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** NISS Advisor ** * telnet niss.ac.uk
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Issue 128
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17th September 1998
====================================== Information about NISS Services ==
** telnet niss.ac.uk
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In July we asked for your thoughts about the value of maintaining a
separate telnet interface to NISS Services (see NISS Advisor Issue 124,
available online at http://www.niss.ac.uk/niss/advisor/124.html).
A clear majority of the comments we received in response to that request
confirmed our observations about the declining levels of telnet usage -
that this decline has reached a point where serious consideration can now
be given to the removal of a separate telnet access route to NISS. The
effort needed to maintain that route has become an inefficient use of
resources when compared to its much-diminished popularity.
Having now weighed the various implications surrounding this issue we
should like to propose that NISS's text-only interface, currently available
when you telnet niss.ac.uk, is shut down at the beginning of January 1999.
The removal of this interface will make the server, which hosts it at
present, available for use by other NISS services. Staff who currently
spend time on the maintenance of the telnet facility will be able to
concentrate their energies on other, more widely used, services. Network
security issues will also be tightened once telnet access has been closed.
We hope that this period of notice prior to the removal of the interface
will be sufficient for remaining telnet users to make alternative
arrangements when accessing NISS. If you are concerned that this is not
the case please do contact us (email [log in to unmask]) as soon as possible.
We would also welcome any other comments you may have about the future
development of our online services.
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| enquiries about NISS services should be made to |
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| [log in to unmask] Tel: 01225-826036 |
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| or via the Comments button on NISS Service pages |
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Unless otherwise indicated, information and services mentioned above can be
accessed via the NISS WWW server from the URL: http://www.niss.ac.uk/
Alternatively a text-only version of the NISS service can be accessed with a
'telnet niss.ac.uk' command - select option I for the NISS Information Gateway.
NISS Advisor is distributed to the niss-news, lis-link, ucisa-tlig-newsletter
and admin-news (all @mailbase.ac.uk) mailing lists. All editions of NISS
Advisor can also be found at http://www.niss.ac.uk/niss/advisor/
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