[1131] in IS Home Pages
Re: Core Software: Timbuktu Site License?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ginny Williams)
Wed Mar 29 09:19:41 2000
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In-Reply-To: <4.2.2.20000328190801.04a2e4b0@po12.mit.edu>
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 09:19:25 -0500
To: Jonathan McIndoe Hunt <jmhunt@mit.edu>,
"Kevin M. Cunningham" <kcunning@mit.edu>, goguen@mit.edu, swrt@mit.edu,
mitapps@mit.edu, vsls@mit.edu, ishome@mit.edu
From: Ginny Williams <ginnyw@MIT.EDU>
Cc: hogue@mit.edu
When I was at MacWORLD this year I spoke with the people at Netopia and
brought back some brochures. The new version has more features that the
one available previously and I was considering it for VIPhelp. Given the
number of machines administered by viphelp and dcs, we may be able to save
a significant amount of time if we include this as part of our standard
operating procedure. I bet there are IT partners who would also appreciate
having it. I'm confident that we could find a way to enable clients to
lock out files and areas that they don't want us to have access to, and
believe I received affirmation about this from one of the vice presidents
of the company. I'll look at the info when I get back to find the contact
name.
ginny
At 7:21 PM -0500 3/28/00, Jonathan McIndoe Hunt wrote:
>Hi Kevin,
>
>As I recall, IS looked into Timbuktu a few years back (maybe 6) and decided
>that Timbuktu violates MIT Privacy Guidelines. It provides too much
>access to people's computers via the network and is too open to
>abuse. This is what I was told as a student working on the Network
>Helpdesk 5 years ago.
>
>-Jonathan
>
>At 06:15 PM 3/28/2000 -0500, Kevin M. Cunningham wrote:
>>Howdy,
>>
>>As I was researching how other universities distribute software, I noticed
>>that USC has a site license for Timbuktu, which is software that allows
>>you to remotely manage another computer, including seeing what's on the
>>screen. They include this software in their basic distribution set (along
>>with Netscape, Fetch, etc.), and they list it as a "Remote Consulting"
>>product, implying it's used to help consultants work with customers remotely.
>>
>>Have we looked into getting a Timbuktu site license to help our consulting
>>groups assist clients remotely?
>>
>>Of course, it may be too expensive, inappropriate, etc. -- there's no
>>indication whether USC has found it worth its investment (we'd want to
>>check with the -- and with Netopia about costs...). And I know it wouldn't
>>help with basic connectivity issues or remote computing (e.g., laptops,
>>dialup, etc.), which are a significant part of the Help call load. But it
>>might be worth looking into.
>>
>>Just a thought as we once again look into how to help the support
>>providers help customers.
>>
>>--Kevin
