anonymous ftp from archone.tamu.edu

[Chris Siebenmann <cks>]

 I asked the system administrator of archone.tamu.edu about this, and
here's his reply.

	- cks

------- Forwarded Message

From:	Steve Rikli <steve@archone.tamu.edu>
To:	cks@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu
Subject: Re:  what happened to anonymous ftp to archone.tamu.edu?

archone.tamu.edu is still in the anonymous ftp business, but tamu.edu
is being unfriendly.

The Computing Services Center (i.e. main campus computing beaurocracy)
at Texas A&M was attacked by crackers near the end of August.  According
to their reports, the crackers were able to get into computers all
over campus (interestingly enough, they did not get into archone or
any of my other systems).

The response to this attack was to set up a packet filter at the main
campus routers--all incoming ftp, rsh, rlogin, telnet is being filtered
and turned away from non-tamu.edu sites, except for a select few campus
computers.

At the beginning of November, the CSC made available a series of scripts
and routines (basically Cops, but more paranoid and tailored to look for
signs of this recent attack) which any site admin on campus can run on
his/her computers, and if they pass, these computers will be allowed
free access to/from the outside world again.

archone.tamu.edu has passed most of these tests (all save one, actually)
but the last is somthing of a matter of opinion.  I don't particularly
care for it, but I suppose I will end up doing it, just because my net
access depends on it.

This has been more than a little bit of an inconvenience for me--I
provide several things anonymously via ftp, not the least of which is
Byron's rc, and my "customers" are unhappy.  I don't blame them.  Once
I "fix" the last of the CSC's criteria, I assume it will take a couple
weeks for archone to be unhindered again, so I am hoping for sometime
before the end of December.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but please bear with me--things won't always
be like this.

cheers,
sr.
- -------
|| Steve Rikli 	           |||  Visualization Lab               ||
|| steve@archone.tamu.edu  |||  Texas A&M University            ||
|| 409-845-3465            |||  College Station, TX  77843-3137 ||

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