Work Experience Kid, What can I get him to do? Options

[robzy]

We had a work experience kid at the office work a few weeks back, and had a bit of trouble finding work for her.

My boss (of sorts) had a good idea though. We had to write a user manual, and we figured that I could show her how to use the product, and then she could write the manual.

The quality of writing is what you'd expect from a Yr11 student, but it was really very helpful.

(And, as a side note, it gave me a great understanding of what it's like to be the one delegating work as opposed to doing it.)

Of course, I have no idea how that helps you OP. Its especially worrying that he doesn't have an interest in IT.

Do you have an inventory of fixed assets? Reckon you could get him to go 'round and double check it all? What about checking software licenses?

Rob.

[TinBane]

Do you have a list MAC addresses for network ports on computers?
Useful thing to have, bugger of a list to compile. Just saying :P~

[chrisg]

:)

Or you can just fire up Wire Shark Tinny and filter.

Still takes a little while, but not a week.... :)

Cheers

[robzy]

Or you can just fire up Wire Shark Tinny and filter.

Does Wireshark even have a scanner? What if the computer is turned off? What if its a huge subnet?

Rob.

[Betzie]

Sharpie in pooper

[chrisg]

:)

Sure Rob, easy to filter out MACs, I do it all the time, even on large networks. If you want to make sure you caught them all you need to have the inventory though. I commonly ask an admin to send out an email asking that all machines be on at a certain time, works well.

There also some pretty ok open source audit tools around these days as well.

Cheers

[moist]

Do you have a list MAC addresses for network ports on computers?
Useful thing to have, bugger of a list to compile. Just saying :P~

Get with the times.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/subnetinsig...d386545603?mt=8

[chrisg]

Yeah, I'd heard about that, not used it yet though because I don't have an iPad.

Cheers

[moist]

One of the small functions of that tool I enjoy is "mail this network info"

scan and send, no more monkey work.

[chrisg]

:)

I may have to join the dark side - unless Android offer something similar - haven't really looked yet.

It's interesting for a security mate of mine though, he uses a Mac and would happily get an iPad. He goes to sites, collects some captures and sends them to me for analysis to see if there is enough bandwidth, usually over 3G, for encrypted security video.

Cheers

[moist]

DMSS

[robzy]

If you want to make sure you caught them all you need to have the inventory though.

Exactly.

TinBane, unless I'm mistaken, is suggesting that the work experience kid ensure they have an inventory with MAC addresses. So Wireshark isn't really going to help.

Rob.

[Kothos]

Is he hot?

;-p

I left my work exp. app. too late and ended up having my dad get me a 2 week stint as a storeman in an autoparts warehouse.

It was the most. boring. shit. I have EVER done. Made me want to study.

On a serious note: can't you just have him tag along with someone and be their gofer/offsider? He could learn things that way, without having unsupervised access to anything.

Alternatively, ask him what he's interested in and see if you have anything to match. If he says "nuffin" then get him to work digging ditches and filling them up again. He may as well get used to it now.

[chrisg]

If you want to make sure you caught them all you need to have the inventory though.

Exactly.

TinBane, unless I'm mistaken, is suggesting that the work experience kid ensure they have an inventory with MAC addresses. So Wireshark isn't really going to help.

Rob.

:)

But it does Rob, just so long as the inventory is current, if not you need to do that first, but Shark is like any other Sniffer, all the conversation information is there, including MAC addresses, IPs etc.

There's a bit of work to do with post-capture filters and match-ups but it's a damned sight quicker than doing it manually.

I've been doing data analysis for rather a long time (probably too long, dates back to about -85 and includes many course with Network General and HP.)

Mostly it's to detect what is causing a problem on a network or to predict the need for increased bandwidth or simply as a health-check, but an audit is not hard, so long as the administrator has half a clue and keeps current records and there is an active name server.

This handy little article explains the advantages and draw-backs of using Shark for an audit to some degree.

http://www.wireshark.org/docs/wsug_html_ch...ionSection.html

It's not my tool of first choice for auditing, but it's free and the actual post capture work is not hard.

Dedicated audit tools, Centennial Discovery springs to mind, although I think it has been acquired now, are better and as I mentioned some OS tools have appeared as well. However Discovery licences are expensive and from what I've seen thus far the OS stuff is still a little raw, keeping an eye on them though.

That's all a bit of a digression though if this guy is not interested in IT, analysis tools have come a long way but they still imply you actually know what you are looking at.

I don't use Sniffer any more - they lost it a bit during the McAfee period, I tend to use HP Advisor, which in its software version cost me rather a lot and is not yet Win 7 compatible, but Shark is good for point capture and pretty light compared to Advisor. You can always pour the data from Shark over into Advisor via the converter anyway.

The Apple-centric tools Moist is linking look great, just I don't use Macs, and in my opinion nothing beats a full packet capture for determining just about anything that is on or going on on a network.

Anyway, it was more of a tongue-in-cheek suggestion, analysis is not for the IT-ignorant as appears to be the case with the kid here.

Cheers

Edit: I should have said "not fully compatible to Win 7," neither I nor an HP engineer I sometimes work with really trust what the upgrade is telling us, so we just keep an XP machine around :)

This post has been edited by chrisg: Nov 27 2011, 11:17 AM

[drago13666]

tell him one of the wireless network cables have broken and he needs to follow them all to see which one is no longer ocnnected.

[st8smn]

Get him to run to the plumbing shop and ask for a fallopian tube
for a watercooling project\fix...

[TinBane]

If you want to make sure you caught them all you need to have the inventory though.

Exactly.

TinBane, unless I'm mistaken, is suggesting that the work experience kid ensure they have an inventory with MAC addresses. So Wireshark isn't really going to help.

Rob.

Yep :)

Get the MAC, (including the wireless MAC/Wired MAC that isn't in use) the S/N of the machine, the location, etc.

If I want a list of MAC addresses connected to a subnet at this current moment, I can simply log onto the router :)

[chrisg]

:)

Of course Tinny, I usually get called in for a bunch of other things that includes audit, but as I said more a throw-away comment than anything else, although I often think people don't really appreciate the power of Wire Shark, probably because it is free, and when first available was pretty basic, it isn't any more :)

Cheers

[Futon]

We have a work experience kid in at the moment. We have fake jobs lined up for them. So all the ins and outs of the real thing but they cant screw up as its never done in a commercial environment. They are there to experience the job. Make them do what you do everyday, just in a space where they cant break anything. They love it. We've even had kids come back just for fun on their holidays.

Crazy bastards.

Note: I work in a design studio, so its generally a balls-out-fun job everyday anyway.

[lunchbox1988]

Yea, I got him to install Win7 on a laptop, got him to tag along with me when I went to get my laptop replaced under warranty.

Once he finished the laptop, I gave him a dummy job advert we had written, and asked him to write up an application letter and resume, hi response;

"Couldn't I just do nothing?"

He was supposed to knock off at 4:00, I told him to go at 3:15, seriously cannot be arsed with a kid that has no ambition.