[techtalk] Slightly OT: My dopey sysadmin strikes again!

[J-Mag Guthrie]

On Wed, 4 Apr 2001, Melissa Plunkett wrote:

> Yes, the sysadmin job at educational institutions....oh the interesting 
> situations you get that do not seem to happen at any other 
> institutions.

Yes, they do.  My spousal unit works for a small not-yet-public company
which just fired the other guy who knows Linux.  So, SU is told to change
all the passwords by the NT "Doofas for all seasons".  DFAS wants all
these passwords to be easily guessable by the guys in the field, so he
makes them (predictible) variations on the site number and the street
address.  Either they never plan to fire anyone ever again.......ever or
they could just as easily used passwords like "itesayinenay".  

DFAS is immune to arguments about it not being secure -- he's more afraid
of having to track a password book than of spending any effort at all
towards providing anything but token security.   

-- 
J-Mag Guthrie        /"\  "Even Microsoft's product managers privately 
Brokersys            \ /   concede that this new version, with its 
281-580-3358 (voice)  X    warm-and-fuzzy nickname of Windows Me, 
281-586-0628 (fax)   / \   is not for everyone." -- Dwight Silverman