Re: [seul-edu] School in Taiwan

[Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>]

On Tue, Mar 14, 2000 at 01:44:50PM +0800, Stanwood Barret Dolph wrote:
> My goal is to have the two other schools input data to a central computer
> via internet. We could use some old 486's at the two new schools and buy a
> new computer for our central school.
> 
> Questions for anyone who might know?
> 
> 1) What kind of web server would we need? I am leaning towards IBM because
> they have good service here.

By IBM, I assume you mean what sort of hardware? "It depends" is the short
answer. Belegost runs just fine off components I bought from a variety of
places. But then, one of the drives failed two weeks ago (after working for
4 years -- I'm not complaining), so it really depends how much clue you 
have around in case something goes wrong. Summary: in my experience, it
doesn't really matter where the hardware comes from. Service and support
may be crucial for you, depending on how much money you can spend.
 
> 2) Can we use this to operate both finances and our website? Local advise
> says no...Is there anyway around the security problems.

The fundamental security issue here is that you want to put your finances
*not* on the Internet, and you want to put your webserver on the internet.
If you make them the same machine, then somebody can compromise your
webserver and then they'll be able to get to the finances.

Putting finances (or grades, etc) on a non-firewalled machine is very
dangerous and really has no benefits. (Other than saving you a machine. If
you can possibly afford it, this is not a place where you want to double up.)

Hope this helps a bit,
--Roger