Re: OT: vendor contacts after list posting

[Conor McGrath <conormc () UCHICAGO EDU>]

On Wed, Apr 11, 2007 at 01:56:14PM -0500 Waller, Michael A. (HSC) said:
> As much as over-zealous vendors can be a nuisance, I think vendors who
> demonstrate basic professionalism can add a great deal to these lists,
> so I'd hate to see something overly restrictive.

Agreed.  We should be careful to not paint with too broad a brush.
As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, there are vendors on this list
who try to provide useful information without pushing their products.
I appreciate these efforts.  I do not generally think of vendors as "scum"
as a previous poster stated.  Vendors are essential to the work we do.

I have strong professional relationships with many vendors as do most
of us on this list.  There will always be a certain percentage who will
not play by the rules but we should be careful not to take that out on
every vendor who crosses our patch.

I must say I'm surprised that Bradford Networks would engage in such
conduct.  My interactions with them have been entirely professional.
We have not purchased their product but have been mulling it over for
a long time.  They have been very patient and willing to answer any
questions we have in a timely and thorough fashion.  I guess YMMV.

-Conor


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Russell [mailto:prussell () ND EDU]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 1:32 PM
> To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
> Subject: Re: [SECURITY] OT: vendor contacts after list posting
>
> On 4/11/2007 11:51, David Boyer wrote:
> > For what it's worth, not long after making this posting I was
> contacted by
>  > Bradford Networks about their NAC products. I'm not sure how everyone
> else
>  > feels, but it's a real turn off for me when vendors troll these
> constituent
>  > group discussions to generate sales leads.
> > Maybe this is common practice and I'm just being naive. Any thoughts?
>
> You can report the incident to the list owner by sending an email
> message to
> security-request () listserv educause edu. I do not know the policy in this
> forum, so I have no idea what, if any, action might be taken. In many
> forums,
> this behavior is explicitly prohibited. In some forums, it will result
> in
> the vendor being expelled.
>
> --
> Paul Russell, Senior Systems Administrator
> OIT Messaging Services Team
> University of Notre Dame
> prussell () nd edu

--
Conor McGrath                                           Phone: (773)702-7611
Manager for Network Security                            Fax: (773)834-8444
Network Security Center, The University of Chicago      NetSec: (773)702-2378
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