What's Banned On Your Campus? 539
Going through the Slashdot submission bin, one story has been popping up over and over again over the past few months. Every few days, someone writes in to tell us about yet another university that has banned Napster, the popular mp3 distribution tool. From Indiana University to Seton Hall, there are over a hundred colleges and universities that have banned its use. It's not just Napster, either. DeCSS and internet telephony are being targeted, as well. Some people say it's censorship, others say it's just a matter of reclaiming the university's bandwidth.
We wanted to give the Slashdot readership a chance to talk about this issue. The 'Students Against University Censorship' have set up a site chronicling the day-to-day Napster battle, listing every school they know of that has banned the program. What's going on at your school? What are their policies regarding Internet usage? Have you had a run-in with the collegiate authorities over something you were trying to do? Let us know!
Re:Educate me on something.... (Score:2)
The future of censorship (Score:2)
From reading briefly about Stacheldraht it hides some control information inside of innocent ICMP packets. I see a future where things like napster get smart and start moving into protocols and traffic that are both general required not to be blocked (certain types of ICMP), and also very common (HTTP).
If we could piggyback napster into HTTP and have enough distributed servers that IP address blocking couldn't work how could you tell napster use from regular HTTP at the high traffic levels that we are seeing.
Sprinkle in the use of encryption and I think that in the future nothing will be sacred, in terms of reserved ports, and that whatever traffic is important to the masses will get through whatever is implemented to block it.
Already there are some concerns regarding the feasibility of IDS's in 100Mbit and Gigabit networks. Are we going to start needing dedicated Beowulf clusters just to analyze network traffic in close to real-time.
Once IPsec and IPv6 come into the picture will network censorship will probably become even more difficult.
Re:Persuasion (Score:2)
In most cases, zero.
It may of course be the case that they are just worried about their bandwidth getting chewed
Bingo.
With respect to research: much of the time research use of education networks tends to take up tiny ammounts of bandwidth so why not use up the rest :)
Perhaps you attend a well-funded small private university or one like Northwestern, which can be heard on CNN complaining about how much of their 622-Mbit connection is being consumed by Napster. (sarcasm) My heart goes out to them (/sarcasm). At most universities, strictly educational/research uses are sufficient to saturate inbound links. Your post indicates that you don't grasp the severity of the problem. In our case at least, the network is UNUSABLE during "business hours." If I can get modem speeds (2-3kB/s), it's a good day. Never attribute to conspiracy what can be adequately explained by poverty.
--TM
Re:As a former university sysadmin (Score:2)
That's one way of looking at it. There's also the opportunity cost of NOT installing high speed networks. Leave aside the value to the institution as a whole and consider only the residential networks. Universities which don't have Ethernet in every dorm room and a decent backbone connection will lose applicants. Sure, it can enhance the educational experience but it's also "entertainment," in the same category as cable TV (which I think should never be installed in dorm rooms but that's another issue).
I think all schools have some document which students must agree to to use the network; they're probably pretty much all the same and the ones I've seen are reasonable. If your use of the network isn't illegal, doesn't violate other university policies (cheating, harrassing, etc.), and most importantly, doesn't significantly interfere with the use of the network by others (every use could be considered interference so it should be "significant interference"), then it should be okay. If Dialpad was causing a problem I'd say there's something wrong with the network they're running. Napster, or any other program that deals in large amounts of data can be a violation if it gets a lot of use. I hope that schools blocking Napster first checked to see if there was a small number of students who were using it really heavy. Actually I bet it's often the case that it's not the widespread use but the abuse by a few that causes the problems.
This kind of stuff is similar to carrying the binary newsgroups. I think it's better if they basically carry the "full" USENET groups but it's not censorship if a school decides to not carry any binary newsgroups because of the bandwidth and system load they require.
Re:Whats wrong with banning Napster? (Score:2)
I don't ban it for that, I ban it because Napster wastes precious bandwidth for the company I work for and has nothing to do with solid state motor controls. There isn't another single application which wastes so much bandwidth on my networks. pr0n is bursty. FTP war3z I stop too but it's not quite so easy. Napster is an easy target and after nuking it I see an immediate increase in available bandwidth.
Re:Basically the way I see it (Score:2)
Not the same thing at all. (1) A library is supposed to be a "common carrier" of information. They should provide you with any book you ask for (perhaps they may ask a small administration fee if they need to buy it especially or ship it from another library), and they should offer free access to the Net. (2) The library censorship that's topical at the moment is not decided by the libraries themselves: it's forced on the libraries by local government. I guess it's within the local government's rights to do whatever they like with their funding, but this kind of thing deserves a referendum.
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Re:Within their rights (Score:2)
Actually, one of my friends found it so amusing, he sent the whole thing to the dot-matrix printer queue; then forgot about it. An admin found this *big* pile of paper on the out tray, and of course, the From: header was the first userID on the page, and that found its way to some big cheeses.
I had to make my case to someone "important", and basically made it clear that I didn't consider the material to be obscene (it wasn't), but that I understood that it was an abuse of the university's IT services (it was).
The guy who printed it bought me a Guinness in apology. One of the best Guinnesses I've ever had, because I gave blood immediately before
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Re:Quality of Service (Score:2)
Quality of Service was designed to resolve exactly these kinds of issues, and I can honestly see no justification, on the part of Universities or anyone else, to ban traffic they could equally well simply confine to "space available". It doesn't hurt -them- if spare bandwidth is utilised and may actually HELP them, as the students are going to figure ways round any legal blocks, anyway.
(Anyone who tries to block ports will discover how easy it is to install a port redirector on two sides of a firewall.)
Re:Quality of Service (Score:2)
No, that's not a ST:Voyager episode, that's a saying that a lot of IT departments need to keep in mind. Sometimes, you save to sacrifice a few "high-priority" tasks that really aren't, to install the facilities that would prevent those "high-priority" tasks (or worse!) from occuring in the future.
Yes, you might say, but we're paid to do these NOW! That's very true, but it's also not the point. If a ship is sinking, it pays more to plug the holes than to bail, no matter WHAT the Captain might be telling you to do. Sometimes, the Captain is simply not that important. Getting the job done IS. You can always pass on the credit, when your users start showering praise, once disaster has been averted. That's not the problem.
If you obey the Captain blindly, and focus only on the short-term glitches, your ship, the HMS Information Technology, will sink. It might take a while, or it might be tomorrow, but it can't stay afloat for long, if you're concentrating more on the water than the holes. Repair the holes and the water will take care of itself.
Re:Who's paying for the bandwidth? (Score:2)
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Re:As a former university sysadmin (Score:2)
But there's a big difference between that and pirating MP3's.
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Re:As a former university sysadmin (Score:2)
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Single sex halls are the only thing banned here (Score:2)
The only thing really, really banned at my college is, believe it or not, single sex halls of residence. You are not allowed to have a corridor of all girls bedrooms. There has to be at least one boy in the corridor. This is enforced more strictly than any other rule bar none; drugs, theft, you name it... no crime is worse than living in a single sex hall.
I went to Cheltenham and Gloucester College [chelt.ac.uk] in the UK, a small degree college specialising in teaching, computing and art.
Unsurprisingly females outnumbered males 6 to 1 when I was there (now down to 2:1)- dunno why girls tend to like teaching and art, but they do.
