Severe weather last night caused the power to fail on campus at approximately 4:30AM. Our datacenter's battery backup system kept systems up as long as possible but after 30 minutes our systems were automatically shut down to prevent damage. As of 8:30AM all servers on campus should be back up and running. If you are still experiencing issues with the network related to this outage please contact the Help Desk.

Previously RUCS would on request "exempt" the MAC addresses for the wireless network cards of devices like iPhones, Palm or Windows Mobile PDAs.  In the past, the number of these devices was such that it was easy to track who was using the devices, however the exponential growth in the number of these devices in recent years has reached a point where we are no longer able to manage them. In addition, these devices are increasingly becoming the target of security vulnerabilities.

Effective May 1, 2008, RUCS will no longer exempt these devices on our wireless network. In the future, users who wish to access the Internet on our campus with these devices will need to authenticate through their device's web browser, just as they do when accessing the Internet from any non-Rockhurst managed system.

If the device does not have a web browser capable of authentication on our network, RUCS will deal with this on a case-by-case basis.

This change will have absolutely no effect on the use of any cellular provider data connection (EDGE/3G/EVDO, etc) on campus. Only the "rockhurst" and "student" 802.11b/g wireless connections on campus.

We appreciate your assistance in this effort to secure and streamline our operations.

While the struggle against unsolicited email is never ending, RUCS is committed to the fight. On an average day, Rockhurst receives over 600,000 external emails per day, of which less than 3% are considered legitimate, not taking into account ones that are not captured by our protection systems and must be manually deleted by our users.

Not only is SPAM a massive inconvenience to our users, it also spreads malicious content that can damage our infrastructure or expose our users personal information. It also wastes network bandwidth and taxes resources that should be used for more legitimate purposes. 

Currently the three major ways we block SPAM & malware are:

• At our gateway, using our Barracuda SPAM firewall.
• On our mail systems, utilizing server-side protection software.
• At our clients, using Outlook's built in Junk Mail filter and McAfee Anti-Virus.

This weekend we will be activating another layer of protection. This layer, known as "in the cloud filtering" by our Internet service provider, will help block SPAM closer to its source before it ever reaches our network. Not only will this change help reduce the SPAM, it should free up significant resources on our network. The result should be faster and more reliable email delivery as well as a faster Internet connection for the campus.

We will never stop all the SPAM. As fast as our filters can adapt to new threats, the threats adapt to the filters. Our hope is that our users begin seeing significant improvement this week. Any SPAM system is prone to false-positives, if you feel that legitimate emails are being blocked by this change, please contact us immediately.

Update April 17: Mail delivery from some servers may have been delayed over the last week as we've implemented this change. We apologize for the delay, however, at this time everything should be fully operational and our external message traffic on the network has already reduced by 95%. Users should be seeing a significant decrease in spam at this time.

In addition to the regular monthly Windows Updates that Microsoft will release this week, the following software on Rockhurst workstations will be updated or installed.

• SmartFTP 3.0, build 1012 (changelog)
• Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.13 (changelog)
• Paint.NET 3.30 (changelog)
• McAfee Enterprise Anti-Virus 8.5 Patch 5 (changelog)

If you have any questions please contact us.

Computer Services, in conjunction with our partners at CDW-G, AT&T and Microsoft, is proud to announce that we will be holding our first ever Halo 3 Team Slayer Tournament!

The tournament is April 12, 2008 in Conway Hall from 11AM to 5PM. It is open to all current Rockhurst students as well as active staff and faculty. We've got a lot of really cool prizes from our partners including:

• Copies of Halo 3 and Gears of War for Xbox 360, courtesy of Microsoft
• 3-Month Pre-Paid Subcription Cards for Xbox Live, courtesy of Computer Services
• Sansa MP3 Players, courtesy of CDW-G
• Palm Centro Smartphone (Grand Prize), courtesy of AT&T

For more information, visit our tournament website at www.rockhurst.edu/halo3

In addition to the regular monthly Windows Updates that Microsoft will release this week, the following software on Rockhurst workstations will be updated or installed.

• Java Runtime Environment 6, Update 5
• 7-Zip 4.57
• SmartFTP 2.5, build 1008
• Adobe Flash 9, latest build
• Adobe Shockwave 10, latest build

If you have not restarted your workstation since Adobe 8.1.2 or Firefox 2.0.0.12 were released last month, you will also be required to install those updates at that time.

Adobe Reader 8.1.2 has been pushed to campus and should be installed the next time that your system is restarted. This version will replace all previous versions installed on campus systems.

This upgrade was made for three very important reasons:

• Security vulnerabilities were present in previous versions of Adobe Reader which could allow malicious remote code execution. (more information)
• Rolling 8.1.2 out to everyone will standardize the version of the software that the Help Desk supports on campus.
• Upcoming upgrades to the Banner documentation system will require Adobe 8 to be utilized.

Again, to install this upgrade simply reboot your computer while it is plugged into the campus network. If you have any questions about this upgrade please feel free to contact us.

If you have Adobe Acrobat (not Reader) installed on your computer, it will not be changed by this installation except that you may notice an additional shortcut created on your Desktop.

Firefox 2.0.0.12 has been deployed to systems on campus. This is a bug & security fix only and should not introduce any new features to the product. A list of the fixes can be obtained from Mozilla.org.

Please contact us if you have any questions or issues related to this update.

In an effort to increase system security, RUCS has enabled new screen saver lockout requirements. In the past, if a user did not manually lock their system before walking away, that system would be open for anyone passing by to use. That person would then have access to files, email or other data that they should not have. To prevent this from happening, we are now requiring the use of screen savers that automatically lock the workstation after activation.

Users will still have the ability to select and customize their own screen saver, as well as change the time period before the screen saver activates. However, they must select a time period of 30 minutes or less. While we recommenced that users select a time frame of 10 minutes or less, we understand that not everyone has the same preferences and we want to accommodate as many different types of conditions as possible. If your current screen saver settings do not fit in the guidelines of this new policy you should adjust them accordingly. If you do not, they will reset to the Windows defaults the next time you logon to your system. If your settings already meet these requirements no changes will be made to your customizations.

To view your current screen saver settings and make adjustments right click on your Desktop and go to Properties. Select the Screen Saver tab and make any adjustments you feel are necessary. Press OK when complete.

Computers in our labs will continue to automatically log out users after 10 minutes of inactivity.

The only exception to this new policy is teacher stations which we have modified to allow faculty users to remain logged in indefinitely. This change should aid instructors giving presentations and prevent screen savers being activated or being logged out automatically during class. Please make sure to manually log out of these machine when you are done working on them.

We appreciate your cooperation in our continued efforts to secure our infrastructure.

Access to our web based email system has been restored. We apologize for the inconvenience caused by this down time. While web based access to email was disrupted, VPN or local access from Rockhurst managed systems was not. In addition, no emails sent or received should have been lost by this outage.

If you have a cellphone which syncronizes over the air with our email system you may need to restart the ActiveSync service on your phone to begin seeing over the air updates again.