How do you handle the P2P problem?

[Clyde Hoadley <hoadleyc () MSCD EDU>]

I'm looking for simple and low cost solutions to some difficult problems.

How do you accurately detect illegal peer-to-peer file sharing activity?

How do you accurately identify and locate a user who is engaging in illegal
peer-to-peer file sharing?

Metro State does have some problems with illegal peer-to-peer file sharing
however, we are solely a commuter campus.  We do not have dormitories etc...
to support.  So, our P2P problem probably isn't as big as some other
institutions P2P problems.

Most of our network uses DHCP addresses.  We are not using MAC address
authorization at this time.  We have a single Internet gateway.  We are
doing Ingress filtering - permitting incoming connections for specific
port/protocols to specific hosts.  We do limited Egress filtering - permitting
almost any outgoing connection.  We also have SNORT watching the gateway
traffic but have most of the rules turned off due to the high volume of
false positives.  We could deny high port to high port connections but that
would also stop a lot of very legitimate traffic.

We have not received any subpoenas but we do occasionally receive an Email
notice of Copyright infringement.  How are the rest of you dealing with
the illegal peer-to-peer file sharing problem?

--
Clyde Hoadley
Security & Disaster Recovery Coordinator
Division of Information Technology
Metropolitan State College of Denver
hoadleyc () mscd edu
http://clem.mscd.edu/~hoadleyc/
(303) 556-5074

**********
Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Discussion Group discussion list can be found at 
http://www.educause.edu/cg/.