Recently, the privacy of e-mail through Project Vincent has been questioned by students.

Frank Poduska, consulting and publications manager at the Computation Center, said access to Project Vincent accounts is selective and limited to system administrators, operators and personnel within the center, which is located in Durham Center.

Project Vincent provides users with Internet services such as e-mail and the World Wide Web and provides users access to various kinds of software and storage for computer files.

Poduska said a recent law makes it clear that the university has some degree of ownership and access rights to all files stored on the computer systems it maintains, including student mail stored on Project Vincent.

Access to files must be granted by Mike Bowman, assistant director for user services in the Computation Center, Poduska said.

“No notification to the individual is needed for this access. These are professional staff charged with day-to-day operations of the system,” he said.

Although every attempt is made to keep e-mail secure from unauthorized personnel, “hackers” may be able to access accounts, Poduska said.

“It is technically possible for a person with the appropriate level of access to view any file stored on the university’s computer systems,” he said.

“This access is a normal operating requirement for any large computer system.”

Students wishing to keep their e-mail safe from hackers are encouraged to keep their password secret, to not write it down and to change it frequently.

“Do not use words in a dictionary, names of rock bands or anything that could be easily associated with you,” he said.

Poduska also added that students should think of their passwords as the PIN numbers for credit cards or bank accounts.

“You’d be furious if you knew someone was tapping your phone, and giving someone your password is pretty much the same thing,” said Jaime Tokheim, undeclared freshman.

Another concern students have is spam (or “junk”) mail.

Students can do little to stop or block these kinds of messages, Poduska said.

The best defense against these situations is to throw suspicious messages away.

“I delete [e-mails] if I think they are a hoax, and if the same person keeps sending me things, I will send them an e-mail asking them to stop and to take my name off their list,” said Minda Gerst, senior in biology.

“I see the biggest problem with chain letters. In a week, I get anywhere from 10 to 15.”