The
Silhouette McMASTER UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2013 VOL. 84 NO. 9
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ELIZA POPE / ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
New prayer space for Strengthening cyber security Muslim students INFRASTRUCTURE
Tyler Welch Assistant News Editor How many times a day would you like to take the shuttle and go to Lot O, one of the most remote parts of campus? Once? Maybe three times? Certainly not five, right? That is what faced the McMaster Muslim Students Association in March of 2013. Before the demolition of Wentworth House, the MSA had prayer, storage and office space in the building. “The prior MSA office had a room for brothers and sisters, and it was connected with a door in the middle,” said Zarak Aslam, the MSA’s public relations representative. “The Wentworth space was great—very central, and the room set up was such that you could very easily interact between brothers and sisters.” When news of the building’s impending demolition reached the MSA and other tenants of Wentworth House, like MACycle and the Photo Club, they were told that an adequate replacement would be found. Initially, a temporary structure near Lot O was suggested as a space for the MSA. Lot O is one of the most far-reaching points on campus—accessed via shuttle, taking passengers over the bridge behind Mary Keyes Hall. Because space can be hard to come by, this was seen to be the only option for the University. The problem is that many Muslim students pray five times each day—a ritual made incredibly inconvenient if one needs to shuttle to prayer every time. Once word got out about the troubles
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UNIVERSITY PLANNING COMMITTEE ELECTIONS
facing the MSA’s acquisition of new space, McMaster and Facility Services began to reach out and look for more feasible solutions. “After the article was written in The Silhouette last year, things got moving… It brought attention to the problem. Not only our problem, but also the other organizations in that building,” said Aslam. He continued: “[McMaster] was willing to do whatever it took to get our accommodations set up.” Between April and August of 2013, while the school was less crowded, Facility Services worked to ensure that a new space would be ready for September’s arrival of students. Now, two former classrooms in T13—the bunker-type building next to the Engineering Technology Building—are devoted to the MSA, to be used for storage, meetings and daily prayer. The University even paid for changes to be made with the aim of accommodating the club. Carpeting was installed (necessary for men and women who spend their prayer time kneeling) and other adjustments made. “[Facility Services] let us choose what kind of carpeting, we were able to get that in—they installed that over the summer,” said Aslam. “Since we are in two rooms now, they even offered to set up an intercom in-between. So now we have the speakers and the microphone going between rooms.” When the Fall term of 2013 began, the room was prepared for occupancy.Of the transition, Aslam said, “We are pretty much settled in and things are going well. Honestly, it’s been a great blessing.” @TylerWelch4
Faced with an increase in cyber attacks, Mac expands IT security services Stephen Clare Features Editor McMaster has beefed up its cyber security infrastructure. The university’s Technology Services department now employs four full-time Information Technology security specialists, compared to only two in the past. The change comes amid growing concern over the prevalence and severity of hacking attempts directed at post-secondary institutions. “[Attacks] happen daily,” said Paul Muir, McMaster’s new Systems Integration Specialist. “And [they] happen to a lot of systems across campus.” Many of these attacks are relatively unsophisticated, and rely on tricking users into giving up personal information. “We see the vast majority of compromises coming in through the vectors of phishing and bad, malicious websites where bad code gets run on your computer without your knowledge,” said Richard Godsmark, the senior manager of the IT Security department. Godsmark came to McMaster from Wilfred Laurier University to help develop the
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university’s security systems. cated “hacktivist” attack. HacktivThe fact that many people are ism is a growing phenomenon in not aware of all the dangers they which tech-savvy internet activface when casually browsing the ists band together and target the internet makes it easy for hackers. websites and data of organizations “When you’re on the interor companies whose policies they net, you feel you’re in a safe place find objectionable. […] and so the chances of being Last September, one such munged online are far greater, group targeted the top 100 uniand you may not necessarily versities in the world in protest know it,” explained Godsmark. of rising global tuition fees. They For this reason, IT Security successfully broke into some of spends their time not just directly McMaster’s systems, although stopping hackers, but also tryGodsmark says they comproing to educate people on campus mised no sensitive data. about how to protect themselves “What they ended up seeon the internet. October is recing wasn’t actually core systems, ognized internationally as Cyber it was a couple of faculty servers Security Awareness Month, and that in reality had some stale inthe department is using the event formation in them.” to kick-start some local initiaHowever, the main goal of tives. Primarily, they are trying to the attack was not necessarily to boost their campus presence with steal important university data. a poster camRather, “it paign, active demonstrated Twitter account the fact that and weekly Mcthey were able Master Daily to access our “Everyone has a role in News posts. information,” security, whether they Godsmark said Godsmark. know it or not.” encourages This year, people to be there are twice more aware of as many IT Richard Godsmark, Senior the informaSecurity speManager of IT Security tion about cialists as there themselves were at the they post ontime of the atline. tack. “The great thing and the “We’re here to protect not worst thing about the internet is only the intellectual property once you put it there, it’s there, of the organization, but the priand it’s very hard to pull that vate information of individual information back out,” he said. students, staff, and faculty,” said “Everyone has a role in security, Godsmark. “It’s very important.” whether they know it or not.” The need for a new strategy @featuringsteve was thrown into sharp relief last year when McMaster was targeted as part of an ambitious, sophisti-
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GETTING PULLED IN BY GRAVITY
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