I think my school is blocking or filtering bittorrent in some way. ANyway around this?

[acemcmac]

it has nothing to do with legality... it's all to maintain the integrity of the bandwith. I work in Administrative Networking at my university and I help enforce this stuff :-/

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: AyashiKaibutsu
Acting dense doesn't make you look smart. I'll rephrase my question; Guess where the money comes from to pay for the colleges internet connections?

You. And as they're your ISP, you agreed in the little contract you signed to follow their rules.

Wait so your compairing downloading legal files on bittorrent to murder?! What family member of yours did bittorrent rape that it deserves such treatment?

hy·per·bo·le ( P ) Pronunciation Key (h-pûrb-l)
n.
A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect, as in I could sleep for a year or This book weighs a ton.

English motherfvcker, do you understand it?

I'm not being pwned by anything; I was talking hypothetically.

So was I.

Bittorrent is the future of downloads. Crippling it just slows progress. Almost any big release can be gotten on bittorrent at a fraction of the cost in bandwidth. SP2, various betas, various trailers, and various open source programs are hosted legally on BT. Why should it be looked down on in a different way from normal ftp transfer?

Because unlike FTP, BT pumps out sickening amounts of upstream traffic in return. Which costs the university lots of money, and hurts the connection integrity, as acemcmac pointed out. Not to mention the legal world of sh!t that gets brought down if the RIAA/MPAA decides to trace back downloading to the university.

Face it - college connections do not exist for the purpose of mass-downloading. That's why they have bandwidth caps and transfer limits per-user. If you want to "l33ch0r t3h w4r3z" get your own broadband line; if not, then expect the network staff to PwNx0r j0o for trying.

Acemcmac - You guys have a Punishment Hub?

- M4H

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire

Originally posted by: AyashiKaibutsu
Acting dense doesn't make you look smart. I'll rephrase my question; Guess where the money comes from to pay for the colleges internet connections?

You. And as they're your ISP, you agreed in the little contract you signed to follow their rules.

Wait so your compairing downloading legal files on bittorrent to murder?! What family member of yours did bittorrent rape that it deserves such treatment?

hy·per·bo·le ( P ) Pronunciation Key (h-pûrb-l)
n.
A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect, as in I could sleep for a year or This book weighs a ton.

English motherfvcker, do you understand it?

I'm not being pwned by anything; I was talking hypothetically.

So was I.

Bittorrent is the future of downloads. Crippling it just slows progress. Almost any big release can be gotten on bittorrent at a fraction of the cost in bandwidth. SP2, various betas, various trailers, and various open source programs are hosted legally on BT. Why should it be looked down on in a different way from normal ftp transfer?

Because unlike FTP, BT pumps out sickening amounts of upstream traffic in return. Which costs the university lots of money, and hurts the connection integrity, as acemcmac pointed out. Not to mention the legal world of sh!t that gets brought down if the RIAA/MPAA decides to trace back downloading to the university.

Face it - college connections do not exist for the purpose of mass-downloading. That's why they have bandwidth caps and transfer limits per-user. If you want to "l33ch0r t3h w4r3z" get your own broadband line; if not, then expect the network staff to PwNx0r j0o for trying.

Acemcmac - You guys have a Punishment Hub?

- M4H

Guess what, I used a hyperbole too. Maybe you should find a whet stone and use it on your head it's looking like the only way you'll become a little sharper.

I'm not talking about transfer caps a reasonable cap would be fine. Crippling a download to 2kB/s is not.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: AyashiKaibutsu
Guess what, I used a hyperbole too. Maybe you should find a whet stone and use it on your head it's looking like the only way you'll become a little sharper.

I'm not talking about transfer caps a reasonable cap would be fine. Crippling a download to 2kB/s is not.

I done used me onenna them thar High-Per-Bowlys on tha IntArnet, Paw! Kin ah git ma shawtgun naw?

Using something doesn't make you understand it, obviously.

And speaking as a prior tech/BOFH - 2KB/s per user is a perfectly reasonable cap.

Given that there's probably a few hundred people trying to do the exact same thing at any given time and whining that OMGWTF128KBPSMP3 t3hy R p0wning m3h connecxion, 2KB/s each adds up in a hurry to the "useless traffic" that needs to be handled by the outside line. And for the university bandwidth food chain, it goes like this:

- Webserver and corporate traffic (Job One)
- VoIP
- Executives (since they sign the cheques)
- Admins (because we're just that damned good)
- Labs
- Profs
- Public terminals
- Community Access
- Pay-to-Surf
- Dial-in access
- Outside hackers
- Idle bandwidth
- Residence students



- M4H

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Wow, a totally incomprehensible, basely, and arbitary post to such a degree I'm impressed.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: AyashiKaibutsu
Wow, a totally incomprehensible, basely, and arbitary post to such a degree I'm impressed.

