Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!world!boris
From: boris@world.std.com (Boris Levitin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: computer security
Message-ID: <1990Nov25.101038.17650@world.std.com>
Date: 25 Nov 90 10:10:38 GMT
References: <1990Nov20.221333.4619@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>   <36124@cup.portal.com> <1990Nov21.190134.19749@uncecs.edu> <36149@cup.portal.com>
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Organization: The World @ Software Tool & Die
Lines: 24

david_islander_hughes@cup.portal.com writes:
>Ahem, but as a supervisor and purchaser of several hundred thousand
>bucks worth of equipment over the past few years I must wave the
>management flag. . . . Computers and their hard drives ARE the
>property of the company. . . If I feel that certain files have no business
>on our equipment . . off they come. Period. Being a regular reader of Newsbyte
>(a VERY good service and worth every penny!) I see that down in Aussie
>land the computer "police" swept through a big office and found lots and
>lots of illegal software copies. Now, it is not for me to judge WHO
>put the copies on the HD's but I do know who will be FINED!

Copying of software in violation of the license remains, in the majority
of cases, unenforceable, both because of constitutional protection against
illegal searches and because enforcement on a wide scale would take a
tremendous effort.

Secondly, the original poster did not say that what his company purged from
his disk was software copied in violation of its license.

As far as the poster's problem goes, a simple password-protection scheme
(such as LockOut or NightWatch) might be enough of a deterrent.  If he is not
allowed to lock the Systems people out entirely, he might be able to run an
access-managed environment (using FileGuard, for example) which would password-
protect file deletion only, or access to specific folders.