[EAS]Windows Ban

[pjk]

Subject:   Windows Ban

(from Edupage, November 04, 2002)

UC SANTA BARBARA BANS TWO VERSIONS OF WINDOWS
Campus officials at the University of California at Santa Barbara
issued a policy statement to students banning the use of Windows
2000 and Windows NT 4.0 operating systems on the school's network.
The statement blames the two operating systems for "hundreds of
problems," some of which required temporarily shutting down the
campus network. An official from the university said that most of
last year's security lapses were traced to the 200 computers--of a
total of 3,800 on the network--that were running Windows 2000. A
spokesman from Microsoft said the university's problems stemmed from
poor network management rather than any problem with the operating
systems. The university will still allow certain systems to run
Windows 2000, but only in "controlled" environments where university
officials can be certain that the security settings are configured
properly.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 4 November 2002
http://chronicle.com/free/2002/11/2002110402t.htm

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Dear Colleagues -

I forward this without judgment. It is indeed true that proper
network management is paramount to the security of any software,
though the choice of software environment must be in sensible
equilibrium with attainable and affordable levels of skill.

   --PJK