Shaun_Dark_Lord Posted November 18, 2011 Author Posted November 18, 2011 Any type of remote access. See the quote from their "technical" document below: Yup - vague and yet still all encompassing........ I'll let you all know how the meeting goes.
Shaun_Dark_Lord Posted November 18, 2011 Author Posted November 18, 2011 As InspireICT said, LogMeIn will be a real problem for us too. We receive lots of remote support using this and TeamViewer. I am really quite annoyed that only after subscribing to LGFL 2.0, some considerable months later, we get the LGFL Transition sheet (attached on the original post) mentioning that LogMeIn will be banned. I emailed Brian Durrant to tell him how unhappy I was and to ask what they have to say on the matter. He replied yesterday saying: He was wondering if I had considered taking up the offer of a day of professional delvelopment for LGFL Nominated contacts, which covers a wide range of the services and systems which make up LGFL. He said it would give me a perfect opportunity to raise the concerns in my email. hmmm. And will Hypnotoad be attending to provide sufficient levels of brainwashing? We'd like to stay with LGfL, but for £10-20000 less we could get exactly what we want.......
Shaun_Dark_Lord Posted November 18, 2011 Author Posted November 18, 2011 Right......... If remote access to the school network is required, raise a support case for the RAV3 secure remote access service. ‘LOGMEIN’ and any other type of remote access product is not allowed on LGfL2 This was a misprint/error/whatever you'd like to call it. LogMeIn is banned on LGfL 2.0. Other remote access solutions are not. In response to our emails, LGfL have purchased an additional product to replicate the functionality of LogMeIn in a secure fashion. They called in Center Stage, but I believe it is this product; Fast, Secure Remote Support | CentraStage That means RM/EIS/Capita/whoever else can be sent a link and code by us, and get a remote session - Similar to LogMeIn123, but in reverse. I'm fairly happy with that solution. Filtering will still have to go through LGfL, but can be turned down to the bare minimum. There will be no Option 2 - Any schools wishing to do their own firewalling, will still have to use LGfL firewalling too, and will have to put in change requests for ports to be opened. Atomwide will not accept requests for all ports to be opened. LGfL have agreed that their communication is not adequate. I have requested that in addition to various blogs and documentation that are currently produced, that the contents of such blogs/documentation is summarised in an email to all nominated contacts. For the sake of skimming through one extra email a month this should prevent any more surprises. The three day changeover period from LGfL 1 to LGfL 2 is a minimum. Depending on when your Synetrix contract ends, you may get additional time to switch your services over. LGfL are working with Capita (who own Synetrix) on this issue, and hope to be able to offer a better solution. So when you get your installation date, it is worth contacting LGfL to find out exactly how long you have to change your DNS/IP/Proxy settings etc. I think that's about it. I'm looking into Virgin Media's SLA, so we can compare it with BT's excellent offering. We'll then be in a position to decide what to do. 1
glennda Posted November 18, 2011 Posted November 18, 2011 Are we still able to jump ship so to speak, I thought we would be tied into the contract? It depends, if the contract says you cannot pull out once it is signed or once the service has been installed. It is all dependent on the terms of the contract. If needs be get somebody to check over the contract.
Shaun_Dark_Lord Posted November 18, 2011 Author Posted November 18, 2011 It depends, if the contract says you cannot pull out once it is signed or once the service has been installed. It is all dependent on the terms of the contract. If needs be get somebody to check over the contract. Brian did confirm that schools in Bexley have a Synetrix contract expiration of 31/04/12, so we theoretically have until then to bail out. Obviously if Virgin turn up next week to install LGfL 2, then it's too late.
OakNetMan Posted November 18, 2011 Posted November 18, 2011 Another company that are looking good so far are varidion www.varidion.com Been looking through the offerings from virgin, bt, etc and came across them. They use Palo Alto Networks firewalls and the filtering options are amazing also looks quite easy to use. I don't know any more about them so can't actually say if they are any good or not but the web demo looked really good. Has any one else used them or have anything to say about them?
