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Resnet's Reddit AMA
04/21/13
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.
2 comments
Hi Joe,
I was skimming through the UCI subreddit and came across that AMA you mentioned, which led me to this blog.
I’m a grad CS student at UCI, and in no way do I claim that I might know as much networking as you do, but I’ve never run into any issues circumventing UCI’s network policies for years. As a result, I’ve also never been bothered by them. I like to think they are on a policy of “if you know enough to get past, you know enough to stay out of trouble".
That said, I think most people would agree that departments (with their policies, and all the good and the bad that come with them) like ResNet are here to stay. ResNet will be gone when every user on the network is a competent user, from the incoming freshman up to the highest ranking faculty. Why bother speaking out against them in this manner, if you can have everything that you want without much effort anyways?
I honestly can’t see anything that isn’t able to be bypassed that you would possibly want (well, except for more TV channels…)
Thanks for your comment.
Sure, Resnet is here to stay. And I have no problems with that. I just wish they would actually know what they are doing, which they clearly don’t. In industry, these guys wouldn’t last long.
On the CCA mailing list, there was one guy who tried to use CCA in a commercial company, and later reported that he nearly got fired…
And of course, everybody who knows how networks work would just put a router in front of their computer(s), connected the way it was intended to be used, with the WAN port going to the wall plug. I’ve never had NAC/CCA on my computers, not even on my Windows laptop. But this is not really about techies who know these things.
For example, the bad Resnet instructions to connect a LAN port to the network opens up a bunch of attack paths into the person’s computer. So, Resnet is actively increasing the risk of breakins, virus infections, etc., and that can affect everybody on the network.
