Unencrypted password security question. at a major university

From: Ryan (ryantemp@velophile.com)
Date: 04/07/03 

From: ryantemp@velophile.com (Ryan)
Date: 7 Apr 2003 13:18:03 -0700

Hello, I'm student at an anonymous American college and have run into
a problem, I see it as a fairly serious security problem. Here is the
situation:

We have several different accounts around campus for different
reasons, email, class registration, an online class meeting forum, and
a few others. In the different accounts, we can view all of our
personal info, SSN, name, address, grades, etc. We use the same user
name and password for all of these. All the login pages are via the
web, they are all secure (security lock in mozilla, etc.), except for
one. One, for a minor forum, we submit our log and pass unencrypted
across the web.

I've been writing them to explain that by having this one unencrypted,
they all might as well be, since we are sending our login in pass in
the "free and clear" and they need to fix it right away. The responses
I have received from them are ridiculous. They've been to the effect
of, "you don't need to worry about it, just don't give anyone your log
and pass and you'll be fine".

Security certainly is not my forte but this seems very dangerous to me
and I'm just looking for some conformation that this is indeed a bad
situation and something I should keep kicking at these people with
till it gets fixed.

Thanks for any info you can provide.
-- Ryan

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