IT Obfuscation

device cals vs user cals

5 User Cals: 5 users (i.e. alice, bob, accounting, office, shipping) These 5 users can connect from any computer in the office, but it must be those users.

5 Computer Cals: (they call this device cals, but computer cals is more intuitive. it's a bit of obfuscation.) There are 5 computers (Workstation1, WS2, WS3, WS4, WS5) and any amount of user accounts can connect to the server, but they must be on one of these five computers.

The simple act of calling it device cals vs computer cals. Subtle changes make a big difference. Is there even a difference between a device and a computer? Yes. Not all devices are computers, but all computers are devices. Unless I can assign a CAL to my toaster. That is an appliance aka a device. My power drill is a device. Heck, a device can be nearly anything:

device definition (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/device): 1. an object or machine that has been invented for a particular purpose: 2. a machine

A hammer is an object invented with a particular purpose. Therefore, I would like to assign a CAL to my hammer.

Change the term device to computer, and it makes just a little bit more sense. But making sense was not the goal. Sales was the goal. Obfuscation was the tool used to achieve that goal. They don't want business owners to understand what is going on. The key to being successful in ruthless business, is to have an uneducated customer. The less informed your customers are, the more likely they are to make bad decisions. this is important when you have a monopoly. because there may be better options, but the company behind the monopoly doesn't want you to know that.

And making bad decisions is what you are doing, when you use Windows in a corporate environment.