The Echo

Issue date: 1/17/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Katherine McGehee Hooking up: Alish Roberts, Athens, Tenn., junior, connected her laptop to the new UTC wireless network for the first time Wednesday afternoon while recruiting members for the Littleton H. Mason singers.

During the winter break UTC's Internet technology department made changes to the virus protection program to improve Internet security on campus.
The process began on UTC residence housing last fall in an attempt to protect the network from viruses students would bring from home computers to the UTC network.
Monty Wilson, assistant vice chancellor of information technology, says the added security is partly in response to the 2003 Blaster virus that infected the UTC network and took an entire semester to resolve.
He says with the new security system, the specific computer with the virus can be targeted and shut down, protecting other network computers.
The university chose the Bradford software because of it's affordability. It was paid for with the student technology fee, Wilson said.
Students trying to gain Internet access from a laptop on campus will be required to install the new software before they can access the Internet.
Once installed the software will remind users of new patches to be installed. Patches are upgrades to the software so viruses can be kept at bay.
"It's important to maintain updates," Wilson said.
"Practicing safe security is important to maintaining a working computer," Wilson said.
According to Wilson, the risk of a new patch breaking something is less than the risk of not installing of the patch causing problems for students."
Reginald Smith, a Memphissenior, works in the UC computer lab, helping students with the new software.
According to Smith, the most common problem is users choosing a wired setup instead of a wireless setup.
Smith said doing this will cause problems that have to be corrected before the student can proceed in the software update process.
Smith said he wants students to know they should call the help desk at 425-4000 first to see if they can walk you through any problems you encounter while updating your software.
If students still need help, they can set up an appointment with the help desk to have the laptop individually looked at by someone in the UC computer lab.
Mandy Prince, a senior from Trenton, Tenn., approves of the software's installation.
Prince said she uses her laptop for every campus need from note taking to listening to music.
Prince said she was glad to install the software, because she didn't want a virus.
"The software was easy to install, didn't take long at all, and no help needed," Prince said.
Wilson said most problems they have seen have occurred from the laptop's firewall being set too high.
He said the information technology department plans to increase the school's bandwidth in the future to make Internet access faster for students and faculty.
Also in the works is a text messaging system that would go to every wireless computer in the network to alert students in a time of emergency.
"We are getting up to date with spy ware and up to par with university standards," Smith said.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools