Daily Bulletin, Tuesday, May 3, 1994

REGISTRATION continues -- today's the day for mathematics students to
pay their fees in Needles Hall.  And this reminder for all students, quoted
from the registration newsletter: "To borrow books from the library, you
must have a valid ID card.  To register your ID card, go to the circulation
desk of either the Davis Centre or Dana Porter Library."

ANOTHER YEAR:  UW provost Jim Kalbfleisch has announced that Robin Banks
will continue as associate provost (academic affairs) until June 30, 1995.
He has been serving a one-year term that was to end this August.  As
associate provost, Banks is considered the number-three official in UW's
senior administration.

A comment from Kalbfleisch that came with the announcement: "Professor
Banks has been of great assistance to President Downey and myself during
the first year of our appointments.  The next year promises to be 
particularly busy as we begin a major institutional planning process,
deal with the OCUA review of university funding, and consider any changes
in administrative structure that may be recommended by the President's
Advisory Committee on Adminstrative Structure.  We are delighted that
Professor Banks has agreed to continue as Associate Provost for another year."

GUARD YOUR PASSWORD:  Every so often there's another incident in the news
-- so-called "hackers" making illicit use of computer systems somewhere
on the Internet.  Most often, says Roger Watt of UW's computing services,
such things happen because individual users don't take proper care of
their passwords, or don't pick hard-to-guess passwords in the first place.

Most Unix systems have an 8-character password that they store as a
13-character encrypted string.  "Passwords made up of an insufficient
number or variety of keystrokes, or of dictionary words and derivations
thereof (in any language or discipline), are too subject to modern
password-guessing programs," says Watt.  "It is estimated that it would
currently take more than 31 years for the fastest computer to try all 
possible encryptions of the 8-character combinations of the 94 different
characters on my keyboard.  Therefore, the 'safest' password will have
8 characters and will include at least one each of a digit, a lower-case
letter, an upper-case letter, and a non-alphanumeric symbol."

During the winter term, Watt notes, more improvements were made to the
password-setting command that is installed on most of the campus Unix
systems.  It performs more extensive checking to ensure that users don't
set an easily crackable password.

THAT MASTERCARD:  A booth on the first floor of Needles Hall all this week
offers an opportunity to apply for the UW "affinity" Bank of Montreal
MasterCard.  A portion of the money from every purchase made on this card
goes to support the UW Alumni Magazine.  Students (and others) who apply
for the card this week will also have a chance to win a $100 gift
certificate from the UW bookstore, says Judy Mann of the office of alumni
affairs.

RUSH RIGHT OUT:  The movie that does for university life what -- well, 
what "Animal House" did for university life a generation back -- has
opened at a Kitchener theatre, and elsewhere around the civilized world.
"PCU", filmed at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, is the allegedly
comic story of a young man who comes to a "Politically Correct University".
The film "is not a documentary", says one of its writers in what may be
a mild understatement.

Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
888-4567 ext. 3004      credmond@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca