School Blocking File Sharing

[Braker19]

Ok, I'm a student at the University of Tennessee and somehow, in the dorm rooms, the school has blocked file sharing programs from connecting to the internet. Anyone think they know how they have done that and if there's anyways to get around it??

This is for legal filesharing purposes only of course

 

[Lugztaz]

Well it dosent matter weather what you are planning on sharing, asking for help on how to get arround it is against forum rules. You should read them

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=760666
and
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=935081
oh and
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1026346800#post1026346800

 

[Malk-a-mite]

This is for legal filesharing purposes only of course

For legal purposes of course? Ok, then you'll need to go here:
http://oit.utk.edu/helpdesk/

And nicely ask your network administrators what are the current restrictions and what is allowed. Begin a discussion about relaxing some rules that won't endanger the health of the network.

Good luck.

 

[XOR != OR]

The best way I've ever found to get around restrictions on a foriegn network required beer. Much beer.

Oh yeah, and a hot chick giving a friend's buddy a lap dance.

I had full access on *that* network, let me tell you.

 

[Braker19]

Didn't mean to break the forum rules. What if I'm just curious how they block it? No discussion about how to get around it, just what they do that blocks it.

 

[jpmkm]

Your best bet would be to ask them. They probably know more about how their network is configured than we do. But blocking that stuff is pretty trivial and can be done any number of ways.

 

[Rombus]

Didn't mean to break the forum rules. What if I'm just curious how they block it? No discussion about how to get around it, just what they do that blocks it.

I can only speak from my experince here at KSU: They could be doing it via Firewall, or more likely a traffic shaping box on there network. Traffic shaping is more likely on a bigger campus since they can control the priority of certant traffic, or what bandwidth each ip gets

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Didn't mean to break the forum rules. What if I'm just curious how they block it? No discussion about how to get around it, just what they do that blocks it.

They block it for a reason...because it brings networks to their knees, not to mention is guaranteed to screw up computers and infect them with worms/trojans/ad/spy/malware...which brings further destruction to their network. Using various methods such as packet shaping, or flat out blocking various known ports, etc.

 

[BobSutan]

BobSutan smacks Braker19 upside the head for not reading the rules, not reading the sticky, not reading the FAQ......and above all else making me do some work around here.


Okay, okay, I'll let it slide as he's since changed his tune. You guys can talk about how they lock it down all you want.... heck, it may even give the rest of us some insight into how to better protect our own networks.

 

[Trepidati0n]

File sharing nearly destroyed our campus network. When I first moved in our T1 was way more than enough for day to day use. Then came napster and all of its friend. I couldn't even browse to www.analog.com w/o waiting for 2 minutes for a load. And this was with our new connection which was equivalent to an OC3 at the time (blazing 5 years ago).

Then our admin finally became a so frustrated with all the phone calls on how slow the "internet" was and he blocked it all. While he hated doing this because it was limiting the potential of the internet he was able to sleep at night because every time he got a complaint he would ask "exactly what are you downloading". If they took the time to explain and show a legal file they were after he would open up that IP for 1 day.

A good valid reason is still patch day for many games.

-tReP

 

[NulloModo]

I was in the dorms my freshman year when Napster first came out. Hell, everyone used it nearly constantly, and while not doing that we were copying massive folders of MP3s across the intranet from computer to computer... yet it never slowed the network down, not one bit. Lived in the dorms up through my junior year, they had still not blocked anything by that point, tons of people used it, never had a problem. To me this whole 'brings the network to it's knees' routine is BS spurted off by institutions that don't have a strong enough infrastructure to begin with.

As for methods - the most common one I see is just port blocking. P2P programs have certain ports (changeable in the settings screens, which is why this method is sort of dumb, and won't work against anyone with half a brain) that they send/receive traffic on. They can just set up their network to not allow traffic on those specific ports, and bingo bango, anyone who download a P2P program and tries to run it 'out of box' will have no luck.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

To me this whole 'brings the network to it's knees' routine is BS spurted off by institutions that don't have a strong enough infrastructure to begin with..

