4 ms·

so a quick dumb hotspot for just this purpose seems like a fairly reasonable solution. I believe the issue at hand is the question of who the user is going to

so a quick dumb hotspot for just this purpose seems like a fairly reasonable solution. I believe the issue at hand is the question of who the user is going to call when that doesn't work. The phone vendor? The phone OS vendor? The telecom? Hmm, somehow I feel that those three options will not be first on the list, but rather who is closest and has technical knowledge of any kind.

detaro 8y ago
Who either has "making such things work" in their job description and thus is the right address, or says "not a school-owned device, not my responsibility, please go through the process next time". If it truly works without connection to the internet (and you thus can ignore a lot of the security etc concerns), providing an unconnected AP with a flat network shouldn't be a big issue for most sysadmins. (And yes, I know what first-level support for random non-technical users is like). Yes, they'd prefer if it just worked in whatever environment, but I don't think it's that out of order that it doesn't, especially without knowing the tradeoffs involved in the design. I agree with the article on "they should specify what they need exactly" though, for those orgs that want to explicitly allow it in their main infrastructure instead of providing a workaround.
- zelon88 8y ago
  I think you're missing an important point, but I don't disagree completely. The biggest problem is that this is a product DESIGNED to be placed in educational IT environments. As such, the product should either be designed to work in those environments with reasonable effort and without violating common security practices. It's like marketing a car specifically to people with garages that are too small to fit the dimensions of the car. Either you make the car fit where it needs to go or you market it somewhere that fits. You DON'T market it to a demographic who can't reasonably use it. You're just making bad press for yourself. And as a network IT guy myself we have a responsibility to maintain order on the networks we administer. Just because someone calls me down to their desk to install CCleaner on their laptop doesn't mean I'm obligated to do it. Infact I'm obligated to steer him in the right direction and make sure he understands the errors of his ways. IT is the gatekeeper. You don't tell IT what to do... You tell them what you want to accomplish and let them tell you how to do it.
  - emj 8y ago
    The IT department is an enabler for the avarage user or the least common denominator, when we are talking about the monocultures of companies there is no room for niched solutions. The issue here is that location based computing is an feature that people need, but the official channels fight.
    - zelon88 8y ago
      Companies hire IT departments to manage their IT infrastructure correctly. Maybe some companies just want some cheap kid who can activate a cell phone or plug wires into a tower, but those aren't the companies who NEED to care about IT. You go to your doctor and pay him good money so he can tell you how to properly take care of your body. If your doctor tells you that you have diabetes and you continue eating sugar, you will die. If your IT department tells you something is a bad idea there's a reason for it. You don't have to understand his logic, and he doesn't have to explain it to you. Your company pays him to understand all of that so you don't have too. Enterprise infrastructure is extremely complex and enterprise applications are often extremely fragile. If the company could exist without their contributions I'm sure there would be no IT department.
  - detaro 8y ago
    > As such, the product should either be designed to work in those environments with reasonable effort and without violating common security practices. And I'm claiming that the effort required is reasonable, and it's thus not that big of a deal, even if slightly annoying in that it requires effort and doesn't just work. In the few environments I've worked in a sysadmin role, it wouldn't have been a problem to provide a one-off network that doesn't touch the official network if requested by a user, and in one it'd been completely fine if the user just set up an isolated AP as long as it didn't interfere with the official ones (university network)

detaro 8y ago

Who either has "making such things work" in their job description and thus is the right address, or says "not a school-owned device, not my responsibility, please go through the process next time". If it truly works without connection to the internet (and you thus can ignore a lot of the security etc concerns), providing an unconnected AP with a flat network shouldn't be a big issue for most sysadmins. (And yes, I know what first-level support for random non-technical users is like). Yes, they'd prefer if it just worked in whatever environment, but I don't think it's that out of order that it doesn't, especially without knowing the tradeoffs involved in the design. I agree with the article on "they should specify what they need exactly" though, for those orgs that want to explicitly allow it in their main infrastructure instead of providing a workaround.

zelon88 8y ago
I think you're missing an important point, but I don't disagree completely. The biggest problem is that this is a product DESIGNED to be placed in educational IT environments. As such, the product should either be designed to work in those environments with reasonable effort and without violating common security practices. It's like marketing a car specifically to people with garages that are too small to fit the dimensions of the car. Either you make the car fit where it needs to go or you market it somewhere that fits. You DON'T market it to a demographic who can't reasonably use it. You're just making bad press for yourself. And as a network IT guy myself we have a responsibility to maintain order on the networks we administer. Just because someone calls me down to their desk to install CCleaner on their laptop doesn't mean I'm obligated to do it. Infact I'm obligated to steer him in the right direction and make sure he understands the errors of his ways. IT is the gatekeeper. You don't tell IT what to do... You tell them what you want to accomplish and let them tell you how to do it.
- emj 8y ago
  The IT department is an enabler for the avarage user or the least common denominator, when we are talking about the monocultures of companies there is no room for niched solutions. The issue here is that location based computing is an feature that people need, but the official channels fight.
  - zelon88 8y ago
    Companies hire IT departments to manage their IT infrastructure correctly. Maybe some companies just want some cheap kid who can activate a cell phone or plug wires into a tower, but those aren't the companies who NEED to care about IT. You go to your doctor and pay him good money so he can tell you how to properly take care of your body. If your doctor tells you that you have diabetes and you continue eating sugar, you will die. If your IT department tells you something is a bad idea there's a reason for it. You don't have to understand his logic, and he doesn't have to explain it to you. Your company pays him to understand all of that so you don't have too. Enterprise infrastructure is extremely complex and enterprise applications are often extremely fragile. If the company could exist without their contributions I'm sure there would be no IT department.
- detaro 8y ago
  > As such, the product should either be designed to work in those environments with reasonable effort and without violating common security practices. And I'm claiming that the effort required is reasonable, and it's thus not that big of a deal, even if slightly annoying in that it requires effort and doesn't just work. In the few environments I've worked in a sysadmin role, it wouldn't have been a problem to provide a one-off network that doesn't touch the official network if requested by a user, and in one it'd been completely fine if the user just set up an isolated AP as long as it didn't interfere with the official ones (university network)