Re: WSJ.com - Stop the Music!

[Jordan Wiens <numatrix () UFL EDU>]

On Mon, 23 Aug 2004, Bruhn, Mark S. wrote:

> "Last Oct. 1, the first day the university turned on Icarus, it caught
> 1,500 violators. In the months since then, it tracked down an additional
> 2,500 first-time violators, 400 second-time violators, and seven
> third-time violators, who were cut off from the university's Internet
> connection for 30 days and sent to the student judiciary, with a notice
> placed in their permanent academic records."   Violators?   What they
> discovered was 1500 p2p application users, right?  While I'm  not naive
> enough to think that the vast majority of those weren't sharing
> copyrighted materials without permission, can they all be called
> "violators" like that, as a result of an automated process?  Were each
> of these students contacted and given an opportunity to explain what
> they were actually doing?  Seems like after that conversation would be
> the point at which they might be labeled "violators."

Yes, they are violators, no debate about it.  There is a department policy
that prevents running p2p software.  They are violating policy by running
such software.  False positives aside, it's not a matter of illegal vs.
legal sharing, it's a matter of the housing department protecting its
bandwidth via policy that forbids servers and p2p applications.

--
Jordan Wiens, CISSP
UF Network Security Engineer
(352)392-2061

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