Shaun_Dark_Lord Posted November 21, 2011 Author Posted November 21, 2011 (edited) Just got a really good price for 1Gb from Virgin.......... Edited November 21, 2011 by Shaun_Dark_Lord
vhannaford Posted December 1, 2011 Posted December 1, 2011 I too are having doubts about LGFL2. Apparently the broadband consortium decided that logmein should be blocked - an unknown group that doesn't consult with the users. Why are we being dictated to by a supplier!! 1
talksr Posted December 2, 2011 Posted December 2, 2011 I too are having doubts about LGFL2. Apparently the broadband consortium decided that logmein should be blocked - an unknown group that doesn't consult with the users. Why are we being dictated to by a supplier!! I can understand LGFL taking the decision to lock down on LogMeIn as they suggest it is not as secure as other methods and it does not leave a proper log so that if there ever was a security breach at a school, it would be extremely difficult to work out exactly what had happened, how etc. I fully endorse their decision to make things more secure, we would all be the first to complain if there was ever a security breach and LGFL were unable to help work out who had done it. However, the inflexible way this change is set to be implemented is a real cause for concern. Why on earth they don’t allow a school to make their own individual decision on allowing the use of LogMeIn or not I do not know. If a school chooses to allow Facebook.com on their internet filtering policy, the school first takes the decision and also accepts responsibility for any issues that may arise from this choice. I don’t know why the blocking of LogMeIn cannot be made the decision of the school head for each individual school. As some other users on the forum here have very rightly pointed out, schools have to pay for this directly from their own budgets since the HTG has stopped so unless LGFL can bend to the requirements of schools and deliver what we want, and allow things we have come to rely on, they may well see a flock of schools looking elsewhere. CentraStage – the proposed replacement for LogMeIn for LGFL 2.0 looks impressive, it boasts many features that LogMeIn does not have, however none of the support companies my school work with use this. It is going to cost them extra as they will need to pay LGFL or CentraStage a subscription to use this system and we all know where that extra cost will get passed down to. All of a sudden, LGFL’s assurance that CentraStage will be free for all schools does not ring entirely true as yes, directly the school will not have to pay, but indirectly, via our support providers, we will be as our support costs will go up as a result of this new charge.
esucmn Posted December 5, 2011 Posted December 5, 2011 CentraStage – the proposed replacement for LogMeIn for LGFL 2.0 looks impressive, it boasts many features that LogMeIn does not have, however none of the support companies my school work with use this. It is going to cost them extra as they will need to pay LGFL or CentraStage a subscription to use this system and we all know where that extra cost will get passed down to. All of a sudden, LGFL’s assurance that CentraStage will be free for all schools does not ring entirely true as yes, directly the school will not have to pay, but indirectly, via our support providers, we will be as our support costs will go up as a result of this new charge. I'm not sure that's true - I think the idea is that WE have the subscription as part of LGFL and then when we need support from $company, we send them a url/code and then they can connect to our system. A bit like logmein123 in reverse. 1
talksr Posted December 5, 2011 Posted December 5, 2011 Since posting my above post #34, I have been informed by Martin from Atomwide that 3rd party support providers will also be able to use CentraStage or Rav3 for free just as the schools are able to. I am glad he let me know as we were under the impression that these companies may well need to pay for subscriptions for this and we were expecting these charges would be passed down to us via our yearly subscription charges to their support service.
secman Posted December 6, 2011 Posted December 6, 2011 Hi, Just to let people know that as a school that has recently swapped to LGFL2.0 we are having a few issues. The Web Filtering package is not easy to use and not even as intuative as the old NetSweeper although changes do happen instantly. RAv3 is pants! it is impossible to test from within the LGFL and the support team seem to think we all have secondary broadband connections which we can use to test remote access or the resources to spend a day at home testing the services. Despite setting everything up we still cannot FTP to our LGFL hosted website from outside the school. However we have managed to get RDP working to allow our LEA to support our SIMS system. BTW Team Viewer DOES work both in and out. You may have to have an account on the Team Viewer system but things do work OK. No-one has mentioned Centra Stage to us despite a number of sevice calls and cases being rasied on the matter of remote access. We do use our own firewall as well and have had to set up a number of NAT addresses to get things operational. Contact me if anyone needs more info. 1
vhannaford Posted December 8, 2011 Posted December 8, 2011 The LGFL people maintain that logmein is a security risk. If a computer is stolen then the whole network is put at risk. When logging in to logmein I have to enter a password and this isn't kept at the remote computer so there is no security risk. I think we should all shout and maybe they will change their minds.