///stands up on soapbox///

I flat out disagree. The purpose of the network, the entire reason they put it there, is for educational purposes...IE internet surfing, e-mailing, Intraweb sites..and basic necessary functions. The infrastructure is not in place for a big LAN party and warez swap meet. Those two different purposes require two totally different setups. P2P software is a whole Pandora's box of junk. Besides bringing lots of traffic from the gigs of warez transfers...it brings along a whole host of other garbage...ad/spyware, worms, viruses...all things which infect end users computers...and can turn 1/2 the network into a big chattery network spewing out gargage.

While your though focuses on LAN transfers....think about the connections between buildings. They may only be metered 2 meg connections. Think about the various legs of the intranetwork...and lastly..think about the main backbone==>internet pipe...and people from the internet leeching wares off of students with shares going on.

If left unchecked, heck...they could bring in OC3's...heck, loads of OC48's for that matter, and run giga to every room and building...and that'd all get eaten up. It's the old story of "Give a foot, and the take a mile".

I've setup smaller school networks before, and my neighbor is the directory of IT for a big university...I get to hear a lot of stories, and they have implemented incredible control of that network.

 

[XOR != OR]

I was in the dorms my freshman year when Napster first came out. Hell, everyone used it nearly constantly, and while not doing that we were copying massive folders of MP3s across the intranet from computer to computer... yet it never slowed the network down, not one bit. Lived in the dorms up through my junior year, they had still not blocked anything by that point, tons of people used it, never had a problem. To me this whole 'brings the network to it's knees' routine is BS spurted off by institutions that don't have a strong enough infrastructure to begin with.

When napster first came out, it took a few years before it became big enough for a lot of people to be using it. So likely, up through your junior year, there were very few people using it on your campus, or copying junk across the intranet for that matter.

Today is a different story. Every kid in the dorms are trying to share files, or more accurately, leech them. That would require massive amounts of bandwidth ( you can do math just as easily as I can, so I'll let you figure it out ), for which most kids, ( or perhaps more accurately, their parents ), wouldn't want to foot the bill for. I'm talking on the order of OC pipes for the dorms alone.

It's not BS, this is a very real problem. Some of the students, I hear, actually use the internet for school work. So I hear.

As for methods - the most common one I see is just port blocking. P2P programs have certain ports (changeable in the settings screens, which is why this method is sort of dumb, and won't work against anyone with half a brain) that they send/receive traffic on. They can just set up their network to not allow traffic on those specific ports, and bingo bango, anyone who download a P2P program and tries to run it 'out of box' will have no luck.

Actually, most of the time, the easiest way to do this would be to throttle bandwidth on network port. So as a network device, if I see ethernet port 1 start using 1.5mbit/s for more than 5 seconds, I'm going to throttle them back to 128kbit until their usage returns to more normal levels.

That's how it's usually done, and why trying to get around restrictions fails, and more often than not, is noticed by college admins. Who may decide to mess with the offending user if they do it enough. I know I would.

 

[TeamStrykerCore]

Could be?

Blocked by port numbers
All ports denied except SMTP and common ports like 80 etc
Access Lists
Hardware Appliance
Limit Bandwidth during the daytime

There are many ways to get around this, but not gaurunteed to work.

 

[Order]

if I see ethernet port 1 start using 1.5mbit/s for more than 5 seconds, I'm going to throttle them back to 128kbit until their usage returns to more normal levels

Good in theory, bad in practice for things like Windows Updates.

 

[XOR != OR]

Good in theory, bad in practice for things like Windows Updates.

I was doing the cliff notes version. It's far more complex in practice than that, of course.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Good in theory, bad in practice for things like Windows Updates.

A lot of college IT peeps are setting up WSUS servers just for that. Keeps that traffic all on the LAN.

 

[Braker19]

That's how it's usually done, and why trying to get around restrictions fails, and more often than not, is noticed by college admins. Who may decide to mess with the offending user if they do it enough. I know I would.