This attracted local pervs like you would not believe. Prowlers, stalkers, even, I'm sorry to say, two rapists. You see, they could guarantee that certain buildings were inhabited only by girls. Easy pickings. Force open a window, any window, it doesn't matter... there'd be a girl there.
The problem was solved overnight by banning single sex corridors in halls of residence. Apparently prowlers, stalkers and rapists tend to go away if they suspect they're going to bump into the male rugby football captain instead of some female arts student.
The policy is amazingly successful. It literally got rid of the problem overnight. There hasn't been one single case of prowlers since (like 8 years ago), let alone stalkers or rapists.
Why is this relevant to Slashdot? Because it was the same damn prudes and far-right christian arseholes who were against single sex dorms then, who are are against uncensored internet access now.
Sex and sexual activity is a fact of life (heck without it there wouldn't be ANY life). Trying to censor it or segregate it out of existence is a waste of time. And more importantly, trying to do so is counter-productive.
I could understand censorship if we were talking about primary (kindergarten) schools, but we're talking about high school, sixth form (7th grade) and universities here!
The age of consent is 16 for heaven's sake... just bolt a few condom dispensers to the back of the toilet doors and let them get on with what consenting adults are legally entitled to do!
As for MP3s, well, that's just a bandwidth issue, not a freedom of speech or censorship issue. As such it is a fair point in my opinion.
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Re:Single sex halls are the only thing banned here (Score:2)
My argument didn't say that prudes/xtians were 'wrong about anything else', it said that they were wrong about two specific things: single sex dorms and internet censorship, and I went on to justify why they were wrong for each of those two cases, gave examples for each reasons, and discussed how the two cases are linked.
If that isn't a logical argument then obviously your idea of a logical argument is limited to only those that you agree with.
Is this the five minute argument or the full half hour?
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Stop complaining about what's not yours (Score:2)
Re:As a former university sysadmin (Score:2)
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I'm a college sysadmin (Score:2)
Re:Ooops, I see your point (Score:2)
There's a horribly scary book about this - "The Shadow University" by Kors and Silvergate. Definately worth reading.
Re:Whats wrong with banning Napster? (Score:2)
There are a lot of laws which are in effect but which are weird and pointless, there are a lot of laws that must be challenged because they conflict with other laws, and there are laws which are perfectly okay from a legal standpoint, but which are morally repugnant and which must be fought at every turn.
Blindly obeying the law is a *bad* idea. Instead, be sharply critical of it, and don't be afraid to argue and act against a law if it is truly immoral (which I'm using rather loosely to also include those acts which would seek to rob us of our inalienable freedoms too)
Re:My stance on Napster (Score:2)
Not a new debate (Score:2)
Guess how that argument panned out
I'd say that there should be a limit on uses that are clearly illegal (Napster is not necessarily illegal - it stays unless you can prove otherwise) and that there should be caps on the amount of bandwidth that you can use, determined by the current demand. If it's 3am and the pipes are open, who the hell cares if you hog it all. Just be prepared to give it up when another night owl comes online.
University of Texas at Arlington... (Score:2)
Re:My stance on Napster (Score:2)
Well now isn't this funny. If the university points out that pirating MP3s is illegal, and that people should stop it because they're chewing up bandwidth its ok. But God help the RIAA when they point out that just maybe pirating MP3s is illegal , and that maybe universities should ban Napster.
Compare the tone of this disscussion with any one of the other Jihads on 'Your rights on line'... The motivation for the control of napster must be irrelevant. Either, pirating MP3s is illegal, or its not. Doesn't matter who's pointing the finger or why. Now how far you want to go for that control depends upon which side you are looking at napster from (student or record company).
The fact is that if Unversities don't control MP3 piracy on campus, it will be used as an excuse to implement more and more draconian copy right protections by the Entertainment Industry.
--locust
Re:SSU - Salisbury State University, Salisbury, MD (Score:2)
Szo
Re:From a network management side..... (Score:2)
-just my $.03
LLAMA
Re:Lots of things are wrong with it. (Score:2)
it's a pity that people use so much bandwidth gratuitously -- streaming audio/video that they don't even watch/listen to, illegal MP3's, warez... (slashdot's my entry on that list, I guess :) )
and, despite what they say there, my connection to some of the campus servers is still quite slow. is it possible that a lot of internet traffic trying to get out over a capped link can make other traffic (which is not capped) slow? it's entirely possible that it's the servers -- the EECS department needs some more unix boxen!
Lea
Dear Lea,
I wrote to you two weeks ago regarding slow network connections in the Residence Halls. I am writing you today with an update. At present, residence halls have high speed connections (100Mbs) to each other and to all resources located on campus. Transfer rates to servers outside of campus, however, may continue to be slow at times.
The amount of traffic from the residence halls to the outside world has increased dramatically over the past few months. Residents who are using large amounts of bandwidth to the outside world, by running the popular software Napster or popular FTP and web servers, are greatly diminishing network transfer rates for everyone else with a residence hall connection.
The residence halls share bandwidth with all other campus users, including ongoing research projects which rely on consistent connection rates. To ensure adequate bandwidth availability for all campus uses, the department of Communication and Network Services has restricted the total amount of bandwidth available to the residence halls for communication with the outside world. The e-mail below from the Director of Communication and Network Services provides details on the actions they have taken.
Residential Computing is continuing to work with Communication and Network Services to achieve a balance between competing demands for bandwidth throughout campus. We understand that current transfer rates from sites beyond campus are slower than they have been in the past. If you are currently using Napster or running a web server, we strongly encourage you to stop. If you have a friends who are running Napster, we encourage you to ask them to stop. Through increased resident education and ongoing discussions with Communcation and Network Services, I will do my best to improve network connectivity for all reshall students.
Please read the message from Communication and Network Services below for more information.
>From Cliff Frost, Director of Communication and Network Services regarding network connections in the residence halls:
Background:
The Berkeley campus pays approximately $600 per megabit/second/month for connectivity to the worldwide Internet. (There are start-up costs not included in that figure, and a base cost below which the total cost cannot go, but that is a good approximation of our current cost.)
The Residence Hall networks are very well-connected to the rest of campus, and to the Internet in general. This is accomplished via a 100 megabit/second connection between the residence halls and the rest of the campus network.
Up until approximately November, 1999, the sustained use of the Residence Hall network connection was approximately 15 megabits/second. This was for all traffic--both with other campus sites and with the Internet in general.
Recent History:
Coinciding with the tremendous popularity of "napster" (which is a very nice tool in many ways) there has been a tremendous and rapid growth in the campus's traffic to and from the Internet. This growth also coincided with a similar growth to and from the Residence Halls.
In looking at the traffic patterns, and concerned about how we would pay for the exploding use of the Internet, CNS staff noticed that traffic across the 100 megabit/second connection to the Residence Halls had sprung up to peaks of 40 megabits/second and a sustained level of 25. At that point, CNS put a cap onto the traffic that the Residence Halls could exchange with off-campus sites, at 20 megabits per second. Note that this cap did NOT apply to traffic with other on-campus sites.
The effect of the 20 megabit/second cap was immediate. Traffic across the link dropped to peaks of 22-25 megabits/second, implying that most of the traffic across the link is with off-campus sites.
CNS later set the cap at 15 megabits/second and then to 10. From the data gathered it appears that the Residence Halls exchange between 2 and 5 megabits/second with the rest of campus. All the rest of the traffic is bound for the Internet.
