[K12OSN] OT: Google Apps

[David Hopkins]

On Sat, Dec 6, 2008 at 6:33 AM, Nils Breunese <nils at breun.nl> wrote:
> Terrell Prudé Jr. wrote:
>
>> Why is it so "evil" now to just run OpenOffice.org and save documents to a
>> central, local file server?
>
> I don't believe anyone says that running OpenOffice.org is evil. But there
> are definitely situations where using Google Apps has a lot of advantages.
> Maybe not for a school is the US, but I'm not in the educational field nor
> in the US.
>
> Nils Breunese.
>

Yep ... not evil, just very convenient for the students and teachers
wrt to editing, submitting, collaborating and such.

BUT there is this huge issue of physical security and confidentiality.
 IF all the data on the google servers was encrypted, and use of https
was mandatory and the google admins did not have the ability to break
the encryption and the encryption keys were say stored on local
servers that the school controls and access controlled by local
passwords/whatever  then it might be acceptable to me.

I would feel better if everything was managed locally and perhaps
stored remotely with all the encryption and access control, but even
then who guarantees that passwords aren't compromised?

But I am just a volunteer at the school. I may have some influence
after 8 years of doing this, but I still don't define the policy.  The
teachers have been told to not use google apps for anything even
slightly sensitive and until an incident occurs I doubt there will be
any policy banning google apps.