lay • Mi:
iy • March 6, 1998
The Battalion
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s sched.
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|A&M p,Bfunds tor
Utball r various pro-
thletic tudenis at the
L V; rial Student
[hades are working
quj-. pile of book
joir oes to sell,
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o Bn ith their usual
MPUS CONNECTION
ecipe for making dough
SC cookbook fundraiser must reflect group's activities, size
m m
Dave
Johnston
columnist
even tippomt-
north akbpoksub- i
M an to coordinate
retif; °rt.
d rerf ‘ idea seems long on creativity, but
Pi e c »n practicality. For some reason,
ir C0(r 3r®aizations believe they need
2 fund-raising ideas. Perhaps theT-
larket on campus is saturated and no
, willing to wash cars in the hot sun.
v . as ANM has seen its share of spe-
y f books on the stands lately. A walk
?h thi; campus bookstore reveals
_en’s ^Dook about trips to Aggie foot-
imes, fairy tales about Ring Dance
[C^ Hmdess photo-documentaries of
>llegc Station campus.
p e ^ haps there is room in this market
I i' 1 ookbook, but in order for the book
Profitable, it must reflect the
nite eness of A&M and the MSC. The
Indt ;s themselves must contain part of
i ganization’s character.
Iiu e book needs recipes like, "The MSC
acrat ic Casserole." A troublesome
prs hat must be served in a special con-
• since it is top heavy.
A e casserole has a long list of ingredi-
, requi i ing vast teams of students
n erly organized into committees and
.roups) to gather everything. The
ingredient is rice. Fluffy rice. The
fluff the better.
ir meal must include okra because,
l properly prepared, okra is warm
and fuzzy. After all, an MSC project is
nothing if not warm and fuzzy.
As the necessary items are collected,
one must consider the cost. Keep in mind
higher prices indicate higher quality. Do
not worry that the end product will be too
expensive, because our meal is aimed at
faculty and community members. Stu
dent money has already been collected.
Once the ingredients are prepared, it is
time to assemble the necessary personnel.
The beauracratic casserole requires at
least a dozen cooks to prepare. Each chef
must be given a title, the longer the better.
Granted, this may cause confusion at first,
but most people are able to adapt to the
complex hierarchy involved in cooking
the dish. Remember, there can never be
too many chiefs — er, chefs.
After cooking the casserole, season it
heavily. Push the envelope. Don’t worry
about scaring off potential diners, there is
a higher goal — diversity. Do not unfairly
omit any spice. This is a college campus,
they can handle it. If in doubt, season to
the head chef’s taste. Other opinions don’t
matter much.
Once the meal has been cooked, pay
special attention to the presentation. Gar
nish is good. The more the better. Don’t
forget the earlier discussion on cost.
Often chefs are faced with more guests
than they anticipated. This problem is
easily taken care of. Don’t be afraid to wa
ter down the beauracratic casserole.
An odd feature of the dish, no matter
what precautions are taken, it never
seems to serve everyone.
Maybe this casserole isn’t the greatest
dish in the world. It is possible this recipe
has not met its original intent or is not
worth the effort it requires. But then, per
haps that’s the whole point.
I
.0
0
Dave Johnston is a senior
mathematics major.
mi
lomputer hackers present security problem
Ir..
new excuse has been
added ranks that might
^_Jpntually over take the
;ic “my dog ate my home-
c” excuse.
v ac
he'
couldn’t do my homework
use FBI agents were search-
ny house last night.”
t Cloverdale, Calif., this excuse
w one of much consequence
two high school boys’ houses
pi.
Itaif 1
> age
y
1 ; searched and property was
1 iscat ed by the FBI in an effort
id a group of computer hack-
1111 /ho infiltrated the Pentagon’s computer network,
of the boys was actually caught in the act of hacking
Beverly
Mireles
columnist
a non-classified Pentagon computer,
he FBI agents, armed with sealed warrants, took
1 puters, printers, and software from the boys’ houses,
lid not arrest them, because of their age. However,
joys will continue to be involved in the investigation.
11 of this comes after the Pentagon suffered through
passive “cyber-attack” that apparently focused on
‘hng at personnel records and payroll matters.
t he hackers looked through non-classified Penta-
computers and tried to leave “trap-doors” that
Id make access back into the computer at a later
easier for the hackers.
The two boys, possibly working with other hack
ers, used a local Internet service, Netdex, and then
leapfrogged onto other systems, including the Uni
versity of California at Berkeley, Massachusetts In
stitute of Technology, two sites in Mexico and mul
tiple military sites.
Though the hackers did not penetrate the classified
network of the Pentagon, Deputy Defense Secretary
John Hamre told reporters that the matter remains “a
very serious, long term problem.”
Well, no kidding.
The current defense budget allots about $24 billion
for defense, with $1 billion of that for information se
curity.
Let me repeat that — one BILLION dollars for infor
mational security and two 15-year-old boys break into
the Pentagon’s system. Are we kidding, here?
I know technology is hard to keep up with, and
hackers design programs for the express purpose of
getting around these informational fire walls, but
come on.
The Pentagon should at least have a minuscule de
partment for keeping the hackers out. It seems that
hospitals aren’t the only ones against preventive care.
This is not the first time something along these
lines has happened. And the recent attacks are a tell
tale sign that they doubtfully will be the last.
Last year, the General Accounting Office of Con
gress reported that about 250,000 attempts have been
made on military computer networks in the previous
year. Out of that number, 65 percent, or some 162,000
attempts, were successful.
