INFORMATION SERVICES
January 2003
return to Information Services

Announcements from the Bulletin, Today, Notification-L

01/25/03, Network Outage of January 25
There was a network outage starting at around 11:58 PM on January 24 and ending about 11:55 AM on January 25. The outage affected Internet access and on-campus traffic. Both the on-campus network and Macalester's connection were effectively shut down by the attack. This was by far the most Macalester has been affected by any one virus/worm/trojan.

The outage was caused by the very widespread attack that has been reported in the news:

http://slashdot.org/articles/03/01/25/1245206.shtml?tid=109

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/01/25/internet.attack.ap/index.html

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/01/25/national0554EST0482.DTL?tag=sd
[Notification-L]

01/25/03, Satuday morning Internet storm
A flood of data poured into our network on Saturday morning [1/25/03], caused by the destructive worm making its way around the Internet. Our network staff was paged and they worked with Cisco engineers to program our router so as to block the deluge. Service was restored early Saturday afternoon. Since the worm attacks only computers running a Microsoft database, we were not directly targeted but the associated data storm affected everybody.

Joel Clemmer [Notification-L]

01/24/03, New Enhanced Library Acquisition Form
Please see LESTER Tip #8 (below) for improvements on our electronic acquisitions form. [Bulletin]

01/24/03, Library Hours
The library will be open Sunday, January 26th from 6:00 PM to midnight. Regular library hours begin on Monday, January 27. [Bulletin]

01/24/03, LESTER Tip #8: Enhanced Library Acquisitions Form

LESTER is Macalester's Web portal, providing a convenient and personalized way to access a wide variety of campus and Web resources. Use your regular network/e-mail username and password to log in to LESTER at http://lester.macalester.edu.

LESTER's Research tab includes a "Library Links" channel with links to library information and library-related forms. New for Spring 2003, LESTER'S Acquisitions "Purchase request" form includes prefilled first name, last name and e-mail address fields. Faculty and staff who use the acquisitions form frequently will find the LESTER version of the form a time-saver. Please remember to select the appropriate fund department from the drop down list on the form. [Bulletin]

01/15/03, Virus Alert
There's another new e-mail virus making the rounds. Macintosh users are not susceptible to this virus. This one is called "So Big." Our antivirus scanner on the e-mail server updates frequently, so it ought to be filtering these out soon.

The message will appear to be from "big@boss.com" and comes with one of the following subject lines:

Attached to that message will be one of the following files:
If you get this message, just delete it without reading it.

If you've read the message, using Mulberry, you aren't infected. You have to run the attachment to get infected. If you're using Microsoft Outlook (aka Microsoft Lookout!) you may become infected by just reading the message.

Here's what Symantec has to say about it: http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.sobig.a@mm.html

And here's what McAfee has to say about it: http://vil.mcafee.com/dispVirus.asp?virus_k=99950

If you think you may have been infected, please call the Help Desk at x6525. [Notification-L]

01/14/03, CARS Downtime
The CARS system will be down on Saturday, January 18, from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM for a scheduled update to the "Train" database. The web-based Student Information System on CARS will also be down during this update. If you have any questions, please contact Ramón Rentas at x6633 or rentas@macalester.edu. [Notification-L]

01/10/03, Fraud With Your Phone
There have been some unauthorized long distance calls made from office phones. Please review your monthly phone calls and lock your door when your office is not occupied. We can program your phone to require an authorization code to make long distance calls, which is a nice safety feature. If you are interested in this, please call Telecommunications at x6566. [Bulletin]

01/10/03, Media Users: Please Plan Ahead
Faculty who plan to use media materials (films, videos, DVDs) during Spring semester should send your reserve requests to Kristi Wheeler, wheeler@macalester.edu, by January 15. You may send requests via e-mail or the on-line reserve form on the Media Services Web pages at http://www.macalester.edu/mediaservices/. [Bulletin]

01/10/03, Yet Another Scam!
While online, this message may have appeared on your computer: "Your computer is currently broadcasting an Internet IP address. With this address, someone can immediately begin attacking your computer!" This is actually an advertisement which is attempting to scare you into buying a product. Read more about this scam at http://www.macalester.edu/cit/bulletin. [Bulletin]

01/10/03, Limited Services on January 15
On that day, information services staff will attend a retreat (in order, ultimately, to advance!). Media Services will be closed but will work with you ahead of time to fulfill needs. C.I.T. and the Library will offer limited services. Thanks for your understanding. [Bulletin]

01/07/03, CLICnet Service Restored
As of 3:20 PM today, Tuesday January 7, all CLICnet services have been restored and are fully accessible once more. Total downtime was two hours, twenty minutes. Again, we regret the last-minute notice to the community (Information Services staff had no advance notice of the downtime, either). If you have questions about the upgrade or CLICnet services in general, please contact the Reference Desk at x6618. [Notification-L]

01/07/03, Further CLICnet News
From Terri Fishel, Library Director:

We will shut down CLICnet at 1:00 PM today to complete the third stage of our Release 2002, Phase 2 upgrade.

There will be no staff or public access during this stage of the upgrade. Please make sure all telnet sessions ("Tex-Base"), Millennium sessions and Gui-Cat sessions are logged out before the shutdown.

The first two stages of the upgrade have completed in less time than I anticipated. We will keep you informed as we monitor our progress in the third stage.

Thank you for your patience. [Notification-L]

01/07/03, CLICnet Going Down
We have just been informed by our service provider that CLICnet, the system that runs our shared Library catalog, will be taken down for an upgrade at approximately 1:00 PM today (Tuesday, January 7 2003). This downtime was not planned by Macalester staff, nor have we had advance warning of it until just now, approximately 12:45 PM. While CLICnet is down, the Library catalog will not be accessible. It is not known how long this downtime will last: it could be for fifteen minutes, or for the rest of the day. A further announcement will follow, either when the service is restored or when a planned restoration time is know, whichever comes first. We regret this last-minute notification and any difficulty it may cause you. [Notification-L]

[return to Information Services ] [CIT homepage] [Library homepage] [Media Services homepage]