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100 Comments
- nixonrichard, on 10/12/2007, -5/+69I probably use BitTorrent for 4% legitimate content; however, it would piss me off if my university blocked access to a torrent site. It's not the University's job to actively distrust its students. Are they going to ban students from taking the campus shuttle to the grocery store because they might steal?
- calebhawk, on 10/12/2007, -4/+31only legit torrents i ever download are from puretna.com
why would they block that? - iricund, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18This is hardly news. My University has banned all Torrents for years. More for bandwidth reasons rather than anything vaguely moralistic but hey. It's ridiculous.
- Akaji, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18Really? I know of some professors from major colleges who use torrents for off-site downloads to limit the amount of bandwidth that is being pulled from the college itself. By using off-site students and non-students, the college doesn't have to shoulder the responsibility of the entire upload.
Also, tons of programs use torrents for downloading for the same reason - if you're trying to distribute a 500 MB program to 10,000 people (or more), you're not going to want to have to deal with that massive server strain.
Some examples of legitimate content downloaded through torrents:
free/shareware programs from small-time sources who don't have 15 T3 lines
home videos
foreign television/videos from Country Y that haven't been licensed in Country X and don't violate international trade law (biggest example here is unlicensed anime)
Finally, the word "seriously" is a lot like the word "literally" - if you're not going to use it in its correct sense, don't use it at all. Otherwise you might find yourself getting on here:
http://literally.barelyfitz.com/ - LukeEsntlPdx, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13The thing is, I don't believe the University is banning the bitTorrent networking, but blocking sites that let you find torrents for illegal content. And there is legal content through the bittorrent network, but can the bittorrent files not be found on the relevant website of the linux or software distro? You don't need these torrent search sites for the legal stuff. I mean seriously, how much do they promote "legal content" on PirateBay?
I'm a content provider myself. I've found my work illegally available on P2P services and it frustrates me because there's nothing I can do about it, because I'm just a small independent. I'm actually glad that people like the RIAA and MPAA make attempts to stop it, because there's no way that I would be able to alone, and piracy hurts the independent content providers much more than the wallets of the major labels.
While I don't agree with some of the RIAA's actions, sometimes websites exist blatantly for piracy. - tw0k1ngs, on 10/12/2007, -6/+16If stealing was a rampant problem at the grocery store by Uni students, you bet your damn ass they would, and they wouldn't get 1/2 the flack as banning a "said" "freedom".
That being said, I am against the University banning, I believe those who steal should be dealt with on an individual basis... mass oppression accomplishes nothing but backlash. - ToastPop, on 04/17/2009, -3/+13Honestly, this is just another excuse like when people don't want the RIAA on everyone's back because they are doing "legal" file sharing.
The tactics are always "stupid", yes, but what else can they do to stop the huge majority of the users from doing illegal file sharing without affecting the small, fraction of users that are using it for legal purposes.
I don't like it either, but everyone is always up in arms as if their rights are being violated when the fact remains that what is being done is almost always illegal. - archlich, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Works until they block zeropaid.com ...
- iricund, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8You should see the list of blocked ports they have. Don't even think about online gaming. It took six months for the powers that be to allow people to use Skype.
- scotticus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9If I ran a University, I'd block illegal torrent sites too. Not for RIAA reasons, but for the bandwidth. If you want to torrent, move into an apartment and pay for your internets.
- xerus, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10...they'll search your computer? Holy *****, thats crazy.
- Coolmew, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7My university blocks all torrent bandwidth and P2P Programs (University of Texas Dallas).
- jimripper, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8My university bans the Bittorrent protocol through packet filtering. I don't blame them (it's a huge network hog, I'm sure), but I did use Bittorrent for legitimate purposes sometimes: downloading footage of the Asian tsunami, for example.
- TommySalami, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7University of Maryland doesn't ban torrents, but makes it so they download at less than 1 kb/s. They track everything like that here and will search your computer if they suspect you of anything.
- Akaji, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Err... "international trade law" should be "international copyright law"...
