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MIT Web
Certificates
Ensure Many Conveniences
In providing information technology resources to MIT, particularly over the Internet and the Web, Information Systems (IS) gives high priority to security and authentication. The current preferred mechanism for secure access to sensitive or MIT-only Web pages is through Web certificates. These provide authentication and set up a secure connection to ensure the privacy of transactions to MIT's secure Web services, both from MITnet and through an outside Internet Service Provider (ISP).
For several years, the server https://mit.edu was used to restrict access to MIT Web pages. To provide more consistent secure access, IS is decommissioning tute.mit.edu, and migrating pages served by it to certificate-controlled access on the server https://web.mit.edu (note the "s" in https://).
Support for tute.mit.edu will end on September 30, 2001. If your department or office uses tute.mit.edu to restrict access to Web pages, or if you have pages referring to tute.mit.edu, those links should be updated to https://web.mit.edu as soon as possible. Documentation for making such changes is at: http://web.mit.edu/cwis/web/htaccess-usage.shtml.
MIT certificate-based services include the Benefits Office where you will be able to review and change your benefits during the Open Enrollment period, CaseTracker for the IS Help Desk, ECAT and SAPweb for purchasing, and WebSIS for student academic and personal information. Coming this fall, many central offices Websites will require MIT certificates when displaying MIT restricted information. The MIT Travel Office has updated its Website, already. You may wish to visit the Website http://mit.edu/cao/www/travel.htm in advance of September 30th.
Among the benefits of certificates is convenience. Once you have your set of certificates on the computer you wish to use, you can get to any of MIT's secure Web services for which you are authorized, from anywhere in the world. Without certificates, you would probably need a different username and password for each application, and you would not have a secure, encrypted connection over the Internet.
MIT personal certificates are set to expire periodically, based upon when the certificate was acquired. Periodic expiration of certificates helps maintain security by ensuring that only current MIT faculty, students, and staff are in the system. If you have a personal certificate that has expired, you will not be able to use any of MIT's secure Web applications until you get a new personal certificate.
To check the expiration date on your personal certificate, go to the Web page at http://web.mit.edu/is/help/cert/certsexp.html.
To get a new personal certificate, go to the Web page at http://web.mit.edu/is/help/cert/ and click on Get MIT Personal Certificate.
If you need help with certificates, contact the IS Business Liaison Team at x2-1177 or business-help@mit.edu.
Related i/s newsletter articles on the Web:
"Farewell tute" - http://web.mit.edu/is/isnews/v16/n05/160511.html
"Personal Certificate Renewal" - http://web.mit.edu/is/isnews/v16/n05/160509.html
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