OIT News – January 2013

OIT News
Monthly news briefs, information and announcements
Office of Information Technology, NC State University
Issue 63, January 2013
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01: Protect your digital footprint during Data Privacy Month 2013
02: OIT to turn off Quarantine Reporting in Postini
03:  CORRECTION: Google to continue Calendar Appointment Slots feature
04: Come out to FOSS Fair 2013!
05: 2013 SAS and JMP licenses available
06: Students to load class schedules in Google Calendar
07: University administrators to access admissions documents in SIS
08: Exercise your mind in 2013! PhotoShop, Cisco IP phone, Google Apps, bulk email
09: SAR training scheduled for Feb. 26
10: How much information about you is online?
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01: Protect your digital footprint during Data Privacy Month 2013
OIT is hosting several activities during Data Privacy Month to empower campus users to protect their privacy and to control their digital footprint. Held annually in January, Data Privacy Month is sponsored by the National Cyber Security Alliance.

All presentations, held in the D.H. Hill Library Auditorium (Room 2304), include:

  • Tim Gurganus of OIT Security and Compliance will give the opening presentation, Top Tips to Protect Your Privacy and Data, from noon to 1 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 28, which is also Data Privacy Day. To protect everyone’s privacy, it is important for campus users to understand the ways personal information is collected, stored, used, and shared. Protecting privacy is a shared responsibility, and there are many things students and staff can do to protect their accounts and data. This presentation will cover a variety of privacy-related topics including password management, email privacy settings, Web browser privacy settings, encryption, and social network privacy. It will also cover what to do if your account or data is compromised and how to protect data on your mobile device.
  • John Baines of OIT Security and Compliance will present What Data is Sensitive and How Do We Keep it Private? from noon to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 29. Significant amounts of data, including sensitive personal information, are kept in various locations at the university, including the Internet cloud. Are you storing this data correctly? Come learn how the proposed NC State Data Sensitivity Framework defines the basis for privacy requirements and what you need to do to protect and safeguard sensitive data.
  • Tim Gurganus of OIT Security and Compliance and Clifton Williams of the Office of General Counsel will present Data Protection, Privacy and the Law from noon to 1 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 31. Practices for protecting data and privacy are required by a variety of university policies, state and federal laws, legal contracts, and industry standards. This joint presentation will be an overview of the privacy laws and standards affecting NC State students, faculty and staff and what needs to be done in the event of a security or privacy breach. The following topics will be covered:
    • Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
    • Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
    • NC Identity Theft Prevention Act
    • Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS)
    • NC State University Computer Use Policy
    • NC State University procedures for subpoenas, search warrants and records requests

These laws and standards will cover personal information, grades, class schedules, financial data, medical records, university email, and more.

For more information, please visit the Data Privacy Month website. To view other activities planned during January, visit EDUCAUSE and StaySafeOnline.org.

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02: OIT to turn off Quarantine Reporting in Postini
On Saturday, Feb. 16, OIT will turn off the Quarantine Reporting feature in Postini, NC State’s central anti-spam/antivirus and email archiving system. If you are receiving a Quarantine Summary each morning, you will cease getting it, and Google’s spam service will take over filtering spam messages. Once this change takes effect, you will still be able to log in to Postini to check your archive, but the “Manage junk filters” feature for spam will no longer be available.

Because Postini will now pass spam to Google instead of holding it in quarantine, you might be surprised at the amount of spam you receive in Google at first. All spam will be retained in your Spam folder, and you can review it and move it back into your inbox, or leave it there and after 30 days, it will be emptied to the trash.

You will find that Google’s spam service is much better at learning and remembering what you consider spam. After about a week, you will be more confident that what is in your Spam folder is in fact spam, and you may choose not to review every message.

A large percentage of campus users have already manually turned off Quarantine Reporting, and you can do that as well. For instructions, visit Stopping Delivery of Your Daily Quarantine Report from Postini.

This change is in preparation for OIT’s transition away from Postini as its anti-spam/antivirus service. The Postini email archiving service also will be changing to Google’s Vault service for e-discovery and archiving, but that change is not slated to happen until later in 2013.

Note: Like many systemwide changes, turning off the Quarantine Reporting feature for the university’s domain will be a “rolling transition.” This means it could take up to a week for all campus users to see the change take effect in their email.

If you have any questions about this change, contact the NC State Help Desk at 515-4357 or help@ncsu.edu.

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03: CORRECTION: Google to continue Calendar Appointment Slots feature

CORRECTION – Google Inc. has reversed its decision to phase out the Appointment Slots in Calendar feature beginning on Jan. 30.

Based on customer feedback, Google announced on Jan. 17 that it would continue to support Appointment Slots in Calendar for all Google Apps for Business, Education and Government customers. Appointment Slots allow users to set up predetermined time slots on their calendars that other users could then book. For more details, visit Changes to Google Calendar feature set.

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04: Come out to FOSS Fair 2013!
You’re cordially invited to join us at this year’s Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) Fair 2013. Sponsored by OIT Campus Linux Services and Red Hat Inc., FOSS Fair 2013 will be held on Saturday, Feb. 9 beginning at 9 a.m. in Room 3211 of Engineering Building 2 (EB2) on NC State’s Centennial Campus.

Any topic relating to free and open source software is welcome. You can suggest a session, volunteer to give a talk, and register for the event on the FOSS Fair 2013 website.

