OVERTHEEDGE

April 9th-September 10th, 2008

Amphibians Fall off Proposed Heights

SIMRAN LEHAL

News Eniror

Mark Thompson, avid wildlife biologist,
strongly advocated against the University
Heights development plan during his Green
Day talk on the importance of amphibians
— those-salamanders, frogs, and toads that live
in the interface between aquatic and terrestrial
environments.

Amphibians, critical for “the sustainabil-
ity of our species,” are essential inhabitants
of the biosphere. Collectively, amphibians
exceed all fhe bears, moose, and other lar-
ger animals on the planet, and are incredibly
adept at transporting nutrients across multiple
types of habitats. They aerate soils for plant
growth, and help recycle carbon back into the
environment.

Unfortunately, since 1980, 122 species of
amphibians have become extinct. The rapid
loss of amphibians plays into global climate
change: without the creatures necessary to
return carbon to the soil, atmospheric carbon
effluxes increase, thus contributing to the

greenhouse effect of global warming.

Although Thompson acknowledges that
over 99% of all creatures that ever were on
this planet are now extinct, the quickness of
the amphibian extinction is too extreme to be
accounted for

The current warming of the earth is also
uncharacteristic. Past history and recordings
suggest the earth should be entering a cooling
period. However, as this is not the case, more
amphibian deaths are being reported since,

in order to

by natural Since other factors like UV radiation are stay alive,

events. The rate
of amphibian
destruction is
now 200 times
greater than it
ever has been.
Increasing UV
radiation, habi- _
tat loss, and habitat fragmentation are ma-
jor players negatively impacting amphibian
health.

Rather than living in areas beside streams,
most amphibians live in deep and dank for-
ests, near ponds and other stagnate waters.
Since amphibians need moist skin in order to
stay alive, clear cuts, such as those all around
Prince George have caused. massive life de-
struction.

borderless, and since amphibians are at greater

risk of destruction than ever before, humans ture. Mutant

must establish more protected areas in an at-
tempt to compensate.

amphibians
need. mois-

polylimbed
frogs have
also arisen
due to de-
creased im-
munity to pathogens brought on by the in-
creased heat and radiation.

Thus, Thompson argues that any sheltered
areas are vital for sustaining the remaining
amphibian and wildlife species. Since other
factors like UV radiation are borderless, and
since amphibians are at greater risk of de-
struction than ever before, humans must es-

tablish more protected areas in an attempt to

compensate.

Thompson slams the current University
Heights neighbourhood plan as not ecologic-
ally sustainable. He claims no sustainable re-
search or inquiry has been done, and the opin-
ions of students and ecological professionals
were not heard.

Not only is there habitat loss with the cur-
rent plan, but road construction will result in
habitat split. According to an Ontario-study,
there were 32 000 vertebrate deaths along a
3.6 km stretch of road in one year. The de-
hydration experienced from crossing the road,
as well as the chemicals from the asphalt, is
credited for the immense destruction of these
organisms.

Thompson also claims UNBC will suffer
from the development. Considering UNBC —
has been named the official Green University
of Canada, having a housing development
yards from campus ‘will destroy the univer-
sity’s credibility and strengths.

Notably, Thompson claims that the new de-
velopment: is hypocritical to UNBC’s motto,
“En. cha huna,” loosely translated as: “they
also have the right to live”.

Investigation Continues, UNBC Webmail
“Likely” Hacked

JEREMY JOHNSON

Stare Weiter

Students at UNBC were go-
ing about their usual routine, but
one day, a big security warning
showed up when they tried log-
ging in to webmail suggesting
that in order to protect personal
information, they would have to
go in to a special temporary site
in order to access their email.
Those that couldn’t wait for thé
system to be restored had to go to
the help desk to get their accounts
sorted out. In the mean time, a
number of rumors surrounding the
downtime surfaced. Over the Edge
interviewed Blair Craft, the Senior
System Administrator of the UNBC
ITS department to sort some of these
rumors out from the known facts as
well as get a better understanding
of the situation that apparently is
O: “Dis = etesOm 10 unt) one
“What happened was that one of
our [system administrators] noticed
that there was some suspicious traf-
fic originating from the webmail
server,” Craft told Over the Edge,
“he went in and investigated it. At
the time, we weren’t sure what had
happened, but obviously, when you
have something like this, the pru-
dent thing is to shut it down and
started rebuilding the webmail ser-

vice [sic] so users can get up and
running as quickly as possible.”
When asked about whether or not
the webmail system was hacked,
Craft responded, “At this point we
are still doing forensics on the box.”
(Note: Sometimes, computer ex-
perts refer to a computer machine
- i.e. a tower - as a “box”) “We can’t
say for sure what happened. I would
say that [getting hacked] was like-
ly what happened, but we are still
Heer eset ce ak eT ae ake
We asked if this sort of thing has
happened before. “In the nine years
I have been here I cannot think of
any other time webmail has been
hacked.” Craft responded, “but we
have had other machines comprom-
ised in the past. We have best prac-
tices that are followed.”

Craft noted while this is all well
and good, there are also issues cur-
rently facing the department:

“Some machines are not main-
tained by ITS and we can’t enforce
best practices on them and some-
times have been compromised in
the past. Right now, we still have
staff shortages. ITS is not running

-at a full compliment. We have had

two key people leave [of their own
free will]. We are continually going
through big changes; so, we’re still
in a constant state of flux.”

There were stories going around

that there were a number of e-mail’s
being passed through th¢..¢-mail
system roughly the same time when
webmail went down. Craft told
Over the Edge that while there were
a number of emails going around
claiming to be the IT department,
it was not actually related to the
suspected hacking. It was a véry
common social engineering attack
on UNBC students where someone
claims to be from the IT department
and, predictably, said that in order
to confirm your email, please send
your password, etc. Craft told Over
the Edge that ITS would never send
a request for students passwords.
Either way, it seems to have been a
very busy couple of weeks for ITS.

Over the Edge also asked about
preventative measures and the re-
sponse was that a system called
Barracuda was installed to prevent
spam. He noted that 48 million
spam emails were blocked since
December 20, 2007. For clubs try-
ing-to send emails to members, he
noted that it’s easier to get blocked
externally and that the internal
emails have a restriction for secur-
ity reasons. Meanwhile, of course,
there is still an investigation going
on with the suspected hacking and
he says that he has every reason
to believe that this particular hack
won’t be happening again.

Meanwhile, of course, there is still an investigation going on
with the suspected hacking and he says that he has every rea-
son to believe that this particular hack won't be happening

again.

Some students questioned why the
temporary measure made students
only use Internet Explorer to get in
and Craft responded saying that it
was the temporary solution that was
available while the main system
was being rebuilt. Another com-
plaint was that it took some time for
the system to be brought back up,
but of course the system being re-
built is an entire email interface for
the entire university. He gave credit
for the people who worked behind
the scene saying that they did an
excellent job getting webmail up so
quickly (authors note: in the matter
of hours to my knowledge).

He also said that if students notice
any poor qualities of the service be-
ing offered will be excited for next

fall — no specifics were offered, but
he said that the system is being re-
vamped.

One of the biggest issues cur-
rently facing ITS is dealing with
legacy technology that needs to be
replaced. While there are budgetary
constraints, he said that if anyone
has any suggestions in improving
things like WiFi, that they could go
either to the student help desk and
that they are very proactive.

Over the Edge would like to thank
Blair Craft for spending time talk-
ing to Over the Edge.

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