, communicating with customers, etc. They can be timewasters, but no more so than abuse of the telephone can be. It's not so much the tool, as the use of the tool that should be a matter of concern. IRC servers are significant security concerns. IRC Clients, coming from behind firewalls, less so. Some folks implement private IRC servers bound to localhost, behind firewalls, for internal use. This is much more secure. IM tends to be insecure, as it's in cleartext, although encryption extensions exist. Of course, most of your email is probably cleartext, too. A bigger concern is that the servers live on someone else's network, so an outage there may effect your operations. - Daniel Golding -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Christopher J. Wolff Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2002 3:17 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN Jane, This brings up a good point about IM. IMHO, IM is a security risk and I am establishing a company standard where users behind the firewall are prohibited from using IM, IRC, and peer-to-peer file sharing programs. My opinion is that these types of programs contribute more to lack of productivity than to real problem solving. So my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve a substantial network support purpose or are they more of a distraction, allowing staff to communicate with friends, relatives, drifters, interlopers on company time? Regards, Christopher J. Wolff, VP CIO Broadband Laboratories http://www.bblabs.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Pawlukiewicz Jane Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2002 12:06 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: How important is the PSTN Hi all, Thanks so much for all the great answers. (Could everyone please stop telling me that im = instant messaging). I knew I should've never gotten out of bed this morning. Anyway, 75% of the respondents said the phone is critical. 25% said some form of IM is critical. Just in case anyone was curious. Is it me or is it very quiet in here today? Jane
RE: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN
Title: RE: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN -Original Message- From: Christopher J. Wolff [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2002 3:17 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN So my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve a substantial network support purpose or are they more of a distraction, allowing staff to communicate with friends, relatives, drifters, interlopers on company time? Regards, Christopher J. Wolff, VP CIO Broadband Laboratories http://www.bblabs.com It also allows other employees to ask/answer quick questions, have an impromptu engineering con-call (with hard copy!) without having to get someone to approve the cost, provide a support channel for customers (ever try to talk a dyslexic through a command line config? cut-paste is your friend...), and several other things that we find useful. In fact, every engineer in the company is told to get a hotmail account and load MSN Messenger when they come on board. IMHO, abuse of company resources should be handled in HR, not IT. Tools don't waste time, people waste time... James H. Smith II NNCDS NNCSE First Call Response Center Professional Services - Network Engineer The Presidio Corporation
Re: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN
On Tue, 25 Jun 2002, Dan Hollis wrote: On Tue, 25 Jun 2002, Christopher J. Wolff wrote: So my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve a substantial network support purpose or are they more of a distraction, allowing staff to communicate with friends, relatives, drifters, interlopers on company time? We find IRC and IM invaluable. Set up a private irc server behind the firewall, and use crypto-hard ICQ like licq. (if you use windoze you are probably out of luck though) I have to second the value of a private, staff-only IRC server. We use IRC to communicate with each other while on the phone with customers, clients, vendors, etc., and to communicate with offsite workers. We have 4 info-bots which provide up to the minute information about our dial-up capacity, new user accounts created, and as an interface with our check-up system to spew error messages to the channel, and as an interface to qpage for staff to alpha-page anyone. Then there is the benefit of pasting code snippets, config file snippet and error messages while discussing them in real time. Our staff is chastized for not paying attention to our staff channel. It's our primary form of office communication. I can't imagine life here without it. Deeann M.M. Mikula Director of Operations Telerama Public Access Internet http://www.telerama.com * 412.688.3200
RE: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN
-Original Message- From: Jason Lewis Instead of banning, you should be looking into a secure IM client. Several companies make secure clients that also link up to the major players via a gateway. Trillian is a combined (AIM, Y!, ICQ, IRC) client that supports secure direct P2P (peer to peer) connections. A Swiss Army Knife of communication! Btw, isn't it ass-backwards to state that you are establishing a corporate policy for banning IM, and then ask for feedback on whether or not IM serves a substantial network support purpose? Seems to me one would do discovery before creating policy ;) -Jim P.