Apparently I’m the only one who sees a problem
with that.
Frankly, it just looks like the government is wasting
a very large amount of money on something that obvi
ously is not keeping out hackers. If the government is
just determined to throw money away, they might as
well give it to me.
I’m sure I could do lots of good with $1 billion.
Note to self: first pay off college tuition and back lab
fees. Then, squander the couple million left on Hot
Tamales and CD clubs.
Seriously, though, the Pentagon needs to get its
act together on this one. If two teenagers working
on home computers can break into a complex sys
tem, what would come of a more organized effort to
break into the Pentagon computers by a larger,
more experienced group?
A serious breach in national security, no doubt.
To put this in easier, more understandable language
for the people at the Pentagon: This is not just a “wake-
up call” — attention should be paid to what hackers
are trying to do, and most of all, watch your back.
Beverly Mireles is a freshman microbiology major.
wnm'Jmv during
ELNltlO WMESITSEEM
EVEN NPReReAICTIC..
MAIL CALL
Students can benefit
from absence policy
In response to Manisha Parekh’s
March 5 column:
I enjoyed your column. If I
may be so bold, perhaps it would
be useful for you to interview a
few faculty members to see what
their policy is and why they
adopt that policy.
In the past I have had trouble
deciding what to do when a stu
dent calls the morning of an exam
to say that she or he is ill. General
ly, my experience is that it is the
weaker and less prepared students
who call (based on their final
grades). I never doubt that they are
ill, but I wonder whether the illness
simply means that they were unable
to pull an all-nighter to make up for
a lack of work.
Exams and quizzes in the mid
dle of the semester are easily han
dled by simply giving an excuse
and reweighting.
Final exams, though, are a much
more complex issue. Malingering
simply isn’t fair to the other stu
dents, who have a fixed time peri
od to prepare, and it is also ex
tremely difficult to prepare a fair
make-up exam.
My experience is that students
who do a make-up exam for a final
uniformly do poorly, although the
difficulty of the exam and the stu
dent’s knowledge are confounded.
My guess then would be that fac
ulty are pretty flexible with illness
in the middle of the semester, but
less flexible and more stringent
during finals.
It might be fun for you to try to
verify my conjecture.
I’m not interested in my com
ments appearing in print. I do think
it’s a fun issue to look into further.
Raymond Carroll
Distinguished Professor, Statistics
STUDENT LIFE
JL. iw
Joe
Schumacher
columnist
Parking
problems
not just
PTTS’ fault
s long as
there are
-students
with cars, there
will always be a
problem with
parking. Many
students feel
parking is one of
the biggest prob
lems, if not the
biggest problem,
facing them.
Most people
have returned to their car to find a yel
low envelope tucked under their wind
shield wiper at least once, anyone who
has received a ticket knows how infuri
ating it is. Additionally, many students
feel that citations have been on an in
crease while parking spots have been
on a decrease.
To play devil’s advocate, the Depart
ment of Parking, Traffic and Transporta
tion Services (PTTS) is doing their job.
If you think finding a parking place
is difficult now, just imagine if there
was no PTTS. The parking lots would
be anarchy. It would become survival
of the fittest, where huge trucks park
on top of smaller cars like some mon
ster truck rally.
Okay, that is a slight exaggeration
but you get the point.
Perhaps the biggest problem with
parking is a lack of time management
by students. Or maybe the problem is
not a lack of parking spaces but a lack
of desirable parking spaces.
According to PTTS, the parking lots
are not full. They may not be the most
desirable spaces but the back rows of
Olsen field always have spaces open.
Or maybe students have just gotten
lazy and the idea of a walking is just
too much to bear. So they will just dri
ve around for 20 minutes waiting for
an excellent parking space to become
available to them. Never mind that
they could have parked and walked to
class in the time that they spent dri
ving around waiting for the parking
space to become available.
Ticketing students just seems like
another way to raise revenue from the
student who has already spent thou
sands of dollars to attend A&M. Per
haps that is why people get mad when
they receive a ticket.
It is more hard-earned money that
they would like to spend somewhere
else now has to pay for a stupid park
ing ticket.
Parking tickets are very frustrating.
Students here are virtually being nick-
el-and-dimed to death for everything.
It seems there has not been a single
item which has not received some sort
of fee increase. So receiving a ticket
seems to be the straw that breaks the
student’s back.
The blame for receiving the ticket
has to fall on the students, who proba
bly had a good idea they were illegally
parking in the first place.
The PTTS workers make easy tar
gets because they are the most visi
ble of people “taking your money.”
Nobody sees the people responsible
for fee and tuition increases wander
ing around campus, especially after
they have passed some outrageous
new increase.
According to PTTS, the handing out
of citations is actually down from last
semester. Additionally, parking cita
tions only account for approximately
29 percent of revenue, although permit
sales and visitor parking comprise 51
percent and 19 percent, respectively.
This money in turn is not spent on
other projects outside of parking, but
is spent on the payments for the
three parking garages, security and
maintenance.
As of February 15, A&M has the
most parking spaces available to stu
dents attending universities with en
rollment over 30,000.
The number of spaces available
will increase to 26,000 by Apr. 1 when
the Reed Arena parking lot is sched
uled to open.
There is no doubt that parking is a
hassle, especially on a campus as large
as A&M. Whether the addition of these
new parking spaces will alleviate the
problem remains to be seen. But if it is
that much of a hassle, one suggestion
is to just ride the bus.
Joe Schumacher is a junior
journalism major..