Welcome to the

"What? Me Worry?" Page of the SFUSD

(or how to be practical about security on the net)

EVERYONE should be concerned about security on the Internet. It should be common practice to secure information you deal with--ALWAYS. If you take a "I don't care if people read my mail attitude", you will be compromised, it's just a matter of time (plus you are not a good example to others AND for the information we are trying to keep secure for YOU!). To help you understand and practice good security, we've created this page on how we can be more secure.

It may have been more acceptable to share a password or two in your four person office (that was not connected to any other office) way back when, but these days, with network connections everywhere, your office connected to mine, my office connected to theirs, their office connected to who knows what, we MUST practice practical security and take it VERY SERIOUSLY. It's a FACT, our computers on the network can access the world. This also means that the world can... (you got it!) access you. Not only do we need to be concerned about being secure from the world, but the prying eyes in and about our offices. It will be part of our jobs to secure information from those the data is not meant for.

Passwords - The First Line of Defense.

Pick good passwords. The best passwords are 100%, totally, absolutely random. They are also the most difficult to remember, then people start to write them and leave them around. We will definitely recommend that you use the most random passwords (but don't leave them around anywhere). If you cannot handle this, then you can try (we didn't say that we recommend this) a word that you can remember and stick a couple random numbers or characters somewhere in there. For example, "Bin32der". Don't use any part of a family members name, your dog, "Giants", or "49ers", etc. Passwords should be at least 5 characters long, and changes every 90 days. If you are on an SFUSD system, where you cannot change the password, drop by Central Office at 135 Van Ness to see us and make the change (or call from your office; we will call back to verify the account information. We will NOT change a password for anyone who just calls requesting that. We just seem to can't recognize everyone's voice : ).

When passwords are hijacked, 90% of the time, it's from someone watching the keystrokes of the user. You may want to politely ask to have that person turn away for a moment or have them help you get something away from your area. On the other hand, if you are with another person during their login and password entry, it's a good idea to respect that user privacy by being preoccupied with something else as they login.

For PGP mail encryption information check out our PGP page.

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