Re: Message from Kevin Guthrie, JSTOR's President

[kaemper@ub.uni-stuttgart.de]

I believe that the open proxy problem is now much less widespread than it
was about two years ago. I remember a time when proxy server lists in the
web (e.g., the famous irc4all lists) contained a special section with
"library proxies" - they were explicitly announced as giving access to
Elsevier journals, etc. To be sure, these almost never were proxies set up
and used by libraries, but open (misconfigured) proxies elsewhere in the
university (usually a departmental proxy). On discussion lists, tips were
exchanged how to get access to e-journals on other servers. I preserved
these as fascinating documentary evidence into internet savvy end user's
strategies for self-help. Through the many .edu proxies found on public
proxy server lists or in databases at that time it was very easy to get
access to almost any journal, or database at big universities, even Web of
Science or Lexis Nexis, etc.

Alas, the "library proxies" of those days remained open only a few months,
until administrators took notice. Nowadays, in general, you will have a
hard time finding any edu proxies that work. Most system administrators,
at least at the larger universities, are now very sensitive to the
problem, as open proxies have turned out to be a possible gateway for all
sorts of attacks including spammers. If you are concerned whether your
site is "safe", you could try the well known public proxy server databases
that you can find in the dmoz open directory project under Top: Computers:
Internet: Proxies: Free (30). Further you could ask the security task
force of your university's computing centre whether they are doing regular
port scans to find open proxies at the university. In Germany, two years
ago, a seminar was offered for system administrators at German university
libraries. Since then, the number of misconfigured proxies at German
universities decreased drastically.

Best regards,
Bernd-Christoph Kaemper, Stuttgart University Library

-- 
Bernd-Christoph Kaemper, Dipl.-Physiker, Bibl.-Rat
Fachreferent f�r Physik und Koordination elektronischer Ressourcen
Universit�tsbibliothek Stuttgart, Postfach 104941, 70043 Stuttgart
Tel +49 711 685-4780, Fax +49 711 685-3502, kaemper@ub.uni-stuttgart.de