spudtater | Constructive use of time

I went along to the Scottish Council for Minorities¹ today to find out about a volunteer position they had advertised. I even wore my nice suit in order to make a good first impression. Frankly, I needn't have bothered; they seemed quite desperate to fill the position. I asked the interviewer about the network setup, and drew a complete blank — it seems the only person who understood anything about the network was the person who had left the position open for me, an unspecified amount of time ago. The interviewer seemed happy about the fact that my application had stated that I was "ready for work immediately". So I quite literally started work immediately.

The job is pretty much a standard sysadmin melarkey. The SCM have always offered advice and services to minorities, but have just moved into the realm of "internet cafe" style services; access to internet + Microsoft Office + printers, for a small fee. This is all very good and well, but until I arrived they were running without a sysadmin. This Is A Bad Thing.

Their network consists of about a dozen computers (a mixture of Windows 2000 & XP) in different locations, wired up into an ethernet LAN. I don't know where exactly the [internet] server is; I hope to locate it tomorrow². They appear to be running a "home network" style job, with logon handled by the client rather than a server, and identical logins on each computer. Everybody uses the same account name and password. And, yes, "everybody" includes the staff. This Is A Bad Thing.

One employee remarked that when she was away the customers were allowed to use her computer, which she was "not very happy about". No kidding. What I did not want to mention to her was that in addition, the directory she was saving a lot of her files to was a shared folder, i.e. everybody who ever came in and sat down at any computer had access to her files. This Is A Very Bad Thing.

They don't have proper security. They don't even have security by obscurity. What they seem to have is "security by who-would-bother-anyway?".

Ah yes, and the naming scheme made me want to giggle. The computer names (at least the upstairs ones) are "scmcomputer2, scmcomputer3, scmcomputer5, scm-12, scm13, two, three, eight". The computers have sticky labels with numbers on them. In only two cases did this number correspond to the name.³

But, I shall count my blessings:

McAfee is installed on every computer
ZoneAlarm is installed on every computer
Users are not given "Power User" rights, and so are not allowed to access system folders or install programs.
My predecessor had the foresight to write the administrator password on a piece of paper and give it to the boss for safekeeping.

I've scanned for viruses on one computer, at least, and found no viruses... but I did find a password cracker. I don't know how worried I should be.

But I was told to "do whatever you need to make things work right", so basically free reign to reshape things on my whim. Mwahahahahahaha! (At the same time, I'm rather nervous — what if I accidentally kill their server? It's not like I can run to anybody for help.)

[1] Yes, I know. The website doesn't work under Firefox. This is indicative.

[2] Wherever it is, I doubt that it's running anything as fancy as Novell or Windows Server.

[3] Given that the computer naming is a farce, should I rename them all to be "scmcomputer1, scmcomputer2, etc." or should I start a new naming scheme? And if so, what? 8^)

Am turning up again tomorrow at noon. I shall venture downstairs, and seek out the mystical server of doom. Wish me luck!

no subject

*squee* well done =0)

Hope all goes well tomorrow. Why not name them after planets? Saturn 5, jupiter 7 etc???

Date: 2005-12-12 03:32 pm (UTC)

spudtater.livejournal.com

Thank you.

Planets could be good. But isn't the Saturn 5 a rocket?

P.S. am celebrating with Ardbeg. Hence: "I like my women like I like my whisky. Strong, smoky, and at least 40% A.B.V."

Date: 2005-12-13 05:08 am (UTC)

Well I'm strong, I have been known to smoke, but you'll have to provide the 40% =0)

Date: 2005-12-12 03:11 pm (UTC)

gominokouhai

Call them all Gerald.

Date: 2005-12-12 04:13 pm (UTC)

kropotkin29.livejournal.com

First off - Congrats on the new job.
Secondly: Oh Dear! It sounds like you have a great deal of work to do there.
I would be happy to have a chat with you about many aspects of network design / administration / security /policy/ implementation etc. but I will not be able to come to the pub quiz tomorrow, but so feel free to call me at any reasonable time of day.
My number is : http://www.livejournal.com/users/kropotkin29/91008.html

Date: 2005-12-13 03:18 pm (UTC)

Thanks! I think I'll save your number for emergencies. So far my job's been consisting of antivirusing, updating, installing programs, etc.. I've got to get on top of all of that before I even start improving the network design.