Re: consequences for student hacking

[Doug Markiewicz <dmarkiew+educause () ANDREW CMU EDU>]

> What do your institutions do when you catch a student sniffing the
> wired or wireless network for userID's and passwords?

Our appropriate use policy does not prohibit the use of scanners.  It does say such activities should not significantly impact 
system/network performance.  In practice, if we detect someone scanning administrative systems, their machine is suspended unless 
they've requested approval for such scanning in advance.  Also if someone exceeds their monthly bandwidth allocation, 
they'll be suspended.

WRT to sniffers, our policy does not prohibit their use.  Like Valdis said, you can't detect a true passive scanner.  
You can analyze the behavior of not-quite-passive scanners but I would imagine thats pretty difficult and impractical.

Also, though this goes without saying, we prohibit anything illegal.  So if your activities go that far, appropriate 
action will be taken.

Scanning and sniffing are not synonymous with "hacking" and we're a learning/research institution so we try to stay 
true to that as much as possible.