To get more information about this year’s event, contact Jack Neely, event coordinator, at 513-1522 or visit the FOSS Fair 2013 website. Red Hat will be providing lunch for participants who have registered by Friday, Feb. 1.

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05: 2013 SAS and JMP licenses available
OIT has renewed licenses for the following SAS, JMP and JMP Genomics products, including updated 32-bit and 64-bit versions:

  • SAS 9.3 for Windows and Linux
  • SAS 9.2 for Windows and Linux
  • JMP 10 for Windows and Macintosh
  • JMP 9 for Windows and Macintosh
  • JMP Genomics for Windows

Although current licenses have a grace period that extends until March 31, you can update your licenses at any time by visiting the Software Licensing website.

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06: Students to load class schedules in Google Calendar
Later this semester, students will be able to load their class schedules into their Google calendars from the MyPack Portal.

With a click of a button from the Enrollment Wizard in the MyPack Portal, students will be able to load a single class section — or their entire class schedule — into their Google calendars. OIT and Registration and Records have begun planning to provide similar functionality to faculty from the Faculty Center. Students with questions about this new service should contact Registration and Records.

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07: University administrators to access admissions documents in SIS
This month, OIT and Registration and Records will be linking the Student Information System to the Singularity imaging system, allowing university administrators to easily access admissions and other student documents from inside the MyPack Portal.

No action, such as new SAR security requests, will be needed because the images will be made available based on existing security roles as determined by Registration and Records and the Graduate School. Registration and Records and the Graduate School will announce when the service is available to campus.

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08: Exercise your mind in 2013! PhotoShop, Cisco IP phone, Google Apps, bulk email
Begin the new year with one of OIT’s training opportunities:

  • Photoshop: Introduction is a new four-part series that will be offered on Jan. 17, 24, 31, and Feb. 7 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. in Room 110 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. In this series, you will learn about the Photoshop software as well as print and photography design concepts. By the end of this workshop series, you should feel comfortable finding the tools you need to use within Photoshop to open, edit, transform, retouch, and export images. Make sure to sign up for all four sessions!
  • Beyond the Basics: Google Calendar will be offered on Tuesday, Jan. 22 from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in Room 110 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. If you’re comfortable with the basics of Google Calendar and are ready to use some more of its features, this hands-on workshop is for you. This workshop will focus on features such as event attachments, maps and directions, sharing and embedding calendars, labs, quick add, search options, mobile notifications, and more.
  • Avoid the Spam Filter: Tips for Successful Bulk Emailing will be offered on Tuesday, Feb. 5 from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. in Room 106 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. Do you distribute email-based newsletters, announcements or surveys to a large campus population? Are your messages arriving in your intended audience’s inboxes or are they getting caught by spam filters? Learn how to avoid the common pitfalls of sending bulk email and become more efficient at getting your email to its proper destination.
  • Getting to Know Your New Cisco IP Phone will be offered on Tuesday, Feb. 12 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. in Room 110 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. If you or your office has recently upgraded to Cisco Voice over IP (VoIP) phones, this workshop will help you learn the basic features and functions of your new phones.
  • Google Apps @ NC State Mail and Calendar Training will be offered on Thursday, Feb. 14 from 9 a.m. to noon in Room 110 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. This hands-on workshop covers everything you need to know to get started with Gmail and Google Calendar at NC State. Please note that you need an active Unity ID in order to participate in this training.

Check out the many workshops offered this spring on the Classmate training calendar. If you’d like to request a custom training workshop for your department, unit or classroom, please complete the Custom Training online form. If you have any questions about OIT training, please email classreg@ncsu.edu.

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09: SAR training scheduled for Feb. 26
Security Access Request (SAR) training for campus requestors and approvers of access to secured university data will be held Tuesday, Feb. 26 from 9:30 a.m. to noon in the ITTC Lab 2 of D.H. Hill Library. Please visit Classmate to view available classes and to sign up for training.

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10: How much information about you is online?
The days of protecting your privacy with an unlisted phone number are gone. With the advent of social media, there is more information about you available to the public than you might think.

Your personal information is collected and stored in many locations – online and offline. Each piece of information alone shouldn’t create a major concern for you, but when many of those scraps of information are combined and made available in one location, your privacy is reduced. In social networking and privacy discussions, you may have heard the expression, “You are the product.” Several online businesses, called data aggregators or information brokers, collect and sell your personal information. One of them is Spokeo.com, which is basically a search engine that aggregates your name, email address and phone number from online public sources such as phone books, real estate records, marketing surveys, and government records, plus profile entries from websites like Facebook, MySpace, Amazon.com, LinkedIn, Flickr, blogging sites, YouTube, Internet dating sites, and many others.

Search results may include your home address, marital status, religion, hobbies, names of friends and family members, personal photos, a satellite image of your home, and even your estimated income. Some of this information could be used against you in social engineering attacks or to get access to your online accounts using your password reset questions. Answers to personal questions —  for example, the high school you attended — are made much easier to find using a list of addresses from sites like Spokeo.com.

What you can do to protect your privacy?

  • Visit several of the information broker sites listed on Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and see what information about you is available. You can opt-out of many of the data aggregator sites, but it will take some work.
  • Set your privacy settings as soon as you sign up for a social network. Remember that any information you don’t protect with a security setting is fair game for public search engines.
  • Visit OIT’s Data Privacy Month website and register to attend presentations scheduled for later this month to learn about the laws and university policies on data privacy and how to protect your privacy.

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