Yeah I don't think it would be cutting off bandwidth because it never even makes an initial connection.

 

[XOR != OR]

Yeah I don't think it would be cutting off bandwidth because it never even makes an initial connection.

As I said, I was doing the cliff notes version.

Just as likely to employ multiple methods. Block ports, block known IPs, throttle rest.

 

[Order]

A lot of college IT peeps are setting up WSUS servers just for that. Keeps that traffic all on the LAN.

Thats a pretty damn good idea.
Watch them start caching all of myspace, friendster, wikipedia, and other popular sites .

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Thats a pretty damn good idea.
Watch them start caching all of myspace, friendster, wikipedia, and other popular sites .

Hello fellow Connecticut neighbor!


<===Stonington/Mystic

 

[HHunt]

///stands up on soapbox///

I flat out disagree. The purpose of the network, the entire reason they put it there, is for educational purposes...IE internet surfing, e-mailing, Intraweb sites..and basic necessary functions. The infrastructure is not in place for a big LAN party and warez swap meet. Those two different purposes require two totally different setups. P2P software is a whole Pandora's box of junk. Besides bringing lots of traffic from the gigs of warez transfers...it brings along a whole host of other garbage...ad/spyware, worms, viruses...all things which infect end users computers...and can turn 1/2 the network into a big chattery network spewing out gargage.

While your though focuses on LAN transfers....think about the connections between buildings. They may only be metered 2 meg connections. Think about the various legs of the intranetwork...and lastly..think about the main backbone==>internet pipe...and people from the internet leeching wares off of students with shares going on.

If left unchecked, heck...they could bring in OC3's...heck, loads of OC48's for that matter, and run giga to every room and building...and that'd all get eaten up. It's the old story of "Give a foot, and the take a mile".

I've setup smaller school networks before, and my neighbor is the directory of IT for a big university...I get to hear a lot of stories, and they have implemented incredible control of that network.

*Stands up on another soapox, three metres down the road*

If, and only if, you include dorm connections in that, I disagree. An internet connection is a commodity; excpected and required by all students. It is no more or less for educational purposes than the electrical grid, even if that was once the original intent.
What limitations and regulations are enforced should only be in place to keep the network functioning like intended, again much like the power grid.

Of course, shutting down file sharing might very well be "to keep it functioning as intended", but that might be a hint that the infrastructure is too weak, especially if that includes intranet transfers. A decent network should be able to handle some rather heavy internal activity. I can accept that internet connectivity will be another matter for a number of years.
(Yes, my school has unmetred fibre connections to the student apartments, and a suprisingly fast UNINETT backbone connection. How'd you guess? )

For the record, I'm on perfectly normal and unrelated home aDSL, so this doesn't apply to me.

 

[NulloModo]

*Stands up on another soapox, three metres down the road*

If, and only if, you include dorm connections in that, I disagree. An internet connection is a commodity; excpected and required by all students. It is no more or less for educational purposes than the electrical grid, even if that was once the original intent.
What limitations and regulations are enforced should only be in place to keep the network functioning like intended, again much like the power grid.

Of course, shutting down file sharing might very well be "to keep it functioning as intended", but that might be a hint that the infrastructure is too weak, especially if that includes intranet transfers. (Yes, my school has unmetred fibre connections to the student apartments, and a suprisingly fast UNINETT backbone connection. How'd you guess? )

For the record, I'm on perfectly normal and unrelated home aDSL, so this doesn't apply to me.

I agree. Controlling the network inside of a computer lab is one thing. Limiting access to the dorms where the students are effectively paying for it (housing fees/tuition) is quite another.

 

[PopeKevinI]

For the record, I'm on perfectly normal and unrelated home aDSL, so this doesn't apply to me.

I don't see why dorm connections couldn't be managed more like DSL accounts. For example, give each port 3 Mb down and 512 kb up. Limit them to 10 Mb intranet (dorm-to-dorm). That's far better than your average home own can get.

