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posted on December 13, 2002
In an effort to continue password protection and security for Penn State Access Account users, Academic Services and Emerging Technologies (ASET), a service unit of Information Technology Services (ITS) will upgrade its Netnews news server (news.psu.edu) to a secure server on Tuesday, January 7, 2003. The upgrade should be transparent to Penn State's community of users. Clear-text password access to this server will be discontinued on February 3, 2003.
What It Means to You
To guarantee that communication between users' preferred news reader and the news server is encrypted, Secure Socket Layer (SSL) will be enabled on the default Network News Transport Protocol (NNTP) SSL port 563. Users will be able to read and post news from their home machines even if the machine does not have a Penn State IP address by authenticating with their respective Penn State Access Account userids and passwords.
Notes and Recommendations
- Web browsers/news readers should be SSL-enabled (typically, this can be checked via a Web browser's security and/or advanced preferences).
- Users should check to make sure that their news server configuration is set for news.psu.edu.
- Some Web browsers/news readers do not support certificates greater than 56bit SSL. Check your browser to determine what kind of certificate is supported. If only 56bit is supported, it is recommended that users upgrade to one which supports 128bit. If you do not know how to determine this, please contact helpdesk@psu.edu for assistance.
Getting Help
If you have questions, problem reports, or need assistance with configuring news reader and Web browser preferences, please contact the ITS Help Desk staff at helpdesk@psu.edu.
Please note that all systems are scheduled for daily maintenance between 5:30 and 7:30 a.m. During this time, one or more Internet services may not be available. The ITS systems status page shows the current status of servers. |