esucmn Posted December 8, 2011 Posted December 8, 2011 People get confused between log me in rescue (log me in 123) and log me in remote access. Its the remote access that caused the security risk, and I am highly supportive of banning that. Log me in rescue is not such a risk (although there is still some risk), however according the LGFL its not possible for them to distinguish between the services at the firewall level so they blocked it completely. I can see the reasoning but it does cause problems with remote support.
vhannaford Posted December 8, 2011 Posted December 8, 2011 Can anyone tell me of a security breach. I was told of a pcs stolen from a house could cause problems as passwords could be held locally for any user to access. I have to put the servers password in to access the servers which isn't stored on the local pc.
talksr Posted December 9, 2011 Posted December 9, 2011 I can’t give any examples of security breaches, but if a computer linked to a school was stolen from a home, then it would be the responsibility of the head at the school for any security breaches and not the LGFL? Also, if this was the case, I would have thought the passwords on the server would be changed pretty quickly circumventing any potential security breaches from the stole equipment. I don’t know what the problem is with the LGFL allowing schools on an individual basis to unlock logmein if they agree any security breaches that occur as a result are the responsibility of the school and not LGFL. We have used LogMeIn at my school for a number of years and it is used safely and responsibly. It is a real life saver of a product, both LogMeIn Rescue (123) and also LogMeIn remote access as well as Hamachi. I can totally understand the reasoning behind the decisions by the LGFL but do not agree with the idea of blanket banning such a product. It needs to be up to the individual school in question as to whether or not they allow such a product to be used via their internet connection, which they are paying for.
secman Posted January 4, 2012 Posted January 4, 2012 Does anyone know if Centra Stage is available for "testing". As I have posted, we have been able to get Team Viewer working but they have blocked the website at the top level so you can't allow it. RAv3 is still not really up to the job as parts of it just do not work and the support team seem to ignore protests. Thanks
5tu Posted January 5, 2012 Posted January 5, 2012 People get confused between log me in rescue (log me in 123) and log me in remote access. Its the remote access that caused the security risk, and I am highly supportive of banning that. Log me in rescue is not such a risk (although there is still some risk), however according the LGFL its not possible for them to distinguish between the services at the firewall level so they blocked it completely. I can see the reasoning but it does cause problems with remote support. Interesting reading this thread. I'm in Buckinghamshire on the BucksGFL network supplied to our LEA by Atomwide. We too find RAV3 unworkable as many features simply do not work. However, while logmein is banned I do have access to LogMeIn Rescue (logmein123).
