[490] in Resnet-Forum
Re: Computer Lab Security
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Roy Smith)
Fri Feb 17 21:48:37 1995
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 95 21:33:16 -0500
From: roy@mchip00.med.nyu.edu (Roy Smith)
To: LitherlandCJ%DFE%USAFA@dfmail.usafa.af.mil, ldg@skidmore.edu,
resnet-forum@MIT.EDU
> We tried a card-entry system in one of our clusters back in the mid-80's
> and found it a dismal failure.
I've found card-entry systems to also be a mess. Our lab is not really a
"residential computing" facility, but shares some attributes, namely that
lots of students are in and out of there. During the day, the room is often
supervised by staff, but in the evenings and weekends, students on
work-study have free access (via card swipe).
In our case, much of the problem is simply our being unable to get our
security department to understand our needs. During the day, when the lab
is supervised, we like to keep the door open. Not only is it convenient,
but it's friendlier and less claustrophobic. This annoys security since it
sets off "door open" alarms, so they came up with the brilliant solution of
just turning the system off during 9-5 M-F. Of course, that means should
all the staff happen to be gone at the same time for some reason, or there
is a holiday that security failed to program into their card-system
computer, the door is unlocked with no way to lock it. But security is
happy since the alarms don't go off.
The moral of the story is, if you *are* going to put in a card-swipe system,
don't let the security people control it :-)
