[K12OSN] Responses to the central office

[Gentgeen]

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 17:21:07 -0400
"Todd O'Bryan" <toddobryan at mac.com> wrote:

> Hey all,
> 
> My department and the school are now on board with doing thin clients,
> but now our purchase has to be approved by the Telecomm department at
> the central office. When I called to talk to the director of
> networking, he said we could do whatever we wanted, as long as we
> didn't connect to the district network. Obviously, that makes the
> whole enterprise much less attractive.
> 
> Below is a copy of an email I sent him outlining what I think are his
> concerns with the plan. If people who don't mind being quoted (and
> preferably have titles that central office folks would be impressed
> by) wouldn't mind taking a look and responding, I'd really appreciate
> it. If he responds with other issues, I'll let you know.
> 
> Thanks,
> Todd
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------

I would just add that with the default K12 install (with 2 nics) the
"red" nic (the one connected to the rest of the school net) is really
just like any other computer on the system.  ie the DHCP, the SAMBA, etc
are all done via the 2nd nic and therefore are kept inside the private
network.  

I think on of the big scares for tech admin and the K12LTSP setup is
really that now the have students sitting at computers that THEY have
not locked down.  So you need to show them that there is no IM software,
no way to get to those porn sites, no games, what ever it is that your
school does to lock down the student experience.

In one of the schools I had set up an LTSP server, I had a small lab
with 10 terminals.  The Tech Dept (1 guy -- yes small school) was happy
to let me do it, but he had to know that the same "rules" would apply to
kids in my lab that applied to all the other labs.  This went so far as
I had to lock down the kids wallpaper/icon/windowing themes.  Sad, but
the case.




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