#16 Security Breach!

I spoke with my school's tech administrators about the security systems in place at Nimitz High School (and yes, it was for this blog). I asked the following questions:

1) Are you able to view students laptops as if you had a virtual private network? That is, could you pull up any student's laptops on your laptop screen as if you were a remote user?

2) How do we prevent viruses from infecting our thousands of laptops?

3) Does our system of affording each student a laptop for a small insurance fee "work"? That is, is it worth the money and effort?

The answers may surprise you!

1) Yes, they can pull up any students laptop at a moment's notice. In fact, there are certain programs that cause red flags and the admins receive immediate notification about the student using the programs. These programs include file sharing software such as Kazaa and Napster. With file-sharing software, our students can (and often do) download media content that is copyrihted and therefore is illagal. Believe it or not, the admins demonstrated their ability right in front of me. I was in awe that their computer processors were so fast, to be honest.

2) We can't stop all viruses... we just hope to contain 'em. When a student's laptop is infected with a virus, it's just a matter of time before the students turns in the laptop... and if that takes too ong, the admins send an aide to pick up that student's laptop for re-imaging.

3) Our system does work, to an extent. For students who are incapable of takign care of the laptop or can't go a week without infecting it, the laptop idea simply can't work. However, the vast majority of our students handle the responsibility just fine, and it serves them well after high schoool to be fluent in various software packages such as Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop.

Is it expensive? Of course, but it's an investment. That was the overlying theme of our conversation. And I for one am proud that IISD has made this investment in our youth.