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Admin
Possibly. In addition, I have failed to come up with a witty way to suggest that "two goats coupled" may have been Alexese for "goatse"
Admin
uh-oh. You had to go there, you fuckin' had to go there!
Admin
Admin
Not only that but as a former administrator I can tell you that I don't care what the users are doing as long as they don't cause me any problems.
I have met people that weren't comfortable with someone having access to their files though. Once we had to migrate a userbase from an old server we were retiring to a new one. In order to let the users keep their existing passwords, we actually had to ask for the passwords, since we didn't keep a record of them. There was one guy that was VERY hesitant to give us his password, because he didn't want us to have access to his files. I had to remind him that as an admin I had access to EVERYTHING to get him to give it up.
Admin
Admin
A jokes funnyness and enlightment capabilities can not be known simultanously. By highlighting the funnyness you reduce the precision of the enlightment which reduces the hightli.. umm.. It might be a Schröderberg joke.
Admin
TRWTF is saying "the goats were tighly coupled" instead of "the goats were copulating" or "the goats had sex".
That's so typically american. Little girls with a lolly can buy machine guns, sniper rifles and fragmentation grenades at Wal-Mart or their school kiosk and kill strangers in texas without ever being arrested, but mentioning what was biologically given and what everybody does equals a scandal. Bad bad -----> SEX <-----, yes, americans, >>>>> SEX <<<<<. I KNOW you fear that word!
Admin
It's a Heisenjoke - one that's not funny when you have to explain or highlight it.
Admin
Admin
The system requirements that suppliers come up with these days...
Admin
I'd not have given you my password either. If you really needed it, I'd have changed it to a temporary one and given you that. If I was in the position of needing to ask for people's passwords, I'd suggest they do that. But I'd try and avoid being in that position in the first place - eg why not just give the users new passwords on the new system and let them change them themselves? Slightly painful for them, but better than having all the password information for every user floating around somewhere.
(ok, if the system has fixed passwords, this isn't a goer, but then security is knackered anyway)
Admin
If your network admin asks for your password just give it to him because he's your network admin and he probably knows it already. He's just asking you to be polite and to save himself checking the records. And if your work password is the same as your internet banking password you deserve to have your accounts drained by a rogue admin.
Admin
No he didn't. The post which you quoted is saying that the real administrator should have told the dean/whatever that if he thought he was an administrator then he should fix the problem himself.
I think that would have been awesome.
we're all admins.
Admin
That's so typically European. The little girl would need to be 21. Under the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 she'd have to make sure the machine gun was made and registered before 1986 AND get approval and pay a $200 transfer fee with the BATF. Hang grenades are illegal in the US. Neither are available at WalMart. I am not sure what constitutes a "sniper rifle" but you CAN buy a bolt action with a scope at WalMart (YMMV as to quality). She may still carry her lolly, and in Texas, well, if the guy deserved killing, she make walk.
Bad bad -----> GUNS <-----, yes, europeans, >>>>> GUNS <<<<<. I KNOW you fear that word!
Admin
Admin
If your network admin needs your password, change jobs. There is no reason why anyone other than yourself should need to know your password.
Admin
Admin
Two words for you: Hungerford Bird
Or were those OK because they weren't at schools?
Admin
You didn't even metion Dunblane, which did actually involve kids - but again, no child shooters, just some middle-aged psycho with a bunch of guns and a thing against pre-schoolers. BORING! Only Americans know how to pull of a proper school shooting and I love them for it.
Admin
perhaps she ran out of white ink fnord.
Admin
You're right - American kids should be more like Europeans, and spend their childhood having sex with goats instead...
Admin
This attitude coming from someone in the UK shouldn't be surprising. They can't carry lock-knives for Christ's sake. God forbid you should ever face a ruthlessly oppressive government again. You'll be reduced to fighting with kitchen knives!
Let's also remember that criminals don't tend to consult the law before committing crimes. It would be just as illegal (and horrific) for a child to murder his classmates with a knife or any other weapon.
I also find it interesting that you take such great offense to the laws of a country you don't live in. Would you push your nanny state on us as well? We can take care of ourselves, thank you very much.
Admin
And I can't edit it to fix it... =(
Admin
Admin
Admin
No, you don't understand what I'm saying.
I know full well that anything I store on a work pc is not private and anything I say on a work phone is not private and anything I send over a work network is not private etc. I have never stated anywhere that I think otherwise.
All I am saying is that there should not be any need for IT admins to need your actual password in order to do these things. They should have elevated priviledges such that they can use their own (or shared) account for this.
Admin
Admin
Admin
Admin
If people are fighting against the government, do you really think they are going to worry about what weapons are allowed or not?
