Crumbs
Rich T finds some tasty titbits you might have missed in the week's news
Tuesday 10 April 2007, 5:48 PM
Bye bye ISDN
PreviousComments on this post
Interesting news. On the face of it, you're right, it has been a long time coming given how ISDN has been superceded both in terms of connectivity and cost. But I think it will have more impact than you suggest - using my wife as an example, her employer (a leading global automotive manufacturer) currently installs an ISDN line to any employee working from home (irrespective of whether ADSL is available). Furthermore, their standard issue is to supply home workers with Thinkpad notebooks with the wireless connectivity switched off (and only with admin user rights so this can't be changed) Their policy is that ADSL and wireless pose severe security issues for their network - for home workers (the policy for mobile workers is different!) they are not prepared to compromise these risks.
Interestingly - this company outsources all its IT requirements to a wholly owned subsidiary.
That's interesting, 85685. I understand the (potential) security risks of wireless. But I'm intruiged to hear why your wife's company sees ADSL as a security risk. Any rationale you can pass on?
As far as I can understand the only rationale provided is the control factor. Because it is 'always on', it is viewed that there is a greater risk to ADSL because users will tend to leave a PC connected providing a potential in-road to the network. The dial-up ISDN option apparently provides more security and limits the users who will be able to use the connection. The other concern with ADSL is that it is practically difficult to police whether the user decides to attach a wireless router to the connection. In either case, it does appear an excessively paranoid view of how to enable home working.
Interesting. As far as I am aware, good IT practice demands a (balanced) trade-off between user productivity and security!
