Bus educates children, driver
By John Fulwider
istatt Reporter
A former Indianapolis 500 pit crew
member is now driving a big, yellow
bus across the country.
Mike Connors has been driving
the C-SPAN Bus since October 1993.
The bus tours the United States, edu
cating school children about govern
ment and providing services to local
cable operators.
The bus was at the State Capitol
Wednesday for an interview with Gov.
Ben Nelson. Earlier, the bus stopped
at the Lincoln Public Schools District
Office for presentations to local el
ementary and high school students.
Connors said he didn’t drive as
much as people might think. He drives
three out of every four weeks, an
average of 500 miles a week. The
mileage isn’t high, he said, because
the bus’s destinations follow one af
ter another.
“Each step builds on the last,” he
said. “So you’re not deadheading
across the country.”
Connors said the bus had travelled
about 53,000 miles so far. But that’s
not much at all, he said. The custom
bus — made by MCI, the company
that manufactures buses for Grey
hound — is designed to travel 3 to 4
million miles during its 20-year op
eration.
Connors said he received a lot of
personal satisfaction from driving the
bus. He said he liked seeing the scen
ery in the states he had driven through.
But, he said, Nebraska surprised him.
“When I thought of Nebraska,” he
said, “I thought I’d be up to my knees
in snow.”
Meeting students across the coun
try has educated him, he said. His
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stereotypes about New York neigh
borhoods were dispelled when he met
the students there. He said they were
some of the most dedicated and
hardworking students he had ever
seen.
Connors hasn’t always been a bus
driver. He graduated from the Uni
versity of Wisconsin with a degree in
accounting, but he became tired of
that and began working with a cus
tom bus manufacturing firm.
In the years before he took the bus
driving job, Connors worked as a pit
crewman at the Indianapolis 500. He
said he was part of the winning team
for three years.
Connors said during his two years
driving the bus, he’d never gotten
lost. He’s had pretty good directions,
he said.
“They don’t pay us to get lost,” he
said.
There are no smal
victories in the fight
against heart disease.
—
ingredients
for a perfect
date:
A date and this
9
It's everywhere
-you want to be.
© Visa U.S.A. Inc. 1994
• --
• .... " JonWaller/DN
Joanne Wheeler (left) and Mary Mollen show Kyle Thomas,
from St. Mary’s school, how to use the video controls on the
the C-SPAN bus.
Unexplained cartoon
raises security issue
By Alex Harriger
Staff Reporter
Herbie users at UNL may have
been surprised Monday night when
they logged on to see a screen display
ing a picture of Marvin the Martian,
a Warner Brothers cartoon character,
and the words “Where’s the KA
BOOM! There was supposed to be an
earth-shattering KA-BOOM!!!”
Officials at the Computing Re
source Center said they did not know
who was responsible for the message,
where it came from or how it got into
the system.
Herbie is the computer server for
student e-mail accounts on
HUSKERnet at the University of Ne
braska-Lincoln.
Dale Finkelson, operations center
manager of CRC, said the system
may have been broken into. The
message was removed Tuesday morn
ing.
No other messages were discov
ered, and Finkelson said the Marvin
the Martian message was probably
just a prank. But the possible break-in
has raised questions about security on
herbie.
Guy Jones, director of technical
services at CRC, said the message
was a problem but not a major threat
to computer security on campus.
Jones said herbie was given a
higher priority for security than some
computers on campus. However, he
said herbie was given a lower priority
than computers with access to ad
ministrative records, payrolls and
other sensitive information.
“We do have the technology for
greater security on herbie, but if we
install it, it would be a lot more diffi
cult for students to get into their ac
counts,” Jones said. “We are trying to
strike a balance between increased
security and workability for the stu
dents.”
He also said added security would
make herbie more expensive. A herbie
“We do have the
technology for greater
security on herbie, but if
we install it, it would be
a lot more difficult for
students to get into their
accounts. ”
■
GUY JONES
Director of technical services at
CRC
account costs $20 a school year.
He said herbie was difficult to break
into, but hackers who were smart and
determined enough could do it.
Jones said those who had prob
lems with their herbie accounts either
lost their passwords or gave them out
carelessly. However, hackers also can
use “crack programs” to find pass
words, he said.
Herbie can be run from a master
account called root. Hackers some
times can break into herbie by fooling
the system into thinking they are root,
Jones said. Then, hackers can give
herbie many commands.
Steve Reichenbach, an assistant
professor of computer science and
engineering, said students could pro
tect their accounts by not putting in
formation they would not want others
to have into a computer.
“It’s sort of like the old adage that
you shouldn’t write anything that you
wouldn’t want anyone to read,” he
said.
Jones said students who believed
their herbie accounts had been tam
pered with should call CRC. He also
suggested that students not give oth
ers their e-mail account passwords.
Tickets
Continued from Page 1
In January 1995, the city took in
$62,565 in parking ticket money,
sending $42,853 to the schools and
$19,712 back into the program.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
records show that $405,101 was col
lected in fiscal year 1993-94, which
runs from July to June.
“If everybody parked right, we
wouldn’t make any money,” said Tad
McDowell, parking services manager
at UNL. He said the total included
many $100 parking tickets for park
ing in a handicapped space and coun
terfeit parking permits.
The university’s income from tick
ets is up, but only by $3,000,
McDowell said. All money brought
into parking, services goes into the
general operating budget, he said.
Chris Mackie, a budget analyst for
the city, said the dollar figures from
the violations bureau were higher than
last year, but that was due in part to a
change in the way parking tickets
were charged.
In the past, a parking ticket from a
meter violation was only $3 if it was
If everybody parked
right, we wouldn't make
any money.
m
TAD MCDOWEL
Parking services manager at UNL
paid within 10 days. After that, the
ticket was $5.
All meter violations now are $5.
“They (the numbers) have gone up
since they’ve increased the enforce
ment,” she said. “They increased the
enforcement because people just
weren’t moving their cars.”
The breakdown of the money is a
requirement of state law, Mackie said. V
She said the money that was returned
to the city had to be monitored, and
proof had to be shown that the city
was only paying to administer the
parking violations bureau.
When asked, Emanuel said he
didn’t know where in the city govern
ment his five bucks would go, but it
wasn’t going to the fight place.