Current Status:
At the request of Housing & Dining Services, CNS has temporarily raised the cap to 15 megabits/second while we try to work out ways to manage the explosive demand for Internet bandwidth from the Residence Halls. Housing & Dining has asked for CNS's assistance in analyzing the situation and developing potential solutions.
It isn't necessarily censorship (Score:2)
Before anyone starts calling me a tool of the system, let me point out that I did my undergraduate work in Communications Studies and their is no faster way to get me riled up than to get me talking about the evils of the administration's stranglehold on the student^H^H^H^H^H^Hchool newspaper
I was talking Monday with a friend who works as a network administrator for the school, and he said they just did a network analysis to see where their bandwidth was being used. It turned out that 1/12 of the bandwidth to the Internet for the _entire_ school of 28,000 students was being used by a single freshman. He was running a Napster server and got his account canned.
He didn't get canned because it was Napster or MP3s. He didn't get canned because they wanted to "censor" him. He got canned because (a) he violated the Conditions of Use in his account agreement, and (b) the school has only limited bandwidth and doesn't want to pay for any more.
Before we immediately start screaming about censorship, we need to also consider how many students may be abusing the so-called "free bandwidth" they are getting. After proper consideration, and if it's justified, then we can start civilly arguing about censorship.
NOTE: The opinions expressed in this comment are entirely my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of my employers.
IRC and games -- U Calgary (Score:2)
7.4.2 Collegiality and sharing demands that each user treat all other users as they wish to be treated. The following list indicates activities that improve the computing environment for everyone:
Deleting unneeded files and electronic mail to make disk space available for other users
Avoiding use of university computing and network facilities for tasks unrelated to academic or administrative activities particularly when the facilities are heavily used
Avoiding use of university dial-in communication facilities for tasks unrelated to academic or administrative activities particularly when the dial-in lines are heavily used
Avoiding use of computing and network facilities to peruse the Internet or chat with user groups when the facilities are being heavily used for academic and administrative activities
Refraining from using disk space for the storage of large sound or graphic files (e.g., pornography) that are not directly related to university activity
Refraining from consuming computing or network resources to play games (e.g., MOO's, MUD's, etc.) except when required for course assignments or research projects
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Not only (Score:2)
This is stupid. University is claiming that games take up bandwidth dedicated for research, even though research network is on www2.
Andrei
The truth about Internet Telephony (Score:2)
This is a serious dilemma from a operations standpoint, but it doesn't make sense to raise false issues. AFAIK, the vast majority of the technically savvy students have a far better grasp of the true network performance than campus bureaucrats anyway. The staff that is as good as the students is often two or three rungs below the people who get quoted.
I'm just an alumnus of an engineering school now, and not on campus on a daily basis. So, let me know if I'm off base.
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Dave Aiello
Re:Whats wrong with banning Napster? (Score:2)
And to answer further questions: We do not charge for the internet connection
They block everything except for www. (Score:2)
You may have noticed my mention of https. We have constructed a https bouncing proxy site to go where we like on the web.
Re:Who's paying for the bandwidth? (Score:2)
I know that when it was new, ICQ was "banned" in the dorms. Obviously ICQ is not very network intensive, but it was deemed a security risk. (If you have ever taken a look at the protocalls, you would understand why.) Firewalls in place...bam bam! No more ICQ. I believe there was something of a protest over this, and eventually the restriction was lifted.
(Of course, even if they aren't, ICQ is now pretty smart about getting through firewalls. I'm not sure if it was then, I don't remember.)
So the question remains...how important are these programs to the student body? If they decide it is important, then there needs to be some organization to express that to the university. Quietly grumbling isn't going to get anything done.
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Re:Educate me on something.... (Score:2)
Re:Whats wrong with banning Napster? (Score:2)
Last I checked, ripping a CD (you owned) wasn't illegal. I assume you would like to see campuses also cut down on people copying LPs to cassette tapes?
And another point. Banning Napster doesn't prevent people from pirating MP3's. Banning illegal MP3's will ban illegal MP3's. Funny how that works. It takes vigilance to stop crime, not another line in the old port filter.
Bad Mojo
Re:I'm a campus network admin ... (Score:2)
Networks are expensive to maintain and bandwidth is also expensive on the scale a university needs. If a significant percentage of bandwidth can be eliminated without affecting academics (remember the piece of paper after 4+ years of school is the purpose of being in college), then what is the problem?
Remember the primary purpose of any campus network is for acadmic purposes. Show the university admins academic reasons for using banned software and the ban should be lifted. (Boy is that last sentence wishful thinking)
Re:Who's paying for the bandwidth? (Score:2)
In other words, I certailny do pay for the privilege of having a high-speed internet connection, and expect not to have my use thereof arbitrarily regulated. And my university recognises this: the only activities expressly forbidden are those which are already illegal.
Re:I don't see the problem (Score:2)
Yes yes yes, big KB like ISDN speed, not kbps. That's just silly
Pope
I don't see the problem (Score:2)
Furthur complaints about "censorship" or "I'm paying for it" come off to me as merely self-centred whining. Jeez, I was impressed when my roommate dialed into the library cataogue computer with a 2400 baud on his IIci to check for books!
Pope
Nothing yet... (Score:2)
However, reverse DNS does not work on our Internet-connected dormitory machines, making usage of them for Napster/Quake/etc. servers Not a Good Idea.
Plus there's probably not enough room on the VAX that houses our "University-approved" homepages for any of this stuff.
Re:There is nothing illegal about "ripping MP3s" (Score:2)
You would think so. For example, you would also think that if you legally purchased a DVD for your own private home use, you would have the right to operate that DVD with a computer running Linux, even if you have to write some software to support it. That makes sense, doesn't it?
Unfortunately, under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, you do not have the right to do any of these things. Almost no forms of copying are still considered "fair use." If you access the data on the disc in just about any way that the publisher doesn't specifically authorize, you have infringed on their copyright.
See the Slashdot story on the DeCSS injunction [slashdot.org], or the text of the judge's ruling itself. [cryptome.org]
Freedom of Expression. (Score:2)
I do LOTS of large-scale networking stuff as my hobby/semi-profession. I make it my responsibility to know what I'm talking about so I can explain what's wrong to users when it goes wrong, and as such have gained a very reasonable base in the fundamentals of networking and such over the time I've been administering UNIX/Linux systems. I can spew the buzzwords (BGP, IGMP (eww), OSFP, OSI Network Model, whatever) like the best of them, and at least have a decent understanding of what they mean. I also have resources who, if I DON'T know what something means, I ask them, and then I do understand.
So I contact our Network Operations department about a network outage, or a problem with inbound routing that is (admittedly by me) not their problem, but should be spoken to our provider about, or whatever. As a general rule I refuse to make the "hey, the network is broken!" complaints; I try to figure out the problem myself first, and then tell them about it. As a general rule, in most circumstances, I have been told by the manager or others in NetOps to go to hell, and that they know damned well what's wrong with their network, they get paid for this, I can't POSSIBLY know what I'm talking about, and to go away.
I don't understand this attitude to someone going out of their way to provide helpful information and possible diagnoses instead of "the network is broken". As a sysadmin and tech support provider myself, I know that SMART users who try to figure out problems themselves before contacting support@wherever make the support team's lives MUCH easier, and I for one am happy to get reports of problems, whether I've noticed them or not; it shows that people are paying attention and care enough about the service to ask it to get fixed.