jacksonwalsh Posted March 6, 2012 Posted March 6, 2012 (edited) I attended the NC course last week and sat there thinking we have been mis-sold. I will be writing to the Chief Executive regarding the way they have approached this. The whole bunch of services included in their provision makes me think they are unaware of how schools operated under previous suppliers. We signed up for the service because we were interested in using the web filtering but now it seems we cannot, since we have our own firewall. LGfL 2.0 wants Admin staff to enter details of student/staff into SIMS and then this to be updated to their system to create a USO account! That is all very interesting! So our domain user accounts will now have to be created by Atomwide using their pan-London database? And all these just so that users can suffer even more restriction when trying to gain remote access to the school network. No equipment has been delivered or installed on our site so we are sure to pull out of this big brother system. It all sounds very good to certain schools when they hear of secure e-mail, secure storage, digital signage, IP telephony, etc. But for schools who have had these services for more than 10 years now, this is one major disruption especially when you are told you have to make changes to your Network in order to benefit from these services. We spent the course going over how to create mailboxes on @lgflmail.org (as if there are still schools who do not already have their own e-mail addresses and domain associated with their school name). How do you communicate to your staff that their e-mail addresses will now be @lgflmail.org? Makes no sense to me How about the ADSynch which promises to redesign your AD for you! So policies developed over 10 years will have to be re-applied. This service was clearly not for us and details should have been made available last March when they were harrassing people to sign up. Anyone got ideas of alternative ISPs? Shaun _dark_Lord - have you heard from the Chief Executive? Are they likely to shift in their position and allow schools who are used to a certain degree of autonomy to decide how secure they want their network and what remote access utilities they wish to use? This 'one size fits all approach' simply will not work for us. So I quit! Edited March 6, 2012 by jacksonwalsh correct typos
esucmn Posted March 6, 2012 Posted March 6, 2012 (edited) No equipment has been delivered or installed on our site so we are sure to pull out of this big brother system. This 'one size fits all approach' simply will not work for us. So I quit! I really hope this works for you but LGFLs position is that we have signed the contract, the contact has begun (despite no equipment), we are stuck. We've been trying to wiggle out of this for months with no luck. We had a much much better offer from BT - I advise trying to beat them up on the price and they will come down. We got 100Mb/s from BT down to half what LGFL were asking. If you can find a loophole in this apparently water tight contract please let us know! Edited March 6, 2012 by esucmn
Shaun_Dark_Lord Posted March 6, 2012 Author Posted March 6, 2012 Hi jacksonwalsh. In short, we're screwed. There is no flexibility, we can either take it, or pay a huge wad of cash to try and get out of our contracts. You can setup the filtering at a very basic level, and authenticate against an external IP - So you can run everything behind your own firewall. But this does mean the same filtering will apply to all users behind that IP. So either setup multiple firewalls for different types of user, or do your own filtering internally (Which is what we'll do). More worrying still, I've heard from some schools that have converted over that their previously approved MIP requests are now being rejected for "Security Reasons." If you are running any services on site requiring ports to be forwarded, make sure that everything is running before turning off your LGfL1 connection. Our LA have decided to revoke our wayleave, so who knows what happens in a few weeks when the Synetrix contracts end........
Shaun_Dark_Lord Posted March 6, 2012 Author Posted March 6, 2012 If you can find a loophole in this apparently water tight contract please let us know! Us too. Although i know of one school in Bexley that was let out of the contract with no penalty fees. I suppose a judge would have to decide if this sets some kind of precedent, allowing the rest of us to leave........
esucmn Posted March 6, 2012 Posted March 6, 2012 Us too. Although i know of one school in Bexley that was let out of the contract with no penalty fees. I suppose a judge would have to decide if this sets some kind of precedent, allowing the rest of us to leave........ I wish we could take it to court, but our school don't want to pay the legal fees.
jacksonwalsh Posted March 6, 2012 Posted March 6, 2012 I will go over not necessarily the contract, but the other documents which detailed the services (the what and how). I am pretty sure if they had made the information about all these restrictions available, I and probably agood number of schools (would not have signed up). So it is either, they withheld vital information or they promised a service to replace our current service without fully understanding what their future service will entail. I have had a chat with my Head and we will be prepared to go to court for this one. We are clearly unhappy about what they are trying to do and the fact that we signed up a year ago when we had not known what we know now should be immaterial. We could have well have signed on a blank paper (and they could be asking for our heads now), would the judge rule in their favour!? Not sure. I think we have good grounds but cannot disclose it here. Drop me a PM and we can discuss further. Sorry, I do not wnat to let the cat out of the bag as I'm sure Brian Durrant is part of this thread (maybe not, as they don't seem to care about what we think). I think schools that feel the same way should join together and get out of this contract. If it is not good for you, it is not good. If it is about providing a service, then I expect them to understnd this, but if it is about them squeezing money out of schools at all cost, then I can see us going to court over this simple matter.
esucmn Posted March 6, 2012 Posted March 6, 2012 I will go over not necessarily the contract, but the other documents which detailed the services (the what and how). These are part of the contract. Right at the top its says this contract includes these X documents (5 or 7 i think) and that they can be changed at any time.
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