Member Avatar for Michael_35

Hi All,

I work for a college and I use their systems, which I have access to a whole host of software that for Data protection reasons that cant be installed on any other computer. The issue is, I dont like using them as I dont feel very productive as I havent got my own software. For example on the college systems we cant have dropbox or google drive installed on them and for me to use them I have to download the docuemnts from the broswer, edit then reupload. This creates a lot of confusion and wastes a lot of time.

To get around this I am looking at bringining my own computer into the college and making it independant of the college network. I will use their wifi for internet access so I can use online services, but this is where I get stuck....

I have dual monitors at my desk and both a USB mouse and keyboard. I thought have getting a KVM switch, but for one that supports two monitors I am looking at over £100, not to mention that I will need buy another computer for this to work with.

Is this my only solution to solve this problem?

Any help would be great, Thanks.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by overwraith
Member Avatar for CimmerianX

If I were your admin and I cought you doing this (circumventing network policy and protections) I would fire you on the spot. If the admins don't want you using dropbox tools, It's up to you to bring in another workstation for the purpose of coping company documents into it for easy uploading. I wouldn't care if 'cloud storage' is 'neat' and 'cool' to you. As an admin, users like this make my blood pressure rise.

commented: yep +13
Member Avatar for rubberman

Sorry CimmerianX, but this is a college, not a company system/network. Such lockdowns for colleges is just, in my opinion, stupid! Some firewall protections and such make sense. Limiting the applications students can use is counter-productive.

@Michael_35 - yes, a dual monitor KVM switch is pricey. I have one, so I know. You can deal with the keyboard/mouse issue by using a wireless (radio controlled) keyboard and mouse, but when you switch from one system to the other, you will have to move the transceiver to the other system. If you do have the KVM, then you can plug that dongle into the KVM and when you switch systems, it will automatically switch your keyboard and mouse to the active system. No free lunch here, I'm afraid! :-(

Member Avatar for CimmerianX

Sorry rubberman, but this guy is not a student, he claims "I work for a college" and, as such, must adhere to his workplace policies.

I guess I'm a stickler for the rules....

Member Avatar for overwraith

Lots of people use Remote Desktop Protocol programs to access another computer via another. Some of the programs support dragging and dropping files between desktops (not folders, zip it first). The only thing with these is that you have to deliberately turn the service on on the computer you are RDP-ing to, and you have to login to that computer via the program. RDP will also fall flat if your sys-admin has some device on the network configured to disallow this service, most home routers also don't like this by default. I don't know if the program costs, work provided it to me free.

I haven't used dropbox much, so you are uploading to dropbox? Being that it is a web service, there should be some way of programatically uploading files via a web bot? It would need provided your credentials for your drop box account (don't tell me I don't want to know). So what the problem seems to be is that you are using dropbox at home, and it's not allowed at school, but the files you are uploading are at the school. So you would need some kind of SSL socket on your school computer. Or perhaps you just have doccuments you need to peruse on drop box, which are useful to be able to view/copy/paiste from at school.

Have you considered just buying a flash drive? They are pretty cheap these days. Some even have read/write switches so you can plug into an insecure system and nobody can corrupt your data. Of course if you do plug into a pwned system, then they could just copy the data... SD cards (not micro) also have read/write switches, but they seem to wear out faster. You should check your USB policy, since you can never truly turn off some autorun features, like human interface devices(HID) which look like USB drives.

There are ways around things, but you should really ask your superiors for safe ways to implement the features you want to have. Worse case scenario here, somebody leaks a bunch of school/student related doccuments through your tampering with security.

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