>Like you, we have recently experienced latency and occasional lost
>data during these time periods (and also in the hours when the 1200
>UTC gridded data is flowing most rapidly). However, in our case, we
>believe our problem is local to UAlbany. We believe that student use
>of the internet (most likely via the use of file-sharing apps) is
>overwhelming the University's internet gateway.
There is an interesting article in the Boston Globe that may or may
not be helpful. It is about the file-swap thing.
Bob Broedel FSU MET
SOURCE : The Boston Globe
DATE : October 7, 2002
HEADLINE: GETTING TOUGH AGAINST COLLEGES' FILE-SWAPPERS
BYLINE : HIAWATHA BRAY
The digital file-swappers of Harvard got a nasty shock last week:
a report that the university would soon block peer-to-peer (P2P)
exchanges of digital music and movies.
The report turned out to be untrue - sort of. Nobody has approved
an outright ban on file-swapping, but the bosses of Harvard's data
networks are giving serious thought to the matter. It costs a lot
of money to deliver high-speed Internet access to thousands of
students and faculty members, and Harvard was hoping to get a
decent return on its investment - a cure for cancer, perhaps, or
the discovery of life on Mars. Instead, much of the school's
network capacity has been given over to stolen Springsteen albums
and illicit copies of "Reservoir Dogs."
It all goes to show that the death of Napster, the first great P2P
file-swapping system, hasn't done a thing to halt the trade in
pirated music and movies. Napster was a soft target, with its
central bank of server computers that coordinated the theft of
digital files. The music industry had little trouble persuading
colleges to block the use of Napster on campus networks; then they
drove Napster itself out of business.
But the current generation of P2P programs, like Kazaa and Morpheus,
don't rely on a central server, with an operator who can be hauled
into court. There are millions of Kazaa users, and each is his own
server. The recording industry can't sue them all.
Then again, they can sue the companies that enable them. The
Recording Industry Association of America is trying it right now
with the telephone company Verizon, which is a major provider of
Internet access. The RIAA has gone to court to force Verizon to
reveal the names of customers who may be using their Internet
service to swap illicit music files. Verizon says they won't give
up their customer's personal information simply on the RIAA's
say-so. It's probable that the US Supreme Court will settle this
one.
The RIAA is also keeping an eye on the nation's colleges, where
students armed with high-speed connections gobble up illegal
files by the terabyte. But Frank Creighton, the RIAA's antipiracy
director, insists that his group isn't trying to bully the schools.
"Our main focus is not legal liability against the college," he
said. "Our main focus is education."
At the Web site www.sound byting.com, you'll find a halfhearted
effort to convince larcenous sophomores that stealing music is a
bad thing. But making the case to college network administrators
is a more promising approach.
Under federal law, any Internet provider, including a college,
isn't immediately liable if somebody's using their service to
deal in illicit data. The copyright holder is supposed to contact
the Internet provider and urge them to put a stop to the
violation - a process called "notice and takedown." If the ISP
takes quick action, it faces no legal penalties.
Creighton said that colleges generally respond well to the
notice and takedown approach, shutting down the most egregious
file-swappers. But this method requires the RIAA to identify
specific violations and inform the school. When there are so many
violators, the process barely makes a dent in the flow of illegal
files. Creighton admits his organization may lose its patience.
"Ultimately if the problem doesn't significantly drop," he said,
"there's a chance that we may have to get a little more
aggressive."
In fact, universities are already taking action against the
file-swappers, and not simply to mollify copyright holders. P2P
activity costs a fortune in wasted Internet bandwidth. Consider
the case of Oregon State University, which saw up to 80 percent
of its network capacity used up by file-swappers.
The school fought back with network management systems that
can detect the use of P2P programs like Kazaa. In principle, the
adminstrators could just block all such traffic. But that idea
doesn't sit well at places devoted to the free flow of information.
So they use the system with a little more subtlety. At Oregon
State, they use Packeteer Inc.'s PacketShaper to examine each of
the billions of packets moving over a network, and spot the ones
being sent forth by P2P software. PacketShaper can then limit the
amount of network capacity available to these programs. For
instance, it can let them use no more than 10 percent of the
network from, say, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., but let the file-swappers
gorge themselves like vampires after dark.
A Packeteer spokesman said about 750 schools worldwide are using
the software; perhaps Harvard will soon be among them. Not that
this matters to the music companies. They're still being robbed by
college students, and it's no comfort that the thefts occur at
night.
So look for RIAA to get tough. The organization might not get
a court order that would force schools to ban student
file-swapping. But just trying it could put the fear of death
into college administrators, who already resent the file-swappers
for wasting so much of their bandwidth. Lawrence Summers, the
pugnacious president of Harvard, isn't one to run from a fight.
But it's hard to imagine him going to the mattresses for his
students' right to swap pirated copies of "My Big Fat Greek
Wedding."
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@xxxxxxxxx.
