Techdirt. Stories filed under "it"

Justice Department IT Staff So Incompetent They Block All Webex Conferences

Mike Masnick — Fri, 3 Aug 2012 05:20:17 PDT

We've heard all sorts of random stories about over-aggressive IT staffs or filters that block random websites for no good reason, but sometimes the situations are truly bizarre. For example, a friend sent over an announcement concerning a webinar from the DC District Court about the Electronic Case Filing (ECF) system. Obviously this is a useful thing for lawyers and law enforcement to understand. So it struck us as interesting to see the following tidbit in the emailed announcement:

SPECIAL NOTE TO DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE ATTORNEYS/STAFF:
The WebEx web conferencing website is not accessible to DOJ attorneys/staff due to internet blocks set in place by your IT department, therefore you are unable to register for a webinar training class or participate in the WebEx training room session itself. However, the option to participate in only the teleconference portion of the training class is available and will still prove useful.

Really, now? We've already had reasons to question the technical competence of the DOJ, but to do a complete block of all Webex webinars? Overkill much?

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If They Can't Pass SOPA... Senators Ask FTC To Magically Stop Foreign Software Infringement

Mike Masnick — Thu, 5 Apr 2012 12:13:00 PDT

Having failed to pass SOPA, Congress is apparently looking for other ways to keep the big copyright players happy. The latest is a letter sent by 16 senators to the FTC urging the commission to "protect American manufacturers" by cracking down on the fact that foreign companies often use unauthorized software:

"This unfairness harms the affected companies and their employees, as well as consumers and the broader economy," the senators wrote. "It also stifles innovation by forcing law-abiding American businesses — large and small — to compete against those businesses that reduce their operating costs through the use of pirated IT."

Except that much of that is misleading. First of all, it's unclear that the companies in question would have bought the software otherwise, so arguing that it impacts the software companies isn't necessarily true. It is true that US companies have to compete against those other companies, but is the cost of the software they're using really the difference maker here? Besides, for all types of software there is growing competition from open source alternatives. If US companies want to compete, why not adopt more open source alternatives?

Also, what exactly do these Senators think the FTC can do here? The FTC has no jurisdiction over foreign companies and how they operate at home. Finally, even if the FTC could magically stop these companies from using unauthorized software, the end result is likely that those companies would simply shift to alternatives, such as open source software themselves.

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Reminder: 'What IT Needs To Know About The Law' Webinar Tomorrow

Mike Masnick — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:16:00 PDT

A reminder for folks that tomorrow, Wednesday May 26th, at 9am PT/noon ET, we'll be holding the next webinar in our IT Innovation series, What IT Needs To Know About The Law. I've been working on the content for this webinar with Dave Navetta and Larry Downes, and it's shaping up great, covering many of the issues we talk about here on a regular basis. In fact, there's so much good stuff, that we're down to figure out what we're leaving out -- perhaps to revisit at a future date. Either way, it should be chock full of good info that will be useful for any IT person, so don't miss it. Sign up now, and stop by tomorrow with questions ready. As with our past webinars, this one will be interactive. We'll be taking questions from attendees throughout the webinar. Please join us.

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Looking For Feedback On IT Innovation Resources

Insight Community — Thu, 20 May 2010 16:09:00 PDT

As you know, we've been running the ITInnovation.com tab within Techdirt since last year, sponsored by Sun (now Oracle) and Intel. We've had a series of fascinating discussions within blog posts and webinars during that time. We've also continued to regularly refresh the IT Innovation Resource Center, which includes a rotating list of useful tools and white papers provided either by us or the sponsors of IT Innovation.

We'd like to get some feedback and insight into the quality of these resources and how they might be improved upon. Listed below are six currently available white papers in the Resource Center. If you are familiar with these topics (i.e., you work in IT), please review the white papers and write up your insights and comments on the whitepapers: what's good about them, what could be improved, what would make them more useful, etc. You are free to provide insights on as many of the white papers as you would like, but we ask that you submit insights on each white paper as a separate insight, rather than combining them into a single response.

