Students and Parents: This is important...very important. We are constructing a new site in webland. Security will be much improved. And yes, Debate is paying for the security.
This morning Nate and I reviewed the most recent list of those receiving feeds and emails from our site. We didn't like what we found and this was after I had already spent part of yesterday cleaning up issues.
We found a well known coach from a metro area school, people we couldn't identify and misc. students not in the DMPS system. We cleared every email address through DMPS's infinite campus.
If you weren't registered there--you are no longer getting an email feed. We ran a link check on the web and found two Roosevelt debate links on face book accounts that our students felt were secure.
They were not secure. Thanks to those students for removing them. Facebook is not as secure as students want to believe. I now know of a link to our site on a competitor's face book friends group.
So the damage done so far is that we have removed 6 IP addresses of unauthorized users, removed a number of email addresses and any link to the site we could control. Additionally a couple of RSS feed users have disappeared because we couldn't identify them either.
I have no doubt the link exists on more Facebook user groups at other metro schools. There is nothing we can do to remove those links. Students and at least one coach involving 3 schools were regularly on our blog and in several cases--downloading information.
Thus, just as quickly as possible, we will be changing sites. The new site may not be as intuitive as blogspot and may not let us get to the level we wanted. But it will be secure.
If students, parents or anyone else associated with our program give out our new address, logon and password, the new site will be quickly violated.
The good news is that we can fix those violations much more quickly and efficiently. It will mean a new password and that's it. We will be changing passwords on a somewhat regular basis anyway.
If you are approached for said information, I would appreciate knowing about it immediately and at that point, we will address it with not only the school involved but with our administrators.
Coaches are not upset--just a little disappointed not only in how this all got out but also in that we have competitors willing to take advantage. We made this way too easy and that's our fault.
One of the oddities of all of this is that I questioned Tim Sheaff of Dowling regarding my view of debate ethics at tournaments to learn I am a bit old fashioned in my thinking on those subjects. Clearly my views of expectations regarding things like our blog are old fashioned as well.
At some point soon there will be a required student meeting and coaches will lay out our ethical expectations quite fully. Those will be shared at our next parent meeting as well. Some of our expectations may leave us disadvantaged in this competitive world. If that happens, so be it.
Frankly I am tired of the scouting, flowing, sharing of flows (outside of CX), etc. I know we have been guilty of the same at times as well. I would hope our students have not be as overt nor as outrageous as the behaviour of some of our opponents this past week.
But it doesn't matter. We can conduct ourselves in an appropriate manner and we can be accountable for our actions.
Roosevelt students, coaches and parents will be expected to adhere to a reasonable set of expectations including use of the blog. We may be asking you to sign a usage agreement regarding our communications.
The blog was turned off for a couple of hours this morning while we did our checking. I am amazed at the number of texts and phone calls I got from students and parents wanting Indianola tournament information and couldn't access the blog. It will take a bit to get the new site up and running so please bear with us as we make this conversion. When your student comes home with a new address, please bookmark it immediately and make sure you can access it.
There will be more information soon, Coach Harry
