Ok Guys and Gals, We have all seen this from time to time in here and other forums as well. A poster will lead up to a question concerning some hypothetical error that will either directly or indirectly require that a work-a-round of the adminastrators rights in order to repair or fix the issue. This includes spoofing with proxy servers for downloading torrents and music files on school systems networks to lost passwords recovery to using installed boot programs on flash drives. Should we or shouldn't we help the OP do this??? I realize as well as most of you, that in some cases it is not so obvious that this is what is being asked of us....but in a lot of times, there is no doubt, yet some will go ahead and post a way to circumvent the admin's block installed on the system. There is also the issues that there are legit errors concerning the user being locked out of their own computer by forgotten passwords or password protection is enabled. Just looking for your thoughts on this! In reference to 11/05/2008 "So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause." - George Lucas

Hey, Just my two cents. If its obvious the person is trying to circumvent some sort of rules, I think it should be reported and removed. I obviously remove such posts when they are reported or when I see them. If its not obvious, there's your ethical dilemma. I tend not to remove posts like this because there could be a valid reason for the user needing the information. Its a toss up. Justin

I think it is nice to know that when a person is in trouble Computing Net comes to mind first, to get help.

When I see those posts, I immediately report them. As for the ones looking for ways around network restrictions in schools/colleges/universities etc, I also point out to them that doing so is illegal and can get them expelled and charged (I work at a university as a Network Technician) so they think about that before running off and posting the same question elsewhere until they get an answer. In the rare case where someone's forgotten their password and can't get into the admin account, I don't say anything at all, I just click the "report....." link at the bottom of the post. I'm sorry but, I have no sympathy for people who can't remember their password and feel they should have to go and pay somebody who know's what they're doing to help them fix the problem. If it costs them $$$, they won't be back in here any time soon wasting our time with questions they could easily find the answers to if they bothered to use google. Blame in on my misspent youth but, if I ever had a sympathy ciruit, it blew many many years ago.

Lol... In this respect I don't think there is anything we could offer up here that a little bit of online research won't reveal. It would be nice to look into the crystal ball and know someone is genuinely in need of help. It is comforting to know though that here we are able to offer up discretionary help in this regard.

btk1w1 "In this respect I don't think there is anything we could offer up here that a little bit of online research won't reveal." Just because there is somewhere else on the web that offers up illegal or impropper advice does not mean that people in this forum should do it for them. I have seen websites destroyed from this type of activities. 1) by becoming known that you can get those types of answers tend to pull in those seaking the illegal way of doing things. 2)Lawsuits from Microsoft and other software companies have effectively closed other websites from posting certain FIXES for hacking the vendors programs. The whole purpose of the post was to get the clear view on what should be done when it is determined that someone is asking for a specific override of admin controls. In reference to 11/05/2008 "So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause." - George Lucas

Heya lurks, I agree entirely. Bypassing security measures is, and always will be a contentious issue. I recall not so long ago someone was asking how to bypass / reset a BIOS password. They did not appear to be forthright to me, and it seemed all other computing.net contributors. The kind of help they were offered was in regards to contacting the manufacturer and supplier. No help was offered to circumvent this. An annoyed OP followed up with a final post, after being given advice they deemed useless, to skite that they had figured out how to get what they wanted. There are many legitimate reasons why people might post needing this kind of help. e.g. They might have set up a network at home for higher learning purposes and blundered their security settings. It could be a home user with restrictions set for children that they need to remove.... On the flipside there are also many reasons why an OP shouldn't recieve help in this regard. If I was an administrator that had restrictions present that were being worked around I would not be happy. Aside from the fact that that this type of action could put the entire network at risk, it could also be viewed by the boss as a weakness in my ability to do my job effectively. Unless we can actually sit in front of their PC's we can never truly know if they are legitimate. This is why I said it is comforting to know we can offer "discretionary help". Unfortunately I don't think there is a "clear answer" to posts about bypassing restrictions on the basis they are in genuine need. The only answer would be for Justin to delete each and every thread that might appear to be a work around for any security issue. I think it would be a disaster in the Networking section.