 

[Cheetoz]

wouldent streaming class videos be kinda like file sharing in terms of usage..?

 

[Malk-a-mite]

I agree. Controlling the network inside of a computer lab is one thing. Limiting access to the dorms where the students are effectively paying for it (housing fees/tuition) is quite another.

The problem is when the dorm traffic becomes a drain on the rest of the system. Then you need to make a choice based on need. File sharing vs. educational uses.

Guess which one wins.

 

[XOR != OR]

I agree. Controlling the network inside of a computer lab is one thing. Limiting access to the dorms where the students are effectively paying for it (housing fees/tuition) is quite another.

Let me ask you this: If you moved into a house that you could only get one broadband service from, and that limited, would you have the right to complain? Even tho you knew going in to it what the connection was like, would you still complain about it and expect something changed?

Personally, I wouldn't have moved there to begin with, if unfiltered inet access were a concern.

Back to the question of the infrastructure: Most dorms were built more than 10 years ago. But even those built more than 5 years ago didn't have access to build in the kind of network topology that high amounts of bandwidth require. Does anybody here have any idea the cost associated with what is essentially a remodel? Most dorms I know of are pretty cheap to begin with ( 400/month, everything but phone and inet included ), so it's not like they have a great deal of spare budget to mess around with.

In short, you get what you pay for. Don't like it? Move out and get a real connection.

 

[PopeKevinI]

wouldent streaming class videos be kinda like file sharing in terms of usage..?

I've got two live news feeds running on my PC right now. Together they use about 150 kB. Of course, they're fairly low-res, but it's got nothing on what a high-volume P2P user will do.

Hi-res streams are generally short, a few minutes on average. In traffic terms, that's a burst, where P2P is a lot more consistently demanding.

Probably the reason they're blocking it is to avoid the legal hassles that come with the RIAA bothering them, even if they can't sue them.

 

[vxspiritxv]

1. Dumb network: will forward packets and block specific ports.
2. Paranoid network: will block everything, and proxy only allowed material. Like using a transparent squid proxy with their own internal servers for everything else like e-mail and DNS.
3. "Smart" network: Allow everything, use a snort machine on the network to watch packets for denied traffic and dynamically block it.

Or of course a combination of the above.

 

[Boscoh]

They could be using a variety of methods...

They might have a traffic shaper that looks for that type of traffic (among other things).
They might be sending traffic through a transparent proxy whos only job is to kill stuff like that.
They could be blocking the IP's, and preventing DNS from resolving the domains. That's a lot of work though.
They could have an intelligent application-aware firewall or router that can recognize the signature of those programs and outright drop and/or reset the connection, or throttle it back to 8 bits/sec.

There are quite a few ways to do this.

 

[BobSutan]

1. Dumb network: will forward packets and block specific ports.
2. Paranoid network: will block everything, and proxy only allowed material. Like using a transparent squid proxy with their own internal servers for everything else like e-mail and DNS.
3. "Smart" network: Allow everything, use a snort machine on the network to watch packets for denied traffic and dynamically block it.

Or of course a combination of the above.

If only it was that simple.

Most follow your last sentance, though the wise are well to adopt the principle of least priviledge. I extend this to network security in the form of deny any, permit specifically. Specifially can be well known ports, proprietary needs, etc. To date, anything "dynamic" is still prone to the occational false-positive and/or false-negative. And it only takes one to get the latest and greatest worm in to wreak havok.

Layered secruiity aka defense in depth is the way to go IMO.

Regardless of the methodology employed, a network is only as secure as its administrators are smart. The same can be said about management.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

*Stands up on another soapox, three metres down the road*

If, and only if, you include dorm connections in that, I disagree. An internet connection is a commodity; excpected and required by all students. It is no more or less for educational purposes than the electrical grid, even if that was once the original intent.
What limitations and regulations are enforced should only be in place to keep the network functioning like intended, again much like the power grid.

