Re: Elsevier Journal Pricing for 2006

["Edwards, Steven B. (LNG-DAY)" <steve.edwards@lexisnexis.com>]

In response to the question regarding the LexisNexis accounts and the
process underway to strengthen customer security:
 
Earlier this year, LexisNexis announced incidents that occurred when third
parties misappropriated the passwords and IDs of legitimate customers at
Seisint, which was acquired by LexisNexis in late 2004.  LexisNexis has
taken a number of major steps to heighten and improve its customer
verification, authorization and security procedures and policies across
all of its businesses.  This includes masking of Social Security numbers
and Driver's License numbers in public records data; enhanced password
protocols for customers, increased requirements for customer ID
verification, greater restrictions limiting types of customers allowed
access to full SSNs, and additional IT security standards.

As part of these efforts, LexisNexis is implementing several ID policy
changes specifically for law school customers including:

* To reduce opportunities for illegitimate access to the LexisNexis
services, LexisNexis intends to deactivate all law school IDs (student,
librarian, faculty, and staff IDs) that have not been used during the past
12 months.

* Each current law school customer (students, librarians, faculty, and
staff) are required to register his/her 7-digit LexisNexis.com ID and
create a custom ID and password that will be used to access the LexisNexis
services.

Students, librarians, faculty and staff members who have already created a
custom ID and password will not be affected by the above changes.  
However, they must use their custom IDs and passwords to access the
LexisNexis services.

Any questions regarding the new law school ID policy should be directed to
your LexisNexis Account Representative or call Customer Support at
1-800-45-LEXIS.
 
Steve Edwards
Director, Corporate Communications
LexisNexis

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Could someone from Reed Elsevier please explain what's up with the Lexis
accounts? Just how bad was the security breach?  Why is everyone being
required to reset their account? And is it true all of the academic users
are being blocked from access until they go through a set of screens
setting up a new account, which I understand can include new terms and
conditions?

Sam Trosow
University of Western Ontario