This article is satirical and is not meant to be taken seriously. It does not reflect the opinions of The Spectator or UW-Eau Claire.

A new university login system will require phone verification, facial recognition and a blood sacrifice to access D2L, CampS and university email, according to a news release from Chancellor James C. Schmidt’s office.

“We’ve had a lot of problems with phishing attempts,” Schmidt said. “Now nobody — not even our students — will be able to access university accounts.”

The new system, appropriately called Trio, is expected to go live before the spring semester begins, but the university is already piloting the system for faculty and student employees.

The university wanted to implement the new system, Schmidt said, because the current Duo Login program was not as “hardcore” as they initially wanted.

“What really sold us was the blood sacrifice,” Schmidt said. “Other programs wanted students to give up their first born or cut off a finger — which are both very secure options — but that wasn’t really the message we wanted to send to our Blugolds.”

Overall, students have voiced their annoyance with the new technology.

Emily Sucks, a fourth-year chemistry student, said the lengthy process makes checking D2L for assignments “way more complicated than it has to be.”

“I mean, facial recognition? Are you kidding me? My ID photo looks nothing like me,” Sucks said. “I have to take my photo from a MySpace angle and buy a foundation several shades darker than my skin tone so my phone will recognize me and log me in to D2L.”

Sucks said she wasn’t concerned about the blood sacrifice, however. That, she said, was the least of her problems.

Jim Smith, a fifth-year nursing student, said, on average, he checks his email 10 times a day.

“That’s 10 innocent people I would have to sacrifice to the university,” Smith said. “And all just to check my email? I’ve cut it down to once a day, but I’m missing important announcements about classes because of my anti-sacrificing-innocent-people morals.”

Human rights activist groups have raised little-to-no concern on the new system. One protester showed up outside Schofield Hall last week when the chancellor introduced Trio to UW-Eau Claire.

The protester, Ima Pursen, carried a single picket sign reading “People are people, too! Down with Trio!”

Pursen expressed her anger toward the new means of logging in to university accounts.

“It’s inhumane, really,” Pursen said. “I”m not sure how no one realizes this. Can powerful people just do whatever they want now?”

The chancellor said morals never came up in the discussion with the university board prior to picking the system.

“We spoke with university faculty and Student Senate and no one had any complaints,” Schmidt said. “Now that I’m thinking about it, though, that probably should have come up. Why didn’t anyone question that?”

If the Trio system is deemed by university faculty an acceptable alternative, it will go live beginning January 1 so it’s ready for students taking a winterim course.

Wentland can be reached at [email protected].