Go you. You keep whining about how The Man is keeping you down and not letting you download pr0n at full speeds.

- M4H

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

If all you have to type is baseless crap, I'm finished with this thread.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: AyashiKaibutsu
If all you have to type is baseless crap, I'm finished with this thread.

Go you. You keep whining about how The Man is keeping you down and not letting you download pr0n at full speeds.

- M4H

 

[Homerboy]

Almost any big release can be gotten on bittorrent at a fraction of the cost in bandwidth. SP2, various betas, various trailers, and various open source programs are hosted legally on BT.

it doesnt use any LESS bandwidth. it takes the same amount of bandwidth to move a 100MB file no matter the source of delivery (ok ok minus some overhead and such for different protocals). It does reduce the bandwidth cost for the distributer though... and moves the bandwidth costs and load to the various ISPs and providers that the end users are utlizing. If your ISP is paying for peering etc, that can be shifted down to you.

BT is not the future of legitimate downloads. Its cool and a neat way to do it, and certainly serves its current purpose well (distributing illegal files) well.

Lastly how many posts can be put up here about BT speeds and how to improve them?

 

[Mookow]

Originally posted by: AyashiKaibutsu

Originally posted by: AnyMal
You pay 34k per year for education, not for the right to pirate movies and music.

Guess what a large portion of that 34k goes to?

Edit and also I don't download a lot of pirate stuff most of the stuff I download is unlicensed and generally not looked down on.

There was a kid who had much your same attitude at my university when I told him to cease and desist with the BT'ing, he was wasting too much bandwidth (15Mbit up/down). He asked me what I was going to do about it. One phone call and thirty seconds later he had this adorable look on his face... when he found out his three ports on the Cisco 6513 had been shutdown.

But go ahead and try to "stick it to The Man". I'm sure they wont kill your ports for more than a couple semesters. I'll give you one little hint: Network admins have a special little smile they reserve for times when problem users give them a legitimate excuse to throttle/kill their connection.

 

[n0cmonkey]

It's that time of the year again. Young men and women are going off to college, some for the first time, others a bit more experienced. This is probably geared more towards the Freshmen, or students living on campus for the first time. So here we go.

Viruses spread quickly on resnet networks. If the university does not provide anti-virus software, there are several free solutions.

• Panda AV offers 1 free year. Reregistration at the end of the year may be possible.
• GRIsoft offers AVG for free for personal use.
• Trendmicro offers free online virus scanning.

Firewalls are a good idea. Every computer should run one of some sort. Windows XP comes with a built in firewall, and with SP2 it is supposed to be fairly decent.

• Zonelabs offers ZoneAlarm for free. Zonealarm pro has additional features, and may be a good idea for some users.
• Kerio also has a free personal firewall. Again, additional features are available for a nominal price.

With both firewall and anti-virus software, there are plenty of choices available. Symantec (Norton) and McAfee offer both programs, but I do not believe they offer a free version. Smaller companies like kaspersky also offer anti-virus and security software.

Here is a quick "Unofficial guide to the best anti-virus and firewall."

Most computer savvy people know that spyware is a pain. Here is a thread on "removing and preventing spyware."

Using a limited "user" account instead of an administrator account is also advisable. It might cause an extra step or two when installing software, but this simple step can help protect against viruses, spyware, and other security issues.

Every year the Networking forum is filled with threads about download limitations. Some schools limit the throughput of various applications, especially during daylight hours. Others limit the amount of data a user may download in a given period of time. These limits are in place so that users doing legitimate work will not be denied by the over abundance of p2p. These types of restrictions may also affect online gaming. This is a combination of a social and a technical problem. The administration at the school has chosen a solution that is more technical.

We will not help anyone circumvent these measures! Those kind of threads are not welcome here. We do not discourage those threads because we are mean, or jaded (many of us are mean and jaded, but that is besides the point). We discourage them because many of us are the ones putting those corrective measures in place, or we have jobs where we do similar things. Also, whatever you think of has probably already been tried. If it was tried, the user probably got caught. It's best you do not lose your resnet privileges over an extra download or two.

