Comment by ohhmaagawd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ohhmaagawd | Hacker News Reader

IT depts don't care about developers getting shit done, they care about covering their asses. I work at a software company that has an IT dept that seems to do anything in it's power to keep work from being done. They do on access virus scanning which increases compile times 5x (which we can't turn off). They banned IM because of "legal issues". They banned itunes because of "legal issues" and "bandwidth issues". Any streaming media is banned because of "bandwidth issues". They installed software that keeps track of everything you install. They set up our (proprietary Nortel) VPN to route everything over their network. Chatrooms like Campfire - banned. SaaS - banned.

Of course I've worked around all these issues, but it's a PITA. I don't buy the legal issue argument as companies like google and msft don't have all these restrictions.

I'd love to know the reality on these legal issues. Is there really a legal reason for a company to ban IM/Chatrooms/iTunes/etc? If so, why is it that Google doesn't?

Many, if not all, of the various restrictions I've seen put into place were done in reaction to a legal problem. IM gets banned because someone leaked a secret. Websites get blocked because of a rash of sexual-harassment lawsuits. On-access virus scanning because on-demand scanning didn't stop the last worm. It goes on and on.

There's a natural friction between developers and infrastructure. Developers consume the limited resources which IT has to manage. I've done plenty of both, and basically, both sides are correct. I recommend working on the "other side of the fence" for a little while to anybody in the industry.

You are absolutely correct. Covering the company's ass is half of IT's job. Providing services is only the other half. It's a tricky balancing act.

Legal problem #1 with IM is logging. In public companies, particularly in regulated industries, anything that has ever been recorded by any employee can and will be used against you, and the discovery will come at your expense. Everything that is said, but NOT logged, will be used as evidence of your malfeasance.

For this reason, E-mail systems are typically centralized, and users are prevented from pulling mail off the server, so that all e-mail can be retained for exactly six months, no more, no less.

With third-party IM services, that can't be done. This is the reason for the rise of highly restrictive internal IM - Lotus Sametime, Microsoft office communicator. With Communicator you can ban both logging AND copy-paste centrally, at the server. It's a terrible tool, but it controls the legal risk quite nicely.

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Google doesn't worry about this because they have more money than sense. (Also, not a regulated industry.)

The root of the problem is IT has no incentives or checks in place to maintain a reasonable level of productivity. Their only mission is to make sure that services are online and there aren't breaches. Productivity doesn't factor in at all.

I'm not in a regulated industry (enterprise software). I completely get this if it's healthcare or defense. But we are just talking about middleware here!

IT is a cost center. There's constant pressure to contain its headcount and budget.

The costs of providing a high level of service are obvious, but the costs of lousy services are all hidden. As a result, yes, there's usually NO incentive to do anything more than the minimum.

(The minimum, of course, involves the ass-covering.)

If you are in finance or health there can be legal reasons. But I think they are just lazy. Legally, those companies are supposed to log every message or email for a specific amount of time. For you, rather than go about putting the systems in place they would rather not deal with it at all.

The bandwidth issues though I have no idea. Sounds like someone found the shittiest provider in your area and got a cheap deal, or greased palms.

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