Recent hacking into celebrities’ online information as well as into buisnesses such as Home Depot and J.P. Morgan has raised questions about how secure New Trier’s network is.
According to Director of Technology Christopher Johnson and Assistant Network Manager Daniel Chu, the technology department protects confidential student and teacher records, as well as ensures that external applications such as Canvas are safe and reliable for student use.
“Security is always a major focus, so when we are looking at how our network is designed, security is a key factor,” said Johnson.
Johnson explained that it is important that second-party hosts like Google have a secure infrastructure to support student log-in and to save and back up all documents.
The school’s internal servers regularly save students’ computer data and all the files within New Trier. These are backed up every night to ensure documents are not lost and that files are saved for a number of years so that old information is available if needed.
An unnecessary concern students have is the amount of information the school can see on their iPads or phones. The limited tracking and logging from personal devices does include Internet usage, browsing history, the calls made to and from a cellular phone, and Mac Addresses, which is a unique identifier assigned to a particular device However, the school does not scrutinize this data, according to Johnson. “The purpose of keeping logs is to make sure things are functioning properly so that if something happens, we can go back and take a look at it,” said Johnson.
Incidents that might warrant investigation are student misconduct online or missing technology. Lost student iPads can be tracked and returned to the owners in the school based on their Mac Addresses.
Although the school has access to protected information, administrators and technologists are not permitted to look at them under most circumstances.
According to Johnson, saved files online are restricted from viewing unless a school related problem is being investigated. In this case, technology specialists would be notified by an adviser chair or assistant principal about a disciplinary issue before looking into a student’s information.
Last year, student postings on the anonymous “Yik Yak” application caused administrators to question its effect on the learning environment. From there, the technology department was asked to block the site within the school.
Johnson said, “A lot of the student disciplinary investigations involve something that was posted on Twitter or social media, so they’ll say, ‘Can you help us track down who this was?’”
This is limited to information that either had been posted during school or that affects someone’s ability to attend school, according to Johnson.
New Trier’s internal network has not recently been hacked; however, in 2008, a student was caught hacking into the school records on a personal laptop in order to see the New Trier class ranks. This was done through an external program the school subscribes to and uses to keep track of grades.
Even though the technology department’s work is behind the scenes, the decisions and policies they create impact the entire school. Students may have noticed a change in the guest Wi-Fi this year. One must hit an “accept” button in order to access guest wireless connection on their personal device, similar to that offered in a restaurant or airport.
The reason is that complaints were voiced last year about slow Internet connection while connected to the guest network. Chu said, “We were struggling with an influx of devices [on that network].” They took measures to ensure everyone can have access to Wi-Fi when needed. According to Chu, the new implementation is designed to allow cell phones and other devices to stay connected until idle, while iPads remain connected to the higher-capacity student Wi-Fi all day.