September 3rd, 2013

Today's topics:

Updates for CLASSE Managed Windows Computers

Firefox

Firefox will be updated to 17.0.8 ESR, Flash to 11.8 Tuesday night.

Matlab

On Windows computers that currently are running Matlab, Matlab 2013a will be deployed in parallel to Matlab 2010a. Matlab 2010a will be removed at a later date. If Matlab is not interfacing directly with hardware, please consider running Matlab on our Linux farm nodes.

Warning about Cloud Services: maintain a backup!

While we make every attempt to provide CLASSE and Cornell services to meet all computing needs for lab work, we understand that some people find commercial "Cloud" services compelling. It's important to minimize risk with these services as you often have no guarantee of continued service. Several incidents in the past year provide examples of how Cloud services can go wrong.

Cornellian loses all access to Google Drive, Android apps, GMail

As reported to technical support providers on campus, a user's Google account was closed without warning due to some unspecified policy violation. In their words:

Yesterday my google account that I have had for ~10 years, I was an invite only person, was deactivated. When they did this all my documents that where stored on drive, 160gb worth as I was paying for extra storage, where deleted including items that where only in google docs. All my app and music purchases for my android devices where voided, ie I can no longer update them or re-install them on another device. Pictures that where only on Google plus where wiped out, and every site that I used my Google sign on to access are now locked out for good. Every email I had ever got and archived in Gmail gone.

I submitted an ‘appeal’ to have the account re-instated but received a canned response that it’s not available for re-instatement and a link to the policies page. I have since emailed them about recovering any of this data and got no response. I asked them what the violation was to no response as well.. 

See also:

• http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/law_policy_and_it/who_s_watching_the_store
• https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/1212172?hl=en

Data on Google's services are not the only things that can be lost. Any site you use Google to sign on to may also lock you out. We recommend if at all possible you use a separate account on each site. Don't tie them to a single login provider. Consider using a local password manager similar to KeePass to remember all your passwords.

MegaUpload closed, all user files lost

Although the service reportedly was closed due to copyright infringement, many personal, legal files were also lost in the shut down. The subscribers have no way to recover those files, due to the Terms of Service of the site. http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/doj-to-megaupload-users-who-lost-files-you-should-have-known-better/

---

General network and server maintenance will occur every Tuesday from 12:00 noon to 2:00 PM. The CLASSE-IT group will always announce any expected disruptions in our NewsLetter and via CLASSE-IT-NEWS-L, but with the size and complexity of our network there is always the potential for something to go wrong. We will do our best to contain all network maintenance and planned outages to Tuesdays from 12:00 noon to 2:00 PM.

Unless other arrangements have been made, CLASSE-managed Windows systems may be updated and rebooted on Tuesday morning at 2:00 AM, so please avoid critical or lengthy operations at that time. For more details, please see SystemExpectations.

---

Questions or problems? Submit a service request.

Other resources:

• CLASSE IT Home Page
• Previous newsletters

---