This hurts *US* more that it hurts THEM

We are implementing stricter rules in the use of our corporate network in the past few days and it involved changing the "permissions" of computer users on the PCs they are working on. In essence, we are preventing some activities that our users were used to doing in the past in order to make our network more secure and robust.

In the process of tightening our network security, users can no longer install programs without expressed permissions from at least their division heads. Also, they are now prohibited to "share" folders from within their computers to anyone in the network (goodbye MP3s and Videos!). This increased security has miffed some users since a lot of them seem to think that the computers that they are using at the office are their own. NEWSFLASH: They *do not* own the computers they use at the office. These are issued to them so that they can do the work that they do -- being the code monkeys that they are.

This additional security measures also mean more work on our part (the network monkeys?) since we have to re-establish ownership of the files on the computers to the user. We need to do this because before the lockdown, all users were local administrators on their Windows machines. This means that the users can put files anywhere on the hard drive which, in reality, is not a very good idea in the first place. Now, since they all lose their administrator privilege in their computers, they no longer "own" these files and we (the network monkeys) now have to go around the whole company re-establishing the ownership of these files to the users.

This is a rather bitter pill to swallow since we have to do this in order to assure a secure computing environment in our office. Hopefully within a couple of weeks, there would be less problems in our network and it will give me more time to add to this blog! :D