Do you really think small arms are going to overthrow a government? Against tanks, helicopter gunships, jet fighters, heavy artillery, tactical nukes? At the very least you're going to need RPGs and the like.
Admin
Don't tell her that she's a niggard.
Admin
Role-playing games? Huh? Howzat work?
Admin
Admin
An RPG is a Russian Hand-held Anti-Tank Grenade Launcher.
Admin
Admin
Come to think of it, the only ones I can think of are KGB and FSB.
Admin
Primarily, this is about access. As guns remain legal, there are significant "small arms" arsenals in private hands already. If guns are completely illegal, then you're at a much greater disadvantage.
An assault rifle and a sniper rifle can do a lot of damage. Without any guns at all, you can't offer much resistance, but I do agree that RPGs and the like would be a wonderful compliment. Regardless, we've really got to define the scenario better before we can make these kinds of arguments. Remember, The American Revolutionary War was fought against an army much better equipped than ours.
And tactical nukes? Are you serious? I have a hard time imagining a government using tactical nukes on its people and lands. They're particularly messy, what with the radiation and all, and we've got terminator style weapons running round these days, in the form of unmanned combat vehicles. These seem a lot more effective. It's a good thing we have such a strong hacker community here in the States. I imagine they'd be able to disable more than a few of these and put them under the control of the resistance.
Aside from the tactical realities, the threat of any kind of serious resistance does a lot to keep government in check. Small arms give them at least something to worry about.
Long live liberty!
Admin
"who do you think works for the university!? Everyone who works here is an administrator and should have administrator rights!"
That's why it is a really good thing the admin on *NIXes is called "root", so none of the typical "I-am-a-person-with-a-degree-so-make-it-work"-idiots will ever want to be one of those... ;o)
Admin
Admin
Admin
That is why BLACK ink is really WHITE! It absorbs all the colors and reflects nothing, hence it is really white, so you see black.
I think those selling ink should be sent to gaol for their misleading labeling. The colors they sell are not the color of the label. That's merely the color you see...
Admin
Um, no.
There's one really good reason why companies have "Don't tell your passwords to anybody, not even if they're the system admins", and that's because many, many people have been duped into handing them over to people who weren't who they said they were.
If your sysadmin is who they say they are, they can reset your password for themselves if they really need it. No need to open yourself up to one of the simplest hacks. It's not just your personal data you're protecting.
And if you were that network admin working anywhere with an idea of security, and you tried asking for passwords, you wouldn't have a job for long.
Admin
OK, from the sysadmin trenches here: you're right that under almost any circumstance I do not need the user's password, even to access the user's files. I can run updates, install software, perform back-ups, etc., using my privileges. The only time I need to be authenticated as the user is when I need to do something specifically in the user space, and I can do that by resetting the user's password. (Granted I could probably accomplish the same thing from root/administrator by modifying the appropriate files, but some things just save time.)
So why do I have the user's password? For 90% of my users, they'd far rather have me know their password than they want to have to learn a new password whenever I fix their computer. When I do reset someone's password, I'm guaranteed to get at least three calls/complaints subsequently because they can't remember their new password.
Meanwhile, I encourage users to change their passwords occasionally. I don't force it. (Tried that once -- was overwhelmed with the help requests.) If I'm aware of a potential security issue, I do force a password reset.
YMMV. This works for me. I'm not claiming it's the right answer for everyone. (And our stuff is confidential but it's not that confidential.)
Admin
What I would have done so solve the administrator problem:
So, you are an administrator of the University... would you like to also be a computer administrator?
Yes, of course!
Good.
I quickly start a command line interface, wait a few seconds of the dean looking at the black screen with some white text on it, then type a command that produces some long output:
Here you are, you're a computer administrator now, you can AHEM administer the inner workings of your and everyone else's computer.
Well this is not what I was thinking...
Good, now we understand each other!
Admin
Admin
we have several printers that can print white
Admin
Quote: "Perhaps she was using white on a color background or over an image?"
Of course she was, genious ;)
Quote: "Or, what I've seen before, people thinking their desktop printer can print white onto colored stock."
LOL
Admin
Dumb me... Quoting the first post... How did I manage not to see that there are two pages of comments already?
(I just saw the first two entries. Must be tired...)
Admin
But, as mentioned before, these are work machines, technically there should be no personal data on them. Of course this never happens and a certain amount of leniency is given, but often a line is drawn when personal data is stored on a server and as a result, backed up. Like the user at my workplace who had 20GB of MP3s in his user directory on the server. We could have just deleted them, but we warned him several weeks before, so he could put them somewhere else.
As admins, we generally have the highest "security clearance" in the company, so that enables us to be able to view even confidential documents during the performance of our duties. So theoretically, there should be nothing on the servers or workstations that we are not permitted to see.
Admin