On Monday faculty dean professor Henk Zijm of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS) was just in time to inform mathematics staff of the confession of the 26-year-old system manager, before the police made this fact public.
That one of their colleagues had started the fire in the TW/RC-building on Wednesday morning just before eight in the morning came as a shock and resulted in many emotional responses in the packed project space at Computer Science, now housing the affected department. There was also some relief that the perpetrator was caught, which took away the steadily growing sense of insecurity people were feeling.
Zijm emphasised that at the moment there was no proof of a connection between the fire and the hacker-like activities plaguing the Mathematics network in the past few months. But everyone has their own thoughts. The computer terrorism lead to severed disruptions of the Mathematics-network, as well as repeated crashes of individual systems. Finally it was found that the break ins had been committed from the inside. But this did not end the problems, despite the large number of safety measures taken.
During the meeting on Monday, held in English in aid of the many international PhD-students present, it became apparent that here also many were concerned about their lost private possessions (an insurance problem, for more information check the relevant articles on www.utwente.nl/en or contact G. Werger of the financial department, FEZ ed.) and their research data saved on the A- or U-disc of the central Mathematics-computer, which had been set up next to the CIV.
Zijm: 'As soon as it's technically possible we will know whether the back ups of research data - in which altogether many dozens of years of work are stored - have been spared in the safe.' Many stories do the rounds on how heat-resistant the safe (in a room on the ground floor) is. 'If the cupboard, which according to the fire department still has fair amount of varnish on it, has held out for two hours, there is still hope. I cannot say any more about it, except that it will be a considerable task to get the thing out of burnt-out building.' It can also be that this will be done only when the rather off-balance and broken building is demolished.
By the way, but relevant: there was no doubt on Monday that the decision to demolish is going to be taken, because of the lamentable state of the building (the A/D-wing that is). Load-bearing panels have visibly expanded, sometimes to five centimetres, concrete pillars have been eroded by the fire. That is also the reason that the fire department has declared the building off-limits. 'The building is about to collapse' was said after an inspection by a team of experts from among others the Facility Department/Real Estate, surveyors and damage assessors. This was not an official announcement because since immediately after the fire the building is under control of the Enschede council, which will decide the fate of this part of the TW/RC one of these days.
On Monday the only news on the building front trickling in was that a hydraulic platform will be needed to see whether any objects have been spared by the fire. For employees on the first and upper floors in particular there is little to no hope. As far as is known now the interior of a few rooms on the ground floor have remained miraculously intact (see photographs on pages 3 and 20). Between the photographs of what was left ofthe CIV shop and helpdesk, computer and work rooms, there is a photo of the office of professor Rasker, where the paintings are still on the wall and the book cases are intact. Building manager Johan Simonetti said on Monday that he expected that the UT would do everything in its power to make sure that everything that survived the fire would be brought to safety before the bulldozer enters.
EEMCS-dean Zijm, when discussing the safe, also said that when the time comes external expertise will be called in to read in and process the stored tapes. This also at the request of the Mathematics computer section. 'People want to rule out that anything should go wrong while carrying out this delicate task.'
Zijm said that they should count themselves lucky that the Mathematics Bureau Educational Affairs was housed in the spared B-wing and was transferred complete and intact to the Computer Science building. This in contrast with the, if possible, even harder hit Philosophy of Science, Technology and Society (WMW) which lost its entire administration, including six-hundred files of students Communication Studies, Philosophy of Science and Technology, Psychology and Educational Science and Technology. Only two weeks ago these educational programmes had been merged administratively on the second floor of the burnt D-wing.
Zijm also explained that the PCs of Mathematics employees who worked in the spared B-wing have been collected and will be checked 'to the bone' for viruses and other inconveniences. He expected that people should be able to use their computers again at home or in his or her temporary office by the middle of this week. Thirty employees have lost their offices. There is a search for replacement work places. 'We are looking at options on the Business and Science Park opposite the UT. At this moment separate, clearly recognisable, rooms have been set up at Computer Science for every group. By now PhD- and master's students have a separate work area in the building.' The dean says that he has enormous admiration for the staff of the computersections of the CIV, Mathematics and Computer Science, and thanked them for their efforts in readying the network connections and overcoming the many difficulties encountered.
