University of Illinois Disconnects Pirating Students

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Pirating college students given a punishment worse than death....no internet access. :eek:

The University of Illinois is taking complaints from copyright holders very seriously by disconnecting pirating students’ Internet connections upon the first warning. After being sanctioned by a hearing officer students are allowed to come back online, but after the third strike they lose their Internet access permanently. University employees are also reprimanded, with one staffer asked to look for a new job after several alleged infringements.
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why is this news?

universities have been doing this for at least the last ten years
 
I thought colleges have been doing that for a while now since the RIAA started kicking down university doors a few years back.
 
dont like your roommate send fake DMCA take downs! i cant see how this couldnt be abused at all
 
Fired for alleged infringements?! I can understand ones that were fully investigated, proven and suitably brought before a court, but ALLEGED?! Surely the university is legally obliged to report this to the authorities, not start firing staff to hide the problem?
 
This probably doesn’t come as a complete surprise to Mertz, who noted that not all DMCA notices appear to be accurate. The security specialist said that some warnings do not match up with the activity of the IP-address on the given timestamp. However, these warnings are followed-up regardless.
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So, guilty, even if proven innocent.

To people who are paying the university tens of thousands of dollars a year in tuition, book fees, etc. For a piece of paper that gets less and less valuable as more and more people seek higher education.
 
...and? I was in college ten years ago and it was the exact same way. Lost access for about a month when I was stupid enough to fuck around with eDonkey.
 
my university did similiar, except you couldnt use bitorrent, period. If they noticed bittorrent traffic on your tube, they cut you off until you went to IT guys and they reprimanded you. Once more and permaban.

In fact, they made it so the Cisco tool (Clean Access Agent) students used to log into the network checked if there was a bittorrent client installed and denied access if there was, demanding removal. Though this policy was rescinded by my junior year, at most, it still was a blantant infringment of privacy and an overreach on their part to mandate what people can and cant have on their own personal machines.

Forbidding bittorrent traffic, legal or otherwise, on their network is one thing, but don't tell me what to do with my own effin' computer.
 
They should be reprimanding their it staff instead. It isn't exactly rocket science to just block p2p traffic.
 
Mr34727 said:
p2p traffic isn't illegal...
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No, but there aren't too many legitimate uses on a private network. It is easy enough to globally block and allow specific exceptions using ACL's. Then you don't have students getting themselves and the university in trouble. If they don't like the rules, they get their own private internet connection they pay for themselves.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
No, but there aren't too many legitimate uses on a private network. It is easy enough to globally block and allow specific exceptions using ACL's. Then you don't have students getting themselves and the university in trouble. If they don't like the rules, they get their own private internet connection they pay for themselves.
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almost all major MMOs are using bittorrent for patches
 
Dekoth-E- said:
No, but there aren't too many legitimate uses on a private network. It is easy enough to globally block and allow specific exceptions using ACL's. Then you don't have students getting themselves and the university in trouble. If they don't like the rules, they get their own private internet connection they pay for themselves.
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I know people use the 'Linux Distros' as blanket for everything else, but in this case - it really is Linux distros that are available on BitTorrent. A lot of them are done that way. Some games are.

I guess you could download a small Linux install disk and install via FTP/HTTP site. But, for those that want the full ISO, BitTorrent works great. Most CS students like to play with it.

I admit that there is WAY more illegal use of the BitTorrent system, but there is that small amount of legal downloads that makes it hard to stop it all completely.
 
Elios said:
almost all major MMOs are using bittorrent for patches
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And you are supposed to be in school to learn...not to play MMO's. If people who played MMO's in college put that time into their educations they would have 4.0's and jobs when they graduate. Instead they just tend to be average, bitch about the economy, and say how unfair life is.
 
Ur_Mom said:
I know people use the 'Linux Distros' as blanket for everything else, but in this case - it really is Linux distros that are available on BitTorrent. A lot of them are done that way. Some games are.

I guess you could download a small Linux install disk and install via FTP/HTTP site. But, for those that want the full ISO, BitTorrent works great. Most CS students like to play with it.

I admit that there is WAY more illegal use of the BitTorrent system, but there is that small amount of legal downloads that makes it hard to stop it all completely.
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You've got it backward...

