How do you handle student owned laptops?

[enjay]

Personally, I would want the disclaimer to cover all networks, not just the dirty one.

While our networks are virus-free 99.999% of the time, I wouldn't want any comeback for that 0.001% of the time when home computers become infected by something which came from school.

[sippo]

Our 6th Formers are allowed to use the wireless network to access filtered internet. Thats all, they can't access any other resources.

Am I being naive and letting them use it. Should I review the situation? Is it possible they could bring in a virus which could spread via network IP alone?

This thread has got me thinking...

[enjay]

Is it possible they could bring in a virus which could spread via network IP alone?

Yes. Nimda and the like which go hunting for vulnerable computers could come in via their computers. Also, they could be running packet sniffers which could pick up something juicy, if they got hold of your VNC password or a copy of AB Tutor or whatever, they could run those or those could launch a DoS attack.

I would get any uncontrolled laptops off your main network, personally. Even on our restricted WiFi, they only have the standard ports open, so they can't use P2P or such like and eat our bandwidth.

[sippo]

Whats the best way around securing it then? Do we ban them completely (Imagine the uproar!), or create a separate VLAN (which don't really want to do). If we go down the VLAN route, things start to get messy.

[enjay]

Whats the best way around securing it then? Do we ban them completely (Imagine the uproar!), or create a separate VLAN (which don't really want to do). If we go down the VLAN route, things start to get messy.

You could at least look at blocking non-standard ports on the APs. Not totally fool-proof, but a step in the right direction.