Here are a few things a user can try though:

• Write a letter to the administration. Be careful to be polite, use proper English (or the native language at the university), and include well thought out and legitimate reasons these restrictions are inappropriate. Remember that even large, expensive schools are strapped for cash. The networking departments are always low on funds. If there is no benefit for them, there is little chance they will listen to the users unless the users can show a definite benefit for the administrators. Agreeing on removing or being less stringent with the restrictions during odd hours may also be a solution.
• A user can always get a non-university affiliated internet connection. DSL, cable, Satellite, some wireless, and dial-up may all be solutions. They cannot restrict these connections.
• In a dorm there is often a wide selection of students, many different tastes and interests. Smaller, local file sharing utilities should provide a good deal of variety. Setting up an ftp server for the dorm should not be difficult, and may offer selections most users would never otherwise investigate.
• Often universities have extensive wireless networks. Depending on how these networks are setup, they may not be as restrictive. Be polite though.

Some universities utilize Active Directory domains. To use these each user will need a computer loaded with Windows 2000 or Windows XP Pro. Mac OS X and Linux may be able to authenticate to AD, but I have not researched this.

Some universities also restrict the number of computers a user may have connected to the resnet. Using routers can sometimes cause issues on a network, especially if misconfigured. There are several ways to find out if a user is using a home router. Here is a quick explanation from ScottMac:

There are a number of ways for detecting nat'd / firewalled traffic, TTL being one of the more obvious. For you new guys, TTL = "Time to Live:" It's a counter in the packet that (usually) starts at 255 and counts down by one every hop. If your PC is directly connected, you put out packets with a TTL of 255 ... you put a router in-line, you now have packets with a TTL starting at 254. You can't set the TTL = 256, because TTL of 256 would be zero.

There is one possible solution to all of these restrictions. It is not cheap, and will not be easy, but if someone is serious enough they may pull it off. Spirits. Beer. Liquor. Wine. These items are a known weakness of most administrators. The problems really arise when it comes time to finding the proper liquid to bribe the admin, or finding the proper quantity. A user attempting the admin-beer-bribe may end up with no beer and no extras. If a user were to bring the wrong liquid bribe, his access may be restricted even further. Use this method with extreme caution!

Oh, and I'm sure most of your $34k/yr goes everywhere _but_ towards the infrastructure.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Mookow

Originally posted by: AyashiKaibutsu

Originally posted by: AnyMal
You pay 34k per year for education, not for the right to pirate movies and music.

Guess what a large portion of that 34k goes to?

Edit and also I don't download a lot of pirate stuff most of the stuff I download is unlicensed and generally not looked down on.

There was a kid who had much your same attitude at my university when I told him to cease and desist with the BT'ing, he was wasting too much bandwidth (15Mbit up/down). He asked me what I was going to do about it. One phone call and thirty seconds later he had this adorable look on his face... when he found out his three ports on the Cisco 6513 had been shutdown.

But go ahead and try to "stick it to The Man". I'm sure they wont kill your ports for more than a couple semesters. I'll give you one little hint: Network admins have a special little smile they reserve for times when problem users give them a legitimate excuse to throttle/kill their connection.

I always considered an arrogant smirk, as opposed to a smile.

 

[Mookow]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Mookow
There was a kid who had much your same attitude at my university when I told him to cease and desist with the BT'ing, he was wasting too much bandwidth (15Mbit up/down). He asked me what I was going to do about it. One phone call and thirty seconds later he had this adorable look on his face... when he found out his three ports on the Cisco 6513 had been shutdown.

But go ahead and try to "stick it to The Man". I'm sure they wont kill your ports for more than a couple semesters. I'll give you one little hint: Network admins have a special little smile they reserve for times when problem users give them a legitimate excuse to throttle/kill their connection.

I always considered an arrogant smirk, as opposed to a smile.

Have a co-worker watch you as you crush someone's dream of bandwidth, then ask them to describe it.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Mookow

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Mookow
There was a kid who had much your same attitude at my university when I told him to cease and desist with the BT'ing, he was wasting too much bandwidth (15Mbit up/down). He asked me what I was going to do about it. One phone call and thirty seconds later he had this adorable look on his face... when he found out his three ports on the Cisco 6513 had been shutdown.

But go ahead and try to "stick it to The Man". I'm sure they wont kill your ports for more than a couple semesters. I'll give you one little hint: Network admins have a special little smile they reserve for times when problem users give them a legitimate excuse to throttle/kill their connection.

I always considered an arrogant smirk, as opposed to a smile.

Have a co-worker watch you as you crush someone's dream of bandwidth, then ask them to describe it.

If I'm ever in that position again, I'll have to do that. :evil:

 

[Mookow]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Mookow
Have a co-worker watch you as you crush someone's dream of bandwidth, then ask them to describe it.

If I'm ever in that position again, I'll have to do that. :evil:

After that, ask them to describe the look on your face when you call up a staff member at home to ask why they are downloading porn from their proscribed on-campus FTP server to the same IP as they used to last check their email.