So; I get told I'm not allowed to express that I'm having problems with the network, or if I do, that I'm not allowed to try to help. Great situation, if you ask me. So now I just don't bother. I look for my own ways around it. And if they don't like it, I guess they should have let me try to help them instead of working against them.
Don't mind me as I rant aimlessly.
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Tim Wilde
Gimme 42 daemons!
Pros and Cons of blocking EVERYTHING (Score:2)
This very effectively keeps student porn web servers from popping up, but it dosen't prevent us from downloading anything.
It easily prevents a large number of security problems, but it also creates a group of people that use SSH to forward high numbered ports from CS servers so that they can access their systems despite the firewall.
I moved off campus because I trust my server more than I trust the campus servers that are unavaliable too often for comfort and I am using ADSL so that I can telnet to my machine from anywhere. It is a simple solution, nobody is forcing you to stay on campus and ADSL actually gives me a faster connection to the internet than the university service did.
I understand their position, and they still have a problem with people downloading gigs of mp3s and other files, but it nearly eliminates the liability problems of student run illegal MP3, Warez, and porn servers.
I prefer the ability to have complete control over servers holding my data, they prefer to have complete control over the servers on their network. It is a difference of opinion, but if you have a friend (or a friendly server) outside of any firewall, you can forward ports and bypass the firewalls.
It all boils down to LIABILITY, the Universities do not like to have the risk of lawsuit.
My stance on Napster (Score:2)
Granted, this would be a large task and would only cover the serving half, not the client half. Does anyone know where the bulk of the bandwidth is eaten up? I would guess that serving content uses more bits.
Re:But we Pay (Score:2)
If you are actually paying a fee to access the campus network then they are acting as your ISP and should have no rights to tell you how to use your connection. If the fee is actually a technology fee then things change, because you are paying a fee to help pay for the technology on campus and not for internet service.
They're only banning non-techs (Score:2)
In the case of things like napster, this is a good thing(TM) People who can get around the block anyways know better than to open up gigs and gigs of mp3's to other people on fast connections and expect them to play fair. Blocking the port protects the lusers who think that hitting the x in the corner shuts napster down; seriously, I've had to talk to about 300 people this year about bandwidth issues, and 280 of them have been people who didn't even know other people were getting files off of napster thru their comp..........
Re:Whats wrong with banning Napster? (Score:2)
Effort. It takes a lot more effort. It's simple enough just to add a line into a portblocking table to stop it. And you'd have to monitor continuously, keep the tools uptodate with the protocol, and if you slack off, word would get around and mp3 trade would start again. These are students we're talking about
Basically the way I see it (Score:2)
Re:Basically the way I see it (Score:2)
Thats sort of what I meant by the blacklist being abused.
I don't think a library "a common carrier of information". I think what a library is, is a place where you can get information on something. I can't, for example, get playboy or Hardcore Dutch Teens in my local library, I don't think I should be able to access certain websites from my library either. But again, this comes down to publicly reviewable blacklists, to make sure the censorware isn't being abused.
Re:Not only (Score:2)
It makes for a sweet network install off of certain
-nicole
Re:Quality of Service (Score:2)
QoS is easy to implement for upstream, but difficult for downstream. In short, you must work with your ISP to get it done and load down their equipment. Most ISPs aren't going to be friendly to that, and will likely charge you more. It is easier to just block ports.
For downstream, QoS on your router doesn't mean anything because the traffic has already choked down your pipe before you would make the "what is more important" decision. Therefore, the ISP has to do QoS and prioritize packets before sending them to you.
In a perfect world, QoS would solve everything, but I don't think you will find too many ISPs and backbone providers willing to implement it. Perhaps that perfect world will exist in the future, but not today.
Re:Just 5%?! (Score:2)
I am not aware of very many network architectures which allow this, but it is necessary. Charge whatever is necessary per megabyte to fund network services. Those who use the system more will pay more; that it more than fair.
I can pretty much guarantee that a penny a megabyte would prevent most students from wasting; a gigabyte a day would be $10; that's a lot of money to a student. But if the student wishes to spend that much, then he has every right to.
We have right now the 'tragedy of the commons'; the solution is well-known. We need to implement that solution.
Re:extra bandwidth used if available (Score:2)
Bandwidth isn't free. (Score:2)
- Block sites that require heavy bandwidth, as has been done recently by universities dealing with napster, ipad, etc.
- Continue to pay the bills regardless of what is used and proclaim that students (and staff!) should have absolute freedom. Most likely this will result in higher tuition charges to cover the cost.
- Start charging each student on a per byte basis for the bandwidth they use.
I'm betting that #3 will win in the long run. It's the only fair solution when you break it down, as it charges the people that use it. As unfair as it seems to the people that want to use the most bandwidth, it simply puts the charges on the people that use it. Option #2 is certainly the way it should be, but if the cost is spread out to the students that aren't making use of it then its not really fair to them. What we need is free bandwidth, and since that'll never happen we're stuck with charging someone. The only sensible solution is to charge the people that are using the bandwidth. However, the biggest problem with this is that universities are not set up to handle this kind of recharge service. There is a whole new wave of infrastructure that is required to put a per-byte pricing model in place, and it doesn't exist in most places yet. Until it does, I'm sure more and ore universities will be implementing #1 since their budgets just aren't prepared for the bills their getting charged with.Re:Who's paying for the bandwidth? (Score:2)
Pardon me all to hell, but who do you think provides the actual, physical lines between institutions? the TCP/IP fairy? they sprouted up on their own?
Here's a clue: they're called Sprint. MCI. Ameritech. UUNet. Even AT&T.
Sheesh...
James -- the TCP/IP fairy needs to get his DSL gang out to my house, the slacker!
There is nothing illegal about "ripping MP3s" (Score:2)
I can do all of this. All of this is legal, provided I own the CDs that are the source material for the MP3s. It is no different than recording a CD onto a cassette tape so that you can listen to it in an old Walkman. You have the right to "fair use" of the material. So I say again, there is nothing illegal about "ripping MP3s." Furthermore, "ripping MP3s" is all done locally, and doesn't use a single bit of a college network's available bandwidth.
The legal issues are about distributing MP3s, not creating them. Don't fall into the trap that the RIAA is trying to cleverly lay out. MP3 is not an "illegal format." It is not illegal to create, own, or use MP3-formatted music files. It is illegal to distribute those files to parties who do not legally own the source CD, which is what real beef with Napster is all about. So try not to confuse the issue here.
Re:My stance on Napster (Score:2)
The problem with the RIAA's stance is not only do they want to stop the trading of copyright MP3's, but they want to destroy MP3 as an audio file format altogether.
-- iCEBaLM
Re:Whats wrong with banning Napster? (Score:2)
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Re:From a students side (Score:2)
I hate to say this; but $9600/month is not nearly enough to service the bandwidth needs of 480 folks, even if only 20% are running Napster, IMHO. It's still subsidised. You have to factor in infrastructure cost, support costs and the like to come up with a true value. I don't know what kind of equipment or speed links are being used across that campus. I would say that $20 is a bargin, even if Napster is blocked.
Best thing that ever happened to our network (Score:2)
Re:Here's an interesting page... (Score:2)
Rutgers as also been very slow getting networking into the majority of the res halls... many were still running through an over-clogged dialup last year (can't say this year - I don't visit anymore). Napster + dialup = pain, no matter what 8^)
Policy at Berkeley (Score:2)
In recent months napster traffic has become a significant portion of the residence hall internet traffic and is getting too expensive for Network Services. A few weeks ago Network Services instituted a 15 megabit/s cap on dorm internet traffic. The rest of the campus is unaffected. No services are blocked. Everything is just slower.
