JULY, 2005
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New Text-Only Functionality for the Website
Websites are primarily designed to be visual media - they contain images, artwork, fonts, colors, backgrounds and other kinds of design elements that are distinct from the text that conveys most information. In order for the College's webpages to be accessible to any user, regardless of any disability or browsing technology, we have implemented software that converts pages to text-only. Simply put, this software strips out all non-text components and renders the text in an easy-to-read format. Users can also choose to view content in larger fonts or different contrast schemes (black on white, white on black, etc.) if their eyesight is deficient.
The text-only software also supports alternative browsing technologies - besides providing webpages for those users forced to visit out site with old hardware or extremely slow connections, the text-only choice works very well on handheld computers or cell phones with internet capability.
Try it for yourself - go to the college homepage and click on Text Only. If you are a web author of pages on the College's main webserver, you can run your pages through the text-only transcoder by creating a link with the following syntax:
<a href="http://ghidrah.oneonta.edu:8080/tt/http://www.oneonta.edu/yourwebsite">Text Only</a>
Call the Web Development Office at 2710 if you have any questions about the Text-Only Transcoder.
Changes in the Computer Center
|
Karl Lehenbauer promoted to Senior
Programmer Analyst In his new position Karl will supervise Administrative Computer Operations. Additional responsibilities include ensuring administrative data backup, report printing and distribution, and managing operations supplies inventory. Karl will continue to plan and coordinate programming support for Facilities Planning, Human Resources, Instructional Resource Center, Maintenance – Administration, OAS, Student Accounts and University Police. Congratulations Karl! Kristy Davidson joins administrative programming group as a Programmer Analyst |
Kristy will be transferring from Career Planning and Placement, and brings 13 years of higher education experience to the Computer Center. She will join a team of programmers responsible for providing programming support for Accounting, Budget, Career Development, College Foundation, Finance, Financial Aid, Human Resources, Library, OAS, Research Foundation, Student Accounts and University Police.
Welcome aboard, Kristy!
Tere Jarvis, a senior majoring in Computer Science, interning as a
Student Programmer for the summer
Tere has provided additional support for Karl Lehenbauer and Andy
Martin. She has been
working on bringing existing programs to meet our current programming
standards, documenting processes and creating “program walk through”
documentation. Working closely with team members, she has modified
existing programs and created Oracle tables in support of applications
development.
Wireless Networking in Residence Halls
The College has brought wireless internet access to all classroom buildings over the last few years. Over the summer Telecommunications technicians will be installing wireless access hardware in residence halls. This will support wireless network connections in and near the halls' first floor study lounges, and over the next year or two we will be expanding wireless throughout the buildings.
Information Security
Botnets - a new wrinkle in personal computer security
There has been a lot of continuing publicity in this and other publications about the need for security on users' work and home computers. Usually the message revolves around the individual's desire for a smoothly-running, functional computer. We all want to avoid the havoc caused by viruses, trojans, worms and other entities, and so we spend a fair amount of time keeping our machines up-to-date. Or we should, anyway.
The people who are trying to make malicious use of our computers and the information they contain have not been idle, of course. Rather than using their own machines to send out spam email, carry out denial-of-service attacks or personally attempt to hack into your computer, they are increasingly using botnets as their evil minion armies.
A botnet is a collection of computers - mine, yours, grandma's - that have been compromised and are now under the control of a botnet controller. These collections of personal computers can run into the tens of thousands, because they are self-propagating. One machine can seek out and break ten more, all without the intervention of the controller. Once collected and controlled, a botnet can be used in lots of nefarious ways. They can be instructed to log your keystrokes and look for specific kinds of information you are keying into your computer - for example, if you type in a string of sixteen numerals in a row, then chances are it's a credit card number. If you enter a string with a syntax of 123-45-6789 then it's probably a social security number. You get the idea - the controller can have the botnet machines seek out and collect this information completely autonomously. Many botnets are run at a very low threshold for each machine - that is, you may not even be aware that there is anything wrong - but your machine can still be used for distributed-type actions. It may even be held in reserve for future actions, like a sleeper cell. There are a tremendous number of botnets out there; in the first two weeks of June an average of 168,000 new bots were seen every day! Not only that, but 70% of all spam is sent by these botnets.
In any event, you have to be asking yourself "What on earth can I do to secure my machine from this threat?"
Well, it's the usual. You have got to make sure that you have an up-to-date and functional antivirus application, an antispyware application, and in the case of Windows machines all of the latest patches, service packs and updates. In the case of your college-owned machine that's all taken care of if you are a member of Administrative Computing's Secure Desktop program or Academic Computing's ASCI program. For other users or home machines the responsibility is pretty much yours. If your machine is not secure, then you ought to consider it compromised and think twice or three times before using it for online transactions where you use a credit card or other sensitive information.
The College is aggressively pursuing botnets here on campus. A
compromised machine must periodically connect to their controller (“bot-herder”)
to check for orders and updates to the bot software. We
specifically look for these connections; we can then track down the
compromised computer and remove it from the network until it can be
cleaned. ASCI and Secure Desktop computers are automatically
configured to get their virus updates and windows patches. Secure
Desktop computers also prevent users from installing software downloaded
from the internet. Even though software downloaded from the internet
appears to be legitimate, occasionally it also contains a hidden bot
installer. Finally, the campus firewall protects computers on
campus from attacks by botnets.
Cell Phones and Driving
We all know that using a cell phone while driving is dangerous, so dangerous in fact that it is illegal in the state of New York to do so. It is less clear exactly why talking on a cell phone causes a problem for drivers. After all, drivers seem to have little problem carrying on conversations with those riding along in the car, and it would seem that manipulating a car stereo is similar to dealing with a cell phone.
The answers are starting to come in from the field of cognitive psychology. The research shows pretty clearly that humans can process both audio and visual information, but that the brainpower available for these tasks is not really shareable - if you are listening and responding, then you are less able to respond to visual stimulus, like that little old lady crossing the street. But why isn't the passenger's conversation similarly distracting? Well, it seems that passengers who are talking actually respond to visual cues and modify their speech patterns. For example, moving through a very busy intersection might make a passenger suddenly fall silent. It is also obvious to the driver and the passenger why the driver interrupts conversation or asks for repetition if the driver has to deal with a complex driving task. None of this is possible in the context of a cellphone conversation. The driver is talking with a person who cannot see what is going on in the car, and there is a subtle etiquette in phone conversation to keep the conversation moving along. In addition, many cell phone networks have a problem with latency, the delay between the time you utter a word and the other person hears it. This, combined with echo and varying signal strength can make cellphone conversations much more demanding than face-to-face conversation.
Dialing a cell phone creates similar divided-attention problems. A driver who makes a call using manual dialing (as opposed to speed-dialing or voice-activated dialing) must hold the cellphone with one hand, recall the number to be dialed from his memory, then manipulate the fingers to press the correct buttons in the correct sequence. This requires the driver to switch the gaze back and forth from the road to the phone up to ten times in a few seconds, refocusing the eyes and verifying the digits pressed on the cellphone screen. All this adds up to a real load on the driver's cognitive processing ability. Dealing with a car stereo is much simpler - usually just pressing a volume button or a preset radio station button. The layout of buttons on a stereo is also simpler. Finally the task of adjusting a stereo is not time-critical; having used conventional phones all our lives, we are conditioned to dial the complete number within ten seconds or so.
The bottom line? Pull over to make or answer that call.
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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