Best Practices for Managing Datacenter Costs via Application and Server Consolidation
Server sprawl, software licensing fees, and facilities costs are sending datacenter operational expenses through the roof at a time when every penny is being scrutinized. As a result, low utilization rates and wasted power/cooling resources are no longer acceptable, and smart companies are looking to consolidation and virtualization to trim expenses and increase operating efficiency.
Why Solid-State Drives Usage Scenarios Are Expanding for the Datacenter
To accomplish the objectives of making more-efficient use of IT resources, lowering power consumption, and reducing operating expenses, many companies are turning to server consolidation and virtualization efforts—endeavors that increase server CPU utilization and reduce the number of discrete servers in a datacenter.
The New Economics of Midsize Enterprise Computing: Oracle’s Sun Systems Based on the Intel® Xeon® Processor 5500 Series
Midsize companies often face the same competitive pressures as large-scale enterprises. However, they may not possess the resources and staff to invest heavily in complex computing systems. Yet it’s critical for IT organizations within these companies to ensure that they have the strongest, most expandable systems in place, so that their companies have the requisite flexibility to adapt quickly to changing market conditions, roll out new products and services in shorter cycles, and become more effective competitors.
New Blades and Networking Solutions Ensure Solid Return on Investment
Traditionally, when companies need more computing power to deal with expanding amounts of data, they increase the number of servers, the number of compute cores per server, and the memory capacity of each server. Today’s high-powered blade servers save space and help enable significant gains in computing performance, especially when workloads are consolidated efficiently and datacenter resources are utilized most effectively. To accommodate this increase in capacity, however, the network infrastructure carrying the data must also be upgraded.
Reassessing Server Costs for Midsize Companies
Most companies keep their servers for three to five years—a time frame that seems reasonable given current economic conditions. Despite the savings this would seem to imply, however, extending server life in the datacenter in this way may not be the best strategy, even in the toughest economic times.
Oracle Solaris Operating System — Optimized for the Intel® Xeon® Processor 5600 and 7500 series
This document is intended as a technical guide for developers and system administrators that want to understand the precise details of how Oracle® Solaris and the Intel® Xeon® processor 5600 and 7500 series can improve your application solution environment.

This is a case from the Insight Community, a powerful new marketplace that connects companies with intelligent communities like Techdirt. Click here to learn more.

Earn up to $200 for Insights on this case.
Insights Due: 30 May 2010, 11:59PMPT

View Case Details at InsightCommunity.com

New Webinar: What IT People Need To Know About The Law

Mike Masnick — Tue, 18 May 2010 12:34:00 PDT
A few weeks ago, we had a post about why IT people need to be knowledgeable about the law, rather than just about technology. It was based on an excellent article by Dave Navetta on The Legal Defensibility Era (pdf). For years, IT folks have recognized that they often wear two hats, switching between a technology one and a business one, as they often have to explain or justify the business tradeoffs of the IT decisions they make. But these days, they also really need to add a legal hat.

Given the immense interest we received in this particular topic, we've decided that it will be the topic of our next webinar in our IT Innovation series: What IT needs to know about the law to be held next Wednesday, May 26th at 9am PT/noon ET. We're thrilled that Dave Navetta, who wrote the article that sparked the original discussion, will be participating and discussing this "era of legal defensibility" that IT people need to understand. Dave has built a career around bridging that gap between IT folks and legal folks, and is obviously perfect to be part of this discussion. With him will be Larry Downes, most recently the author of The Laws of Disruption, which is all about how the legal realm is hugely important to understanding business and technology in the world today, and how anyone looking to succeed in the internet age needs to understand some of these key legal principles. Larry's a well-known writer, speaker, pundit and consultant on this important intersection of the law and the technology world, and between David and Larry, the discussion should be quite a lot of fun. Once again, I'll be moderating.

I'm really excited about this particular topic and the two speakers. We've been preparing for the webinar over the past few days, and there are a ton of interesting topics to discuss, concerning how the law is impacting security, privacy and the wider IT world. Depending on timing, we may dip into some other areas, including intellectual property law, Section 230 and the like. Given the discussions we regularly have on this site, and how important legal issues have become in the IT world over the past few years, this is going to be a can't miss discussion, so sign up now. As with previous webinars, the discussion is designed to be interactive, and we can take questions from the audience via the web interface during the event, so please come ready with questions.

