A watchful eye and clever use of computer smarts on the part of UAF's Office of Information Technology has made campus housing a little bit safer this semester.
Former Nanook basketball players Chris Jordan, a returning lead scorer, and freshman Chris Adams, along with the veteran's service coordinator for UAF's Financial Aid office, Mina Nix, are facing multiple charges stemming from the series of thefts in the student apartment complex that occurred early last month.
The university police have OIT to thank for tipping them off that one of the stolen laptops was being used on the UAF network on Sept. 7.
This tip led the police to an apartment in SAC, where they found some of the stolen goods. The find led to the discovery of three of the individuals involved in the thefts, according to a statement released by the campus police Sept. 8.
"We were able to identify that one of the laptops was in use on the network," confirmed Steve Smith, the chief information technology director of OIT, regarding the stolen laptop found on the UAF network.
"Any computer which is on the network needs to be registered and we can uniquely identify them that way," he said. "When the theft took place, we were able to watch for those computers."
After the OIT department noticed the flagged computer in use on the network, they notified the police, Smith said.
The mystery of how the OIT department could have traced these laptops is explained by an employee at Geek City, a local computer business.
Any resident of campus who plugs their computer into the UAF network has to use the Aurora login with a unique username and password, according to Brad Jones, the 24-year-old operations manager of Geek City.
"This tells the UAF system that you're a student, and they log your username," said Jones.
"This also will tell them your MAC and IP address, and matches them with your username," Jones continued. "Theoretically, you could go to [OIT] and say 'This is my username,' and they can look up your MAC address."
If this address is being used on the network, OIT can find the location
where the computer is being used, added Jones.
A MAC address is a media access control address. It's a unique identifier to most network equipment. It's also used as a security tool to prevent forging/theft of electronics.
To find the MAC address on any computer using Windows, click "Start," choose "Run," type CMD and click ok, then type "ipconfig" in the command prompt window that appears. The number listed under physical address is the MAC address.
