Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Wireless networks and policy documents

This week has been policy writing week. In particular policy governing the use of wireless networking at Rhodes.

I find myself facing an interesting conundrum. On the one hand I'm all for community wireless networks and open access — the Internet wants to be shared; on the other hand I'm responsible for cost justifying the University's use of Internet access and maintaining the security and integrity of the University's network. Lets face it, these are two very conflicting interests.

Rhodes has a history of producing very realistic, down to earth policies relating to its information and communications technologies. We're often been seen as the anomaly in the South African tertiary education scene because we're the only ones who seem to realise that universities are places to experiment, learn and generally push boundaries. Our policies tend to take the form of social contracts. They define a set of norms by which users are expected to abide as well as attempting to explain the reasons for those norms. Academic freedom is a priority with most policies allowing the freedom to experiment provided you don't do anything too stupid. We're also one of the only places that solicits the opinions of our entire user community (including our students) before implementing policy.

While I've been on the periphery of the development of some of these policies they are, by and large, written by my boss who seems to have a knack for these things. I feel like I've got some big shoes to fulfill in trying to put together a policy that matches the Rhodes style.

How do we put together a policy governing wireless networking that addresses the inherent security concerns that come with the technology but isn't overly restrictive? Our experience is that overly restrictive policies encourage transgression whereas more liberal policies seem to encourage compliance. Of course if they're too liberal they may as well not exist.

Step one was to have a look around and see what other people had done. Several US universities and colleges have developed wireless policies, either as a whole or relating to specific departments. SecurityFocus and a few others have interesting articles on the subject. Armed with some ideas I started writing. Actually scribbling on the whiteboard came first — David and I put down our ideas on the board and the I fleshed it out into a real document.

My first draft erred too much on the cautious side. As is typical of Rhodes, Barry and Jody soon set me straight. Draft two was way too liberal but John soon set me straight on that front. I'm now working on the compromise :-) I've discovered this is how the Rhodes style develops. It is all about the balancing act that comes from soliciting a wide range of opinions. The result is (I hope) a document that takes into consideration most people's concerns and strikes a nice balance.

posted by guy at: 20:17 SAST | path: /systems | permanent link