Academia Headaches

Academia Headaches
Scott Granneman, 2004-09-15

Academic institutions who have to add, manage, and secure thousands of new users within a period of just a few days face political and social issues on top of the immense technical ones.

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-15
Anonymous (1 replies)

I work Tier-1 technical support for University of Louisville - and here we do something similar... except that we knock a machine completely off the network (the ethernet jack is actually turned off at the cisco switch) and we offer no assistance to getting it back online. As of 8/18, you're suppose...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-25
Anonymous

We do something similar at the University I work for. We have a way to quar. machines causing problems. If their weekly bandwidth usage (upstream) exceeds 8 gigs they are disabled, and via some DNS redirection system they are redirected to a page explaining what happened and how long they will hav...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-16
Billy

Good points on all accounts. I agree with the last statement of a requirement to go through a class/test before a student can start. I know of some intuitions that have a policy in place to patch/audit each students computer before it is attached to the network. Cumbersome yes but it does get rid ...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-16
Anonymous

First of all, I would encourage those Perl scripts to be licensed under some form of Open Source license. I would, in fact, love to see them myself.

Second, I like the idea of a mandatory class in "computer literacy" - and not how to use a keyboard or mouse, or do 27 simple things with Windows. ...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-16
IT Tech

I think the collage should give a basic care and feeding for systems. As a requirement to keep Johnny's little porn browser / music downloader on their network. (Sure they are using their systems for 99%study)

I would also LOVE to see the script.

...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-16
Corporate Security Engineer

Having spent work-study hours as the student manager for a computer lab at a private college in the mid 90's, I can empathize with their situation. I think the integration of an Information Security Awareness (or some such) class is a fantastic idea. Target the class at high-level principles, and ...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-16
Travis Barlow

Great article and valid points!

As a Manager of Infrastructure Security for a small Canadian University, I agree that this time of year is very difficult with many security related challenges that others do not have.

I would like to take a look at the scripts mentioned above.

Best Regards, ...

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Academia Headaches, Good Article 2004-09-16
Dave

Several years ago I left a small private university IT position for just the reasons you suggest. Most of the administrative and academic staff did not understand the nature of the problem or wanted to. They just wanted it to work with no responsibility for having it work. Even people within the IT ...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-16
Perry

I would love to be able to see the code used in those perl scripts to recognize possibly infected machine. I think that they should def. be let out to let others use and modify for their own networks ;)...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-16
Anonymous

Open source the scripts! I'd love to use those around our offices on campus....

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-16
Erik Norgaard (1 replies)

The ability to proactively scan network for 0wned hosts and block these automatically will be a great gain for any administrator.

Usually I discover these because the virus also sends a copy to the admin, but the response time is often hours, rather than minutes.

It would be interesting to kn...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-16
Anonymous

I like the part about something on the wire checking for things. It sounds similar to an in-line IPS.
I am part of a fairly large university. The way we do our stuff. Every time someone tries to get into the network, wireless or wired, the computer is scanned with Nessus to check if it is vulnerab...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-16
Anonymous

The paragraph about faculty and their apathy towards proper PC usage hit home for me. I work for a large company (outside of academia) and am currently involved in a project that includes determining what level of access end users will have with their machines (our largest problem is spyware at thi...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-16
Anonymous (3 replies)

Mandatory computer classes? As a former student from the dorms, and having spent nearly four years at a helpdesk--this is insane, utter nonsense.

First, many people will never even grasp the basics, and if they do--they won't take the time to actually monitor them. Once the AV scanner and firew...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-17
Erik Norgaard

You can't really blame your users getting virus, spyware or other stuff if you have done nothing to warn them about it. A basic course should cover how to install and update the virus scanner, what to do when zone alarm shows an alert etc. When things go wrong - and they do - the user can't say "but...

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grow up 2004-09-17
Anonymous (1 replies)

That is exactly the way I was thinking three years ago. But in the meantime, I grow up and realized that it is impossible to solve all security related problems with the help of technical solutions only. I hope you are not working in the security field as short-minded people like you are one of the ...

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grow up 2004-09-17
Erik Norgaard (3 replies)

First: I think it would be appropriate that you grew up and learned a decent language, I have a hard time understanding your need to explicitly attempt to offend people.

Secondly: I believe that you are confusing the word incompetent with lack of resources. Faculty IT-staff are actually usually q...

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grow up 2004-09-19
Original Anonymous In SubThread

As the party who wrote: "Mandatory computer classes? As a former student from..." I state that I am not the person who wrote:

"I know who the misguided idiot is."

*sigh* I'm going to have to start publishing temporary GPG keys with anonymous posts to keep my anonymous separate from other anon...

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grow up 2004-09-20
Wremes (1 replies)

First :
the corporate example tells me they don't adher to the Defense in Depth principles, Antivirus, IDS and systems patching should be combined to fight off these threats) and there is no policy for laptops returning from abroad.