Of course, shutting down file sharing might very well be "to keep it functioning as intended", but that might be a hint that the infrastructure is too weak, especially if that includes intranet transfers. A decent network should be able to handle some rather heavy internal activity. I can accept that internet connectivity will be another matter for a number of years.
(Yes, my school has unmetred fibre connections to the student apartments, and a suprisingly fast UNINETT backbone connection. How'd you guess? )

///builds pile of 5x boxes nice and high...climbs up to top one///


Well....something that will always have two sides... " An internet connection is a commodity; excpected and required by all students. It is no more or less for educational purposes than the electrical grid"

Students will rant and scream and demand "I want all the bandwidth I can get to do whatever I want..run game servers, host warez sharing P2P, stream video, FTP porn sites, and BTW...I'll never use antivirus protection (or I'll forget about that 90 day trial of McCrapfree that came with my Dell 2 years ago)...run any windows updates, and leave my Administrator password <blank>...because my daddie is paying dorm fees therefore I get anything I want!"

Schools will be on the side of "We just need to maintain functionality...if you guys are left unchecked..the network will grind to a halt".

How many people here have seen a virus or worm outbreak in a business/enterprise network? Even if they run fiber backbones on Catalyst switches...that network can choke up. And generally.....business/enterprise environments are in "somewhat" decent, controlled conditions to begin with. There is generally some sort of minimum standard across the board regarding windows updates, antivirus, overall health of the computers.

Many schools still don't have these standards, or enforced policies...of "Workstations have to have windows updates and antivirus before joining our network". Some are implementing that..my neighbor who's the IT boss of a major college...I've heard of the stuff he's implemented. I forget the name of what he runs, but when machines first plug in, it puts them on a special subnet...where they are forced to get all their windows updates, and the campus site licensed antivirus installed, before they are allowed onto the main networks subnet.

Another point...people going to college in countries other than the USA...where nationwide broadband is much different than it is here in the states. The USA is running on old data infrastructure....bandwidth is wicked expensive compared to much of Europe and Asia...who because of past wars...have had their infrastructure completely rebuild in recent times. So fiber and other high speed types are quite abundant, the groundwork has been laid for that. Not in the states where much of it is still running on T carriers.

And my last thought, from a totally different approach...uhm....P2P and warez stuff is illegal. Why..should the school, spend time, and money, supporting that? Hrrrmmmmm? Oh sure someones bound to say "iTunes is legit, it's not illegal". Comon...what percentage of students do you realistically think are going to use the couple of legit services? It'll be Kazaa (or any of the clones) and bittorrent city.

 

[PopeKevinI]

Here's an idea: the university could invite the local phone company to provide DSL access to any dorm resident who wants to order it. The phone company can foot the bill for any cabling that needs to be done and is responsible for supporting the network, but they set the prices so they can cover the costs.

The school could even arrange a discount for students to wrap DSL in as part of their dorm costs...the service is set up in their name when they move in and then they're on their own as far as supporting it.

Want access to campus networks? Here's a VPN client.

 

[NulloModo]

Here's an idea: the university could invite the local phone company to provide DSL access to any dorm resident who wants to order it. The phone company can foot the bill for any cabling that needs to be done and is responsible for supporting the network, but they set the prices so they can cover the costs.

The school could even arrange a discount for students to wrap DSL in as part of their dorm costs...the service is set up in their name when they move in and then they're on their own as far as supporting it.

Want access to campus networks? Here's a VPN client.

That would be nice, but I'm not aware of anyone that does that. Personally, were I in a dorm that filtered what I could and could not use, I'd gladly pay the $50 extra a month for an honest to god no training-wheels connection.

XOR -

Your analogy doesn't work. First of all, no commercial broadband provider would ever try to pull that shit, if they did, they'd go out of business in a heartbeat. I'd sooner go back to dial-up than use broadband that didn't let me use P2P and similar programs, hey, it would take forever, but at least I'd still have access. Also, for many students, it isn't simply a matter of 'don't like the dorms? move out!' most universities require students to live in the dorms during the freshman year, and for anyone who has a scholarship including room and board, it would be just dumb to go out and pay for an apartment when the school is willing to do it for free.