There's small amount of illegal and a lot of legal content.

How many people do you know playing games that required online updates? now, how many people you know that does illegal downloads?
 
Trepidati0n said:
And you are supposed to be in school to learn...not to play MMO's. If people who played MMO's in college put that time into their educations they would have 4.0's and jobs when they graduate. Instead they just tend to be average, bitch about the economy, and say how unfair life is.
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I hope you're joking around. Nobody spends their entire waking moment in school and doing homework and studying no matter how bright they are. Do you frown at college football too where a student can waste 3-4 hours in the bleachers when they should be in their dorms studying?
 
Trepidati0n said:
And you are supposed to be in school to learn...not to play MMO's. If people who played MMO's in college put that time into their educations they would have 4.0's and jobs when they graduate. Instead they just tend to be average, bitch about the economy, and say how unfair life is.
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This makes absolutely no sense at all. I'm guessing you're just being ridiculous for fun so lol?
 
Ur_Mom said:
I know people use the 'Linux Distros' as blanket for everything else, but in this case - it really is Linux distros that are available on BitTorrent. A lot of them are done that way. Some games are.

I guess you could download a small Linux install disk and install via FTP/HTTP site. But, for those that want the full ISO, BitTorrent works great. Most CS students like to play with it.

I admit that there is WAY more illegal use of the BitTorrent system, but there is that small amount of legal downloads that makes it hard to stop it all completely.
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A lot of universities run linux mirrors. If not, mirror.anl.gov has a bunch and it's 10Gbit. No real reason for bittorrent to snag the non-popular distros -- most have ftp or http.

Linux distros is the LAMEST excuse for using bittorrent.
 
Ok, apparently I need to dumb this down a bit.

1) University networks are Private networks. As such you are not "Entitled" to anything except what they say. They are not ISP's and do not have to provide unrestricted access across their network. Sorry if you believed otherwise prior to this.

2) ACL's or Access control lists are quite powerful tools that IT admins can use to filter all types of traffic. Yes I can quite easily create one that allows a game client such as WoW to patch via bittorrent while denying all other forms of P2P traffic. A GOOD it administrator should be able to control their network and the types of traffic flowing across it.

3) I already mentioned exceptions. Some of you obviously missed that or don't understand enough about points 1 and 2 to get it. If I want to allow users largely unfettered access while blocking something specific via points 1 and 2 that is possible. Exceptions or people that need a reason around the global policy are just that. Those individuals need to come to IT, state their case of why they need an exception to the policy and it can be determined at an individual level.

The point is, A global policy and taking exceptions on a case by case basis is smart network administration. Frankly these universities have no one to blame but their IT staff for not enacting good policy control. Also the comment that the majority of torrent traffic is legitimate is just laughable in a university environment. The majority of those students are using bittorrent to download legal content? LOL..if you believe that, I have a bridge in the Sahara for sale.
 
I sometimes have to wonder where they get their information from. Back in college, my internet died one day, so I called up the campus IT department and they said my account was disabled due to alleged infringement, for downloading a movie I had never even heard of. I told them that and they immediately re-enabled it and apologized, but I can see how this whole thing can go terribly wrong.
 
Robstar said:
A lot of universities run linux mirrors. If not, mirror.anl.gov has a bunch and it's 10Gbit. No real reason for bittorrent to snag the non-popular distros -- most have ftp or http.

Linux distros is the LAMEST excuse for using bittorrent.
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Yea, and the universities have the best connections (and are usually easy to find somewhat close, geographically speaking). But, using a torrent is still a viable option (lame, of course).

Just because it's not the best solution doesn't make it crap and should be blocked.

I think that if bitTorrent was blocked, students would move on to USENET, then something else... In an endless cycle. They will get the pirated content, regardless of what program or protocol they end up using.
 
Ur_Mom said:
Yea, and the universities have the best connections (and are usually easy to find somewhat close, geographically speaking). But, using a torrent is still a viable option (lame, of course).

Just because it's not the best solution doesn't make it crap and should be blocked.

I think that if bitTorrent was blocked, students would move on to USENET, then something else... In an endless cycle. They will get the pirated content, regardless of what program or protocol they end up using.
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I lived off campus, but when I went to school people in the dorms used to run a combination of sneakernet and a series of FTPs. They used something private and similar to IRC bots to distribute content. Someone would download new stuff from IRC, scene FTPs, usenet, or VPN P2P.