Secondly :
Why don't universities implement thin client solut...

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Why don't universities... 2004-09-21
Erik Norgaard

On your second point: Students are not a big uniform group with the same needs. There is a huge number of special purpose applications which are used in various fields, and keeping track of licences is difficult.

Also, it may be difficult to get a campus licence that takes into account that most...

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grow up 2004-09-20
Anonymous (1 replies)

As you may already have noticed, I didn't send it to you. I just responded to the previous post. It was he that called people misguided idiots. I only used some of his own words. Bad, I know...

And yes, I'm not a native English speaker. ...

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grow up 2004-09-22
Orig Anonymous (1 replies)

"It's your network--you protect it. 'Cause I can't stand hearing another lecture from some misguided idiot on how to use McAfee and not open attachments. At least *my* SMTP server authenticated its users and didn't have relaying enabled..."

As you may or may not have realized--network admins and ...

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Real world 2004-09-23
Erik Norgaard

"In the 'real' or corporate world sure these problems exist. But that doesn't make them...something to be accepted. Loss of security begins with compromise of best practices for ease of use or efficiency. That's the only problem I can think of that technology is incapable of addressing."

I'd aggr...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-22
A new anonymous (1 replies)

As someone who's done information security work in academia, government, and different sizes of corporations, the most important thing I've learned is this: Throw everything you've got at it. The professional term for this is "defense in depth."

Security awareness training is one of the most va...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-23
Orgiginal Anonymous

A new anonymous wrote: "Two of the most intractable problems with security in any large organization are lack of resources and counterproductive user behavior. A "computer user good behavior" class would address the latter while leveraging standard academic resources to reduce the impact of the form...

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Special Thanks 2004-09-17
Anonymous

It was nice to read this article. I am the only one in my office that knows how to cut and paste so when it comes to security that is the last thought on the staff's minds. Therefore I have been the self appointed IT department. I have had to incorporate new technologies which also means more securi...

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Mistake? 2004-09-17
Anonymous

Quote:

If the lights go off, it's not their fault; conversely, if the computers go down, it's IT's problem, not theirs.
====

I don't think "conversely" is the word you want there, as the situations seem analogous....

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Culture of infosec responsibility 2004-09-17
Anonymous (1 replies)

In answer to the question of how to promote infosec awareness by faculty, there is a simple solution.

It's clear that the faculty need and want admin rights, but those right need to be revoked unless and until faculty:
1. Receive infosec training provided by IT
2. Receive administration policie...

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Have you ever worked with college faculty? 2004-09-17
Foo

I have, in minor roles, and I can tell you that your suggestions probably wouldn't fly at most schools. You have to understand that many (not all, but many) college professors have the following attitudes:

- They're extremely knowledgable about some specific field, therefore they feel they're sm...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-17
enforcer

I'm not convinced about the "scanning" approach. I consult for several universtities and I've found that most new students have XP and SP2 installed on the machines anyway and as a result are firewalled. I may be able to detect strange network traffic but scanning the machine is not a real possibi...

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another vote for open-sourcing the perl code 2004-09-17
Anonymous (1 replies)

I would really like to get my hands on the perl script your friend describes, Scott. I work for an organization that manages the external network connections for a number of universities, and this could come in very handy for us....

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another vote for open-sourcing the perl code 2004-09-18
Anonymous (1 replies)

second that....

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another vote for open-sourcing the perl code 2004-09-21
James (1 replies)

Add another request for the tools...

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another vote for open-sourcing the perl code 2004-09-22
Anonymous

Yeah, another vote for open-sourcing the code....

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-17
C. Wilson

I work in IT security at a /16 .edu and would most certainly like to see the scripts. We use nessus, nmap, and a few other tools here and there, and I'm in the process of trying to automate some log grepping and analysis with regards to compromised/vulnerable machines. It would be helpful to get the...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-17
Anonymous

great article.

May I have a copy of the perl script.

Thank you

peterhntran@hotmail.com...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-18
Anonymous

I would LOVE to see the scripts. We also use cisco switches and would definitely be interested in using such a setup, especially for our vpn vlan!...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-18
Gill

Great article.

Can i have the perl script as well.

Thanks in advance.

SarbjitSingh@gmail.com...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-18
Anonymous

I, too, would like to see that script.

Now, on to the comment:
I think the descriptions of the students/faculty regarding their machines is pretty accurate of all users. They don't know and don't care.

Even the CS professors are a little ignorant of computer security. This is illustrated by m...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-18
Anonymous

Let's have that code or else...!!! OK, please ... :D...

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Been done @ UF 2004-09-20
a student (2 replies)

First, do your research!
The University of Florida Division of Housing has implemented a much more advanced system for some time now. It's called ICARUS. Full control of every layer, 1-7. 110Mbit to UFcore, VMPS, MAC based regisration, IDS/IPS, p2p protocol detection and control (even encrypted was...