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Why IT Security Guys Now Also Need To Be Legal Experts

Mike Masnick — Fri, 7 May 2010 17:09:47 PDT
Every so often we get complaints from people who point out that this site is called "Techdirt," and yet quite frequently talks about the legal issues. There are a few different responses to this, but one of the key points is that, if you're in the tech field these days, you actually really do need to be pretty familiar with the law in a lot of ways. This is a point that I've been thinking about a lot lately, so it seemed like great timing when Michael Scott directed our attention to an article about how IT and security folks now need to recognize that legal risks are a big part of the security realm:
The era of legal defensibility is upon us. The legal risk associated with information security is significant and will only increase over time. Security professionals will have to defend their security decisions in a foreign realm: the legal world. This article discusses implementing security that is both secure and legally defensible, which is key for managing information security legal risk.
It certainly takes things pretty far outside the world where information security folks are used to living. And while there may be a sense of being able to defend the technological decisions should there be a security breach, reaching the level of "legal defensibility" involves a whole different set of issues.

The blog post linked above notes that we're still early in realizing this overlapping arena of security and law, and it's important to have folks from all of these disciplines work together:
Now is the time for legal, privacy and security professionals to break down arbitrary and antiquated walls that separate their professions. The distinctions between security, privacy and compliance are becoming so blurred as to ultimately be meaningless. Like it or not, it all must be dealt with holistically, at the same time, and with expertise from multiple fronts. In this regard we must all develop thick skins and be not afraid to stop zealously guarding turf. The reality is, the legal and security worlds have collided, and most lawyers don't know enough about security, and most security professionals don't know enough about the law. Let's change that.
Indeed. In fact, this is part of the reason that I made sure there was at least some legal discussion in our upcoming webinar on security in the cloud -- because it's an important aspect of security these days, and the cloud raises some serious legal questions (if you haven't registered yet, please do!). But making sure that legal and security/IT people are talking about this regularly is important. Otherwise, you can bet that the legal folks are going to make decisions that are going to come back to haunt those in the IT and security worlds...

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Do IT People Hate Their Jobs?

Mike Masnick — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 22:10:00 PST
A recent study suggests that IT people really don't seem to like their jobs very much. Apparently, only 4% of IT people found themselves "highly engaged" with their jobs -- a number that has dropped from the still low, but not as low, 12%, two years earlier. There are concerns, of course, for what this means for companies and their IT staff. It certainly raises some questions about whether or not this is a potential issue going forward, and how companies might deal with this. Are the problems caused by the way IT people are treated? Or does it have more to do with their own worries about the future of the IT profession? And given that so many people in IT aren't particularly enthusiastic about their jobs, how can that be dealt with?

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If Data Centers Are Understaffed, What Does That Mean For Security?

Mike Masnick — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:47:01 PST
While I'm always a little skeptical of the numbers found in vendor surveys, it wouldn't be too surprising to learn that the recent findings that half of all data centers find themselves understaffed are at least close to accurate. About 16% of the total surveyed claimed that their data centers were "extremely understaffed," with another 34% saying they were just somewhat understaffed. Reasons for the understaffing included both the difficulty of finding qualified people for more technologically complex datacenters and general economic cutbacks -- neither of which are particularly surprising.

The bigger question is what impact this will have. Chronic understaffing in a data center could lead to serious security issues, increased downtime (decreased reliability) and certainly decreased responsiveness to problems. With many of the survey respondents also claiming they're hoping to decrease headcount even further, this could become a bigger issue going forward.

The report also claims that the survey's creators were "surprised" to find out that mid-market companies were more likely to experiment with new technologies, as compared to the big companies, but I don't find that surprising at all. Big companies are pretty resistant to change (especially if they have some big IT project that is "working.") Still, if those companies are finding their data centers regularly understaffed, it could create more difficulty in getting getting new projects successfully off the ground. So I'm curious how companies are dealing with these issues and trying to avoid problems with understaffed data centers, while still being able to try out new technologies and services.

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Should IT Be Run As A Business?

Mike Masnick — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:30:00 PST
Slashdot points us to an article trying to debunk the concept that "IT should be run as a business," with "employees" as customers. Of course, like many catchy phrases, I don't think that many IT departments really followed this concept to the ridiculous logical conclusions. It does have some useful concepts -- such as giving IT folks more reason to actually listen to what employees have to say. But it misses the larger point, that IT is there to serve the business as a whole, and that means making the overall business more efficient, while keeping it secure, and that can sometimes conflict with the views of individual employees.

