Hi all,
Thanks so much for all the great answers. (Could everyone please stop
telling me that im = instant messaging). I knew I should've never gotten
out of bed this morning.
Anyway, 75% of the respondents said the phone is critical. 25% said some
form of IM is critical.
Just in case anyone was curious.
Is it me or is it very quiet in here today?
Jane
Jane,
This brings up a good point about IM. IMHO, IM is a security risk and I am
establishing a company standard where users behind the firewall are
prohibited from using IM, IRC, and peer-to-peer file sharing programs. My
opinion is that these types of programs contribute more to lack of
productivity than to real problem solving.
So my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve a
substantial network support purpose or are they more of a distraction,
allowing staff to communicate with friends, relatives, drifters, interlopers
on company time?
Regards,
Christopher J. Wolff, VP CIO
Broadband Laboratories
http://www.bblabs.com
Everybody is off tyring to get openssh 3.3 compiled and installed. 
-Jim P.
We find IRC and IM invaluable. Set up a private irc server behind the
firewall, and use crypto-hard ICQ like licq. (if you use windoze you are
probably out of luck though)
-Dan
Is it me or is it very quiet in here today?
Jane
All the frequent posters have been banned for 6 months. 
So my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve
a substantial network support purpose or are they more of a distraction,
allowing staff to communicate with friends, relatives, drifters,
interlopers on company time?
I disagree. I have spent many hours in a noisy datacenter on IM, when the
phone was right next to me. It is difficult to hear and the IM allows me
to scroll back to see commands that have been sent. IM make collaboration
so much easier. I have been in a chat room at 3am with developers, techs,
VP's etc, and it was easier than a conference call.
Instead of banning, you should be looking into a secure IM client.
Several companies make secure clients that also link up to the major
players via a gateway.
IM isn't going away, I imagine you will see lots of backlash if you try to
ban it.
jas
PGP Corporate Desktop can help with ICQ if you are a Windows user.
-ren, who prefers IRC
my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve a
substantial network support purpose or are they more of a distraction,
allowing staff to communicate with friends, relatives, drifters, interlopers
on company time?
We run an internal Jabber server which all employees log into. This eliminates the reliance on an outside server (AOL/Yahoo/etc) as well as the security concerns of same outside servers.
Of course it's still cleartext over TCP, so it's not 100% secure but it's localized traffic.
We find it invaluable especially since our department has become geographically diverse. To be able to pop "Can you look at TT#XYZ?" vs an email or phone call is quite nice.
-Scott
Christopher,
There are three questions here - are IM programs a security risk, is number
one. The second is, how does IM come into the network support/communications
equation. The third is, how much time gets wasted using IM or IRC?
Peer to peer file sharing probably has no place in the business world. It's
a leisure thing, and can open you up to liability. On the other hand, who
wants to be the software police, more than is absolutely necessary?
As far as IM and IRC - many folks find them vital to running and
troubleshooting networks, communicating with customers, etc. They can be
timewasters, but no more so than abuse of the telephone can be. It's not so
much the tool, as the use of the tool that should be a matter of concern.
IRC servers are significant security concerns. IRC Clients, coming from
behind firewalls, less so. Some folks implement private IRC servers bound to
localhost, behind firewalls, for internal use. This is much more secure. IM
tends to be insecure, as it's in cleartext, although encryption extensions
exist. Of course, most of your email is probably cleartext, too. A bigger
concern is that the servers live on someone else's network, so an outage
there may effect your operations.
- Daniel Golding
Jane,
This brings up a good point about IM. IMHO, IM is a security risk and I
am establishing a company standard where users behind the firewall are
prohibited from using IM, IRC, and peer-to-peer file sharing programs.
My opinion is that these types of programs contribute more to lack of
productivity than to real problem solving.
99% agreed. I've seen more viruses float in via {insert PtP here) than I'd
care to think about.
So my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve
a substantial network support purpose or are they more of a distraction,
allowing staff to communicate with friends, relatives, drifters,
interlopers on company time?
We support a number of international clients who don't necessarily have the
best English-speaking skills. In these cases we find ICQ/AIM/IRC/etc... to
be a necessity. Trying to work with a customer to debug kernel compile
errors via telephone from the relative un-comfort of a loud/windy
datacenter in broken English does NOT work.
Grant
I have to second the value of a private, staff-only IRC server. We
use IRC to communicate with each other while on the phone with
customers, clients, vendors, etc., and to communicate with offsite
workers. We have 4 info-bots which provide up to the minute
information about our dial-up capacity, new user accounts created, and
as an interface with our "check-up" system to spew error messages to
the channel, and as an interface to qpage for staff to alpha-page
anyone.
Then there is the benefit of pasting code snippets, config file
snippet and error messages while discussing them in real time.
Our staff is chastized for not paying attention to our staff channel.
It's our primary form of office communication. I can't imagine life
here without it.
Deeann M.M. Mikula
Director of Operations
Telerama Public Access Internet
http://www.telerama.com * 412.688.3200
Trillian is a combined (AIM, Y!, ICQ, IRC) client that supports secure
direct P2P (peer to peer) connections. A Swiss Army Knife of communication!
Btw, isn't it ass-backwards to state that you are establishing a corporate
policy for banning IM, and then ask for feedback on whether or not IM serves
a substantial network support purpose? Seems to me one would do discovery
before creating policy....
-Jim P.
: PGP Corporate Desktop can help with ICQ if you are a Windows user.
