First, choose a smart password. Don't include your name, your favorite aunt's name, or even your cat's name in your password. Don't include any word found in an English dictionary in your password. Have at least 6 characters, at least one of which is non-alphanumeric (this means @, $, =, +, etc). We do periodically run a password cracking code that will disable your account if it guesses your password. On a tangent, SEP uses yppasswd rather than passwd - remember this when changing your password!!
Second, be careful if you log onto a machine as root. Avoid 'rlogin' to become a superuser and don't send the root password through your modem!
In case you were wondering, SEP has had a major break-in. In the early 1990s someone managed to gain access and erase every file on the system. Fortunately everything was backed up but it is a really pain to restore everything from tape! In 1999, someone broke into both of our SGIs and removed things like password files. We had to install a new operating system two weeks before our spring report deadline!
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Department of Geophysics Stanford University |
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