The Center for Information and Technology begins the academic year with many changes intended to improve the computer services on campus, though many returning students are still perplexed by the new ways of registering their computers, the process now being called network authentication and by the regular e-mails they have been receiving for the past few weeks from the new e-mail spam filter.
From this year onward the registration of students’ computers is not going to happen in the basement of Mudd, instead everyone will be able to do it online from their own room.
“We call it authentication,” John Bucher, director of CIT, said. “It’s a testing method that sees that the computer that is connecting is void of viruses and that it’s upgraded. It makes sure that the operating system has the necessary patches to fix problems.”
In order to register on ResNet, the students need to plug in their computers into the network port, set them to receive IP address via DHCP and then, as a web browser is opened, to “authenticate” the computer by entering their Oberlin e-mail username and password. After that, a new product will check if the computer has been upgraded and will check it for viruses and worms.
“It appears to be working quite well, it has prevented any serious outbreaks of viruses,” Bucher said. “We can’t go through registration like last year again, it was awful for us, it was awful for the students.”
As the check-up is complete, the computer will receive access to ResNet and a new IP address which will be valid for the rest of the semester or until a new virus attacks the campus.
“If an outbreak of a virus appears, the authentication process will start all over again, thus throwing the virus out of the Oberlin network,” Bucher said.
Another change that was introduced this year is the spam filter. Its purpose is to quarantine certain e-mails with high probability of being spam and to separate them from the regular mail load entering the students’ mailboxes.
The filter is both a hardware and a software product, a device which takes information both from the World Wide Web statistics on spam messages and past experience with the Oberlin network and depending on the spam probability, assigns each e-mail a number. This device works through scanning the e-mails for words or phrases that often appear in spam e-mails. Such a word could be “viagra” and an e-mail containing it has a very high spam probability. From then on, depending on the percent of spam probability, the e-mails are either deleted or quarantined.
If a message has 90 percent or higher spam probability, it is automatically deleted from the system and the receiver will never get to see it. If the percentage is between 70-89 percent, then the message will be quarantined, but the receiver will not be notified of its existence and it will be deleted as soon as the initial quarantine period has passed.
If the email has between 50-69 percent spam probability then it is quarantined, but the receiver is given the opportunity to retrieve it. When the students receive a message informing them that there are certain number of e-mails quarantined if they want to still receive them, they can “release” them in a period of one week. Messages with less than 50 percent spam probability will be let through.
There is a newer version of this product, expected to be available in October, which will provide the users with the opportunity to create their own “white-lists” which contain a list of approved senders as well as some other additional features.
“With the new version there will be more end-user control,” Bucher said. “This is why we originally picked this product.”
Another important change that took place this semester is the increase in the printing quota from 150 to 300 pages per semester or, in other words, from $10.50 to $20.
“Essentially we saw that after coming out with a quota there was an incredible decrease in waste, but also there were worries among the students who often have to write papers, so we doubled the quota,” Bucher said.
“The cost went down because the usage went down. By limiting the amount of printing we can afford the 100% recycled paper which is more expensive.”
Other changes in the CIT department include upgrading all computers on campus to the newest operational systems, i.e. Windows XP and Macintosh OSX, establishing a new way to access StuLOCKER (http://stulocker.cc.oberlin.edu) from both on- and off-campus computers, opening the new computer lab in Burton, which will be open overnight and adding wireless capability to East Hall and Stevenson.