accessIt’s rant time good readers. I’m back at Western—which is nice—and trying to get my room organized. Everything looks great. I get all of my computer stuff hooked up, then I try to access the network and…
AAAAAAAAAH!!
Western Michigan University uses a program called Clean Access Agent (CCA) to manage wired network access. CCA is probably the most worthless piece of software ever devised. It’s sole purpose is to annoy the hell out of anyone who has the misfortune of using a computer with it installed with notices to update their computer and download Norton malware. It’s so annoying, in fact, that I dedicated my first semester at Western to find a way to bypass it. And, it turned out, CCA is so useless that you can bypass it by simply changing the user agent string on your web browser and making it think you’re using anything other than Windows, a feat easily achieved using the User Agent Switcher extensions for Firefox.
Well, this year they have a flavor of CCA for all platforms, which means I’m forced to install it. And of course, it immediately screws up. I eventually had to run down the resident OIT operative and—doing a masterful job of bridling my unbridled rage—ask how one might access the network without going through CCA. I knew he wouldn’t tell me, but he at least helped enough to get me on the network with CCA (which was pretty much broken the second I installed it).
AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!
Now that they have version for every platform, completely bypassing it probably isn’t an option, but I’ll search for one anyways. It’s such a worthless piece of software I’ll do whatever I have to to avoid using it.