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Been done @ UF - and doesn't work???!!!? 2004-09-21
Anonymous

hmm googling turns up articles which suggest that Icarus mostly blocks people's legitimate internet use and some p2p traffic (which could also be legitimate internet use e.g. bittorrent to get Fedora ISOs.) and disables internet access which students have actually paid for themselves. Probably Ica...

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Been done @ UF 2004-09-22
Anonymous (1 replies)

Aware of the work at UF, however,
can't find evidence of open sharing
of the tool with other univs.

If you know different, please share.

thanks!...

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UF stepped in 2004-09-22
student

http://www.dhnet.ufl.edu/forums/viewtopic.php?t=197

"It's probably not going to be. The powers that be decided that we couldn't just do it. If we are able to release it, it won't be real soon."

"There has certainly been interest. Subjugation of the masses is basically every university it admin...

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UF ICARUS 2004-09-20
uf student

http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/Hearings/05062004hearing
1264/Dunkel1974.htm

"pulls information from commercial and open-source tools used to monitor the network and spots traffic patterns that look like P2P transfers."

"Before it was turned on, there were as many as 3,500 simultaneous viol...

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Macintosh perspective? 2004-09-20
Anonymous (2 replies)

The article and (so far) all the comments focus on the Windows world where viruses and spyware are every day occurances. But what about colleges that are mostly Mac oriented? Do their IT staff have to deal with security issues too?

It seems to me that colleges could reduce their IT headache if th...

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Macintosh perspective? 2004-09-22
Student/Tech

It does seem like a good idea to go to an "all" mac campus, but it is important to remeber that for student machines macs can be to expensive. I know a lot of students who just can't afford anything over 1000, and most opt for the 700 dollar range....

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Macintosh perspective? 2004-09-23
Anonymous

This arguement is getting old. If everyone started using Macs then Macs would be targeted. Windows is only targeted because it holds the largest market share. If Macs were used more they'd be targeted....

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-21
Anonymous

I would love to see the Perl scripts as an open source so a lot of us in the academia could use and improve it....

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-22
IT Guy

Love to see the perl scripts open source as i too work in a university face the same problems
...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-22
Anonymous

I would like to add another vote for seeing those scripts.

ugnet@hotmail.com...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-22
Anonymous

Great Article, nice to see that we are not the only ones struggling for solutions.

Extra hardware is nice if you got the cash, manpower is always short, and you get a mix of students from the hardcore hackers to the guy who barely knows how to open a file (let alone patch the computer).

Soluti...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-22
DM Orrick

Interesting article with valid points.

Please open source the scripts! ...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-22
Anonymous

The perl scripts for that are mentioned sound like a useful tool. I would encourage the author to release as open source.

...

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Another vote for open-source perl code 2004-09-22
T Wilson

I as well would like to get a hold of the perl script.

...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-22
Anonymous

I agree you should open source the scripts, but be carefull. As a sysadmin at the University of Arizona I know there can be problems with that. Legally the University owns the scripts, since they were written for the school and you were paid to do it. We have had problems with that, we need to go...

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Cyber Security with Absolute Certainty 2004-09-22
Dennis Meharchand (1 replies)

Solutions are available for those that want it. Canadian Colleges are leading the way with both La Cite Colege of Ottawa and Mohawk College of Hamilton using the Valt.X Cyber Secure Hard Drive Adapters - devices which secure and instantly clean and recover computers from any malicious attack instant...

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Cyber Security with Absolute Certainty 2004-09-23
Anonymous

Checked out the website, and since you are the CEO of Valtx Mr. Meharchand, perhaps you could enlighten the readers as to the educational discount your company provides?

What did the two Canadian colleges invest to install your solution?
...

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resources Re: Academia Headaches 2004-09-23
Internet2 SALSA Chair..

Scott,

Might I request that while preparing for future articles on academia that you consider consulting some of the available resources and collaborative materials by and for academia, and perhaps include some of these references in your articles. In particular, the security efforts of EduCause...

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Security Trainer, Penn State 2004-09-23
Ken Layng

This notion of parents not being supportive of shutting a users access is an interesting one, and one that we are faced with at Penn State. However, I must say (and I'm a parent too) that I am more concerned about how one student's irresponsibility can effect so many other parent's kids ability to ...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-23
Anonymous

Wow! The problems in this article echo our exact IT issues these days. I was surprised and comforted to know that we aren't alone.

I would love to see the perl script and be able to apply something like this to our environment.

...

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Academia Headaches 2004-09-24
Insider

After working for a while in a IT department at a college in a medium size university I have concluded that most of the people make decisions at the top should not be the one running the show. They do what they think is right (not right for the university as a whole). The problems in dorms will alwa...

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PERL Aspirin - another vote for the scripts 2004-09-25
Anonymous

Please make your scripts available, sir or ma'am. We will all benefit, and at least one of us will be grateful! TIA....

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