COLUMN: Andre the Giant appears as USU co-president
It is a little-known fact that Andre the Giant spent nearly 72 hours as co-president of Utah State University. That’s right. He served right alongside President Kermit L. Hall.
OK. Not really. But anyone who accessed the online phone book at http://phone book.usu.edu/Browz/search.cfm?cdin=396, would have seen Andre’s name between Hall’s and Janet L. Appuhn, the university special events coordinator.
Funny stuff, right? Well, maybe not. You see, the deceased professional wrestler’s appearance on this Web page represents a bug Publication, Design and Production will need to work out.
I was searching the USU Web site for an administrator’s name, and lo and behold, one of the pages I was given access to allowed me to add a new administrator to the list.
I just couldn’t resist. I had to see if it would work. It did. The result can be seen in the names Geeber Goober, a non-existent superhero and Jedediah Smith, a figment of my imagination and student at the University of Utah. Neither of these people belong in the online phone book.
I called Darin Brower, the computer specialist for the PDP and informed him of my security breech. He said right now there is no way to stop someone from doing that.
He said the biggest problem is that the university is so diverse, there can’t be only one person in each department with access to the phone book.
“Most people can change their own information,” he said.
When Brower gets ready to print the paper version of the phone book, he normally sends a copy to each department for verification. Mistakes are caught and changed before the book is printed.
After I told Brower about my online shenanigans, he promptly deleted the imposter names.
Kind of interesting, huh? The whole university could be filled with false names — at least on the Web site — and nobody would know. But guess what? I’m not telling how to do it.
Joseph M. Dougherty is the editor in chief of The Statesman. Comments can be sent to him at editor@statesman.usu.edu.