August 16th, 2002 by Dana Roode
NACS has been receiving an increasing number of complaints about unwelcome, unsolicited e-mail. These messages sometimes advertise products, services, or web sites, and other times they are fraudulent attempts to gain information to use against campus personnel and computers.
This “Unsolicited Commercial E-mail” (UCE), also called “spam” (note the lower case — “SPAM” is a trademark of Hormel) has risen in frequency, breadth of distribution, and offensiveness of content. But there is such a diversity of mail, and a diversity of reaction to a particular message, that there is no simple solution for protecting faculty, staff, and students from this unwelcome intrusion.
NACS has long been identifying Internet hosts which seem to be associated with a large volume of spam, and rejecting e-mail from them. While this greatly reduced the amount of annoying e-mail the campus received in the past, it no longer has a significant effect. Something more is called for.
NACS is evaluating a number of products that promise to help the situation. Programs like SpamAssassin can be installed on mail servers or individual computers, and told what kind of mail is not welcome. If you would like to participate in evaluation of anti-spam programs, please contact NACS.
Here are some helpful URLs on the subject.
spam in General:
http://spam.abuse.net/
http://www.cauce.org/
Advanced Fee Fraud/Nigerian 419:
http://www.startribune.com/stories/535/3056833.html
http://home.rica.net/alphae/419coal/
http://www.secretservice.gov/alert419.shtml
August 16th, 2002 by Dana Roode
Computers on UCI’s network (and thus the Internet) have two kinds of identities: a numerical Internet Protocol (IP) address, such as 128.200.222.100, and a “host name,” such as www.uci.edu. Computers tend to use numbers to find and talk to one another, but human beings prefer names, finding them both more memorable and more descriptive. The association between the host name and the IP address is mediated by a world-wide hierarchy of servers collectively providing the Domain Name Service (DNS).
Technically, it is not necessary to have a host name in order to function on the network. However, it has long been campus practice to “register” host names whenever a computer is connected to UCInet. This has many benefits: the name of the machine helps people who use it understand its role, and the registration process records its ownership, its location, and who is responsible for it. Furthermore, an increasing range of network services at UCI and at other Universities is restricted to registered hosts. Using an unregistered host is thus an unnecessary risk; you might find you need a restricted service after hours or under deadline when it is very difficult to correct promptly.
Responsibility for a computer becomes very important whenever situations regarding network security, copyright violation, or network traffic arise. Without registering a system, NACS and campus departments have no way to find the system’s owner to correct the problem, and the only way to protect all the other computer users on campus is to deny that system access to UCInet until someone comes forward requesting that service be restored — an awkward and unfortunate situation for everyone. Presently there are almost 1,000 unregistered computers connected to UCInet. Although it has not been well documented or enforced, it is NACS policy that all computers connected to UCInet be registered in DNS. If you suspect your system may not be registered, or that our records regarding responsibility for your system may be out of date, please contact NACS.
Check to see if you’re registered at:
http://www.nacs.uci.edu/tools/ipaddress.php
Register your host name at:
http://www.nacs.uci.edu/communication/ip_address_app.html
August 16th, 2002 by Dana Roode
NACS offers a range of computer-related training, including system administration, instructional technology, productivity tools, and research-related software. Some are on-going and other classes are offered whenever opportunity arises and resources become available. Some classes are free, while others include a modest fee. All are offered in an attempt to fill technical training needs of staff and faculty.
Many people have asked, “What’s the difference between the classes NACS offers and the classes given through LEAP?” For one thing, the majority of NACS’s classes are half-days and do not require homework. LEAP’s 5 and 10 week sessions typically give people the opportunity to dig a little deeper into a subject and experiment more with an application. The NACS end-user classes are chosen and designed to complement what LEAP offers. NACS has been offering half-day classes this summer in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Microsoft Project. Classes are held in the Engineering Gateway Building using PCs. Classes are $79 and a recharge number is required to register.
NACS also conducts free monthly CorporateTime classes using the Mobile Laptop Training Lab in conjunction with the UCI wireless network. For researchers, seminars in academic software such as ArcGIS and Matlab are offered.
To view course outlines and register, see http://www.nacs.uci.edu/training. If you have a suggestion for computer training needed in your department, please e-mail nacs@uci.edu.