Computer News No. 106, Nov-Dec 2003

Registration of Departmental Web Proxy Servers

In recent months, the Computer Centre has received a number of complaints about large volume of licensed materials (e.g. e-Journals of the HKU Libraries) being downloaded via proxy servers set up by various departments.  Our investigation revealed that those departmental proxy servers being complained about were either unnecessary or not properly configured, and as a result acted as "open proxy servers" which were exploited by users outside the HKU Campus Network to download the licensed materials. In addition to the issue of excessive downloading of licensed materials just mentioned, "open proxy servers" would also affect our normal network services by allowing external parties to consume our Internet bandwidth, spread computer viruses to our network, and to compromise the security of the HKU network.

In tackling the problem described above, with effect from January 15, 2004 the Computer Centre will  institute a new measure of requiring all departments to register the proxy servers under their proper management.   After this date, proxy servers not registered by departments will not be allowed to provide proxy services across the gateway between the HKU Campus Network and Internet. Departments will soon receive a letter from our Centre on advising the arrangement for registration of their departmental proxy servers.

For any query, please do not hesitate to contact the undersigned.

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