 

[XOR != OR]

Your analogy doesn't work. First of all, no commercial broadband provider would ever try to pull that shit, if they did, they'd go out of business in a heartbeat.

So ask yourself why the IT folks at the dorms get away with it.

Also, for many students, it isn't simply a matter of 'don't like the dorms? move out!' most universities require students to live in the dorms during the freshman year, and for anyone who has a scholarship including room and board, it would be just dumb to go out and pay for an apartment when the school is willing to do it for free.

It's a choice you make then: Free rent but limited inet, or pay your own rent and get whatever you want.

The only reason this is an issue is because college kids aren't used to the real world yet. They still expect crap to be tailored to them, or at any rate fair. Where I am now, I can look at the situation and see the positives and negatives and make a decision based on that. And if I choose the one with limited inet, who's fault is that?

Further, the college crowd doesn't actually do anything productive to change it. They try to get around it. If you live in the dorms and feel you deserve unfiltered inet access ( after you moved in knowing full well what you were getting ), what are you going to do to bring that about?

 

[PopeKevinI]

So ask yourself why the IT folks at the dorms get away with it.It's a choice you make then: Free rent but limited inet, or pay your own rent and get whatever you want.

Captive audience. Most universities (actually, most states) don't allow out-of-town students to live off-campus under a certain age. In Texas, you have to live on-campus or commute if you go to school outside your county. Off-campus housing isn't an option for the first few years.

Off-topic tangent: Most states also assume that if you're 19 and in college your parents are taking care of you. When I was 19, I couldn't have moved to a city and rented an apartment on my own and then enrolled in a college there. That's just absurd.

/rant

Oh, and dorms aren't "free rent". They cost several thousand dollars a year.

The only reason this is an issue is because college kids aren't used to the real world yet. They still expect crap to be tailored to them, or at any rate fair. Where I am now, I can look at the situation and see the positives and negatives and make a decision based on that. And if I choose the one with limited inet, who's fault is that?

Again, it's not a choice for most of them. A reasonable alternative is to seperate the dorms from the rest of the campus network and handle them more as a traditional ISP. The problem is that universities and students don't think of 'net service in dorms as a service.

Further, the college crowd doesn't actually do anything productive to change it. They try to get around it. If you live in the dorms and feel you deserve unfiltered inet access ( after you moved in knowing full well what you were getting ), what are you going to do to bring that about?

The smart thing to do is lobby. Organize students to protest it and present a viable alternative, as have been discussed here.

 

[XOR != OR]

Captive audience. Most universities (actually, most states) don't allow out-of-town students to live off-campus under a certain age. In Texas, you have to live on-campus or commute if you go to school outside your county. Off-campus housing isn't an option for the first few years.

Must be the preppy schools. The no-name universities I know of don't care where you live. Sure, you get different and higher rates for being an out of state student, but that's about it.

Off-topic tangent: Most states also assume that if you're 19 and in college your parents are taking care of you. When I was 19, I couldn't have moved to a city and rented an apartment on my own and then enrolled in a college there. That's just absurd.

And there's the rub. You are in that quasi-adult status. Old enough to be called an adult, but you don't actual display any of the distguishing characteristics of one.

Oh, and dorms aren't "free rent". They cost several thousand dollars a year.

You took that particular quote out of context. He was making an arguement for living in the dorms because a scholorship paid for it.

Again, it's not a choice for most of them. A reasonable alternative is to seperate the dorms from the rest of the campus network and handle them more as a traditional ISP. The problem is that universities and students don't think of 'net service in dorms as a service.

Hence, part of the problem.

The smart thing to do is lobby. Organize students to protest it and present a viable alternative, as have been discussed here.

Yup. But complaining about it is about worthless. If you want something changed, whining about it on an anonymous internet board is probably the least likely thing to get you what you want.