Ryan
Re:I only wish my campus was as enlightened as you (Score:2)
You can see right when the pulled the plug on napster. At least the network is blazingly fast now.
That's funny... My girlfriend lives on the uri campus. I just talked to her on ICQ and she's using Napster right now with no problems... Maybe they're limiting the bandwidth it uses for now, but they don't seem to have completely cut access.
Re:Drexel is going to ban *ALL* mp3s (Score:2)
Drexel won't do a damn thing until they're pressured again. A friend of mine was caught running an ftp server last year: his mistake: 10 user, anonymous, public, leech, and no bandwidth restrictions. And you know how they caught him? Someone found the server, and alerted the admins. Go search on the LAN. Every computer has an mp3 folder, and 99% of them are password restricted. Fortunately, unless they've got some pretty good people working in IRT, those passwords aren't going to be cracked any time soon. I've ran a semi-public leech ftp server for the entire year, and noone's been able to notice it. My bandwidth usage has been near zero on the server during most times of the day, so I doubt they'll really scan my computer for an ftp port. Even if they do, I have their ip's on my banlist.
_____________________
step one: place
Here's an interesting page... (Score:2)
Ah, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, Scourge of Liberty and Friend to the Tyrant.
We really must get this damnéd thing repealed.
Of course, if you are in New Jersey, you should go to my old Alma Mater, Rutgers, anyway (where I got my B.A. in English). I think they have a more liberal use policy, here it is http://rucs.rutgers.edu/acceptabl e-use-guide.html [rutgers.edu]
Re:From a network management side..... (Score:2)
For this reason there are various services which to my mind are quite important, which we find ourselves in no position to offer to students.
We are stuck in the middle on this problem and it's a situation we just can't win. If we dissallow the services we are censorious fascists. and if we allow these services, then it's our fault that network performance is abysmal. (that's not to mention members of staff downloading several, hundred megabyte files, at times of peak load and wondering why the service falls apart.)
Re:I'm a campus network admin ... (Score:2)
I hate those people (like the parent to this post)who are always on the outside looking in. They are the ones that always have an opinion and a loud voice and they think that it matters. If you think that all of your tax money that goes to universities is being spent on some 18 year olds mp3 habit, then you need to look at the financial plans of universities. You will probably find that your subsidized mp3 money is just a drop in the bucket of the university's anual budget. If that is the biggest issue that you have and this is the best case that you have against money being spent on universities then you need to look again.
I have moderations points, but I felt that it would be more effective to reply to this than to simply mark it down like most moderators would do. I disagree with you 100%. Your approach sucks, and your language is deplorable at best. If you have a point to make - then articulate it. Telling someone to go fsck themselves because you disagree with them is about as mature as saying "Im rubber you're glue...." I encourage you to try again and reply to this post in a mature and vocal manner.
eric
-------------------------------------------
One question: Ban icq because of bandwidth use?!? (Score:2)
Oh, and according to ipchains, I use about 20-50mb of off-campus bandwidth on the typical day, sometimes going up to a gigabyte once or twice a month with cd or other big downloads.
Overall, while I do use hellacious amounts of on-campus bandwidth (usually remote x-sessions), up to a gigabyte a day, for most of the days of a month a modem could handle what I use for off-campus stuff.
Going too far... (Score:2)
At my (UK) University they banned Napster a little while ago. We also have a transparent web proxy/cache (ie: you are forced to use it). The main reason for these measures are two fold. Firstly, to try to reduce the increasing network congestion. Secondly, to cut costs - as has already been mentioned on this thread, UK univserities now get charged per Mb of incoming traffic on the transatlantic lines.
So, I personally think the action they have taken so far is fair enough. The amount of bandwidth Napster takes up is silly - and it's easy to block. Most of the MP3s people will be obtaining are almost certainly illegal, so I don't see it as any infringement of my rights. Also, it is the Univeristy's network and supposed to be for academic use. I don't pay anything for it, so I'm hardly in a position to complain.
However, the Computing Services staff here seem obsessed with stopping any tiny thing they can. They are currently planning to block the IP ports that are commonly used by games (they recently did a test of blocking the Halflife mod Counterstrike's port). Now this strikes me as very odd. Most online games do not generate a huge amount of traffic (obviously a reasonable amount if you're running a server, but that's not the issue here). Most importantly, non of this traffic is going to go to the US and so incur a charge. With FPS games, ping is all important - there's no way you'd catch me even trying to play QuakeWorld or Quake3 on US servers. I want the one nearest to me (ie: lowest ping) - so the packets I create are going very far. Sure, some games (eg: Everquest) might be played on US servers when there are no European alternatives, but they seem to be taking a general "games are the cause of our network problems" attitude.
Maybe you're thinking that I'm being uptight cos I can't play these silly violent games? Maybe you're right. The point is though, that whilst I am using an academic network for pure personal enjoyment... game playing is not the thing to target. They are not going to be as draconian as to say that all non acamedic activities are banned. Why would they have plans to ethernet all University accomodation ASAP if that were the case? Very few people (I would say 0 - at least for access to things outside the University) have a real need for a 10Mbit ethernet connection. No-one's going to stop people from looking up train times during lunch for when they pop home the next weekend are they?
So something needs to be done, and if it isn't blocking games, what should it be? Well, how amount monitoring traffic and identifying high bandwidth users. If someone is running an illegal warez server, and they're asked what exactly is causing 3Gb of data to be transfered a day, they're going to shut it down pretty quickly. Perhaps even instigating a charge for people who do use large amounts of bandwidth (on legitimate things) - that would discourage frivolous use, and stop people grabbing some VCD from the US every week. Even enouraging people to not use hotmail accounts (we get charged for US access remember - and pages there obviously can't be cached!), but rather UK based alternatives, seems to me to be a far more sensible stratedgy, not just in terms of keeping students happy, but actually effective in reducing our bandwidth consumption, and our network costs.
--
Dr_Claw
Re:As a former university sysadmin (Score:2)
I'm sure you're entirely correct in saying 99% of the songs on Napster are copyrighted, but (the way I understand it) just because I download an mp3 of a copyrighted song doesn't mean it's illegal.
Since I've gone to college, I've used mp3's for listening to music probably 98% of the time. A lot of those mp3's were obtained from Napster (that is, until it was shut down here). OK, now I will freely admit that I do not own an original copy of many of the songs that I've downloaded. In that respect, yes, I have broken the law and infringed upon the artists' copyrights. I do not wish to misrepresent myself on this matter. However, I have also used Napster legitimately so that I might be able to listen to a cd that I own, but I didn't bring with me.
Since I brought to college maybe three of my 200 or so cd's, I would estimate that... hmm, probably 60% of my mp3's are of songs that I own. Whether I rip them myself, get them from my.mp3.com, or download them from Napster, it is within my rights and the bounds of the law. If a college wants to shut it down on grounds of bandwidth concerns, that's fine. Do whatever you need to do. However, for a college to justify a blocking Napster because it's a tool of piracy, or the devil's work, or whatever... That's a misrepresentation.
