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Dana Roode

More Secure E-mail

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UCI’s outgoing e-mail server, smtp.uci.edu, has been configured to implement the TLS and SMTP AUTH options. (For the rest of this article, “server” and “outgoing e-mail server” refer to smtp.uci.edu).

This protects UCI from certain types of attacks. The TLS feature provides a secure, encrypted SMTP session between the your e-mail program and UCI’s outgoing e-mail server. The SMTP AUTH feature identifies you to the server, allowing only authorized UCI users to send e-mail.

Users in Residential Housing are now required to use secure SMTP. Others who choose to send e-mail using UCI’s outgoing e-mail server now have the option of doing so securely.

If your e-mail client software is already configured to use authenticated SMTP, you may be asked for a password when sending e-mail. Your usual UCInetID password will work.

More information on configuring your e-mail program to take advantage of these new features can be found at:

http://www.nacs.uci.edu/email/authsmtp.html

Please direct your questions, and report any problems, to the NACS Response Center at nacs@uci.edu or (949) 824-2222.

Beware E-mail Fraud

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NACS continues to work hard to identify unwelcome, unsolicited commercial e-mail. No filtering technique is 100% effective, however, and it is therefore worthwhile to highlight a common threat that a seemingly legitimate message may pose.

One of the most disturbing trends in online crime today is known as “phishing” — fraudulent messages that appear to be from legitimate vendors but are actually well-disguised attempts to steal your passwords, account numbers, social security numbers, and other private information. Frequently, such messages appear to be from well-known companies such as eBay, Citibank, Amazon, and the like.

Often the sender will ask you to log into the company’s web site via a link provided in the body of the message to “confirm” your password or credit card information. These links actually direct your browser to the sender’s web site — well disguised as that of the legitimate vendor — which captures your private information as you type it.

If you are uncertain about a particular message, you may wish to contact the vendor in question by calling them, or going directly to their web site without using any links provided in the body of the message in question. Of course, you can also always contact NACS at nacs@uci.edu or (949) 824-2222 and we’ll help you figure it out.

Communications Training

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NACS sponsored two days of hands-on training on communications cable installation on March 31 and April 1.

This free, training opportunity included:

  • A “Layer One” standards update by Steve Fritz of WestCal Technologies,
  • An Outside Plant demonstration by Charles Ball of Preformed Line Products,
  • Fire Stop training by Michael Zanotelli of Specified Technologies, Inc.
  • Power/Surge Protection presentation by John Cleary of WestCal Technologies,
  • Hands-on fiber optic cable termination by Mark Travers of Molex,
  • Hands-on Cat 5E/Cat 6 cable termination by Wayne Brushett of Data Cabling Solutions.

Class participants included fifteen NACS staff, seven Inspectors from Design & Construction Services, Brice Kikuchi of the Student Center, and nine installers from Cable Inc., a NACS cabling contractor.

Protecting UCI from Spam

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Unsolicited, unwelcome, and sometimes offensive commercial email — “spam” — continues to plague the world’s electronic mail users. Here at UCI, NACS began regularly filtering inbound electronic mail nearly two years ago in an effort to catch and label spam, rendering it easily identifiable by end users. NACS runs the SpamAssassin software on the campus electronic mail gateways (also known as Mail Transfer Agents, or MTAs), as well as on the Enterprise Services servers often referred to as “ea” and “e4e”.

SpamAssassin uses a variety of techniques to determine if a message is spam, and if it is, the software adds “headers” to the message labeling it as such. Most electronic mail programs, such as Eudora, Outlook, and Netscape, are capable of reading and processing these special headers. You must configure your mail software to take advantage of this feature.

NACS remains dedicated to reducing the amount of spam received by our users, and we continue to research new ideas and techniques for doing so.

If you are uncertain as to whether or not your electronic mail program can be configured to make use of the SpamAssassin headers, contact your local computing support coordinator or the NACS Response Center.

More information about the NACS spam tagging service can be found on the web at http://www.nacs.uci.edu/email/spam/index.html, including how to configure Eudora, Netscape, Outlook XP, Mail for MacOS X, Microsoft Entourage X, and Procmail to filter-out spam which has been identified the the service.

Cluster Computing

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NACS hosts and manages the Middle Performance Computing (MPC) “Beowulf” Cluster on behalf of campus researchers who need substantial computational power.

MPC comprises private nodes and shared nodes, including a part-time shared cluster using NACS PC lab systems. MPC systems feature a mix of architectures to provide high computational throughput.

A feature of the MPC service is the opportunity for researchers to join their own systems to the cluster. In exchange for system administration, housing, and 24/7 oversight provided by NACS, researchers allow 25% of their systems to be configured as part of a campus computational resource. (The remaining 75% is configured to be a cluster, or “queue”, dedicated to the owner.) Contributors may, of course, make use of systems designated for campus use.

Contributors also become voting members of the MPC Advisory Board. The purpose of the MPCAB is to advise NACS on the governance, policies, procedures, and technical aspects of the MPC cluster.

Researchers may request accounts on MPC (and other NACS resources) online. Any future changes that impact MPC users will be posted on the MPC website.

NACS also hosts the GradEA Beowulf Cluster for the exclusive use of UCI graduate students.

MPC web site:
http://www.nacs.uci.edu/computing/mpc/

MPC account requests:
http://www.nacs.uci.edu/rcs/resources.html

GradEA web site:
http://www.nacs.uci.edu/computing/gradea/