RE: Physical Computer Location

["Zachary Mutrux" <zmutrux () compumentor org>]

You can deal with it in a couple of ways.

1) Roll your eyes, alter the inventory to reflect the new computer's
location.

2) Examine your equipment replacement policy to replace computers not based
on age, but on who would benefit the company the most by having a new
computer, based on improved productivity from a faster machine, for example.
Maybe the doctor needs a new machine more than the secretary.

3) Disallow users other than the assigned user to log on to the computer.
Or, just disallow the doctor from logging on to his secretary's machine. In
dark and forbidding tones, forbid the secretary from revealing her password
to the doctor. It doesn't do the doctor much good to move the computer if he
can't log on. You can accomplish this in the local security policy on the
computer if it is running Windows 2000 or XP. You might even be able to do
it for whole groups of computers using Group Policy in Windows 2000 domains.
If anyone complains about this, tell them you are applying the policy
because of HIPAA regulations.

Since you have more computers than users, obviously some users may need to
log on to more than one machine. So proceed cautiously with this policy.

4) Talk to your supervisor about the problem and see if he can talk to the
doctor's supervisor about the problem. This probably will be ineffectual.

That's all I can think of right now.

Yours,

Zac

--
Zac Mutrux
Technology Consultant
CompuMentor
415-633-9437



On Mon, 25 Aug 2003, Thomas Graf wrote:

> Hello everyone!
>
> I am a newbie trying to make some in-roads in the network security
> department.  I work at a hospital with approximately 1000 users but
> about 3000 computers.  We are currently rolling out new computers and
> are having problems after they are installed.  For example, we replace
> the secretary's computer but the doctor is fussing because he is not
> getting a new one.  So, he being the powerful doctor will swap the new
> one with his old one.  We then have the wrong location listed on the
> information database for that computer.  We try to correct the situation
> as much as we can but this being a huge hospital, it gets very hard.
> So, what can we do to keep track of any physical movements of the
> computer over the network?  Any suggestions are acceptable.  We just
> can't lock down the computers because of all the movements in
> departments because of construction.
>
> Thomas Graf
> IS Hardware/Software Tech
> (254)724-0155


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