Re: Deny access to copy files

[Aaron Howell <aaron_howell () ngenuity-is com>]

 All of the solutions mentioned so far are fine. They do not, however,
address the underlying problem here, which a few others have mentioned.
If you don't trust your programmers, why are they working for you? What
is going to stop one of these evil programmers from copying the source
by hand with pen and paper? What is going to stop them bringing a
digital camera (or camera phone) and snapping pictures of the source
code on the screen, and then re-typing it later, on an untrusted system?

 A good security policy, clearly stating what is and is not allowed, and
strictly enforced, is the only way to accomplish your goal. You can put
all the technical countermeasures in place, and still lose source code
as someone carries it out the door in their briefcase. If you allow
someone to work with the code, they are going to have access to it.
Period. You can not scrub your code from their memory when they leave
your building, how will you protect from that?

 Jon Kibler, in particular, makes some really good points about vetting
your systems and people. In the end, you're still left with the fact
that in order to work with the code, the developers need to be able to
read the code. There is no way to be absolutely sure that this code
won't walk out your door, so you need to focus on what to do WHEN it
walks out the door.

-- 
Aaron Howell
nGenuity Information Services
509-396-2075 x6000

http://www.ngenuity-is.com



Jon Kibler wrote:
> Ahmed Khalid wrote:
> > I am working for a software house, they are developing a software product
> > and their requirement is to restrict programmers to take the code out of
> > office premises due to company policy. I am trying to configure a windows
> > based machine which denies access to copy files to external storage devices
> > connected to USB. There is an NTFS permission ?Read + Execute? I guess this
> > could do the work but is there any other way to do it? 
>
> > They also don?t need programmers to take the code with them in their email.
> > I can restrict SMTP and POP ports but when it comes to web based emails I am
> > clueless,  How can I restrict web based emails like hotmail, gmail, yahoo
> > there are so many of these and if I somehow manage to block all web based
> > email sites someone can write a script to send emails, if not a script HTTP
> > tunneling would bypass any checks and bounds defined by my proxy/gateway
> > machine. How can I block such thing?
>
> > Any help would be highly appreciated.