UC says the cost of its secret snooping system is secret
UC President Janet Napolitano had Web scanners installed after a hacker attack at the UCLA medical center last summer.
Napolitano had the Web scanners installed in the wake of a hacker attack at the UCLA medical center last summer. They are capable of monitoring all faculty and staff e-mail and Web traffic.
Faculty members at UC Berkeley sounded the alarm, saying the system conjured the prospect that university bosses could eavesdrop on all sorts of private communications.
Now, they’re also pointing out that the system doesn’t come cheap.
“It looks as though the cost, just for the hardware installed on the Berkeley campus, is in the ballpark of $4 million to $6 million,” said Ethan Ligon, an associate professor of agriculture and resource economics and one of six members of a joint faculty-administration committee on information technology.
“Add numbers like that up over all 10 campuses and medical centers,” and you’ve got one pricey security system, Ligon said.
UC spokesman Steve Montiel insists there are no plans to read anyone’s e-mails, and that the entire process of planning and installing the new security system was discussed in open meetings with faculty participation.
However, when we asked for the cost of the system and whether there had been an open bidding process for what looks like a multimillion-dollar operation, Montiel responded in an e-mail: “Our cyber security efforts after the attack at UCLA Health were conducted at the direction of legal counsel in anticipation of lawsuits.
“We wound up with 17 lawsuits altogether,” Montiel said. “Because of the litigation and legal issues, we are unfortunately limited in what we can share broadly at this point.”
Ligon’s take: “Not only faculty, but also administration here at Berkeley are being kept completely UC says the cost of its secret snooping system is secret - San Francisco Chronicle: