Questions about UNIX viruses

[Chris Lewis]

> >I am facing this at my job (which is not at Princeton University).  The
> >company I work for has a policy of (almost) no internet connections.
> >Worse, it has a policy that we are not to have any non-company-owned
> >software on our computers.  This means no software from Usenet.  I
> >think the goal may be reasonable, but I think the means are not for two
> >reasons: 1. the policy probably won't work, and 2. it restricts free
> >exchange of ideas.  The latter, in my belief, affects productivity, so
> >bottom-line-watchers ought to care about it too.

> I would agree that this is a foolish policy.  I can understand their
> security fears, but I believe that the free exchange of ideas is
> extremely important in a scientific/engineering community.

You may be jumping to conclusions that this is entirely security
related.  There are several other reasons for such a policy:
	- to ensure that they can establish that they are legally entitled
	  to *have* the software in the first place.  More than a few
	  companies have been caught having pirated copies of commercial
	  software.  (and some has accidentally slipped into the net)
	- so there's no arguments as to the ownership of pieces of
	  their own products.  Ie: some company finding out that they can't
	  distribute their product until they negotiate licenses with the
	  originator of a library routine that they used.
	- so that they can maintain some sort of support control over
	  their computer environments.  Ie: finding out that some PD
	  program has infiltrated into being vital to their operations,
	  and then they can't upgrade to a machine that can't run the
	  package.  Management likes knowing their dependencies.
	- Support...
Several major companies have policies that PD is okay, but freeware (copyrighted)
is not.  In some cases these policies are quite justified, for some companies
are frequent targets of "theft of intellectual property" lawsuits for such things.
-- 
Chris Lewis, Phone: (613) 832-0541, Domain: clewis at ferret.ocunix.on.ca
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