To: All Faculty & All Academic Professionals & All Civil Service Staff
           <everybody@illinois.edu> 
    From: "Michael Corn" <mcorn@uiuc.edu>

Reply-To: mcorn@uiuc.edu
 Subject: MASSMAIL - SSN Elimination Program Information

Recently Chancellor Herman announced to deans, directors, and department
heads an SSN elimination program at the Urbana campus. This program
requires all faculty and staff to search for and eliminate, redact, or
securely archive electronic files containing Social Security numbers from
their workstations. This memo provides some additional information and
guidance to assist in this process.

There are three points that address the most commonly asked questions in
relation to the program.

*Why is it necessary to do this?
Historically SSNs were used as the primary ID for individuals (faculty,
staff, and students) on reports, class rosters, and administrative
documents. Consequently many faculty and staff retain these older documents
on their workstations. Eliminating these files (or at a minimum the SSNs in
them) significantly lowers the risk to individuals from unwarranted
disclosure. 

*How do I do this?
The Program asks you to search for these historical files. Even though you
may not realize it, you may store older files on your workstation. The
Security Office has created a program, Firefly, to help with this process.
Firefly will give you a list of files it believes contains SSNs and links
to those files. Firefly will *not* remove files or SSNs from your computer.
It is not a perfect solution: occasionally it will miss a file, and it will
flag some files incorrectly (false positives). The IT Professionals in your
unit can help you with technical issues related to using Firefly and the
CITES Help Desk is prepared to answer more general usage questions as well.
If you're a Windows user please use Internet Explorer and visit
http://firefly.uiuc.edu for an automated installation. Mac users can use
any browser to visit the same URL where you will be able to download a Mac
specific version. 
The deadline for completion is Jan. 14, 2008.

*Firefly is reporting lots of files, many of which do not have SSNs; is
something wrong?
No, Firefly has a lower false positive rate than any other tool we
evaluated. It is impossible in some circumstances to separate a random
9-digit number from an SSN, particularly when there are thousands of files
to scan. Please use common sense and experience to ignore obvious false
positives. Note that large drives or older machines may require several
hours or overnight to fully scan the files.

Full documentation for the SSN Program can be found at
<http://www.cites.uiuc.edu/ssnprogram>

Faculty and Staff Page:
<http://www.cites.uiuc.edu/ssnprogram/ssnscanning.html>
FAQ: 
<http://www.cites.uiuc.edu/ssnprogram/faq.html>


Please feel free to send suggestions or comments on the program to
securitysupport@uiuc.edu. Units with questions about their departmental or
college obligations should contact me directly.

Many thanks,

Michael Corn
Director of Security Services and Information Privacy, Office of the CIO
This mailing approved by:
The Office of the Chancellor

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