Directory e-mails might endanger student privacy
As of the 2005-2006 school year, the student directory, a service provided by ASUSU and printed by the national company University Directory, now includes e-mail addresses. Some wonder if this will jeopardize the privacy of students or increase the likelihood of receiving more unsolicited e-mails.
Tiffany Evans, the director of ASUSU, said the concept of the student directory was started in 2002 under the student body president for that year. It was felt, at the time, that a printed directory was not only an important service to provide to students, but also a means of revenue to assist in the functioning of ASUSU.
But ASUSU has received a lot of feedback the last couple of years claiming that the information in the student directory is out of date the minute it’s published. So, in consultation with student leaders, the Registrar’s Office and Networking and Computer Services, the decision to add e-mails was determined to better meet the needs of students.
Evans said the fundamental purpose of the addition of e-mail was “user-friendliness.” Discussions were held to determine what students would rather have printed in the directory, an e-mail address or a phone number. ASUSU determined e-mail addresses.
So far, according to Evans, ASUSU has not received any complaints about the change.
However, according to an April 2006 posting at TrueAggie.com, “a Utah-based company, operated by a BYU student, obtained e-mail addresses of Utah State University students from the printed USU student directory by typing them into a list and then sending a message to everyone on that list.” That message was unsolicited, received by a large number of people (approximately 15,000 students and staff) and could therefore be determined “spam.”
Jason Bridenstine, a senior in computer sciences, said that spamming companies, whose main business is to acquire and sell e-mail, usually use script engines, or “robots,” to search Web sites for e-mail addresses and collect them. That’s why, when publishing his or her e-mail address to a Web site, people will write out the word “at” in an e-mail address instead of using the symbol @, because robots will search for the @ symbol when searching for addresses. Sometimes people will even write out the word “dot.”
If most of the information gathered for the purpose of sending e-mails to a large number of people, or bulk mail, is gathered and transferred electronically, manually typing each e-mail from a printed list might be a little labor-intensive and impractical. But the information printed in the student directory, including e-mail addresses, is already available online.
Lisa Black, a member of ASUSU, said that ASUSU gets its information for the student directory directly from the Registrar’s Office because it’s so massive. The information included in the directory, according to Black, is simply information already available on ACCESS: name, home city, state, e-mail and phone number.
According to FERPA, the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, “directory” information, or information that can be disclosed without written consent of the student, is defined as “student’s name, current and permanent address (including phone), date of birth, degrees awarded and received, most recent institution attended, academic level, major, department or college, dates of attendance and graduation, participation in officially recognized sports/activities, weight/height of members of athletic teams and class schedule.” USU does not, however, share this information regularly with third parties, and a student can request to have his or her information restricted in printed and online directories. But according to FERPA, “It is all or nothing. In other words, not even a student’s name will appear in printed or online directories.”
Students can restrict their information by simply going to the Registrar’s Office in the TSC and requesting it. They can also update your information there, but Evans suggests students do it as soon as possible; the deadline for the final directory is Sept. 25.
But if students choose to restrict their information, they possibly run the risk of restricting beneficial or important information from getting through, since it’s “all or nothing.”
USU offers two types of protection against spam. The Help Desk runs a program called Spam Assassin, which scans all incoming e-mails and uses a complex mathematical formula to determine what is and isn’t let through, said Bridenstine. Spam Assassin basically searches for repeated terms and phrases used in commercial e-mail, such as “buy” or “money.”
Students can also filter their own e-mail by going to the Help Desk Web site, http://helpdesk.usu.edu/, clicking on students, e-mail support, account maintenance, then Build a Filter-at-Delivery. New e-mail accounts are automatically set up to block all messages other than those from USU or a USU e-mail account. The filter can also be set to block only e-mails from certain addresses or providers (i.e.: hotmail or Yahoo) or e-mails with specific words in the subject line, among other restrictions.
Even with precautions, some spam can always slip through. Bridenstine said, “The best action against spam is a preventative measure. Once you’ve got the spam coming in, it’s generally too late. Your e-mail address is out there, someone has it, they’re going to sell it out to as many people as they possibly can.”
He recommends setting up an e-mail address specifically for junk mail and one only for friends and family. “Just be incredibly careful who you give your e-mail address to.”
This year’s printed student directory will be available by the beginning of November all over campus. Evans and ASUSU are particularly interested if it’s something USU students can really use, if the service is necessary and would greatly appreciate feedback. For more information or to weigh in, contact Evans at tiffanye@cc.usu.edu.
krouse@cc.usu.edu