bybb wrote:

When I was in Year 5 and I was going to Secondary School on thursdays instead of doing PE an ICT teacher let a student use his laptop, huge mistake! The student stole the excel spreadsheet containing every users username and password and then decided to start logging into every account he could and changing profile images, deleting files, stealing emails etc etc. He also stored a copy of the excel spreadsheet on his dropbox account. I'm pretty sure the student was hoping to get away with it but the student also made a huge mistake. He used the same computer he was previously logged into. IT support tracked him down and the student was forced to delete the file from his dropbox and then permanently excluded. The school did the smart thing and changed EVERYONE'S password in case the student had another back-up. Worst thing was, people were having their files deleted while they were logged on and that's how the school found out. If the student had only waited for the next day and didn't delete files, he would have probably got away with it.

StackMasher wrote:

if our school computers had the superior OS© Linux, I would be able to screw around with them more
but we have windows, and I can barely use it so the most I could figure out is batch files are runnable as administrator (you'd think they would block regular users from performing things as admin but)

Firedrake969 wrote:

StackMasher wrote:

if our school computers had the superior OS© Linux, I would be able to screw around with them more
but we have windows, and I can barely use it so the most I could figure out is batch files are runnable as administrator (you'd think they would block regular users from performing things as admin but)

Having administrator permissions is far from barely usable

Firedrake969 wrote:

StackMasher wrote:

if our school computers had the superior OS© Linux, I would be able to screw around with them more
but we have windows, and I can barely use it so the most I could figure out is batch files are runnable as administrator (you'd think they would block regular users from performing things as admin but)

Having administrator permissions is far from barely usable

-stache- wrote:

All email passwords in spreadsheet accessible to all teachers…

awesome-llama wrote:

Almost every computer at my school has access to a collaboration folder, mainly used for submitting tasks that we have done on the computer. I spent a while looking through the years of files stored there and found some funny stuff, empty folders and useless files.

<snip>

Another thing: our usernames are our first and last names joined with a “.” and default passwords were “password1”. Though it isn't too bad since the passwords can be changed.

awesome-llama wrote:

I need to put blue screen of death screensavers on every school computer.

nathanprocks wrote:

I am the school IT.
After dropping out of high school, I ironically started working at a school as the IT guy.
Most things are managed by the Department, but I do stuff like fixing computers, deploying software, managing printers, IT support and troubleshooting, etc. If it's something I can't solve or don't have permission to do, I just log an IT support request and the regional team can solve it.

I just logged into the school's terminal server and done a speedtest: http://www.speedtest.net/result/6181184942.png
Pretty fast at night time when there's no one using all the bandwidth. Schools here have a symmetrical (upload and download are the same speed) fibre link. Our internet traffic goes through the Department's proxy server in Sydney. That can make websites load faster even for schools with a slow connection. It also allows them to filter websites.

-stache- wrote:

All email passwords in spreadsheet accessible to all teachers…

We are able to reset passwords, but afaik it is against some privacy policy to access a student's accounts.

awesome-llama wrote:

Almost every computer at my school has access to a collaboration folder, mainly used for submitting tasks that we have done on the computer. I spent a while looking through the years of files stored there and found some funny stuff, empty folders and useless files.

<snip>

Another thing: our usernames are our first and last names joined with a “.” and default passwords were “password1”. Though it isn't too bad since the passwords can be changed.

Do you go to a NSW public school? Just curious because of the collaboration folder and the username format (firstname.lastname). All schools here running eT4L servers have a Collaboration folder like the one you mentioned.
Last year after our school migrated to the new server, students were storing heaps of games in the collaboration folder and their home folders. After emailing the deputy principal a long list of students who were storing games on the server, she warned them and it stopped.

When I see students playing inappropriate games (such as GTA) in the library, I like to have a bit of fun. I walk past their computer and look at the 3 digit number written on it. Then I login to a computer near them (but not directly next to them) and look up the name of the computer that is associated with that number. I open Command Prompt and run the tasklist command to see a list of programs running on their computer, then use taskkill to kill the game. Sometimes I also make a message appear on their screen.

nathanprocks wrote:

I am the school IT.
After dropping out of high school, I ironically started working at a school as the IT guy.
Most things are managed by the Department, but I do stuff like fixing computers, deploying software, managing printers, IT support and troubleshooting, etc. If it's something I can't solve or don't have permission to do, I just log an IT support request and the regional team can solve it.

I just logged into the school's terminal server and done a speedtest: http://www.speedtest.net/result/6181184942.png
Pretty fast at night time when there's no one using all the bandwidth. Schools here have a symmetrical (upload and download are the same speed) fibre link. Our internet traffic goes through the Department's proxy server in Sydney. That can make websites load faster even for schools with a slow connection. It also allows them to filter websites.

