Life of a Sysadmin

The occassional trials and tribulations of a jack of all tr ades sysadmin in a startup in Silicon Valley

November 2005

Campus wide Technical Emergency Broadcast System, or Writing Web Apps is Hard Take Two

So the central IT organization on campus is implementing a system to enable them to send out emergency messages to the primary departmental technical contacts. This system can call a set list of numbers to notify you of various campus wide issues. I am not entirely sold that this is a good idea, but what the hell, I follow the instructions to update my contact information. While doing as the instructions indicate, it comes as no real surprise to me that I have a few concerns.

Problems with the system; 1) The database of contact info is not part of the campuswide directory system and must be maintained and updated by hand. 2) To update your own contact information you use a shared username and password. 3) You need to allow cookies to login, but instead of providing an error message, the login script will simply redirect you back to the login page. 4) Instead of just editing your own entry, you can edit the entry of anyone. 5) If you put a home phone number into your entry, it is made available via the public interface to the list.

And the central IT organization wonders why they get so little respect.

[2005/11/27 | /misc | permanent link]