NYUHome

Reinventing Public Terminals

Providing Safe and Secure Access to NYUHome

Tracey Losco

Several years ago, ITS deployed approximately 100 e-mail and Internet stations around campus. These public-access terminals were provided to allow students and faculty a quick and easy way to check their e-mail, access the Internet, or connect to the network while they were out and about on campus. The terminals were distributed in many places around campus in order to provide convenient access.

At the beginning of last year, ITS began the process of upgrading these terminals, which were more commonly known as "X-stations" or "NYU-Internet Stations." The machines were getting old, they ran e-mail and browser applications over the network, which made them slower and more cumbersome to use, and they were badly in need of upgrading. With the introduction of NYUHome, ITS wanted machines that were more up-to-date and attractive, and easier to use. So began the NYUHome Station Project.

NYUHome is an Internet portal service created by ITS to allow individuals within the NYU community access to University-related services and other web-based tools. Students are able to see their schedules and grades, professors can use the online directory to look up colleagues, administrators are able to check their e-mail, and so on. The customizable channels of NYUHome also offer access to web forums, research tools, news, campus events and more.

Key to the functionality of NYUHome is that you are able to access it anywhere that you can run a web browser. Now, when an NYU professor or student travels abroad, he or she will still be connected to his or her NYU community. Right in step with this "on-the-fly" access are the NYUHome Stations. They provide a convenient doorway for everyone on campus to access their NYUHome accounts.

In deciding what aspects of the public terminals to upgrade, ITS staff agreed on a number of requirements that had to be met:

• The machine had to be able to run a web browser.
• The software had to run locally on the machine.
• The machine and operating system had to be accessible for maintenance and capable of being administered over the network.
• Some type of idle time-out had to be in place to protect users from having their accounts hijacked if they ever forget to log out from their NYUHome session.

Each of these elements was necessary in order to make the upgrade a success.

To get the project started, ITS worked with Apple Computer, Inc. to create an operating system and interface that would both provide the most functionality to users and secure the machine against tampering with its configurations. This took a lot of going back and forth--securing the operating system, testing it, and implementing any corrections. We set up a machine in an area where many different individuals within our department were able to sit down at the machine and try to break into it.

We continued this testing and reconfiguration process for about a month, until we could be sure the configuration worked well and was secure. Once this was completed, we were ready to look at other issues involved in getting this machine out to the general public for further testing. The various issues we needed to consider next were the physical security of the machine, the size of the unit compared to the existing station setup, and how it fit into the surrounding environment.

We decided to go with plexiglass as a method of securing the machine to each station. The computers are housed in plexiglass units that have holes in strategic places to ensure heat dissipation from the units and to allow for security cabling. After we had had the machines out on campus for a few months, they still seemed to be working well. In fact, we even received a message from a student using one in the library requesting additional machines so that there wouldn't be so many students waiting in line to use them!

Once the migration of all is* accounts to NYUHome is complete, there will be approximately 100 new NYUHome Stations in various locations around campus. We have many other plans for these stations in the future. If we are able to develop a secure way of doing it, we want to work on a method of multiplying the number of connections in a specific area by employing wireless technology. This would make it possible for students, faculty, and staff with laptops and wireless cards to use them at the various NYUHome Stations to connect to the Internet. We also hope to integrate more advanced authentication methods.

As technology evolves, we try to evolve along with it. ITS is constantly searching for new ways to provide services to the NYU community. We always welcome new ideas and suggestions. These stations are just another example of our commitment to the University community and to our goal of connecting people to other people, to their work and studies, and to the information, training, and technical resources they need to achieve their goals.

Posted February 16, 2001