Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@ThanosReXXX The /shrug regarding Reader was more for the reasoning of why, not a blatant dismissal. I'm gonna miss them and hope whatever their reason for leaving wasn't for drastic reasons, but...who can say?

On name changes: funnily enough I did have that detail cached somewhere in memory, but I'd forgotten about it. XD I've changed my username here a couple of times, but it's been awhile.

OMG. Some bloody fools at the board of education decided that USB memory sticks and SD cards are a "security" risk even for teachers and staff! They BOLTED PCs to the desks in the office and now they have blocked access to services like Google Drive! This means we have no way of transferring files between our own PCs and work machines. Have to make prints on the work machines or print them at home and make copies at work, but if we want to do a presentation in class we have to use out own PC - which we cannot connect to the internet at work - Or are limited to writing on the chalk board and showing pictures on paper! When I was a kid in the 90s at least they had those overhead projectors that you could write on clear paper, and print things on the clear paper to show larger on the screen that way!

This is the most heavy handed BS they have ever done. I get that they were scared by a recent news story of a teacher in another city stealing personal information, but this is beyond extreme and unneeded. It means you need to run better background checks on new hires, not gimp all existing staff!

It's like some stupid boomers want to go back to the 1960s or something!

@Heavyarms55 10 years ago, usb drive secruity was standard where I worked. My company was worried about corporate espionage, worried about the tactic of someone leaving a usb drive in the parking lot, hoping an employee sees it and plugs it into a computer to deliver malware. NFC or magnetic ID tags were needed at every door into the building. Your situation makes me wonder if new cyber threats have stepped up in addition to the story you mentioned.

Bolting down PC's sounds... odd, for sure. I keep wondering when people & business are going to start isolating from the internet for security.

@Heavyarms55 Wow. What a pain in the a**. Especially for teachers, who typically have a boatload of great lessons and PowerPoints on their USBs they can conveniently access. When I was teaching more, I used to hate printing everything out and often found a digital workaround.

No way that rule stands for long. At least I hope not for your sake.

@Heavyarms55 (Here is a naive line, meant for comedy) It's almost like computers and connectivity can pose some sort of security risk. 🤔

(and now sincere:) tech is getting nuts. I don't blame you for venting, Heavyarms55

@Woomy_NNYes But DuPont is a major chemical company right? This is a jr. high school! Making prints and presentations for class is a part of a teacher's job and we often do, or I guess I should say, did, it on our own PC at home and then brought them to work.

Further, the ban on USB and SD cards I kinda do understand to a degree - for students at least. But last week we could still use services like Google Drive just fine - so I thought, okay I can work with this. Then I came into work this morning and found nope, now that's blocked too.

I wonder if they're going to even block e-mail attachments.... It's obnoxious in the extreme!

@NotTelevision Technically, I am an assistant teacher, so I have more time personally - but other teachers are already here long after all the students go home it's annoying for me, it's a major hindrance for them.

@Woomy_NNYes Humor or not, I get it, there is a risk - but it's like, one step short of banning cars because there are bad drivers. Instead of trying to deal with the bad drivers, they want to just take away cars entirely? Instead of dealing with people who would steal data, they just make it borderline impossible to use the system.

@Heavyarms55 in 2009-ish they didn't want the "chemical company" image anymore, and sold off DuPont automotive & industrial paint and other businesses. They were making a business portfolio focused on environmental solutions, and I think pharmaceutical & agriculture focus, but I'm not with them anymore to know what's going on lately.

Well, cyber is a threat to infrastructure. At least around 2001 countries have been putting undetectable zero day malware into many facets of infrastructure. So, anywhere they can get an edge, disrupt, or collect information from rivals, they do it. China has been constantly hacking US higher ed & high tech research. But, you could be right, your situation could be a misguided reaction, with questionable effectiveness.

Better dust off those floppy disks

Nah @Eel, I want vhs tapes. I remember like 10 years ago, someone was repurposing vcr tapes for very high capacity data storage. Granted, that wouldn't be quick access to the info. I don't think it went anywhere. But the more ridiculous, the more amusing

@Woomy_NNYes Honestly I just Googled "Dupont" and went with the first result - which called it a chemical company.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely understand the need for security. Corporate espionage and cyber terrorism are very real issues. But I'm only talking about MS word and Powerpoint files for use in the classroom. For things like teaching how to say "There is a cat on the table." in English.

A better way to handle this situation would be to have students' personal information stored on a separate password protected server. The school doesn't even have that much personal info on them to my knowledge. But enough that I do agree it needs to be secured. But instead of having a system locked to the desks that blocks out "security risks" why not secure the data on a private server? Or even on another, separate server that's not connected to the internet at all!?

@Heavyarms55 Well, when they were selling off their Auto & industiral paint, the story was they wanted a more environmentally friendly image... or that was story. Whatever the reason, they sold off my job, some division was going to Mexico -the classic american tale. I can't explain what it is now, 10 years later.

@Heavyarms55 We've got to deal with some annoyances in Korea as well, but nothing that crazy. In my school, e-mail is blocked but Google Drive still works. But if I ever need to get to something that's blocked, I just turn my phone's hotspot on and connect my work laptop to the Internet through my phone instead of over the wired connection. I've done that before to get e-mail attachments in an emergency.

@klingki That's likely what I will be doing. I just don't like having to use my data for work...

@Heavyarms55 Your reaction that your school security is a knee-jerk reaction, could be justified. People do some amazing things

@Heavyarms55 Totally with you on that. Until earlier this year, I was on some kind of ancient phone plan that only gave me 2 GB of data per month. Now I've got 100 GB (somehow for less money than the old 2 GB plan), so it's not as big of an issue.

@Woomy_NNYes It is in line with how the BOE generally handles things... Overreaction.

@klingki Goodness how does that work?! 100GB cheaper than 2GB? I've got a pretty nice plan that lets me pay more or less based on usage but that doesn't mean I want to be burning my data on repeatedly downloading and uploading my own work over and over. :/

@Heavyarms55 Yeah, that makes total sense considering your payment plan.

I think what happened with me is that I was still using the original phone plan that I signed up for when I first came to Korea like 8 years ago. Since then, prices have come down a bit, especially for data which everyone over here uses a ton of. So I was sort of "grandfathered" into an outdated phone plan that was discontinued, and I didn't even think twice about it until my wife got a new phone and I saw the plans that they were offering her. When I switched my plan and the worker saw what I had been signed up for, she literally laughed at me! I think my 100 GB plan ended up being like $10-15 less per month than my 7-year-old 2 GB plan.

@klingki Oh goodness! I guess I can't really blame a company for letting people pay so much for so little if they don't know better... but like... that's still kinda nasty.

@Heavyarms55 Yeah, totally my bad for not looking into it more. And now that I think about it, it's possible that they did send some sort of message to me and I just ignored it due to not understanding Korean well enough. I get a lot of random Korean messages that are just spam, so I don't pay much attention to them. Anyway, lesson learned!