Here’s the original post:
A few of our high school students were able to breach security at school
using USB flash drives. As a result, the IT department disabled the USB
ports on students' computers, so students are no longer able to use flash
drives. This is causing a lot of frustration since many students relied on
their flash drives to save work to go from school to home. Floppies aren't a
good option for saving projects anymore and our students can't use email at
school. How did your IT departments handle this kind of security issue? Have
any of you experienced this problem and did you come up with a good
solution?
Your responses are below. I’m meeting with the IT Department next week and will
have your suggestions in hand. I’ll let you know the solution we come up with.
Thanks so much for your valuable input!
Gayle Lawrence
Library Media Specialist
Charles Page High School
Sand Springs, OK
gayle.lawrence@sandites.org
Hit: USB Flash Drives and Security
Take computer rights away from offending students. Try to protect the rights of
those students who are using technology correctly while limiting the rights of
abusers. For us, it is a simple mouse click to take away privileges of using
anything other than the computer itself--no network access.
Because of that very reason we do not allow flash drives. About a year ago someone
was able to breach our system and caused a BUNCH of havoc!! We also do not allow
e-mail, floppies, or anything external also because of viruses. Yes, it does cause
consternation sometimes, but we have had this rule since the beginning of the year,
and now for a few years. At our school, the flash drives are only used in the
business computer lab, under the direction of that teacher, who also is our IT
person at our school...so if they come in with a flash drive before/after school, I
send them to that area.
Our students are not allowed to put any device into the student computers. We can
transfer data from a USB, CD or floppy at the circ desk. We will put information
into their account or transfer what they have worked on in school to some media to
take home for more work. They can ask us to print final papers from a USB or other
media at the disk.
We have cd burners and can burn data to those. Students can also plug their iPods
in and use them for flash drives. Their flash drives haven't caused any problems so
far, neither have their iPods.
It's probably just a matter of time!
If your students have access to the Internet and email, they can email the work
back and forth.
We're still allowing students to use flash drives. It seems like a relief as we
were really beginning to have issues with the floppies being pretty unstable. The
students also have virtual storage lockers on our network; that only helps them
when they're at school though as they can't email from here.
May I ask what it is the students did with their USB drives that breached security?
I mentioned this to our IT person and he had never heard of such a thing. We would
love to be prepared if something like that ever happened at our school.
We have something called Universal Locker in which the students can log in, upload
their work from home or school to the locker and then login somewhere else and
download their document or whatever.� We are getting something new for next year
but it will work the same way.
Wow! I can’t imagine the students not being able to save to a flash drive!! What
a pain! Our new techies are in the process of developing what they call “Virtual
Lockers.” This should be in place next term. I’ll probably totally
misrepresent what they are doing, and have absolutely NO idea how they are doing
it; but essentially, each student will have access to a little space on the file
server (their Virtual locker) into which they will be able to store research
papers, etc. As I understand it, they will be able to access these virtual lockers
from home (or anywhere). You might think about something like that, if your tech
gurus will allow it and can set it up. ??
I would LOVE any information you have on this. I am running into a similar
predicament here. Our floppy drive is disabled as is the CD drive due to the
threat of viruses and pirating songs, etc. They have not gone to the point of
disabling the USB port yet...
My suggest for you is... invest in some CD-RW's that way if you computers can
handle it, they can burn the information to the CD and transfer it that way.
I allow students to go to their email despite the policy to get documents-- I have
always had them send it to themselves as a backup. Some of our schools are doing
"virtual lockers," but not all.
Our computers use the Clean Slate program to reset the system to a default
specified by IT whenever the computer is restarted. Part of the default setting is
a sign-in screen we have to type a password into whenever someone wants to use a
USB drive. Your IT department may be able to set up the computers with something
similar.
i guess my question is why usb drives? If a student can use a usb drive to breach
security then they could mount the same files on a website they made and download
those files to a school computer. Same problem.
I'm not sure how they breached security. Perhaps there is another solution that
will allow the return of usb drives. Has IT explained how usb disabling was the
only viable option?
Students can bypass security in many ways. We just last week had numerous students
bypassing our filters via web sites designed for that purpose. I would not want to
penalize all students because some aren't cooperating. We disable student logins
for 2 weeks. Last week we disabled over 50 students.
Many are now hurting as far as getting their projects done, but they are learning a
lesson.
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