As a student AND administrator... (Score:3)
Censorship is restricting certain types of content only within a medium for some sort of political or moral goal. I don't believe that the university has any objection to students receiving any certain type of content (the AUP simply specifies that usage should be for educational purposes - I'll get to what this means in a bit). But regardless of the content, as the head admin says, "network bandwidth is a very limited resource." And I wholeheartedly agree to any measures he takes to help relieve the congestion, especially if it impacts only services, like Napster, that cannot possibly be considered to have legitimate educational purposes.
Yes, that's right, educational purposes. That's what university networks are supposed to be for. And I believe in a broad definition of "educational" that includes things like hosting Free Software projects, receiving and playing (non-stolen) music files, and even reading Slashdot. Most organizations, especially for-profit ones, do not even allow these activities because they do not contribute to that organization's mission. You should be thankful that most universities liberally interpret the boundaries of their missions and do not require you to pay for your own bandwidth to use these and other services.
Another issue to consider is that, in a badly oversubscribed environment like ours (100% usage from 8am to 6pm), every byte you get is a byte someone else won't. In a lot of cases, that someone else is trying to do real research, or as in my case, get security fixes and other data crucial to my job as a systems administrator. The conscientious individual recognizes this and self-imposes limits to his network use during congested times. After-hours, in fact, most limits are removed and students and faculty are allowed even freer use of the network. As I've been saying, these restrictions and limits are placed so that everyone has a fair shot at using the network. It would be nice if people would further limit their usage to truly educational material during the day; if they did then restrictions would not even be necessary. Until that happens (ha!) we'll continue to restrict and/or rate-limit certain services.
Unfortunately, decisions must be made as to exactly which services must be limited or cut off, and in general I feel that Napster is an example of a service with no real educational value and high bandwidth usage. Thus it is a good candidate for restriction. Perhaps you disagree, but then it would be your responsibility to decide what else must be limited or cut. Obviously items like DeCSS are not cut for these reasons, and I vehemently disagree with that practice. Ditto for cutting internet long-distance just to prevent competition. There are lots of bad reasons to restrict network usage, but I've yet to see anyone around here bringing them up and I suspect that in most places, decisions are being made for valid reasons, not censorship or to stifle competition. Here we are talking about bandwidth usage, and something has to go. I'm glad it's Napster and not FTP or HTTP. Certainly these protocols can be abused as well, but they are also frequently used for purposes directly related to the stated goals of the university. Think about it. If not Napster, then what?
--TM
Within their rights (Score:3)
When MP3s flying around the network start to affect people's ability to get real work done -- both by students and researchers -- I think it's entirely within the rights of the admins to restrict the use of things like Napster. Buy your own T1.
--
I'm a campus network admin ... (Score:3)
Personally, I feel that this _is_ a matter of censorship. Furthermore, banning sites and blocking ports is a futile attempt. Students are resourceful. They will find some way around it (proxies, say), or someone else who knows. Once one student knows a way around it, the whole campus knows.
Recently our uplink set a packet filter blocking all packats to napster.com. I lobbied against this, and stressed that this wasn't a solution to the problem. Blocking content _is_ censorship. While I am sympathetic to the problem, censoring people is simply wrong. The filter was dropped a few days later; I hope my arguments had a hand in persuading them.
I currently impose bandwidth throttling on the interface that connects to our campus residence. This seems to work reasonably well and I would recommend this to any network admin over packet filtering.
Jason,
tack@linux.com
Net demographics 1994-2000 (Score:3)
In 1994, it was rare for students to take computers to campus. For most schools, this was the dawning of the connected era, when they were thinking about the procurement process for full scale fiber ethernet networks. Some schools wrote grant applications, begged alums, asked the state govt, raised tuition to pay for their "pipe dreams".
So, for a few years, in most cases, the bandwidth that was planned in the mid 90's has held out. But in the past two years, hardware prices have fallen through the floor, and evry kid wants to bring his or her computer to school.
At my school last spring, when I sat down to look, less than 5% of seniors had computers on the campus network (all computers have to be listed as students' usernames for easy ID). More than 70% of freshmen did. The explosive growth of end-user computing sent the computer from the realm of luxury item to the realm of more-important-than-a-tv.
So the procurement process has to start again, admin staff trying to get money to upgrade the network, keep faculty in working machines, provide multimedia teaching facilities in classrooms, provide public use computers for students who don't bring computers, spend money selling the school through its website, and making sure CS students have access to labs that will allow them to actually learn something. Add to that the personnel cost of manning the network, admining accounts, going to meetings to get more money, and researching new tech for upgrades, and you've got a pretty hefty bill, even in cases where a lot of the grunt work is done by students. Not to mention that hefty chunks of 1999's budget probably went to Y2K upgrades.
In short, bandwidth is a very expensive commodity for departments with short budgets, and students abusing it before the school can get what it needs deserve to be shut down. The angst-ridden middle class kid syndrome will whine to no end, though, thinking they were really paying what the resources are worth. Yeah, right.
Of course, the faculty were more concerned with "what do you do with students who spend all their time on the net and no time working? They already recentered the SAT for them. Now what?" But that's for another day...
--mandi
Re:QoS has been suggested (Score:3)
You can use QoS.
Even if you cannot use it selectively (with Napster this requires sniffing the proto and configuring QoS filters realtime) use per net/per IP limits (aka per dorm). Or even better schedule the dorms to use ONLY leftovers from the rest of the campus. Over. Done. Whoever says it is impossible eat a gun. Been there. Done that
Problem is elsewhere:
Re:Whats wrong with banning Napster? (Score:3)
Bad Mojo
Re:But we Pay (Score:3)
Just because you pay a fee for your connection does not mean they waive the right to determine how it may be used. If you don't like the fee, the conditions, or whatever else, you can always find an alternate method of connecting.
Personally, I don't see what people are bitching about. $80/semester is a fantastic deal for high-speed acccess. My cablemodem costs me $240 per semester.
cjs
Re:As a former university sysadmin (Score:3)
One place that I do have a problem is when public schools make sweetheart deals with long-distance carriers in return for kickbacks. They force their students to use one carrier from their dorm rooms under the auspices of cheaper rates, when in fact they are taking some of the savings themselves. Now, don't get me wrong -- I think that public schools should try to save money (or generate it) wherever possible to save both the taxpayers and the students money.
However, banning IP long distance phone calls is an active conflict of interest. It puts the school into a position of protecting their preferred long distance carrier's market by controlling their network.
What I suggest is not that schools should give up controlling their networks, but that they should be more careful in choosing who they make exclusive agreements with, or if they should at all. These agreements with LD carriers put them in an exposed position and tie their hands when they want to later control network bandwidth, and they are just plain no good.
In the last few years, it's almost been a free-for-all with schools making exclusive agreements with everyone from Microsoft to all the long distance carriers to Subway and even credit card companies. But these agreements come at a price that administrators don't yet realize: the integrity of their school's goal to provide education, not business relationships.
Re:As a former university sysadmin (Score:3)
And remember that universities are not usually strictly private profit-seeking entities. They are payed for by tuition and student fees, by charitable endowments, and by govenment money collected with taxes (even private schools receive federal funds for student programs and research).
You claim it's not censorship when someone else owns the wire, but what happens when everybody who owns the wires won't let you talk? What's your recourse, build your own Internet?
Give each user their own allocation - IProute2 (Score:3)
It's a tough problem (obviously). The best solution we came up with was to use DummyNet under BSD or iproute2 under Linux to give each user their own allocation of bandwidth. When they run out, they can still use our proxy servers (which don't incur charges) or can buy more bandwidth for their allocation.
