From: fwp@Jester.CC.MsState.Edu (Frank Peters)
Subject: Re: A question of ethics
Keywords: ethics cracking law
Organization: Computing Center, Mississippi State University
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 02:36:30 GMT

In article <miw.703127098@brolga> miw@brolga.cc.uq.oz.au (Mark I. Williams) says:
>john@iastate.edu (John Hascall) writes:
>
>>Were I the Admin of YY I would have the Admin of XX called on the carpet
>>post haste where I would urge that s/he be fired on the spot.
>
>(a) This is not easy, because it is a university.

Even if s/he weren't fired the complaint would be worthwhile in its own
right.  Any little annoyance to make XX reconsider any such actions in
the future.

>(b) It is inadvisable, because the other sysadmin is a colleague and has
>    the same employer.

Why does this make it inadvisable?  If they work in different departments
then they probably don't have superiors in common for at least one level.

This depends upon the employer/supervisor but I'd expect my boss to
support me in this complaint (in fact, he'd probably want to make it
instead of me).

My preferred course of action (after consulting with my own superior)
would be to contact XX and his/her superior and indicate that we
consider the action to be a violation of our usage rules.  If XX had a
userid on our system I'd initiate procedures to get this access
revoked.  I'd also get in contact with other departmental
administrators on campus and warn them of XX's actions.  I'd also
encourage them to get in touch with XX and XX's superior and make their
feelings on this action known.  If the offense were repeated I'd lobby
hard to have access from XX's systems to my systems disabled at the 
network level.

All of this, of course, depends upon how dependent you may be on XX's
department for cooperation.  Being in our Computing Center we are in a
fortunate relative power position (not that I can imagine any of my
fellow administrators here doing something like this).

>>If, as someone else suggested, the XX admin called me and asked me to
>>delete P from A's account on YY, I would politely refuse (assuming P
>>was allowed on YY).
>
>I might do it that way, but would probably also carpet student A for
>having a .rhosts file. 

In a university environment a limited .rhosts file is not a grave sin
(though it is ill advised.  I'd recommend that the user reconsider
using a .rhosts file (or a stronger password if XX got on by CRACKing
but it seems unfair to suggest that this was the user's fault.
Presumably he/she expected reasonable behavior from XX.

I, like John, would indicate that P does not violate our policies and
(politely) refuse to remove it.

>I think student A would be best cutting his/her losses and hoping admin XX
>doesn't have his/her account pulled on machine XX. You think the
>University is going to push charges against itself? The *student* has no
>rights in this case, because all resources used belong to the
>university.

Pursuing such an action would be important to me as well as my user.
I'd want to make it absolutely clear to XX that it is not his/her
position to decide what my users may and may not do with my systems.
I'd also want to make it clear that his/her use of another user's
account is as much a violation as if another random user had done it.

You are probably right that no real action would be taken at many
institutions (though not all of them by any means).  But enough of a
ruckus could probably be raised to significantly discourage XX from
doing the same thing again.

Perhaps I'm overly sensitive but I would consider XX's actions
to be as much a violation of administrator/administrator
courtesy as of administrator/user courtesy.

I'd feel the same about a neighbor coming into my house uninvited
and taking a toy away from one of my children.

--
Frank Peters  -  UNIX Systems Programmer  -  Mississippi State University
Internet: fwp@CC.MsState.Edu  -  Phone: (601)325-7030  -  FAX: (601)325-8921
Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk