VU moves to unload downloading burden --The Tennessean

By RYAN UNDERWOOD
Staff Writer


Starting at 8 a.m. Monday, Vanderbilt University will block Internet traffic from three programs used to download everything from pirated music to pornography to full-length movies after finding that such activity consumes more than a third of the school's Internet capacity.

An internal study discovered that file-sharing through Gnutella, e-Donkey, and DirectConnect, applications that connect personal computers to each other, accounted for as much as 37% of the school's total bandwidth capacity.

"We can't have that kind of traffic interrupting the legitimate needs of the university, such as patient care and research," said Matt Hall, assistant vice chancellor for IT services.

Hall said the move has less to do with policing students' and other users' Internet activity than with effectively managing campus resources.

"I'd challenge anyone to find these sites being used for a legitimate purpose," Hall said, adding that Vanderbilt makes every effort to accommodate individuals' computing needs as long as there is a real purpose.

The crackdown on Vanderbilt's campus comes amid continuing pressure from the entertainment industry to curb online piracy.

"This is not just about peer-to-peer. There are very legitimate uses of peer-to-peer networks," Hall said, giving the example of one Vanderbilt researcher who was able to save a $400,000 grant because his research was housed on a peer-to-peer network after his primary computer was incapacitated. "Unfortunately, the large majority of peer-to-peer activity on our network is not used for this kind of activity."

Vanderbilt computer users have been the targets of at least 10 so-called "John Doe" lawsuits and numerous "cease and desist" letters filed or sent since 2003 by the Recording Industry Association of America, a Washington trade group.

Universities are generally protected from liability in downloading cases because they are acting as Internet service providers, not individual users who may be breaking the law. However, whenever a lawsuit is filed complaining about someone trafficking in pirated material, the network owner — including an institution such as Vanderbilt — is obligated to track down the offending user and inform that person of any pending legal action.

That's exactly what happened to Vanderbilt sophomore Frank Cioppettini two weeks ago. The RIAA sent Cioppettini a warning after finding that his computer had illegally uploaded a Ludacris song. Vanderbilt then suspended his Internet access until it went through a series of steps to inform him about the infraction and the action taken by RIAA.

"My Internet access is just now being restored," Cioppettini said yesterday. And while Cioppettini said he is careful not to upload any more media these days, he gets an impish grin on his face and pleads the fifth when asked if he still downloads copyrighted files.

And that brings up a sticky point: What's to prevent users from quickly switching to other downloading services such as Kazaa and BitTorrent — offering not just relatively small music files, but gigabyte-hogging DVDs and professional computer applications that often retail for upwards of $1,000?

Nothing, Hall said. "Kazaa is running at about (an additional) 11% of our capacity. I deferred on it for now, but it's on my list," he said. Despite that, Hall thinks only the most determined downloaders will switch sites, ultimately providing at least some relief to the bandwidth problem.

"Intellectual property theft is not in the mainstream. I don't think most people will bother with the inconvenience of finding a new service."

The university does provide a low-cost music subscription service through Napster, which was adopted last year in hopes of combating illegal downloading.

Vanderbilt had previously tried to combat the problem of illegal downloading by capping the amount of data that can be up- or downloaded by an individual user within a certain time period. But Hall said that turned out to be less than an ideal solution, especially at a time when things like groundbreaking medical research increasingly relies on bandwidth-intense technologies.

Limiting bandwidth isn't a solution that sits well with students either. "As much money as we pay for this school, they should let us have all the bandwidth we want," said Joey McClellan, also a
Vanderbilt sophomore.

And while that may sound like a common lament among tuition-weary Vanderbilt students, Fred von Lohmann, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based group that advocates for Internet privacy rights, said universities should remain as open as possible regardless of the bandwidth implications.

Von Lohmann points to the example of the Internet service Yahoo getting started by two students at Stanford University in the 1990s.

"At one time, that was consuming 50% of the university's bandwidth," he said, pointing out that the project started on a whim and that it may have been hard to prove that there was a genuine academic need for so much Internet capacity.

"Let me put it this way," von Lohmann said, referring to Vanderbilt's decision to block Gnutella, e-Donkey and DirectConnect. "You're not going to have something like this happen at M.I.T or at Stanford."

Anyone who downloads a Ludacris should get *some* kind of a warning, at least. But isn't it odd that VU plans to leave KaZaa alone? That's where the RIAA is finding most of their suckers to sue. Must be a conspiracy.

No, Kazaa just wasn't using enough bandwidth. They can do it later.

I go to Greenwich uni. They have changed the computer system this term, but if the policies are as bad as last term, they are just rediculous. Blocking p2p? Of course. The network is only available from university workstations. But they also block all IM and chat programs, using some technology which greatly reduces performance. Games are often blocked, but there is no clear policy on that. This isn't to save bandwidth - its to prevent students using the computers for personal activity, the workstations are in short supply. There is also a local process that detects any potential hacking attempt and immediately kills it. A nice idea in theory, but there are occasional false positives (using Etherreal in network labs has caused some problem). The process keeps no logs, so its impossible to make a complaint. And so on.

This term they have moved the computers to a new building through, with more workstations. This may change the policy, but I doubt it - there are internal politics involved now. Firewalls and killer processes to justify, and the "The students just waste time" arguement is quite entrenched.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to ban p2p sites unless you also ban Napster, based on the issue of bandwidth. Napster is only good for one thing, as far as I know. P2p has legitimate uses. So why throw out the baby with the bath water? 'Cause the RIAA says make it so, and they do...sad that educational systems have no more backbone than this.

Oh, I am very confident that the Napster deal was part of this - bandwidth issues may be the main reason or may be just an excuse. But at the very least Napster will have strongly pressured the university into blocking p2p, and may very well have made it part of the conditions for paying the reduced rate. Its hardly an ethical deal anyway, with the threat of C&Ds being sent to half their students.

""I'd challenge anyone to find these sites being used for a legitimate purpose,"

"There are very legitimate uses of peer-to-peer networks," Hall said, giving the example of one Vanderbilt researcher who was able to save a $400,000 grant because his research was housed on a peer-to-peer network after his primary computer was incapacitated."

He answered his own challenge.

""This is not just about peer-to-peer."
Yes, It is. We just can't admit it openly.

"There are very legitimate uses of peer-to-peer networks," .....
""Unfortunately, the large majority of peer-to-peer activity on our network is not used for this kind of activity."

We know this because wealthy guys in suits tell us so. Why would THEY lie ??

"Intellectual property theft is not in the mainstream. I don't think most people will bother with the inconvenience of finding a new service."
By completely ignoring all reports of filsharing going through the roof, I can confidently demonstrate how clueless
I am by misusing the word "theft", AND simply drift by the fact that filesharing is STILL at an all time high, in the same statement. Excuse me now, It's time for me to lick the RIAA's collective boots.

""Intellectual property theft is not in the mainstream."
And yet another person who stupidly relies on bastardizing the english language by using inappropriate terminology.

Im downloading some movies right now - legally. Something from magnetmix.com.

perfectly legal use of bit torrent:

http://www-fi.starwreck.com/download.php

btw.. their excuses are even less feasible then the excuses emory used when they FUBAR'd their lan so badly it not only blocked p2p, but crashed ichat on launch.