The Carolinian [September 11, 2003]

              IN THIS ISSUE
ROMAN WISDOM
The goddess of wisdom
has been a university
icon for many years.
PAGE 3
SAPPY SPADE
David Spade acts up in
Dickie Roberts: Former
Child Star.
PAGE 4
GUEST COLUMN
The GTCRP is seeking
to heal old wounds in
the Gate City.
PAGE 6
FOOTBALL DREAMS
Snow Days explains
why UNCG will never
have a football team.
PAGE 8
LADY SPARTANS
The women's soccer
team comes up short at
the Adidas Classic.
PAGE 9
DIRECTORY
Arts & Entertainment 4
Classifieds 10
Comics 5
Opinions 6
Sports 8
ON THE WEB
Find all these stories
and more online at
carolinianonline.com.
CONTACT US
PHONE: 334-5752
FRK: 334-3518
THE CAROLINIAN
VOL. LXXXIV
ISSUE 4
EST. 1919
The Carolinian CMDHAN0NUNE.COM UNC GREENSBORO
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Campus battles onslaught of
viruses, worms
Computing services
disconnect computers
from the Internet to
avoid infection
Anna Liles
Staff Writer
On top of the usual realities of col-lege
life, like papers and exams.
UNCG students this semester have
had to struggle against two new
nemeses: viruses and worms.
But it's not what you think: the
water supply is fine.
Instead, according to Chuck Curry.
UNCG*s director of networks, a
recent string of computer worms and
viruses have ravaged scores of com-puters
around campus, keeping IT
staff scrambling to meet repair
demands. Because of these out-breaks,
many students on campus
still do not have Internet access.
"As far as worms and viruses go.
we have been hit by Blaster and
Sobig.F this year." said Curry, adding
that "Sobig.F is a virus in the Sobig
series. The person who was responsi-ble
for starting Sobig.F was recently
arrested."
According to McAfee, a computer
security company, "worms are para-sitic
computer programs that repli-cate,
but unlike viruses, do not infect
other computer program files. Worms
can create copies on the same com-puter,
or can send the copies to other
computers via a network. Worms
often spread via IRC (Internet Relay
Chat)."
McAfee defines a virus as "a com-puter
program file capable of attach-ing
to disks or other files and repli-cating
itself repeatedly, typically
without user knowledge or permis-sion.
Some viruses attach to files so
when the infected file executes, the
virus also executes. Other viruses sit
in a computer's memory and infect
files as the computer opens, modifies
or creates the files. Some viruses dis-play
symptoms, and some viruses
damage files and computer systems,
but neither symptoms nor damage is
essential in the definition of a virus; a
non-damaging virus is still a virus."
Curry said worms can become dan-gerous
if spotted by the wrong per-son.
STAFF PHOTO I BRANOI JOHNSON
Sophomore Lametrice Goodman gets help from IRCS employee William
Moates in the Superlab.
"Worms are widely distributed over worm, he gets a chance to try and
the Internet, so lots of people come in
contact with them." he said. "There
are usually two types of people who
see these worms: good people and
bad people. If a good guy sees the
stop it from spreading. However, if a
bad guy sees the worm, he might con-tinue
to improve it. making the virus
Continued on page 2
Anatomy of a
blackout
Are you a target?
STAFF PHOTO I BRAND1 JOHNSON
Power lines and transformers on campus were rendered useless during
recent blackouts.
Old equipment, high
demand led to power
outages, officials say
Zack Bridges
Staff Writer
With parts of the campus blacking
out five times over the past three
weeks, many students have focused
their frustration on the administration
and officials in the Physical Plant.
"If they waited ten years to do this,
what else are they waiting to do?"
said Erica Lewis, a junior.
Lewis was referring to a memo sent
out last week by Dave Lumpkin of
Business Affairs. Part of the memo
said: "it was recognized at least 10
years ago that the status of electric
power on the UNCG campus was in
very poor condition."
Lumpkin went on to say that the
university is very close to having the
power problem under control, but
some students remain frustrated.
"1 wish they would put the
Chancellor up in the dorm, and turn
the power off." said Dana Khalaf. a
freshman in Mary Foust. "Then she
could try putting makeup on in the
dark, and sweating because it is so
hot."
As accusations fly. university offi-cials
say the problem is fiscal, not
personal.
In 1993 the school requested funds
from the state legislature to increase
power capacity, but was only given
enough to repair underground high
voltage power cables that were in
very poor condition. They were also
able to build a temporary substation
that was completed last year in hopes
of being able to handle the load that
this semester's record-setting enroll-ment
would bring.
The temporary substation was built
Continued on page 2
RIAA and UNCG
move to shut down
online music sharing
Joe Killian
Managing Editor
This week the recording industry
filed 261 lawsuits against individuals
sharing music files online and
announced an amnesty program for
those who admit to illegally distribut-ing
copyrighted material on the web.
The Recording Industry Association
of America (RIAA) said they are
hoping downloaders will come for-ward,
erase their files and reform
their behavior. Skeptics say the move
won't work, and that RIAA can not
guarantee amnesty from all who
could file copyright suits.
With UNCG policing its own net-work
to shut down file-sharers fin-gered
by the film and music industry,
many students are wondering if they
will be next. How are students caught
sharing files, what are the penalties,
and is there any way to be safe?
"The only real way to be complete-ly
safe is not to download and not to
share copyrighted material." said
Chuck Curry. UNCG's director of
networks. "Anybody who tells you
that you can't be caught if you don't
share your files or if you use a certain
program doesn't have all the informa-tion."
That said. UNCG has so far only
cracked down on those sharing their
files - not those downloading from
others.
"I can tell you that all of the com-plaints
we've had since 2001 [approx-imately
150] have been from people
uploading, or sharing the files on
their computers, and not from people
downloading music."
While he is quick to point out stu-dents
can not be completely safe by
simply refusing to share files they
download. Curry said that is how a
lot of downloaders are avoiding cap-ture.
"One of the reasons Kazaa is such a
popular tool for downloading is it's a
very easy tool to start with, and now
it's easy to turn off the sharing of
files." Curry said. "How much com-puter
savvy do you need to have to be
able to figure out how to download
with it and not share? Almost none."
With the media spotlight and legal
pressure now on music sharing.
Curry said many downloading pro-grams
are making it easier for file-sharers
to hide who they are and what
they have.
How to get caught
State universities, notorious for
enabling file-sharers with high speed
Internet access, have seen a number
of music-sharing busts. Following a
national trend. UNCG began policing
its own network in 2001. shutting
down sharers fingered by the film
recording industry.
In that first year. 25 students lost
their Internet access for illegally
sharing music files. That number
doubled in 2002. and more than 80
have been caught so far in 2003.
"Music sharing became more pop-ular,
and we saw that in the num-bers."
Curry said. "Most of the peo-ple
who were caught were students,
but we've even had 4 staff and/or fac-ulty
members we've had to warn."
When a suspiciously large number
of files are being uploaded on cam-pus,
groups like the RIAA and indi-vidual
corporations like Universal
Studios take notice. Tracking the
movement of files, they send the uni-versity
a "takedown order" docu-menting
who is downloading, what
they are downloading and even which
program they are using. Once they
are provided with this information.
UNCG is bound by the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.
U.S. copyright laws allow for dam-ages
of $750 to $150,000 for each
song offered illegally on a person's
computer. According to the Office of
the University Counsel, file-sharers
could face even stiffer penalties.
Even a single violation could include
payment of actual damages, costs and
attorneys fees, fines of up to
Continued on page 2