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Security
11/29/2005
UK schools' Shibboleth trial
Shibboleth, the open source authentication system, has enjoyed more adoption across the pond than in the US. Shibboleth provides a means to authenticate a user just once for multiple systems that operate in a federated trust model. In the UK, a very large trial this past spring involved more than 500,000 students and some 50,000 instructors. Read more
It's Not All About Hackers
In his September 2005 column for CT, Doug Gale focuses attention on the physical access layer of campus security: 'In our own discussions of cyber security, we often omit the simplest security of all: controlling physical access to our computer facilities. It used to be a tedious process to steal information from someone's computer, but the proliferation of small memory devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and music players that plug directly into a PC's USB port now make it possible to transfer huge amounts of information to an easily concealed gadget. It's also pretty easy to just walk off with a laptop. In short, controlling physical access to computers—those on desks or those in the computer room—is just as important as preventing hackers from accessing our networks.' Read more
Piracy on the Seas of Higher Education
The famous notion of Walt Kelly's Pogo, 'We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us,' may help point out another security issue: piracy. Especially in our own communities. In an April 27, 2005 issue of Campus Technology's C2 eNewsletter, Penn State President Graham Spanier writes: 'When we stand by idly and allow our students to abuse the privilege of high-speed Internet access for illegal downloading, we are failing our principles and we are failing our students. We are not campuses of thieves. Students don't go to the local Blockbuster and walk out with the latest DVD without paying. Undergrads don't go to the campus bookstore and sneak out with a new textbook. So why, we must ask ourselves, do we have such a moral blind spot when it comes to stealing on the Internet?' Read more
Piracy and the unintended consequences of technology
Yuba Community College District (YCCD) has contracted with AT&T to provide wireless Internet access to the 11,000 students attending the district's two Northern California colleges, Yuba College in Marysville and Woodland Community College. Migration to virtualization won't be the quick transition that some technology evangelists have predicted, according to recent surveys by two IT security companies. Nor is virtualization as secure as many might want it to be. The intrusion last month into Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's e-mail highlighted the frailty of some types of data security measures. What are the lessons for the rest of us? A new report from the National Academy of Sciences, part of which was co-authored by an Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington professor, casts doubt on the effectiveness, lawfulness, and appropriateness of using data-based tools such as data-mining and biometrics to fight terrorism. Physicists at South Africa's University of KwaZulu-Natal are set to install a quantum communication security solution over the eThekwini Municipality fibre-optic network infrastructure in Durban. Cedarville University in southwestern Ohio has implemented SonicWALL firewalls to provide high-speed gateway firewall protection for its 3,000 students.
In her June 8, 2005 contribution to the C2
newsletter, Rochester Institute of Technology (NY) CIO Diane Barbour wonders whether
we might be 'fighting the right battle in the wrong place... I read with
interest Graham Spanier's article 'Piracy on the Seas of Higher Education'
in the 4/27/2005 issue of
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