IProute2 is actually excellent for this. It can do just as much as your average Cisco, much more easily: source-based routing, processing of packets based on arbitrary hexadecimal strings in them, and so-on. With a powerful enough CPU and two 3Com cards, we got a decent throughput too.
We came up with a whole complex system with perl, Oracle, DBI, SNMP, shaper.o (no iproute2 in those days) and lots of other things - then ran out of time and money just as it was starting to work (though shaper.o wasn't very suited to the task). There just isn't enough money, at least in UK universities, to do this sort of thing.
Instead each ethernet segment of 100+ users squeezes through a 20Kbps throttle. This is of course totally unfair, because 2% use more than the rest put together, but on the bright side traffic through our proxies is excluded from the throttling. It's a terrible solution but there isn't money for anything better. We don't have Cisco CPU capacity for selective QoS by protocol. Any suggestions welcome :-)
Re:Whats wrong with banning Napster? (Score:3)
I understand the problem. I mean, several weeks ago one res-hall (250 students) was cranking out 35 MBit (all Napster/MP3). We have a 45MBit link to the Internet. We put a filter on the router just to count # of packets going to the Napster server - several hundred per second. That just to the server, NOT mp3 files going across the wire.
I can understand turning it off. Although we started with the biggest offenders at first - that doesn't work. It's the large number of people using it - not several major offenders.
So how to nail it? filter out anything to that class C - fine. That'll work temporarily. Proxy's are abundant. DNS it - they'll use external DNS servers. The only viable way I know of to really shut it down is possibly to shut off ICMP inbound. Although I'm going to try to write a filter that would nail the Napster protocol. Blocking ICMP would suck, but it would work. If anyone knows a better idea, please please let me know.
Brent Deterding
Univsity of Missouri - Columbia
Data Network Planning & Support - Core Group
Research Computing Group
Grader - CECS 253 (UNIX)
From savenapster.com ..... (Score:3)
SSU - Salisbury State University, Salisbury, MD (Score:3)
Napster and other bandwidth hogging programs can cause slow Internet connections for everyone
The Chronicle of Higher Education published the following article in the issue dated February 25, 2000. Salisbury State University is facing similar bandwidth issues with the proliferation of Napster and similar programs, plus other bandwidth stealing applications such as Spinner, Real Player, WinAmp (when used to receive Shoutcast Stations) and Instant Messenger programs such as AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Instant Messenger, and ICQ. As a consideration, please be aware that using these programs during peak hours (usually 9 AM to 9 PM) causes the network to slow significantly, so please try to limit your use of these programs (especially the Napster-like programs and the streaming audio programs like Spinner, etc) to non-peak hours. In this way, we can ensure that the Internet is available at an acceptable level of speed to everyone that needs it.
"Napster, a tool for finding MP3 audio files online, is causing headaches among network administrators -- not because of its potential for copyright infringement, but because when students use it en masse they can clog even high-bandwidth campus Internet connections.
A growing number of universities have responded to the resulting congestion by cutting off the software's access to the Internet.
The program runs on personal computers and allows a user to share his or her collection of MP3 files. MP3's on users' hard drives are made available for both searches and downloads over the Internet by anyone else who runs the program. At peak times, this network of Napster users can offer access to several hundred gigabytes of data, or hundreds of thousands of individual files.
At any given time, each user can be sending and receiving dozens of files. Multiply that by hundreds of students on one campus, and the consequence can be a serious traffic jam.
"We found that, on average, that particular program was using 10 to 40 percent of our campus Internet bandwidth," says Marjorie F. Proell, communications director for Saint Cloud State University, in Minnesota. "There were times it peaked even at 60 percent."
Such high traffic can slow down everyone else's use of the Internet, whether for surfing, for transferring scholarly journal articles, or even just for sending mail. "It was reducing the speed and reliability of our Internet services, which is something that's felt by everyone on campus --students, staff, and faculty," says Ms. Proell. In October, network engineers at Oregon State University noticed increased Internet traffic, which they traced to Napster. "It was using 5 percent of O.S.U.'s total bandwidth going out of the university," says Christopher White, the administrator for the university's residential network. That percentage "doesn't sound like a lot, but it is -- a real, real lot," he says. By November, Napster was using up 10 percent of the bandwidth.
At first, administrators responded by calling students who were using the program and telling them that such bandwidth-hogging programs violated the university's policies on acceptable use of the network. But when it became clear that hundreds of students were using the program, officials decided to block the network channel that carries Napster traffic.
"If we had let it go much longer, I think we definitely would have had serious problems," says Mr. White.
Other institutions have reported similar traffic problems. Institutions that have reportedly banned the program include Boston, North Carolina State, and Northwestern Universities, and the Universities of New Hampshire, Pittsburgh, and Texas. Institutions don't just face slow Web connections as a result of Napster -- they can face significant Internet access costs as well. According to Curtis R. Pederson, Oregon State's vice provost for information services, Napster was costing the university about $1,500 per month at the time it was shut off.
The university normally spends $12,000 to $15,000 a month for Internet access. Mr. Pederson says the university is planning to hold a forum with students to talk about "Internet use and ethics, and the reality of the budget." Other institutions have had similar meetings.
Administrators who have blocked access to Napster say that bandwidth is their main concern, rather than the continuing controversy over MP3 files, which are often used to illegally transmit copyrighted music. The Recording Industry Association of America is pursuing a lawsuit against the makers of Napster because of the ease with which the program lets users share pirated music.
The association also regularly requests that colleges shut down online archives of illegal MP3's on campus networks and has created an educational campaign intended to teach students about copyright law.
Oregon State's Mr. White says the decision to block the program was definitely made easier by Napster's illicit uses. "If it was a program that had real educational value to it, it probably would have been a lot harder," he says. But, he adds, "we wouldn't have even noticed it if it wasn't for the bandwidth issue."
BTW, I received this mail from my school account - one "powered" by Groupwise [ssu.edu] - but that's all I use that account for, because it's literally down as much as it is up. But I guess that's another story...
Colleges Can do what they want (Score:3)
Three years ago when I lived on campus, I ran an mp3 FTP site. It was pretty popular for the few months it was public and I was able to serve about 100 gigs worth of stuff. I decided to cut back because the University did monitor that stuff and basically it's their bandwidth.
There is the arguement that you have to pay Computer Access fees. At Texas A&M where I went to school, that was all of $50 a semester. I pay that in one month for cable service. I don't really see how I can then justify saying that I pay $50 a semester I should be able to use all the bandwidth I want. My cable company asked me to stop running an FTP after 3 days and 1 gig served.
The thing is if your actions are negatively impacting other people, (and high bandwidth usage does!) then you have no right to complain if someone asks you to stop. Yeah it's fun to complain, but grow up people. Don't take it all so seriously.
Mordred
Thats worse (Score:3)
Metered bandwidth? (Score:3)
Can't load limits be implemented?
I only wish my campus was as enlightened as yours (Score:4)
Take a look at http://www.uri.edu/mrtg/jvnc.html [uri.edu]
You can see right when the pulled the plug on napster. At least the network is blazingly fast now.
As a former university sysadmin (Score:4)
WRT napster: I am well aware that it could be used for the transfer of non-copyrighted MP3's. But the fact of the matter is that it is not. I will challenge anyone to show me that even 1% of the MP3's available on Napster are not copyrighted. And this thing is using 20% of the bandwidth on a lot of campuses! If students in fact own the CD's, why can't they just rip their own copies?
