[WEB4LIB] data ports for public use

[Bosman, Don]

Yes, but! Accountability should be considered. 

Consider the potential for abuse. What if J. D. Spammer comes into your building, connects to your network utilizing NAT to hide behind your IP and sends thousands of emails out, a few scores at a time. What if they threaten or harass someone while hiding behind your IP range? This is also a potential problem for wireless nets. 

We use three distinct networks here. We use different color jacks to identify staff, public, and DHCP ports. Staff ports all use static IPs and authentication. Public terminals connect, via DHCP, to the web through our proxy server. Public terminals are all visible to staff and public traffic. Users can access a tremendous quantity of selected resources and anything we permit via proxy server. Outside of .gov and .mil sites web browsers are very restricted. Yes we do have to keep updating the lock down list. B-) DHCP machines require authentication to a university account. Users are not restricted, but are potentially accountable. Exception requests from visiting faculty, grad students, and the general public are addressed individually. It isn't perfect, but it works for us. 


Don Bosman
Information Technologist
Michigan State University Libraries
517-353-8586
dbosman at mail.lib.msu.edu


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lin Light [mailto:holight at llcoop.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 1:15 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: [WEB4LIB] data ports for public use
> 
> 
> This is something that we are asked for a lot -- Data ports for the
> Public to connect to the Internet using their own computers.  1) you
> don't really want your gateway known to all. 2) you don't want to sign
> everybody up with some kind of an account or network login.
> I'm thinking of some kind of DHCP/NATing  running through a 
> segiment of
> the router.  Am I close?
> Lin
> 
> 
> --
> Lin Light
> Head of
> Technical Services/Automation
> Herrick District Library
> 300 S. River Ave.
> Holland, MI 49423
> llight at llcoop.org
> Voice-616.355.3727
> Fax-616.355.1426
> 
> 
> 
>