RE: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN
Our NOC uses IM all the time to stay in touch with us regarding emergencies. Our field engineers use IM to stay in touch with us for scheduling and jobs. Engineers working from home use IM to stay in touch with us. A few of our engineers carry cell phones that are IM capable. Trader support techs at different branch offices use IM to convey outage information to us. Pretty important for us. As for people slacking off on IM, we are a project based team with strict deadlines. If you wanna stay on AIM and chat all day, and you miss the deadline, we'll soon find out why. So personal responsibility goes a long way. I'll tell you one thing, it sure helped a lot during Sept 11th. I'd never remove it, just for that reason here. Eventually it might go away due to increased security policies, and then we'll just find something a lot more secure. But it is very handy. I do agree, though, that it isn't the most secure chat product out there. Just so many people use it because of the large installed base. I've even seen AIM IDs on some business cards now. They seem to be more permanent than a cell phone number :-). -Original Message- From: Christopher J. Wolff [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2002 3:17 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN Jane, This brings up a good point about IM. IMHO, IM is a security risk and I am establishing a company standard where users behind the firewall are prohibited from using IM, IRC, and peer-to-peer file sharing programs. My opinion is that these types of programs contribute more to lack of productivity than to real problem solving. So my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve a substantial network support purpose or are they more of a distraction, allowing staff to communicate with friends, relatives, drifters, interlopers on company time? Regards, Christopher J. Wolff, VP CIO Broadband Laboratories http://www.bblabs.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Pawlukiewicz Jane Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2002 12:06 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: How important is the PSTN Hi all, Thanks so much for all the great answers. (Could everyone please stop telling me that im = instant messaging). I knew I should've never gotten out of bed this morning. Anyway, 75% of the respondents said the phone is critical. 25% said some form of IM is critical. Just in case anyone was curious. Is it me or is it very quiet in here today? Jane
Re: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN
On Tue, 25 Jun 2002, ren wrote: : PGP Corporate Desktop can help with ICQ if you are a Windows user. : -ren, who prefers IRC Not for long... http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-851515.html A week ago, on Feb. 26, Network Associates (NAI) sent an e-mail to some of its customers announcing that it had killed the PGP Desktop Security product line. the products have now been put into maintenance mode, which means that existing support contracts will be honored until they run out, at which point they will not be renewed. New versions of PGP Desktop will not be released. scott : : At 12:24 PM 6/25/2002 -0700, Dan Hollis wrote: : : On Tue, 25 Jun 2002, Christopher J. Wolff wrote: : So my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve a : substantial network support purpose or are they more of a distraction, : allowing staff to communicate with friends, relatives, drifters, : interlopers : on company time? : : We find IRC and IM invaluable. Set up a private irc server behind the : firewall, and use crypto-hard ICQ like licq. (if you use windoze you are : probably out of luck though) : : -Dan : -- : [-] Omae no subete no kichi wa ore no mono da. [-] : : :
RE: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN
On Tue, 25 Jun 2002, Daniel Golding wrote: : : Christopher, : : There are three questions here - are IM programs a security risk, is number : one. The second is, how does IM come into the network support/communications : equation. The third is, how much time gets wasted using IM or IRC? : : Peer to peer file sharing probably has no place in the business world. It's : a leisure thing, and can open you up to liability. On the other hand, who : wants to be the software police, more than is absolutely necessary? Deloitte Touche doesn't seem to think so. They use NextPage's NXT 3 platform to enable its employees to access, exchange, and manage distributed content-including large documents and directories of accounting regulations and best practices-as if the content were all in a single location. Through a series of content servers linked to form a peer-to-peer content network, users can search, navigate, and categorize data more quickly, easily, and securely than before. They don't need to replicate or convert the data from its original format. http://networkmagazine.com/article/NMG20020429S0001 scott : : As far as IM and IRC - many folks find them vital to running and : troubleshooting networks, communicating with customers, etc. They can be : timewasters, but no more so than abuse of the telephone can be. It's not so : much the tool, as the use of the tool that should be a matter of concern. : : IRC servers are significant security concerns. IRC Clients, coming from : behind firewalls, less so. Some folks implement private IRC servers bound to : localhost, behind firewalls, for internal use. This is much more secure. IM : tends to be insecure, as it's in cleartext, although encryption extensions : exist. Of course, most of your email is probably cleartext, too. A bigger : concern is that the servers live on someone else's network, so an outage : there may effect your operations. : : - Daniel Golding : : -Original Message- : From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of : Christopher J. Wolff : Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2002 3:17 PM : To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] : Subject: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN : : : : Jane, : : This brings up a good point about IM. IMHO, IM is a security : risk and I am : establishing a company standard where users behind the firewall are : prohibited from using IM, IRC, and peer-to-peer file sharing programs. My : opinion is that these types of programs contribute more to lack of : productivity than to real problem solving. : : So my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve a : substantial network support purpose or are they more of a distraction, : allowing staff to communicate with friends, relatives, drifters, : interlopers : on company time? : : Regards, : Christopher J. Wolff, VP CIO : Broadband Laboratories : http://www.bblabs.com : : -Original Message- : From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of : Pawlukiewicz Jane : Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2002 12:06 PM : To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] : Subject: How important is the PSTN : : : Hi all, : : Thanks so much for all the great answers. (Could everyone please stop : telling me that im = instant messaging). I knew I should've never gotten : out of bed this morning. : : Anyway, 75% of the respondents said the phone is critical. 25% said some : form of IM is critical. : : Just in case anyone was curious. : : Is it me or is it very quiet in here today? : : Jane : : : :