: -ren, who prefers IRC
Not for long...
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-851515.html
"A week ago, on Feb. 26, Network Associates (NAI) sent an e-mail to
some of its customers announcing that it had killed the PGP Desktop
Security product line."
"the products have now been put into "maintenance mode," which means
that existing support contracts will be honored until they run out, at
which point they will not be renewed. New versions of PGP Desktop will
not be released."
scott
:
: At 12:24 PM 6/25/2002 -0700, Dan Hollis wrote:
:
: >On Tue, 25 Jun 2002, Christopher J. Wolff wrote:
: > > So my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve a
: > > substantial network support purpose or are they more of a distraction,
: > > allowing staff to communicate with friends, relatives, drifters,
: > interlopers
: > > on company time?
: >
: >We find IRC and IM invaluable. Set up a private irc server behind the
: >firewall, and use crypto-hard ICQ like licq. (if you use windoze you are
: >probably out of luck though)
: >
: >-Dan
: >--
: >[-] Omae no subete no kichi wa ore no mono da. [-]
:
:
:
:
: Christopher,
:
: There are three questions here - are IM programs a security risk, is number
: one. The second is, how does IM come into the network support/communications
: equation. The third is, how much time gets wasted using IM or IRC?
:
: Peer to peer file sharing probably has no place in the business world. It's
: a leisure thing, and can open you up to liability. On the other hand, who
: wants to be the software police, more than is absolutely necessary?
Deloitte & Touche doesn't seem to think so. They use
"NextPage's NXT 3 platform to enable its employees to access, exchange,
and manage distributed content-including large documents and
directories of accounting regulations and best practices-as if the
content were all in a single location. Through a series of content
servers linked to form a peer-to-peer content network, users can
search, navigate, and categorize data more quickly, easily, and
securely than before. They don't need to replicate or convert the data
from its original format."
http://networkmagazine.com/article/NMG20020429S0001
scott
:
: As far as IM and IRC - many folks find them vital to running and
: troubleshooting networks, communicating with customers, etc. They can be
: timewasters, but no more so than abuse of the telephone can be. It's not so
: much the tool, as the use of the tool that should be a matter of concern.
:
: IRC servers are significant security concerns. IRC Clients, coming from
: behind firewalls, less so. Some folks implement private IRC servers bound to
: localhost, behind firewalls, for internal use. This is much more secure. IM
: tends to be insecure, as it's in cleartext, although encryption extensions
: exist. Of course, most of your email is probably cleartext, too. A bigger
: concern is that the servers live on someone else's network, so an outage
: there may effect your operations.
:
: - Daniel Golding
:
: > -----Original Message-----
: > From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of
: > Christopher J. Wolff
: > Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2002 3:17 PM
: > To: nanog@merit.edu
: > Subject: How important is IM? was RE: How important is the PSTN
: >
: >
: >
: > Jane,
: >
: > This brings up a good point about IM. IMHO, IM is a security
: > risk and I am
: > establishing a company standard where users behind the firewall are
: > prohibited from using IM, IRC, and peer-to-peer file sharing programs. My
: > opinion is that these types of programs contribute more to lack of
: > productivity than to real problem solving.
: >
: > So my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve a
: > substantial network support purpose or are they more of a distraction,
: > allowing staff to communicate with friends, relatives, drifters,
: > interlopers
: > on company time?
: >
: > Regards,
: > Christopher J. Wolff, VP CIO
: > Broadband Laboratories
: > http://www.bblabs.com
: >
: > -----Original Message-----
: > From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of
: > Pawlukiewicz Jane
: > Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2002 12:06 PM
: > To: nanog@merit.edu
: > Subject: How important is the PSTN
: >
: >
: > Hi all,
: >
: > Thanks so much for all the great answers. (Could everyone please stop
: > telling me that im = instant messaging). I knew I should've never gotten
: > out of bed this morning.
: >
: > Anyway, 75% of the respondents said the phone is critical. 25% said some
: > form of IM is critical.
: >
: > Just in case anyone was curious.
: >
: > Is it me or is it very quiet in here today?
: >
: > Jane
: >
: >
:
:
Jason Lewis wrote:
Instead of banning, you should be looking into a secure IM client.
Several companies make secure clients that also link up to the major
players via a gateway.
Would a secure (probably via SSL) chat client be considered a valuable
item in this sphere? (Note, blatant self interest involved in this
question, feel free to respond off list.)
While I'm posting anyway, I wanted to thank the various people here who
inspired the .sig below... it's already getting laughs around here.
Finally, an aside to Jane.... never complain about a quiet list. See
what happens?
Jabber supports SSL connections
Doug Barton wrote:
Would a secure (probably via SSL) chat client be considered a valuable
item in this sphere? (Note, blatant self interest involved in this
question, feel free to respond off list.)
Jabber can do SSL for IM, and there is an irc-like encrypted chat called
silc.
Long time lurker but have a quick question: what is the most popular IM
then with all the discussion of IM software?
Dont use any myself but just curious is all.
Thanks,
Keith
[snip]
Try trillian, www.trillian.org <I believe> does them all, encrypted.
www.trillian.cc, in fact. All trillian users I know are quite happy,
but I have no idea whether it encrypts or anything. It seems it also
does IRC.
My 2 eurocents: IRC is the ultimate in IM, since irc clients and
servers are freely and widely available, fully open source, so you can
run it completely within the perimeters of your network and under your
full control.
Greetz, Peter