The argument made in the article, and it makes sense, is that IT really needs to be much more tightly integrated with the overall business, to really understand how to help. When it's viewed as a separate silo or even "business," then the solutions that come out of IT really aren't as helpful as can be. Separately, it also increases the likelihood of outsourcing the IT function, since it can be easily "separated." But by more closely integrating the IT function into actual business processes, not only does IT make itself more indispensable, it can focus on creating actual process improvements and solutions, rather than just taking a list from someone of what they think they need (perhaps without understanding what the technology enables) and delivering it to spec.

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In A World Of Bottom Up Technology, Should IT Support Your iPhone?

Mike Masnick — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:46:28 PST
Back when the iPhone first came out, there were all sorts of stories about how it was no good for the enterprise. While it's certainly gotten better, it still does seem like the Blackberry is the enterprise smartphone of choice. Yet, many people really do like using the alternatives, and while the solution for many is to now carry around multiple devices, others are beginning to push for companies to support their own devices (iPhone or others). And this is becoming a bigger and bigger issue. These days, many technologies used in the office are coming from "the bottom up," meaning that they're personal technologies (hardware, software or services) that individuals are using/buying on their own first, and then realizing they're so useful, that they start using them at work too.

And that, of course, raises the inevitable question of whether or not the IT department should support those technologies. The easy answer (which I'm sure we'll hear many times over in the comments) is "of course not." But it might not be that simple any more. Ignoring or holding back those technologies entirely may actually harm overall productivity in some cases, and limit what employees can and should be doing. Now, obviously, I recognize the argument that a large part of IT's job is to keep things running and protect the overall setup from problems -- and letting in any technology and supporting it can make that very, very difficult. But it ignores the flipside of IT's role: enabling companies and their employees to be more productive through the use of technology. And, even if IT officially decides to not allow things like the iPhone, as the article above points out, it might not matter much:
Likely scenario: An employee is denied an iPhone (or possibly any company-provided smartphone) and decides to get his own personal iPhone for use at work. This surreptitious infiltration is actually a bigger concern than a handful of managers; at least with them you still get to control the configuration and deployment process. If you don't know that workers are using iPhones in your company, you can't secure them at all. You can't even be certain what data might be stored on them.

And since the iPhone is fairly easy for even novice users to set up -- they can sign onto wireless networks, access intranets, and even gain access to an e-mail server -- it's no stretch to imagine that a lone, unauthorized iPhone could seriously compromise confidential data, as well as access to your network and the services running in it.
So, a flat-out ban isn't going to do the trick, but actively supporting any technology people bring into the workplace is too much to handle and causes too many problems. So where is the middle ground?

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Are IT Failures Costing $6.2 Trillion Per Year?

Mike Masnick — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:52:13 PST
I'm always quite skeptical about huge numbers that come out of studies, such as the "losses" claimed by the entertainment industry due to piracy. So I was pretty skeptical of a story (found via Slashdot) claiming that IT failures cost $6.2 trillion per year worldwide. If true, that would be a staggering figure. I have no doubt that IT "failures" are costly, but that number seems extreme. Just glancing over the report itself, it's definitely not based on any kind of stringent methodology, and seems to count any IT project failure as a total loss, and then adds in "indirect costs" which sound suspiciously like "ripple effects" which, as we've demonstrated before are actually ways to double- or triple-count the same dollars over and over again. It seems that many others see huge problems with the original report as well, even to the point of suggesting that its orders of magnitude off.

While the debate rages on over how to properly count the "cost" of such failures, I'm beginning to wonder how useful such a number is. Isn't a more useful discussion on how to prevent or minimize the impact of any such failures? The aggregate number may look good in being able to see some big number, but aggregate numbers can hide important details inside. For example, back in the early (and even late) 90s there were lots of reports about how computerizing your business was not shown to have added any productivity. A poor conclusion from this was that computering your business was not a smart idea. But the problem was that this was aggregate data. It failed to realize that many, many businesses had boosted productivity through the use of computers, and many of the large failures that wiped out the aggregate "gains" were from a few big businesses that did a really poor implementation. It didn't mean that computerizing was necessarily a bad idea, but that some of the biggest early players just did a bad job of it.

