Using My UIowa web services in MyUI gives you the freedom to explore the web from any location, using any computer that has a browser and internet access. For your security, however, you must be conscious of how to get back to your MyUI page so that you can logout when you have finished your session. If for some reason you cannot navigate back to logout, or if you close the browser accidentally while still logged on, you need to understand several things about browsers and MyUI in order to protect your privacy.
MyUI uses a temporary bit of data sent to your browser to remind our server of your login identity as you move around the web and back again to MyUI and your My UIowa services. This bit of data is both a feature of convenience and security for you. As long as the session in which you logged in to MyUI is open on your browser, you can always return to MyUI and the bit of data will confirm that you have a right to access your account and let you move about MyUI unhindered. Similarly, when you close your browser, the data is removed and no one can re-establish the connection to your account. Though your security is iron-clad if you
- Logout
- Empty the cache
- Close the browser
once in a while you may have difficulty navigating back to your MyUI account pages to click the logout button. Simply emptying the cache and closing the browser will still be sufficient to protect your privacy.
Without knowing your login and password, a malicious person can actively enter your account only if you leave the browser open and do not log out of your account. Either logging out or closing the browser removes the bit of data which allows you actively to use your account. It is remotely possible that someone could reconstruct and view pages that you were looking at from your MyUI account if you were to close your browser without emptying the browser's cache ( see "Protecting Your Privacy on MyUI" ). Regardless of whether you are able to logout properly before closing the browser, it is very important when using a public computer to empty the cache as part of your routine for shutting down the browser.
The MyUI system will automatically time out your account if you are logged in but inactive for a while, so the window of time during which your MyUI account might be potentially vulnerable is limited even in a worst case scenario.
Opening a Second Window to Navigate the Web
If you are exploring a topic using My Searches and surfing here and there, you may wish frequently to use Netscape's "Go" or Internet Explorer's "History" menus to find your way quickly back to MyUI. Another tactic if you are planning to do a lot of link hopping is to open a second window in the browser or a different browser altogether and keep your MyUI session open on the one and hop around the Internet on the other. To open a second window in either type of browser, simply click File > New . You will then be able to select either "Window" or "New Window." We strongly recommend either of these strategies if your internet activity will take you far and wide and make it difficult or impossible to get back to MyUI to log out properly. However, if you cannot logout properly, make sure that you at least empty the cache and close the browser before departing from the computer.