Dear Bob ...I'd like your comments on this:Historically our company policy on mainframe systems (MVS and VM) was such that user's were responsible for granting permission to others to access their files (read/write/execute/delete). When LAN's started proliferating this task seemed to be only accomplished by IT (I think it was a lack of tool issue). This worked in the beginning, but as the LAN environ Dear Bob …I’d like your comments on this:Historically our company policy on mainframe systems (MVS and VM) was such that user’s were responsible for granting permission to others to access their files (read/write/execute/delete). When LAN’s started proliferating this task seemed to be only accomplished by IT (I think it was a lack of tool issue). This worked in the beginning, but as the LAN environment grew it would take quite a while to get access changes made, and then of course it also required management approval. And, as things progressed we sent this task off-shore, now even trying to get reports or fixing access issues is a monumental task on the LAN’s. For some reason, since this is working so well, the latest policy coming down is that even the mainframe environment is going to use the same model as the LAN’s and individual user’s can no longer control access to their own files. The main issue here is that IT seems to feel user’s are incompetent and unable to be responsible for their own data. Personally I think IT needs to understand that ownership of the data and responsibility of handling the data is really the owner’s responsibility and that their job is to supply the platform, tools and training to enable the user’s to accomplish what they need to do for their business purposes.– Wants to shareDear Sharer … I forget the name of the logical fallacy that this is an example of, but it is an example of a logical fallacy – namely, that a change in technology warrants a change in philosophy.Forget the mainframe. When managers and employees used typewriters and copiers, EDP (what we called ourselves back then) wouldn’t have dreamed of intruding on the decision of who an employee could share documents with. The technology has changed. That doesn’t mean IT should have anything more to say about it.Nor can we, since when we fail to let end-users share folders, all they’ll do is share files as e-mail attachments, or put them on jump drives. To be fair, the threat level has changed since the era of typewriters and copiers, and changing threats do warrant changing tactics in response. But when the only real impacts of the response are to (1) create inconvenience without improving security, and (2) add to IT’s workload, it does seem rather pointless, doesn’t it?– Bob Technology Industry