-stache- wrote:

All email passwords in spreadsheet accessible to all teachers…

We are able to reset passwords, but afaik it is against some privacy policy to access a student's accounts.

awesome-llama wrote:

Almost every computer at my school has access to a collaboration folder, mainly used for submitting tasks that we have done on the computer. I spent a while looking through the years of files stored there and found some funny stuff, empty folders and useless files.

<snip>

Another thing: our usernames are our first and last names joined with a “.” and default passwords were “password1”. Though it isn't too bad since the passwords can be changed.

Do you go to a NSW public school? Just curious because of the collaboration folder and the username format (firstname.lastname). All schools here running eT4L servers have a Collaboration folder like the one you mentioned.
Last year after our school migrated to the new server, students were storing heaps of games in the collaboration folder and their home folders. After emailing the deputy principal a long list of students who were storing games on the server, she warned them and it stopped.

When I see students playing inappropriate games (such as GTA) in the library, I like to have a bit of fun. I walk past their computer and look at the 3 digit number written on it. Then I login to a computer near them (but not directly next to them) and look up the name of the computer that is associated with that number. I open Command Prompt and run the tasklist command to see a list of programs running on their computer, then use taskkill to kill the game. Sometimes I also make a message appear on their screen.

Explore403 wrote:

PintOfMilk wrote:

There are many things with primary school IT and new school IT
1. Windows + R = run
2. cmd.exe sometimes isn't blocked.
3. Bad file types aren't blocked like bat

HUGE PROBLEMS RIGHT THERE

card100 wrote:

Glad this is back up. It was getting a little out of hand

Explore403 wrote:

PintOfMilk wrote:

There are many things with primary school IT and new school IT
1. Windows + R = run
2. cmd.exe sometimes isn't blocked.
3. Bad file types aren't blocked like bat

HUGE PROBLEMS RIGHT THERE

Please don't talk in ALL CAPS.

herohamp wrote:

card100 wrote:

Glad this is back up. It was getting a little out of hand

Explore403 wrote:

PintOfMilk wrote:

There are many things with primary school IT and new school IT
1. Windows + R = run
2. cmd.exe sometimes isn't blocked.
3. Bad file types aren't blocked like bat

HUGE PROBLEMS RIGHT THERE

Please don't talk in ALL CAPS.

He was using it show how big the problem is…

bybb wrote:

please refrain from using excessive CAPS, emoticons, or Talking Like This

card100 wrote:

herohamp wrote:

card100 wrote:

Glad this is back up. It was getting a little out of hand

Explore403 wrote:

PintOfMilk wrote:

There are many things with primary school IT and new school IT
1. Windows + R = run
2. cmd.exe sometimes isn't blocked.
3. Bad file types aren't blocked like bat

HUGE PROBLEMS RIGHT THERE

Please don't talk in ALL CAPS.

He was using it show how big the problem is…

bybb wrote:

please refrain from using excessive CAPS, emoticons, or Talking Like This

nathanprocks wrote:

I open Command Prompt and run the tasklist command to see a list of programs running on their computer, then use taskkill to kill the game. Sometimes I also make a message appear on their screen.

DeleteThisAcount wrote:

What kind of messages?

bybb wrote:

PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING

Discuss bad and good school IT.

Sadly the old topic got removed most likely due to people discussing piracy, methods of piracy, too much leet speak and discussing ways of breaking school IT policies (I have to say I contributed to that).

In this topic I want to set a few rules first:

To quote the Advanced Topics FAQ:

please refrain from using excessive CAPS, emoticons, or Talking Like This

Please don't use leetspeak unless it's necessary to a story.

Don't discuss piracy or methods of piracy even if you say you don't encourage it.
In the UK GCHQ monitor all internet traffic searching for software pirates, sometimes downloading alone isn't enough to get you arrested, posting evidence that you HAVE been doing so will most likely end up with a few or more police officers at your house. And if you're a child, your parents will probably get arrested for not checking what your doing (It counts as neglect)

Please discuss things not only related to your schools IT problems in general, but be more specific. We started having a conversation about bad printer setups in the old thread which was interesting.

If you see spam, non-needed leet speak or other posts talking about subjects of dubious legality, please report the post before the subject gets out of hand.

This thread is for Good School IT, Bad School IT and anything related to school IT. Got some good news about your IT being a bit better lately? Discuss it here.

Please don't just say things like “My school IT is good” or “My school IT is bad”, this is the advanced topics, pick some interesting points (such as pay to print printers) that people can expand upon and get a good conversation, go into technical specifics and see what other people have to say.

And if you follow these rules I'm sure this topic will be much better than the older one (we can finally discuss good things so we won't run out of posts as easy!)