So, if we're going to be discussing IT failures, why not step away from that aggregate info and try to focus in on ways to actually minimize the impact of whatever IT failures might occur?

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Can You Copyright An SQL Query?

Mike Masnick — Mon, 7 Dec 2009 12:56:00 PST
Reader JohnForDummies alerts us to yet another example of extreme "ownership culture" found in a Stack Overflow query from a guy who works in IT for a school district. The school district needed to export a list of all its students every year to send to a company that handles their online exams -- and for years (before this guy was hired in IT), the district had contracted out the process to a guy who charged them $500 per year, to basically write and then run an SQL query that exported the data. Each year, all he had to do was change the date, but he still charged them $500. So the IT guy figures that he can change the date himself, but noticed that the contractor had put a nice copyright notice in the file:
// This code was writtend by [the guy]
// and is the property of [his company]...Copyright 2005,2006,2008,2009
// This code MAY NOT BE USED without the expressed written consent of
// [his company].
The Stack Overflow community basically suggested that the best course of action is to rewrite the query (even potentially asking the Stack Overflow community via a separate entry, with the details of what the query needs to do), but it does raise some basic questions about whether or not an SQL query can be covered by copyright. The answer, tragically, might be more complicated than it needs to be, but assuming that the query wasn't anything really out of the ordinary, it's difficult to see how a single SQL query, by itself, would be considered unique enough to be covered by copyright. However, I'm sure there will be differences of opinion here, so let's see if any of our copyright lawyer readership would like to weigh in on this one... As for the IT folks, it would be interesting to see what people think of the idea of copyrighting a single SQL query for something like this.

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Helping Everyone Become An IT Innovator

Michael Ho — Tue, 1 Dec 2009 06:30:00 PST
As many of our readers already know, we've been producing several topical conversations on a variety of subjects via the Insight Community, and we'd like to introduce our newly sponsored site, IT Innovation, brought to you by Sun Microsystems and Intel. (You may have missed the subtle new 'IT Innovation' link added to the top of our page.) First and foremost, the goal of this effort for us here at Techdirt is to create interesting and useful content for our readers in the realm of server hardware and datacenter management.

We'll be covering trends in datacenters and skills for IT managers -- and asking the Insight Community for its input on generating relevant insights for future conversations. And as with any natural conversation, we're not 100% sure where the topics will lead because the ideas will develop and evolve as we discuss them. But we'll start with current trends, as well as far off predictions, advice and tips for IT managers, business tools, and try to delve deeper into the subjects that resonate with the community participants. If you're already a member of the Insight Community, you can contribute your thoughts on the datacenter upgrade process. If you're not already a member, you can join now.

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Time For IT Guys To Unshackle Corporate Computers

Mike Masnick — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 04:10:24 PDT
This one ought to infuriate some of the IT folks, but Farhad Manjoo, over at Slate, is making the case for why corporate IT folks should give up trying to control everyone's computers. He says it's silly for them to dictate which apps you can and cannot use, what websites you can and cannot visit and what mobile devices you can and cannot use. He argues that doing so only restricts employees from actually doing useful and innovative stuff and also can make employees significantly less productive.

The response from IT folks will always be about the cost of maintaining all of this -- noting (perhaps correctly) that any time there are any problems, people will call up IT folks who will have to try to service all sorts of things, rather than having a standard list. And, of course, they'll say that users are often dumb, and prone to doing things that put computers and networks at risk. Thus, locking stuff down isn't only cost effective, but it's prudent to protect the company.

In the end, though, if that prevents important work from getting done (or done quickly), that seems like a problem. In the past, we've pointed out study after study after study suggesting that those who are actually allowed to do personal surfing at work are happier and more productive. Manjoo makes that point as well, mentioning recent studies that have shown the same thing and suggesting that companies that trust their workers on these sorts of things tend to get much more out of those employees.

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Yeah, Your IT Guy Is Probably Reading Your Email

Mike Masnick — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:24:32 PDT
You probably suspected it, but there's a decent chance that someone in your IT department may be snooping on at least someone in your company -- and they don't seem to mind admitting it. It's not overwhelming, but about one in three IT folks admits to snooping using admin passwords to access information they're not supposed to look at. Given that there are probably plenty who won't admit it, there's a pretty good chance that the actual percentages are higher.

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