Summer is winding down and we have already begun seeing increased activity in the College, preparations are underway for the orientation for students and new faculty. Several of us have been in conversations with some of the new faculty. They are some of the most technologically savvy and need computing power beyond the usual laptops. It is encouraging to see that there is no longer a discipline dependency to high end technology requirement. Faculty from all disciplines seem to need them.

In a shameless self promotion, please watch my participation in a discussion about MOOCs with the Chairman of edX Anant Agarwal on NECN CEO Corner.

I am sure you that many of read this in NY Times -“Universities Face a Rising Barrage of Cyberattacks“. If you haven’t, you must read this. In the early stages of internet, the technologies were also evolving and all of us faced attacks, our networks were penetrated and were used for activities such as storing and sharing large image and video files. Warez was one such common activity. I distinctly remember watching a perpetrator’s every keystroke when we were trying to track down what was going on. It was from Australia and I called the ISP who basically told me that they are helpless to do anything but temporarily suspend the account. Of course, in the heat of the moment, I was asking a lot more of them! As soon as I put the phone down, the keystrokes disappeared!

These problems have gotten much worse and far more serious than stealing file storage. Trying to guard information has become expensive. But most importantly, IT professionals alone cannot be responsible for information security.

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