Penn In Touch back in service

After more than a month out of service, Penn InTouch is back on line, according to a statement released yesterday by Information Security Officer Dave Millar. The program had been off-line since September 19 because of a potential security problem in the World Wide Web browser Netscape. Penn InTouch gives students Internet access to their transcripts, financial information and course schedules. Service was restored Monday morning, Millar said. Last month, two California college students discovered a loophole in Netscape which would allow a knowledgeable person to crack the program's encryption scheme and read sensitive materials. Penn InTouch was the only University service to utilize the encryption program to encode student information. On September 27, Netscape released a new version that solved the security problem. University officials then began to test the software to determine its effectiveness. "Ensuring the privacy of student records is of paramount importance," Associate Vice President of Finance Frank Claus said in the statement. Students will need to update their version of Netscape before accessing Penn InTouch, Millar said. The revised browsers are Netscape 1.12 for the Macintosh and Netscape 1.22 for Windows. Users will also be required to change their personal access code in order to ensure the security of the system. This code is the same number needed to access PARIS, the University's automated registration system. "Requiring the access code to be changed from a student's birth date to a private code, known only by the student, is a crucial element in safeguarding this very personal information," University Registrar Ron Sanders explained. Students can access information about obtaining the revised version of Netscape at "http://www.upenn.edu/ computing/intouch/" on the Web.

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