So don't talk to me about Napster. As for DialPad: that is also a purely economic decision in most cases. Yeah, it only eats about 20K/sec. But remember that's 20K/sec for hours on end. It adds up.
To call these censorship is to abuse the term censorship. Nobody is preventing you from saying ANYTHING! They are just choosing not to pay for you to say it! There's nothing stopping you from going out and getting your own ISP.
I'm sure many of you will claim that "this is just the start of censorhip" and "a little bit of censorship is like being a little bit pregnant". Here's the thing you've got to remember: when you cry "censorship" over petty stuff like this, you will not be able to get my attention when there really is censorship. For example, the DeCSS stuff is quite disturbing from a free speech point of view. But by hassling with dialpad.com, you are losing credibility for that battle.
Never cry wolf.
--
Re:Whats wrong with banning Napster? (Score:4)
OTOH Napster is a worse bandwidth hog than W2K's Active Directory. Both should be banned.
From a network management side..... (Score:4)
Now on the censorship side, that is just not acceptable and should not be tolerated. Bandwidth mangement is one thing. Censoring is never the right reason.
Educate me on something.... (Score:4)
Will this just be a never-ending war?
Plankeye
But we Pay (Score:4)
Re:As a former university sysadmin (Score:4)
I don't think I'm nitpicking if I point out that many universities make it nearly impossible to do this. If they don't forbid outside ISPs directly, many universities have residency requirements, and follow those with (in addition to the highest rent possible) the most stringent rules about the housing that you'll find, effectively preventing anything but dial-up access. One university I was associated with had a PBX set up in their dorms that was strange enough that it wouldn't talk to a normal phone, much less a modem.
They have reasons for these rules, and there are reasons for service restrictions, but the two together are fairly procrustean. Not that they're out of their rights to do so. But I think students always have the right to be outraged at the restrictions placed on them by administration. Part of the Student Experience tm.
no bandwidth (Score:4)
If it was up to me, I'd throw in another connection or something and limit Napster to a few machines or something. I dunno, I just feel frustrated that our 'state-of-the-art' network doesn't work for jack when 200 people are using Napster simultaneously.
Eh, I'll shut up now
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
AOL IM: jeanlucpikachu
QoS has been suggested (Score:5)
1. everything not mentioned below
2. web
3. internet telephony
4. Napster
If there's leftover bandwidth, Napster gets it (hopefully preventing people from getting deperate enough to go to lengths to circumvent the measures). And if somebody else needs bandwidth, they get it. E-Z.
Ban excessive use, not content. (Score:5)
The three or four warez d00dz who think they have to have a dozen MP3s or VCDs downloading at all times don't help. A few months ago we had one or two twits using up well in excess of 50% of our bandwidth, moving traffic we all knew perfectly well was bootlegged media. But we really see this as an excessive-use problem, not a bootlegging problem -- so we put a 200MB/day cap on usage. As soon as any user machine on our network has moved 200MB over the Internet link in one day, it is unceremoniously blocked off until 3AM the next morning. There is a "free period" from 3AM to 6AM during which people may download all they want without limit; also, we grant exceptions for academic use, such as when someone wants to download a new distro CD image. (The funny thing is that the really heavy users don't use the 3AM-6AM window, even though there's plenty of scheduled-download software out there. They just hit 200MB and get blocked -- just about every day.)
We do, actually, have a policy against bootlegging software, music, movies, and the like -- but I'll be the first to admit that's a CYA move, so if RIAA or the like come attack us, we can say we don't tolerate bootlegging. We don't go looking for MP3 servers unless someone raises a fuss. We do block NetBIOS-over-TCP at the firewall, but that's all. (We're planning to block inbound SMTP directed to systems other than our mail server in the near future, but that's to stop spammers, not to limit our users.)
Blocking services by port number is not a solution to excessive use, nor is it a solution to bootlegging or other "contrabandwidth". In a port-blocking situation, the serious abusers tunnel or otherwise route around the censorship; the regular users get stuck with bogus limits on their use; and we sysadmins have to play catch-up maintaining a list of blocked services. If congestion is the problem, ban excessive use, not controversial use.
Lots of things are wrong with it. (Score:5)
Think about guns - guns are made to kill people. They are used in crimes every day all over the nation. But still, they are legal, because we recognize that they have legitimate uses. You can restrict the use of guns, and you might even reduce crime, (I don't actually believe that, but that's an entirely different story) but you'd be giving up a portion of your freedom to do that. Similarly, you can ban mp3s, and you may reduce the amount of IP theft, or lower your bandwidth utilization, but you're giving something up. Namely, the positive aspects of downloading mp3s, and also, the students freedom to be in an environment that allows them to expand themselves as they see fit, not as the university sees fit.
I can kinda sympathize with the bandwidth argument, but I really hate it when people change things midstream. If you come onto the university network, and sign an agreement saying "by signing this you agree not to do x, y, or z" then you have a choice, and you can go elsewhere. On the other hand, if you invest in a NIC for your student network, and then have regulations piled on you never agreed to, that's different, because you weren't given a choice.
It's their bandwidth, right? So they're completely justified in monitoring and restricting all traffic, including all your outgoing email and communication and logging them. That's just not fair, and it's somewhat absurd. They're fighting a losing battle anyway. If they ban napster, somebody will figure out how to run it on a differnent port, or will just move to another service.
Quality of Service (Score:5)
For instance, you can say the following:
- First, let all traffic not defined below go first (SMTP, NTP, etc) -- basically all non-classified traffic
- Then if theres bandwidth left over, all web traffic,
- Then if theres bandwidth left over, all IP telephony traffic,
- Then if theres bandwidth left over, all Napster traffic.
(Insert other bandwidth hogging apps or reprioritize as necessary)Basically this is probably the best for all worlds, since then the Napster users can try to hammer the network all they want. They just will have their packets dropped first. This will allow them to actually use *ALL* of their network.
Whats wrong with banning Napster? (Score:5)
What's wrong with universities banning it? Clearly, they cannot condone the flagrant ripping of MP3's on campus. I'm sure they'd do the same if they found 10000 warez sites running on their students' boxes.
I'm not saying that censorship is a good thing, just that in this case I fail to see how this is construed as censorship, given that using the application for anything other than illegal activities is fairly hard. 5% of university bandwidth is a hell of a lot as well.
Just 5%?! (Score:5)
I wish Napster was only taking up 5% of our total bandwidth!
Here at the college where I am a technician we've already had the first part of our firewall system installed to secure the campus and restrict the use of Napster. Our reason to kill Napster is the same one repeated many times in this forum--bandwidth. Currently, Napster is taking up about 25-30% of the sum total of our T1 line.
It used to be a 3-to-1 ratio of incoming to outgoing traffic. 75% of the traffic came into the campus LAN and 25% (or less) went out. This year, that has all changed. As I write this our MRTG graph shows 150K+ going out and less than 100K comming in. At night its even worse (typical night: 50K+ out vs. ~10K in). On average we are split equally between traffic comming in and traffic going out.
I probed and port scanned the network a couple weeks ago and found 30-40 people who were running a Napster server. Lets say each server allows 10-20 users. At peak that would mean 300-800 people are downloading large MP3 files. We have a student body of 1000. The math becomes a little frightening at this point.
This is a college LAN, not a server farm.