 

[PopeKevinI]

Must be the preppy schools. The no-name universities I know of don't care where you live. Sure, you get different and higher rates for being an out of state student, but that's about it.

Like I said, in the state of Texas, THE ENTIRE STATE, you can't live off-campus under a certain age (I think it's 21) unless you've lived in the area for 12 months before you enroll.

And there's the rub. You are in that quasi-adult status. Old enough to be called an adult, but you don't actual display any of the distguishing characteristics of one.

When I was 19, I worked full-time and paid rent. I ended up not graduating from college because of the assumption that my parents were paying my way...because they made too much money, I didn't qualify for financial aid.

I'm a 27-year-old college dropout who makes more than most grads in my area. I don't hold a high opinion of "higher education" these days.

You took that particular quote out of context. He was making an arguement for living in the dorms because a scholorship paid for it.

Most scholarships (at most schools around here, anyway), you can use the money that would cover dorms and apply it to living elsewhere. Of course, that assumes that you're allowed to live off-campus.

Hence, part of the problem.Yup. But complaining about it is about worthless. If you want something changed, whining about it on an anonymous internet board is probably the least likely thing to get you what you want.

Very true. The OP is asking what to do, I'm answering him

Of course, by limiting bandwidth you'll create a whole new set of whining students, but these will be whining because they can't get downloads faster than a few hundred kB.

To them, I say: make a choice. Either have P2P applications and other bandwidth hogs crippled, or have slower unfiltered internet. Me, I'd take the slower version that I can acually use

 

[Braker19]

To them, I say: make a choice. Either have P2P applications and other bandwidth hogs crippled, or have slower unfiltered internet. Me, I'd take the slower version that I can acually use

Yeah I agree. Thanks for the suggestion about lobbying, I do appreciate a suggestion that is an attempt to help

Didn't mean to sound whiney at all. I actually did start with some intellectual curiosity about how they did it, though it may not have sounded like it.

 

[nameless_centurian]

How many people here have seen a virus or worm outbreak in a business/enterprise network? Even if they run fiber backbones on Catalyst switches...that network can choke up.

there is no better way to put this. my dad works for railway transportation company. 2 years ago, a worm hit the network. THE TRAINS STOPPED BECAUSE THE NETWORK WAS DOWN.

When I was 19, I worked full-time and paid rent. I ended up not graduating from college because of the assumption that my parents were paying my way...because they made too much money, I didn't qualify for financial aid.

i fully understand this. i'm 20 years old, but i only work part time while attending college (and living in a dorm with filtered internet). this does not change the fact that most people my age and in college are idiots. some come seriously prepared to work hard and prepare themselves for the future, others come to get smashed at keggers. simple fact is, most undergrads are just dumb (not to mention just downright rude and obnoxious).

look, i've managed just fine in my time at the dorm without p2p file sharing. i don't need it. the simple fact is, there is nobody that does need it. want? yes. need? no.

i make more of a fuss about the university blocking FTP than i do about them blocking p2p. why? FTP has educational values. i am a programming student. sometimes i need to transfer files to a timeshare system to compile a program in that environment. sometimes i need to get a file from my friend's machine down the hall. FTP is a legit service the network should offer, not block.

...but p2p isn't necessary at all.

the standard argument is: "let the network be free and open. i'm intelligent enough to do what i want, i won't harm anything."

....so the next guy makes that claim and drags the whole network down with the host of virii he just downloaded....

p2p has no real educational use that you can't obtain by safer means.

I'm a 27-year-old college dropout who makes more than most grads in my area. I don't hold a high opinion of "higher education" these days.

i applaud you. the cliche is: "college is not for everybody."
you have certainly proven that true.

....but where am i supposed to learn computer science in the mean-time? who will hire me so i can use them as a training grounds?

it would be terribly presumptuous for me say "it is absolutely necessary for a person to be educated in college to know anything"

isn't it a little presumptuous for you to say high academia isn't worth anything?

(i know you didn't say this outright, but i beleive the inference is there.)