Mailing Center Stops E-mails

The Harvard University Mail Service (HUMS) failed to tell freshmen students that the e-mail notification system for packages implemented at the beginning of the year ended nearly two months ago when hackers deleted the entire database.

At the end of the first semester, HUMS had begun sending e-mail notifications to freshmen who had received packages at the Harvard Yard Mail Center, located in the Science Center. Prior to the e-mail system, yellow paper slips left in the students’ mailboxes notified them of packages.

Freshmen welcomed the new procedure, which was similar to that found in upperclassmen houses.

“It was so convenient,” said Sylvia R. Chen ’11.

About two months ago, hackers wiped out the mail center database and tried to install a new system, according to Nassim Kerkache, supervisor of the mail center. The hackers have not been caught, he said.

The mail center has now returned to the old system of using paper slips instead.

According to mail clerk Paul S. Riley, an informal survey that asked students whether they preferred e-mail notification or paper slips in mailboxes was “pretty evenly divided.”

However, freshmen interviewed said they preferred the e-mail system.

“I don’t check mail very often so my packages sit there for awhile now,” Chen said.

William A. Heyburn ’11 said he was irked that freshmen were not notified of the switch.

“One day I checked my mail and had six packages,” he said. “I was wondering where they were.”

Kerkache said that although the e-mail notification system was “nice, easy, and fast,” it was far from flawless.

“It was great when it worked, but it always had problems,” he said.

Faulty scanners were the origin of most of these glitches.

“The scanners would break more than the computers,” he said. “It would take an entire day to fix them before they broke again. That definitely slowed things down.”

For now, the outlook for the mail center notification system remains unclear.

Kerkache said that the e-mail system will return, though he does not know when.

Heyburn said he would prefer that the mail center be more proactive about getting the e-mail system back.

“We should reinstall the system and put traps in it to try and catch the hackers,” he said. “They should be subjected to public ridicule for doing such a thing.”