Eventually one or two would get found out, but people kept finding different ways around this kind of thing.

Trying to stop piracy is generally stupid. It's a huge waste of money beyond a point. The pirates are more creative and have more time on their hands than you.
 
UCI had something similar to this but their security was lame and was easy bypassed. Yet most people don't know how to bypass it.
 
I can kinda see why they would do that, as the IP is owned by the university. I imagine the students have the option to pay for their own internet, then they'd be responsible for their own actions, not the university.

I know if I lived in the states I would not take the chance. Piracy is considered worse than murder there and the punishments can get pretty ridiculous. These students are getting off easy if all they face is loss of internet. Well that sucks, but it's better than million dollar lawsuits. That's one amount of money the parents would really not like to be bummed for. :D
 
Congress is bought and paid for by the MPAA/RIAA-> Congress puts pressure on schools to stop piracy or face the consequences (get their federal funding cut if the don't cooperate)-> Students face penalties regardless of errors or faults (studies prove that there are 13-16% false accusations) in the system, which are numerous.

Since pirates can't be criminally charged, the MPAA/RIAA are using their political power through legal bribery of our elected officials to try and get around that. It's not going to work. It's just going to make politicians more corrupt and make the MPAA/RIAA look like bigger douchebags than they already do.
 
My friend was the computer lab admin at the UIC CCC, I remember often covering for him when he had to step out. The day the Quake shareware was released we setup a mirror page and also installed it on as many computers as we could. We even had a dedicated server running. Glorious LAN carnage to late hours of the night ensued. I miss those days.
 
Just what our education system needs...more barriers to learning.
We're willing to sacrifice the quality of their education to keep people from hearing a song they weren't legally entitled to hear.
 
Back when I was in school there was a massive DC++ hub on the school intranet that took care of probably 70% of what I wanted to download. The other 25% I acquired through the useual alternetives.
I know what you're thinking, I'm missing 5% eh? Well, sometimes you just can't have everything you want.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
Ok, apparently I need to dumb this down a bit.

1) University networks are Private networks. As such you are not "Entitled" to anything except what they say. They are not ISP's and do not have to provide unrestricted access across their network. Sorry if you believed otherwise prior to this.
The expectation comes from the fact that you are paying them $50,000 to use their facilities. I'm sure there's some fine print in there written by some douchebag that says otherwise, but the assumption is only natural, as much as you would when paying for your home ISP.

2) ACL's or Access control lists are quite powerful tools that IT admins can use to filter all types of traffic. Yes I can quite easily create one that allows a game client such as WoW to patch via bittorrent while denying all other forms of P2P traffic. A GOOD it administrator should be able to control their network and the types of traffic flowing across it.
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You cant filter p2p traffic if it all looks the same to the network. If your games download over the same port as your warez using the same protocol, it's getting blocked with your little ACL. Besides, we all know a sysadmin for a college network has neither the time nor desire to set up rules so specific as to allow people to download WoW patches but no the latest Justin Bieber/Taylor Swift mashup.

Ultimately I think it's silly that a university would bow to 1st offence accusations since they should know by now the **AA just blatantly spam the entire world with phony allegations in some lame shotgun approach to hopefully scare 1 or 2 people. In fact, you'd think officials would be quite used to telling them to fuck off at this point.
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This is like 6 year old news. I went to UIUC in 2006 and this policy was in effect. In fact my roommate got caught and mooched internet off me for the rest of the year.
 
You can always root for Antigua who seems to be thumbing their noses at the US in regards to copyright infringement right now. Personally, I find that hilarious because there is little the US can do about it at the moment.

That aside, I think a first strike and you're out methodology is a bit much. I realize it's a private network, but with all the costs of tuition and all now days you are helping to pay for that network, so you should be afforded some of the same right of having your own internet connection (like actually receiving a notice that we found you, please stop or else).

Also, in speaking about GOOD network admins, I have to support our payroll software and you would be amazed how much of a short supply that can be. A lot can do what needs to be done but often they don't have all the experience or are overburdened as it is.
 
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