Safety and security with IT on NTNU.

Your safety: what System Management does and what it doesn't do.

Safety is a balance between accessibility and user-friendliness.

System Management wishes to keep NTNU's IT systems as safe and user-friendly as possible. If needed, they will make changes which they try to notify NTNU's users of in advance.

IT regulations at NTNU.

When you got your username and password, you received a copy of NTNU's IT regulations. By accepting this you agreed to follow NTNU's IT regulations.

You'll find the IT regulations here.

You're not anonymous!

As stated in the IT regulations, System Managements logs your activity online. This is for security reasons so they can investigate any erratic behavior.

Make sure you're aware of written and un-written rules before using forums, mail-lists, news, IRC, etc. while connected to NTNU's net.

Accessing.

All students are allowed to get users for the system stud.ntnu.no. There are almost 20.000 users which separate directories on this system. If you haven't gotten a username and password yet, please contact Orakeltjenesten

In addition to this, System Management has an administrator called root. If you try to get the same permissions as root you are breaking the IT regulations. Please contact System Management if you encounter security holes and such.

Logging.

Most of the activity on the system will be recorded. Like logging in/out, SFTP, samba, mail, IMAP and www. Sometimes, if there are breaches of security, extra logging will be activated. For more information see the article on logging (only available in Norwegian).

Password.

It is crucial to have a good and safe password. For your own part, this is important so that other people can't access your files, and for System Management it's important to prevent intruders from accessing NTNU's IT systems.

You are not allowed to give your password to anyone. That means you are not allowed to let other people like family, sweethearts etc, borrow your password. If you have a problem and someone offers to help you and then ask you for your password, say no. Never give your password to anyone, not even when contacting System Management or Orakeltjenesten.

It is recommended that you change your password at least once each term, usually after a vacation. If you think that someone may have gotten hold of your password, change it immediately. You can do this at this page.

Do not use your stud-password on other web-based systems, like hotmail, porn-sites, Amazon etc. We recommend that you use different passwords for different systems.

As there are rules concerning the quality of your password, System Management checks your password at a regular basis. If they are able to crack it, your account will be closed and you will have to go to Orakeltjenesten to get a new password.

Permissions

You can protect to what degree others can tamper with your files by setting the permissions. You may want to protect your important files against both viewing/editing and so on.

Computer and safety.

Everything you save locally instead of on your home directory is available for everyone else who uses the computer after you. So always save your files to your home directory.

Remember to lock your computer if you're going away from it for a short period of time. If the computer does not have a way to lock itself, you should log out. If you're using a remote desktop connection, log off.

Several e-mail clients asks if you want to store your password for you so you won't have to re-enter it each time you use the e-mail client. This is not recommended if it is a computer other people use, as the e-mail client may store your password locally and then other will be able to access your mail after you've logged off.