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From: Cherry@Frodo.MGH.Harvard.EDU (J. Michael Cherry)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Georgia Tech's Restriction on Internet Access
Message-ID: <5939@husc6.harvard.edu>
Date: 10 Mar 91 18:00:51 GMT
References: <23808@hydra.gatech.EDU> <23963@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu
Organization: Molecular Biology, Mass. General Hospital
Lines: 34


 gt6004a@prism.gatech.EDU (Michael Goldsman) writes:
 [quoting from a memo from the Office of Information Technology]
 >...  Any member of the faculty or staff, with authority to 
 >access remote resources across the Internet, would be granted an account 
 >on the Trusted Host.  Postdocs, Graduate Research Assistants, and ...

Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems that the position that Georgia Tech 
is taking will slow the use of network services. In the science of 
molecular biology we are at the dawn of information sharing via network 
client/servers. Molecular Biologist's need access to very large databases 
of information that are growing at an ever increasing rate. Several 
university and government groups are developing network client/servers 
that will allow the scientists to query remote database servers and 
retrieve information. These servers are not simply a oneway exchange like 
a mail server, rather because of the amount of information and the type of 
questions molecular biologist's ask about this information the server and 
client interact in a dialogue traversing levels of organization and types 
of information. Ideally this exchange will occur using a familiar GUI to 
the user on microcomputers in laboratories where the data is used and 
generated. Requiring that all outside network exchange go through a 
trusted host may be just a bother to mail or telnet users but it 
eliminates the ability of the lab computer from accessing the remote 
server. All these clients will need to be placed on the trusted host and 
sufficient file space offered. The user also completely loses the GUI 
interface as they are being developed if one must login on a trust host. 
This will ultimately make use of the Internet more difficult of the 
non-computer savy users and require more network programming or redundant 
services within the restricted campuses.

Mike Cherry
cherry@frodo.mgh.harvard.edu
Department of Molecular Biology
Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston