Re: DMCA

[Rich Graves <rgraves () CARLETON EDU>]

Randy Marchany wrote :
>   If you don't have the bandwidth, it makes perfect sense to restrict P2P.

T he bandwidth argument doesn't necessarily win anymore , either. On our unrestricted [*] network, t he top 
applications as measured by a demo Palo Alto Networks device in tap mode   are general web browsing (25%), Netflix (21 
%), YouTube (19 %), and BitTorrent (17%) . PAN tells me  that these numbers are typical. Total P2P is less than 3 % of 
our inbound traffic, and yes, the PAN box does a very good job at classifying nearly everything . P2P  does  accou nt 
for 30-4 0% of outbound, but we have lots of excess outbound capacity. It's not 1999 anymore, when outbound Napster was 
a serious threat to u niversity network availability .

If your inbound bandwidth is insufficient to support  Netflix streaming and YouTube , then yes, you've got to do some 
triage. But in most parts of the developed world, even in relatively backwa rds countries like ours , bandwidth is 
cheaper than a commercial packet shaping appliance. I would start with a stateful default-deny firewall or NAT, which  
will throttle uploads somewhat, which at least with BitTorrent will tend to reduce download speed due to the "share 
ratio" calculus.

[*] We have n o packet shaping, quotas,  or significant blockage, but we do send "be aware you're uploading" type 
notices and handle DMCA complaints, both of which have a measurable impact on traditional "file sharing"  abuse .