Passwords and Accounts

Changing Your Password

A single username and password are used for most services:

email
printing
Blackboard
the fileservers: Achilles, Hector, Helen, Athena, etc.
web and FTP access to lanfiles.williams.edu.
access to the software application installers
unix.williams.edu
off-campus access of restricted services via the proxy server

To change your password, go to http://www.williams.edu/go/myaccount/

Note: this does not change your Meeting Maker, PeopleSoft, local windows account, or local OSX account passwords. OIT recommends that you use different passwords for these accounts.

Changing Your Local Account Password

Your computer has an account password as well that may be different than your Unix and Netware passwords. This password is used to access your local machine.

For XP:
From the START menu, select the control panel. Choose “user accounts.” Select your local account (most faculty and staff will be Williams user
Select “change my password.”
Note: If you change your Windows workstation password to your Netware password, then it will login to the Windows account automatically after the Netware log in.

For OSX:
Under the Apple menu, select “system preferences” and choose “accounts.” Select and account and choose “edit.” Change the password.

Choosing a Password

It's important that no one knows or can guess your password. You might not have any important information that you need to protect, but if a hacker gets your password, s/he can initiate an attack on the Williams servers and network. Access to our servers is the first step in a hacker's ability to steal information and start a denial of service attack, which has occurred at Williams. Denial of service attacks can bring down our entire network. So remember that your password protects more than just your own data.

There are many available password-cracking programs. Words found in the dictionary can be discovered in minutes and standard combinations are also easy to decipher, "catdog". Also refrain from family names, pet names, birthdates, etc. Try to mix in at least 1 number and 1 special character (;:!(@*][+=, etc). Example: "1cat=fur".

Make sure whatever you choose can be easily remembered.