November 2007 IT News

Analog Service for Cellular Phones Ending

Beginning at midnight on February 18, 2008, your cellular service may be affected if you have an older, analog-only handset. As of that date, cellular phone companies are no longer required to provide analog cellular service. If you have a handset with advanced features such as text or instant messaging, Internet browsing, or an integrated camera, then you have a digital handset. Customers with digital handsets will not be affected by this change.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requires cellular phone companies to notify their customers at least four months before they plan to discontinue analog cellular service, and again at least one month before discontinuing analog service. Customers who receive a discontinuance notice from their cellular phone company and still have
questions, are unsure of the kind of phone they have, or who want to know whether their coverage may be affected when they "roam" into another provider's service area, can call their cellular phone companies.

For more information, see the FCC Consumer Advisory found at http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/analogcellphone.html.

U Training Consortium now "Open for Business"

What is the UTC

The U Training Consortium (UTC) is an organization of training groups from across the University of Utah campus who have joined together to collaborate for training success. The organization has a broad-based representation, with 51 members from 24 different campus groups. UTC members know that training can also have substantial institutional impact in addition to positively impacting individual lives. Factors like employee development, ongoing job performance, overall job satisfaction, employee retention, and succession planning are all potentially affected by the quality of training offered by the institution.

Since the group’s organization in August 2005, UTC members have met monthly to develop and implement a strategic training vision that includes collaborating to create successful training programs, to share resources and ideas, and to promote awareness of training programs and services available to both internal and external audiences.

UTC Milestones

The UTC now has an email list serve for communication within the group, a regular newsletter called Training U, and the U Training Consortium website and searchable class database, made possible with generous grant funding from the Information Technology Council (ITC), launched on November 15, 2007. These milestones are all designed to provide easy access to training opportunities, materials, and resources for the University community, outside patrons, and UTC members. The UTC also acts as an advisory body to the University of Utah Vice Presidents of Academic Affairs, Health Sciences, and Human Resources in training-related matters.

Future Plans

Future plans of the UTC include the creation and adoption of campus-wide training policies, the establishment of a training certification program, the planning and hosting of training events, conferences, and seminars, and future training-related programs based on feedback and suggestions from UTC audiences. To offer your feedback or suggestions, to become a UTC member, or to learn more about how the U Training Consortium can help you, please visit their website at www.training.utah.edu.

Note: The following is part of a regular series on security from the U's Information Security Office.

Secure Passwords

Passwords are your key to obtaining access to computers, and other services. Unlike a key on your chain, which can be duplicated and given to friends and family, you should never share your passwords with anyone. Additionally, for each machine you have a password, your password should be unique, different, and you should never write your passwords down.

Passwords can be complicated. Most systems allow any combination of letters, both upper and lower case, and numbers, and some allow the use of punctuation marks. Lengths can vary. You can create a password to be as complicated as you want, but you should be able to remember it, and definitely take advantage of what your system allows. Your password should be at minimum 8 characters, contain both upper and lower case characters, punctuation characters, and even a number. Your password should not be found in a dictionary, should not be the name of your spouse, your pet, the city you were born, your high school, or anything else that could be socially derived.

Any password can be copied if the transaction is going "clear text" over the network. Any user with access to the line your data is traversing can "sniff" the data and acquire both your username and password. For this reason, you should never use clear text protocols such as telnet or ftp; anonymous ftp is okay.

You should always use a unique password with every account you have. Below is a set of steps that you can use to help create passwords for your accounts:


      1. Is the password as strong as the rules allow?

           a)  The maximum number of characters.

           b)  Use of upper and lower case, digits, and punctuation.



      2. Is the password unique and unrelated to any of your other passwords?



      3. Can you remember it without having to write it down?



      4. How long has it been since you changed your password?

           a)  The more frequently you change your password, the better.

Password Generation Tricks

The following are simple examples that can be used to create secure passwords:

Shifting your hands on the keyboard.
For example: the password "funny" shifted one character to the right becomes "gimmu".

Change vowels with digits or punctuation.
For example: "freedom" becomes "fr33d0m".

Use an acronym.
For example: the phrase "Four Score And Seven Years Ago" becomes "4s&7Ya".

For security-related issues and information, the Information Security Office invites you to visit:
<http://iso.utah.edu/security/>