Re: Peeling off desktop Administrator Rights

[randy marchany <marchany () VT EDU>]

It's been very interesting to see the different scenarios that you
guys have for delegating some priv set to general users. But, IMHO,
all of these don't address the real issue: how long does it take for a
general user to get a software package installed on their desktop if
you don't allow them to do it themselves? Hours? Days? Weeks?

As a long time sysadmin (25+ years) I've beginning to think that we
(sysadmins) are more of the problem than the users because we set up
environments that make address OUR needs/likes and not so much the
user requirements. That model dooms a site to failure, I think.  The
"original" purpose of these restrictions was to prevent users from
downloading malware/trojans  that were embedded in "cute" programs
like aquarium backgrounds, etc. So, the sysadmin in me says "no, no,
no, you can't do that" but we never built an efficient mechanism to
allow a user to download what THEY need to do THEIR job.  I know one
of the reasons why I went down this path was because there was only 1
of me and 10K users. 2 events would overwhelm my response
capabilities. The attack vectors have changed. Now, malware gets
inserted on a desktop without any active user intervention other than
surfing the www and having malware downloaded to their desktop which
is the very thing we tried to prevent with our "no local admin
rights". So, are we going to ban www surfing? Doesn't that impact the
business process? Imagine if we sysadmins aren't allowed to surf sites
like sourceforge, packetstormsecurity, etc. If that happens, then our
job becomes much more difficult.

 I look at some depts here on campus who let their users install
whatever software they want and I don't see any significant increase
in bad events happening in those environments. This leads to me
question how effective was the user ban?

That's why I'm curious to see how long it takes from the time a user
requests a software package to be installed on their desktop to the
time it actually gets installed. I think you'll see what I'm talking
about when we look at the responses.

-r.