University bans p2p apps
Written by Ernesto on April 11, 2006UConn (Univerity of Connecticut) Information Technology Services says it’s going to in effect ban all p2p file sharing programs, except DC++.
“The current restrictions on these programs allow them to work, but limit their ability to consume network bandwidth and restrict their network speed,” says the Daily Campus.
But, “According to a campus-wide e-mail from UITS, similar restrictions have been on the network in the past from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., but they now apply to the entire day.”
The story has Elaine David, assistant vp for information services and the director of information technology security, policy and quality assurance, stating:
“It’s not prevention, but a restriction.”
As of the fall semester, all p2p programs will be blocked by default on the UConn network, and users will have to ask if theywant to use them, “for a short amount of time”.
“Our initial approach is to disable all peer-to-peer programs, then we’ll put a mechanism in place to allow their use,” says Mike Lang, a security analyst with UITS, in the Daily Campus. “But we haven’t worked out complete details yet, and once we implement the program, we’ll make adjustments based on user feedback.”
The story says would-be users will have to get permission to use p2p programs within a “time window” during which, “they will have no bandwidth limits and once it has closed they can re-apply for more time”.
The p2p “restrictions” affect the UConn network edge and the Internet, Lang said, programs that allow users to share within the UConn network, such DC++, won’t be unaffected, adds the Daily Campus.
DC ++, an open-source p2p file-sharing client used to hook into the Direct Connect network, is, interestingly, being targetted in Norway.
Related article: Traffic Shaping, Good or Bad?
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18 Responses
I got to Johns Hopkins University and they already do that here. We can only use DC++ :(
can we not just pipe it through tor? all that goes down 9050/udp
@ultracool: It is lame boys like you that ABUSE legitimate Tor bandwidth for P2P.
i have a socks4a secured proxy hosted @ a dedicated server that listens on 80. always helps.
thats not too bad, my university shapes traffic on torrents in such a way that very few clients work on the network (utorrent being one of the few that does, and does well). Each user is given a virtual 2MB/s connection speed for internet (and with over 4000 users im interested in knowing what their backbone is like lol). If you use torrents you cant get more than 150KB/s down however the upload is non restricted.
The traffic shaping doesnt slow torrents down that much and ensure that the network runs at the best speed for everyone. Unfortunatly as very few clients work through the system as utorrent does DC++ cant access anything outside the network. But the university doesnt stop it from working internally and thanks to that there is over 20TB of shared infomation accessable internally at speeds of upto 10Mbit/s ^_^
Its an outrage!
Looks like a lot of college students are about to figure out http tunneling.
Curiously, their IT department has not.
As a uconn student, I am glad they thought of this stupid idea AFTER encrypted torrents were invented.
What if I want to download a Linux ISO on bittorrent?
Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) has been doing this for about a year now. The University had blocked P2P traffic for a short period for performance reasons. When P2P was throttled and allowed again, the University got a few to several cease and desist letters each day from the RIAA / MPAA with student IPs. After over one hundred letters in a month, the general council decided it would be better for the taxpayers to not fund student legal defence, and the ban was put in place.
My university just start to block p2p programs this semster and i found out it was only in our dorm rooms. The other labs through our network don’t have any restrictions but the user accounts are limited. So i’ll be investing in large amounts of portable storage.
Living off campus on an 8mbit down and 1.5mbit up cable line just gets better and better.
Not only can I use p2p but I can learn how to use technologies like apache, smtp, sql, vnc and vpn. I can’t imagine how restricting all sorts of legit stuff on college LAN’s actually helps us learn…. Then again I live off campus so what the hell do I care.
… Dude, this is nothing. I go to University of Alabama in Huntsville and we BARELY get 30k to internet1 sites over an unstable connection, and NO p2p programs work. We’ve been screaming for a faster connection, but to no avail. We CAN use a proxy of sorts to get out, but they have blocked traffic to/from those proxys in the past. One of the many reasons why I’m moving off campus this summer…
This is the same as at my school. Occasionally, they have opened it up, and mpaa and riaa letters start coming in. I think this is actually pretty standard practices for a *lot* of colleges.
haha..these ppl are funny. i’m a uconn student and DC++ already has everything you need. i dont know anyone who uses anything else, besides the people who get the first seed. plus uconn’s resnet people dont seem that bright anyways …just hope you never have to deal with them for help cuz they are more lost then the average student will ever be
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