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Tuesday, October 7,2003
Since 1900 University of Oregon Eugene, Oregon
■asm
Volume 105, Issue 28
COMING OUT
Adam Amato Photo Editor
Junior Hanna Persson said she worries that her parents will not accept her if she decides to become transgender. “I’m still working on a
relationship with them,” she said. “To come home with a girlfriend is one thing. To come home with a beard is quite a different thing."
Celebrating Sexuality
Some students struggle
to find acceptance as they
discuss their sexuality
with family and friends
By Jared Paben
News Reporter
When junior Hanna Persson was
in high school, she was lonely, seem
ingly isolated from her peers and the
rest of society. She didn't look or
sound like a "typical" Southern Cali
fornian. Part Chilean and part
Swedish, she has light blue eyes and
a dark complexion. She also spent
part of her life in Sweden and has a
noticeable accent.
But what isolated Persson wasn't
her appearance or voice, she said — it
was her sexuality.
"I ended up coming out to my par
ents first because I thought they would
be OK, but they weren't," she said. "My
parents told me there's no way that I'm
queer because only people who have
horrible things happen to them are
queer or gay. They ended up giving me
therapy to straighten me out."
Things didn't get "straightened out,"
however. Therapy didn't make her het
erosexual, nor did it fix her badly
bruised relationship with her parents.
"My dad ended up yelling at me
every night for half a year about being
gay," she said.
A couple of days after telling her
parents she was gay, her mother sug
gested she be baptized and con
firmed, even though she had never
been to church.
Persson protested.
Six years later, Persson's parents re
main uncomfortable with her sexuality.
But despite their reservations, they have
maintained a relationship with her.
To Persson, that relationship is very
important and is the reason behind
why she's debating whether to tell them
Turn to SEXUALITY, page 8
Several viruses
hinder access
to UOnet e-mail
The University Computing Center is on the
lookout for viruses, including the “Blaster”
worm, which can damage an entire server
By Caron Alarab
News Reporter
University account users beware — a new series of worm virus
es are slithering into the University computer network.
No longer limited to e-mail, the viruses enter a computer sys
tem through an open Internet connection, scan the local network
connected to the infected computer and proceed to attack other
machines on UOnet.
One of the more common worms, called "Blaster," infects a
computer by generating more traffic to the server, making it im
possible for other people to use it.
After the University Computing Center realized the poten
tial threat of the viruses two months ago, technicians began
disabling Blackboard, e-mail, dial-up and wireless access for
infected accounts to limit the virus' spread. Although an in
fected account can still receive e-mail, students are not notified
that their services have been shut down because they are un
able to access their inboxes.
Whether it is a Gladstone, Darkwing or Oregon server, any Uni
versity account that is primarily accessed from Windows 2000 or
XP can be affected by the vims. And although he couldn't deter
mine the exact number of accounts that have been disabled to
date, Microcomputer Services manager Dan Albrich said a hand
ful of computers are infected every day because users don't
download enough security updates.
"We've seen an incredible influx of virus activity, * he said. "By us
ing RADIUS, we can disable a bunch of access privileges at once."
Initially designed as a dial-up identification system, the Remote
Authentication Dial-In User Service is a single point of authenti
cation mechanism that allows one user to have the same user
name and password for access to several different systems. Ihe
mechanism is ideal for vims protection because Computing Cen
ter technicians can use it to disable all potential access points at
once, keeping the worms out of the network. Since RADIUS is
also used for unique service such as off-campus server access
through Virtual Private Network, Albrich said the key advantage
of the mechanism is simplicity.
Students don't want to have 10 user names and passwords for
all the campus services available to them," he said.
Acceptable Use Policy officer Jon Miyake, who is in charge of
managing infected campus accounts, said disabling accounts has
Turn to VIRUS, page 6
Student groups earn University politically active’ reputation
Some argue that although
the campus is politically
active, the national hype is
overrated for some groups
By Chuck Slothower
News Reporter
The University campus, for bet
ter or worse, has a reputation as
one of the most politically active
in the nation.
And before coming to Eugene,
freshman Robert Jones had some
wild notions about what the
campus political climate was like.
"I was expecting to walk into a
picket line when I came here,"
Jones said. "Molotov cocktails and
'Kill Bush' signs."
The University Web site says,
"political activism is alive at the
UO" and celebrates that the Uni
versity brought more students to
the polls than any school its size
during the 2000 election. It also
cites Mother Jones magazine's
ranking of the University as one of
the nation's top-ten activist cam
puses, as well as its status as the
fourth-largest producer of Peace
Corps volunteers, as proof of a po
litically active campus.
Recently, the political cauldron
on campus was further stirred up
by the formation of a new stu
dent group, "Generation Dean"
— an extension of former Ver
mont governor Howard Dean's
campaign to capture the demo
Turn to POLITICAL, page 4
_—.- — ■■ ■ ■ —
>5' • * >
(College
k Republicar
iTVM
Mike Sherman and
Gabrielle Guidero
discuss College
Republican platform
issues during their
sign up on Friday
afternoon outside
the EMU.
Mark McCambridge
Senior Photographer
WEATHER
LOW
52
HIGH
68
INSIDE
Campus buzz.3
Classifieds.7
Commentary..2
Crossword.7
Nation & World.3
Sports.5
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