Re: stopping students sharing their login credentials

[Valdis Kletnieks <Valdis.Kletnieks () VT EDU>]

On Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:52:35 EST, "James M. Dutcher - Assoc. VP IS/IT & CIO" said:

> Take for example highway "speed limits".  There is not enough
> police/surveillance in place to ensure that everyone complies with it.  But
> there is some in place to catch folks so as to (hopefully) keep the rest of
> the drivers in compliance.

On Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:22:23 EST, Gary Flynn said:

> randy marchany wrote:
> > One should never put in a policy/standard any item that can not be
> > enforced.
>
> I've heard that opinion espoused several times and I don't
> understand it.

The crucial point is that the speed limit *can* be enforced - every driver
going down the interstate *knows* there aren't enough cops to enforce every
mile of the highway, but there *are* enough to make it *possible* that the next
bit of shrubbery by the side of the road may have a trooper behind it, and if
their radar gun goes 'PING', you *will* have a very unpleasant 15 minutes on
the side of the road getting a ticket, and you will have a hard time beating
the rap.

Contrast this to a law that says "You may not drive on this highway on
Wednesdays wearing purple underwear, or on Thursdays wearing paisley", where
there is no feasible *practical* method for enforcing it, even on a semi-random
basis the way speed traps and truck weigh stations are done. Consider how
well-received the average DWI sobriety checkpoint is - how would you *enforce*
an underwear law?

It's one thing to write a policy that everybody knows that you *can* catch the
offenders, even if you actually bother to do so only 5% of the time. It's
something else to write a policy when it's widely known that you have *no* way
of catching offenders.

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