Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with misuse

FW: FW: FW: FW: RE: Check this out! LOL

Liver — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 09:27:58 -0800

Should I try to take back our Exchange server from the inappropriate uses? I'm an IT worker in a small local government IT shop. We have roughly 250 - 300 users. Recently I've been taking a more active roll in the management of our spam firewall and Exchange server, and have made some interesting observations.

I am not shocked, but I am thoroughly appalled at the amount of personal email that travels through our server. It turns out that the top users of email resources aren't the important decision-makers and managers, but the lowest level employees with very little legitimate work use for email. For example, the #1 email user in our entire organization is a receptionist that answers phones for the tax department. What are these emails? Albino moose pictures, prayer forwards, angel pictures, chain forward, inspirational videos, and the like.

This is just one person, but there are a hundred more out there that either through ignorance of apathy are misusing the government email server as their own personal email provider.

Part of the problem, I think, is that most of these people are not computer & internet savvy. Their email address here is the first one they've ever had, and they have zero concept of what is and isn't appropriate email. To them, there is just EMAIL. Dancing baby forwards are just as legitimate as a message from their boss, or a member of the public seeking help.

As I see it I have a few options.

1) Do nothing. Accept that people are using county resources for their personal business and try to minimize the impact on legitimate users. This is the easy way out, and the way we got into this situation to begin with.

2) Bring the hammer down. Get aggressive with what comes and goes. Block all images by default. Train spam filters to block inappropriate emails. Tighten disk quotas to noose-like levels on "regular" users. Tell users to get hotmail/gmail/yahoo accounts for personal use. Expect resistance.

3) Something in between.

I'm especially interested in hearing from anyone who may have come into a poorly managed IT department and had to affect changes to both the technology and the culture side of problems similar to this.

Begging the question, for all intensive purposes: misused colloquialisms in modern English

cosmic osmo — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:41:08 -0800

Commonly misused phrases or expressions? It drives me nuts in a totally pedantic way when people misuse the phrase "take it with a grain of salt" to make the amount of salt larger (i.e. a "giant" grain) when the whole point of the expression is to emphasize how small the amount of salt should be--are there any other examples of phrases or expressions that are frequently used in the exact opposite way intended, either by mangling the phrase itself or just using it incorrectly (e.g. 'hoi polloi' to mean 'the wealthy elite' when it actually means 'the common masses')? I've seen things like lists of common errors in English, but I'm looking for this particular kind of error.

I'd rather not make this a debate on how language and meaning evolve over time and more about specific examples. Also, I have no idea how to use the phrase "to beg the question" but props to anyone who can finally explain that one to me, because I just know that'll be the first example given.

If I have admin access to a server, can I be accused of computer misuse?

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 18:53:56 -0800

I am a photographer. My photographs are currently on a website that I used to work with but have since had a disagreement. I own the copyright to my images and would like the website to remove them. They are being very slow in their response as removing the images will create very negative publicity for them. I have maintained their website for the last 4 years and have full admin access to their dedicated server. If I log in and remove my images, could I be accused of misuse of computers? The website is that of an extreme sports organisation whose (uncontracted) athletes I have photographed on and off for the last 4 years. I have never been paid by this organisation, nor has there been any discussion or agreement, formal or informal with regards to the copyright. I regard myself as owning the copyright of the images 100%.

I manage their dedicated server and I have had no requests from them to stop. I have full admin access. As they seem to be reluctant to remove my images, I am trying to find out whether I can reasonably log in to their server and remove my images.

The internet can be a small place, hence my need for anonymity. Follow up questions can be directed to goudray (a) hotmail.com. All thoughts are very much appreciated.