JUNE, 2005

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Reggie Searles retiring from Computer Services

He's been here since before most of the other folks in Computer Services were even born - and now Reggie Searles has decided that we're mature enough to take care of things ourselves and it's now time to retire.

He has given just a few months shy of forty years' service to the College.  During this time he has seen the development of computer technology pass from the punchcard reader to the wireless intranet.  He has processed information on over sixty thousand students in his career and has probably generated enough greenbar report paper to reach from here to Hawaii.

Reggie is now moving on to a life of leisure, with time to spend with his family and maybe play a round of golf now and then.  Noon Ball will still be a part of his routine, though!

There will be a reception for Reggie at Hunt Union's Waterfront on June 29th from 1:30 to 3:30 PM; stop by and wish him a happy retirement!

PayPal - a typical phishing scam

Back in February CATPrints we discussed the phenomenon of "phishing" - a process whereby a scam artist tries to induce you to give detailed information about you that they can use for fraudulent purposes.  Here is an example from the dozens of phishing scams that appear in our inboxes daily:

The scam starts with a pretty authentic-looking email.  They scammer includes logos and even a link to PayPal's Privacy Policy.  Clicking on the UPDATE link presents the user with a request to log in to their PayPal account - this looks even more convincing:

This looks good - but any username and password combination you enter is accepted, because the page is not from PayPal, but from the scammers.  They are simply capturing your information!

The next page goes on to ask for your name, address, social security number, mother's maiden name and date of birth:

Finally, the scammers ask for credit card information:

The person who fills all of this out with authentic data has just given the scammers everything they need to order products from the internet (the easiest fraud), create a fake credit card that can be used anywhere (a little more difficult, but not as difficult as you might think) or even drain money straight out of your bank account with the ATM pin number you gave them.

The bottom line here is to never give your personal information in response to an email request.  That goes for phone requests, too, for that matter.  No real credit card company will ask you for information on the phone.  If you make purchases on the internet, be very careful that you are connected to a secure site (the address bar begins with https:// rather than http://, and / or a padlock appears in the status bar of your browser) and keep careful watch on your credit card accounts in case fraudulent charges appear. 

Telecommunications upgrading network switch equipment

During the summer technical staff from Telecommunications have been replacing computer network switch equipment in most buildings on campus.  Eleven buildings have already been done with minimal service interruption, and seven more will be completed by the start of classes in August.  This replacement program will improve reliability and security of the campus network while permitting future growth.

Temporary Greetings and the Out of Office Assistant

Temporary voicemail greetings are useful if you are going to be out of the office for a while, since the greeting will let people who call you know that you can’t get back to them right away. You can also set the greeting to automatically expire on the date & time you specify!

First, log in to voicemail just like you would to get your messages, then:

• Press 82.
• To record your temporary greeting press 3.
• Press 5 to record.
• You must wait for the tone before you start to speak.
• When you are finished recording your message press # to end the recording.
• To play the greeting you recorded, press 2.
• To rerecord the greeting, press 5 while at the beginning of the greeting. Record the new greeting and press # to end the recording.
• To delete a greeting press 76 at the greeting.
• To set the expiration date for your temporary greeting press 9. Enter the month, day, and time pressing # after each entry
• To exit press 4.

The Out of Office Assistant is used by lots of people in a similar fashion - but this is for their email account.  To enable it, go to Tools- Out of Office Assistant-

You can put any message you want in the AutoReply box.  When you select "I am currently Out of the Office" it will stay in that mode until you change it back, but Outlook will remind you every time you log in.

The Rules mechanism can be very useful if you anticipate getting an email from someone while you are away, but you don't want to let it languish in your inbox for days until you return.  You can use rules to manage certain emails while Out of Office is turned on.

This example shows how messages from a certain sender are automatically forwarded to someone else.  There are many other permutations, including forwarding messages with certain words in the subject or message body, or replying with a template.

Just make sure you avoid disaster by making sure that something that gets auto-forwarded isn't something that might offend or embarrass, or worse yet something that might violate a confidence.

If you have a question for Computer and Telecommunication Services about:

Computer Problems or Related Issues - Call the Information Technology Help Desk at     436-4567

Telephone Service or Problems - Call the Office of Telecommunications at 436-2577

Directory Assistance - call 436-3500

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