UCI Housing Network and Cable TV Issues

I have heard that Cisco's CCA/NAC is soon going to be retired, since the contract expires. Cisco actually has not actively marketed this POS for a long time. They know that it is crap, only the likes of Resnet needed years to come to that conclusion... Slow learners...
If they had listened to us way back when, everybody would have been better off.
But well, better late than never

Anyway, there presumably is something else considered, although it that doesn't seem to be fixed in stone yet.
Housing IT (i.e., Resnet) apparently has been discussing this with AGS, and the resident councils have been alerted so that they also can have input.
So, everybody should contact their respective resident councils (PVRC and VRC) to make their voice heard.

I've got word that UCI ResNet "suffered a major data loss".
This is of course a lot of fresh egg in their faces, given that they always think they are all-knowing, and ignore or brush off people like me who point out the folly of their ways.
Like in their AMA on Reddit a few months back, where they accused me of "having an agenda."
As it turns out, I don't need an agenda.
Every time I check, Resnet demonstrates all by itself that they are completely incompetent.
Here's a free hint: It is called backup. Just do it... And check that the backup actually is valid. All this can be automated with some small scripts. But as Mr. Roberge, then ResNet director, and now UCI Housing's IT director, so infamously said: "we don't do scripts"...

The actual email from Resnet about the data loss is here.

I came to know about an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit that UCI Resnet started.
Apparently, Resnet wanted to keep this low-key.
But then, somebody there asked about my blog, and I saw the blog hits, and went to check it out Obviously, the Resnet people hadn't expected me to show up, so they got rather defensive when I nailed them about their braindead instructions to misconfigure routers.
It seems their definition of "anything" doesn't extend to this stuff...
We'll see if this was just a lame attempt at PR which backfired, or if they are really going to grow up and do proper network administration. I won't hold my breath, but I invite them to surprise me

Update: Now these guys are backpedaling, claiming that they were just some students who work for Resnet. If they didn't have approval from Resnet management to do this AMA, Resnet is managed even worse than I thought. Some undergrads who obviously have no clue about network administration trying to speak for Resnet... How f*ed up must UCI Resnet be that such stuff is even possible???
If these guys really did this without management approval, they should get fired first thing in the morning. If they don't get fired, it is just another data point showing that they lied in the AMA.

It seems that Microsoft has updated their "Security Essentials" tool, and the Cisco Clean Access (nowadays called NAC) POS that Resnet forces on everybody in UCI Housing does not recognize it.
This is of course not a surprise to anybody who knows how CCA/NAC works and who knows what a bunch of crap this stuff is.
Resnet of course makes it worse by telling people to use another Anti-Virus package (bloatware like McAfee) or to revert to the previous version of Security Essentials.
UCI Resnet seems to be so incompetent that they can't even create a custom rule as work-around.
Network administrators at other universities can do that just fine, to keep their students online...

So, to nobody's surprise, UCI Resnet once again seems determined to show their incompetence to everybody.

It has been 3 1/2 years since the last update to the Perl script to log into CCA.
A kind soul recently fixed it to work with the current CCA installation at UCI Resnet.
Grab it here.
As always, know what you are doing and use at your own risk.