Nick R on Tue, 26 Oct 1999 21:30:15 -0400 (EDT)


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Re: [Plug] telnetting around a firewall - non-technical considerations

Just to place things in perspective: I'm a current high school student putting up with beaurocrats making technology decisions and watching the horrible consequences as incompetant consultants implement these poor decisions (and if my english is less than perfect right now, I'm a bit groggy).

Just to place things in perspective:  I'm a former high school teacher and
I'm currently the technical lead for a technical education facility (and
I've been involved in the decision to implement a proxy server on our
classrooms).

I'm addressing this because I really have a problem with the attitude
expressed here, and I really don't like PLUG being used as a resource for
it.

On Tue, 26 Oct 1999, Nick R wrote:

> First, there's no rule that you can't telnet out. It's just been disabled at
> the proxy level.

With MS Proxy, if you want to allow telnet, you can.  This does require a
bit of software on the client system, but it's very much possible.  If
it's disabled, they don't want you doing it.

Yes, but in a we don't really understand the implications, we're just paranoid and make decisions based on little information kind of way. There are legitimate reasons to do what they're doing, however in this case it's just consultants who are suits reccomending a level of paranoia that fits in with this conservative community, but that they don't understand either. The lead consultant actually referred to PCIA cards and I doubt he's talking about some new kind of PCMCIA/PCI hybrid here. This is the guy who decides what to reccomend to beaurocrats who have an even looser grip on technology than he.

> Second, no, they're just idiots. I'm in the loop here and they're paranoid
> idiots i.e. they're trying to make a kiosk part of which involves a map of
> the school through which information can be accessed. Aside from the general
> Badness of such a proposition, they are holding on it for now because of the
> fear that somebody will perform a Columbine with the aid of said map.
> Overlooked of course is the fact that the blue prints to the school are
> publicly available to all and there is a map given to each student in the
> form of an agenda book.

Given some of the press flying around, I can see some paranoia.

Now you seem to think that they're making a decision based on uniformed
paranoia.  Instead of just saying "screw you, I'm going to do it anyway",
doesn't it make more sense to try to inform them, rationally with
something other than just your (supposed) opinion?  Hacking around their
firewall will do nothing more than vindicate their paranoia, and possibly
convince them that being connected at all is a bad idea.

Nah, not really. The chances that they'll find out are very small as are the chances that I'd go to them, make a rational argument, and get them to change their policy. I can understand where you're coming from, but in this area I have more expertise. I know the system I'm dealing with.

And as far as information availability goes, there's a matter of ease of
access and visibility.  You should try to be a bit more open-minded.  Not
everyone is familiar and comfortable with the Internet and computers.  It
is human nature to fear that which we are not familiar with.

> Third, bah! They'd never figure it out and if they did, they'd just tell me
> not to do it again. I've gotten that for an actual offence that put them
> into a legally questionable position which I won't get into right now. For
> something as simple as telnetting out into my box at home they won't do
> anything.

You know, you're asking for trouble on this.  I'm the most easy-going
person.  When I was teaching high school, a student would typically get
off with a reasonably sincere apology.  All bets are off, though, if the
student, even one of my good ones, did something because they knew they
could get away with it.  I would then make a specific point of nailing
them to the wall, publicly if need be.

Again, I know the system. If I'm running some cgi script or java applet then I'm not breaking any rules, and perhaps if a librarian sees me do it and by chance figures out what I'm doing, then she'll yell at me to stop, but in my school you risk getting yelled at just by entering the library anyway, so that's really not so much of a risk.

Hey, if you want to hack your school's firewall, just to spite them, fine.
Suit yourself.  But I'd really rather not see PLUG used as a means of
helping you do that.

Actually, it's for several reasons. First and foremost, it's the good old hacker spirit of playing around with something and learning about it. This could help me with java, cgi, shell, and perl. Second, it'll add a usefull ability to telnet through any firewall for me. Third, I suppose there's a small element of getting away with something like that that can be done right out in the open since it would appear in IE.

Michael W. Ryan, MCP, MCT     | OTAKON 1999
mryan@netaxs.com              | Convention of Otaku Generation
http://www.netaxs.com/~mryan/ | http://www.otakon.com/

PGP fingerprint: 7B E5 75 7F 24 EE 19 35  A5 DF C3 45 27 B5 DB DF
PGP public key available by fingering mryan@unix.netaxs.com (use -l opt)


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Again, I understand where you're coming from, but even you have to concede that you're ignorant of the specifics of my situation. While I am doing certain things by going through the system, some things are more fun to take into my own hands.

BTW, can anybody get me a copy or does anybody know where I can get a copy of a Linux distro for the mac like LinuxPPC or something (preferably something easy)? Oh, & it needs to be cheap or free. I, as an officer of the computer club at my school, feel a need to introduce a few people with some potential to Linux. One (a female, which would make her a doubly bad loss) is a mac user, so something that would work for her platform of choice would be quite valuable. Also, if we are to get a *nix box up and running, then we may have to go the cheap old phased out mac route. But I'm rambling, so I think I'll end this now as I'm so very tired.

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