I would think they were bluffing if it weren't for the fact that one had "become root" (for just long enough to flaunt it to the director of computing) on MIT's Athena. Unlike our own wimpy system, Athena is one of the most powerful university networks in the world--and one of the best defended.

Our problems will increase exponentially with the network that will be in place when the first-year students arrive next fall. One of the basic tenets of networking is physical security.

It's impossible to monitor data traffic if you can't reach the cable or if the network will crash you break the cable. As it is, any enterprising reporter for The Crimson with a $3000 protocol-analyzer could read everything going in or out of anyone's networked computer.

Companies advertising the TEMPEST shielding used by the Defense Department used to do demonstrations in which they would pull sensitive information without difficulty from the cabling of conventional networks.

While there was a certain degree of chicanery in the demo, improvements in technology have turned that magic into fact for collegiate hackers, too.

With the new data network, the administration will want to move a large part of university business onto electronic mail.

This is misguided. It is blatantly illegal and difficult to break into normal mail. It is child's play to break into electronic mail.

In addition, the network will be the perfect target for hackers. An attack on South Podunk U. is shrugged off by the media--a successful peek at Harvard's internecine feuding would make The New York Times.

The network will give us tremendous power and flexibility but at the price of privacy and reliability, My advice is not to put anything on it that you wouldn't mind seeing on the front page of tomorrow's Crimson.

John E. Stafford, a contributing editor, would like you to know that neither he nor The Crimson would ever do such a thing.