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UT Austin Hit By Massive Security Breach
mrpuffypants writes "Reported in the Austin-American Statesman: The University of Texas' security was compromised over the weekend, leaking out nearly 60,000 records on students, staff, and faculty. Official word from the school can be found here. Most troubling of all is that, like most schools, UT still uses SSNs for student ID numbers, and that was part of the information taken from them in the attack."
"Those SSNs that matched selected individuals in a UT database were captured, together with e-mail address, title, department name, department address, department phone number, and names/dates of employee training programs attended. It is important to note that no student grade or academic records, or personal health or insurance information was disclosed."
Phew, I feel so much better now!
I wish I had known about it, I would have asked them to change my transcripts to give me a better GPA. :P
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Is it a sign that I play too many games when I read the title as a security breach in Unreal Tournament ???
Eu4ria
This johnny-come-lately "UT" is ripping off the initials and the colors of the original UT (est. 1794 thank you very much)!!
;-)
We demand that our child State of Texas cease and decist in the molestation of our look and feel.
Sincerely,
Volunteer Graduate of 1994
PS, The UTK English Department is the Home of the Vowels
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
our university goes by random numbers, unfortunately they use the year you are supposed to graduate! so my student id 2003###### looks out of place in all the first year classes I am in, hopefully the young females dont notice....:P
But I would prefer that to having my identity stolen and have horrible credit, depending on the girls.
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
Why are Americans so paranoid about who knows their SSN?
Because it's a lawless and uncivilized colony filled with criminals who will steal your identity to get a free meal at Ponderosa without a twinge of guilt.
They immediately disconnected the compromised database from the Internet, later hooking up a database of useless information.
They probably just copied over the DB containing the University's security procedures.
It probably WAS his daughter. She was probably hunting for info on those over 21 so she could create more fake id's ;)
..., but I to am glad that they changed in WA State. I Currently am enrolled at a college there, and as bad as my finance situation is, I sure don't need to be telling creditors,
"No, I did not get a Credit Card, buy a yacht with it, and crash it into the Golden Gate Bridge with a dead body on board..."
Yito Graft
Hmmm, Univ. of Texas' mascot is a Longhorn...
Microsoft's upcoming O/S is codenamed Longhorn...
And Microsoft has a campus agreement with the Univ. of Texas to provide faculty/staff/students with full/premium/pro versions of their software at extremely low prices!
Hmmm... now why would I really ever want to upgrade Windows?
"There are six to 12 ways we could have reduced the risk to the database," Updegrove said. "The sad thing is, we didn't do any of them."
Unfortunately the literal translation of this is:
I am so fired!
"I'm just here to regulate funkyness." - James Gandolfini, as Winston in The Mexican
Whew, for a second there I thought the Undertaker and Steve Austin were both robbed.
D
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This is really sickening. A lot of schools still use SSN as student IDs. In State University of New York, until very recently, your SSN was used on your grad reports, your dorm phone bills, your administrative notices, and teachers even insisted that this SSN/Student ID should be written at the top of every homework. Old phone bills with your name, date of birth, address and SSN were often found in classrooms or on the floor.
When I approached a SUNY teacher about this potential ID theft problem (back in 1999), his answer was: "I've been doing this for 20 years and I've never heard of this problem". Shocking, astonishing conclusion: The American academia is clueless! Oh no! How can that be! (But hey, it explains so much.)
It took a few ruined students and an order from the Attorney General (IIRC) for stopping NY schools from using SSNs as student IDs.
I am not really surprised that some administrative cretins are still camping on their position after all the theft ID problems of the last few years. After all, Schools Are Clueless.
I would like to entertain the hope that a few of these moronic school administrations would be sued 'till they bleed by ruined students, but how could ruined students afford this kind of legal costs?
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Hah. My evil plan worked. Now I will go through your history cache using a remote exploit and get your SS# based on your google search history...
muahahahaaa....
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That information wasn't leaked, it was FREED!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
$$$$$
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The physical machine cases are locked and alarmed and the BIOS will commit hari kari if they're improperly opened
$$$$$
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Wow. What healthcare system do you work for? Are they hireing???
___ I don't respond to Anonymous Cowards, and I Never Mod them UP.
Not to be ignorant or anything, but as a Texas A&M Aggie it's my duty to say -- Whoop!
-dewhite
When I was in college I was broke, in debt and had no credit. Go ahead steal my identity you can have
it!
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
Hmm.
Well, depending on the resolution with which you record "birthdate" (days? minutes? seconds?) one could probably just about prove that the combination of name and birthdate is already unique, regardless of the SSN.
Unless maybe when your name is real common.
Come to think of it, names should maybe be deprecated altogether. Just record the time of birth, and the GPS coordinates thereof. ;-) ;-)
Provably unique, and names are confusing anyhow.
Or else, we can design a domain name system for that too; A network of central servers that can facilitate a name lookup. Just input GPS and date/time and it tells you the name of the subject !
One problem is that, by and large, a change in the way 'The System' works is, to Americans, an admission of defeat. But the US of A never loses at anything because it is the best. I mean, if a conversion to metric was ever implemented, the terrorists will have won!