- dtfinch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Legitimate content can often be found on its own site with its own tracker.
- h3r0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The college issued the Ban...the RIAA didn't MAKE them issue the ban..
But they did influence it. - sorrow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Bummer for those University students -- but it was a nice list of torrent tacking websites they provided me!
- gldfshnpcklejar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@calebhawk
Also the only place I upload legit torrents!! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9If this was a US university the name would have been listed right in the submitter's description. Please give more information - there are loads of Universities in the UK and some of them have far more influence than others.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7the can use a proxy server
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You obviously don't use bit torrent for spelling or and English class.
- 3dom, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4This is news to people? My UK university runs a website blocking service that filters the following categories: "Adult, Racism, Violence, Anarchy/Anti-Government, Piracy, Web Proxy, and Internet Chat". Unfortunately the halls of residence are on the same network as the library computers and there's nothing the administrators can/want/will do about it. Also all ports other than 80 are blocked, thus limiting pretty much every online activity other than the web. It's shocking, we've even signed a petition but to no avail. They even blocked myspace!
- HalFTW, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Solution: Use TOR to search the torrent sites. Unblockable. http://tor.eff.org/
- actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"It's not the University's job to actively distrust its students. Are they going to ban students from taking the campus shuttle to the grocery store because they might steal?"
A more accurate comparison would be: 'Are they going to lock the grocery because people might steal?' - actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Source for blocking you: right next to your name.
- Avalontor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yep, well done. A few bad pirates ruin it for the rest of us. haha
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I'd like to see them complain about their network getting clogged up by everyone using TOR to access torrent sites now.
- nasium, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Just use ZeroPaid's BT proxy service, they list out over 250 torrent sites and with one click you can browse these sites.
http://www.zeropaid.com/links/bittorrent/ - craigyjack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yep, my university blocks all torrent traffic and p2p network traffic..... sigh.
- archlich, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3My old uni banned all irc traffic, yes including on residential network. (I had to ssh to another computer for my irc addiction)
Machine gun flyswatter comes to mind. - Rikkochet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Throttled, not blocked.
Lots of Canadian (and presumably American) ISPs are doing this already. "Standard" torrent ports are being throttled to slow down traffic on well-known torrent ports. I think that's why virtually every mature torrent client now has a big, bold option to "randomize port on startup". - qualish, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3The University of Washington solved the Bit Torrent issue by capping the traffic campus wide at some stupid low level. Honestly, I don't blame them. I'm sure this is more of a bandwidth / cost issue than concerns over the RIAA. The university will not be liable, it is the end user who gets nailed.
- Defragged, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This isn't especially new. My UK university banned bittorrent in student accommodation, purely because it completely raped our internet connection. Once people worked out this wasn't enforced, the internet became exponentially slower for everyone in halls as the year went by.
- prammy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Heh when I was in college, irc was becoming quite the nuisance. There would be kids on every terminal in the computer lab chatting on irc. It got to a point where the rest of us could not actually use the terminals to do our homework. Their method of discipline was to revoke the computer privileges of any student found to be using irc between the hours of 8am to 8pm. Was a bit harsh but long coming :)
- capitocapito, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7My university, University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point, ignores the possibility of people downloading legitimate content whatsoever. This is done by throttling all traffic to the "outside" that isn't http.
I understand the need to limit illegal downloading, but the restrictions seem way overboard for people like me who want to focus on Linux, which is primarily distributed through torrents (most http downloads of too large of sizes aren't reliable here).
I just wish there was a better definition between "restriction" and "justice" - dakboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The Skype thing is probably because the university has a contract with a long-distance carrier that's supposed to make that carrier the exclusive provider of long-distance service to students.
Skype threatens that. - DarthBuckets, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Filtering standard web sites is lame, but I can understand disallowing certain protocols on the network. Unfortunately, legitimate torrent usage is dwarfed by the massive warez scene. My University shapes residential traffic so torrents and file-sharing are nearly impossible to do, but it's only due to bandwidth constraints. Our tubes clog easily.
- GabrielSaldana, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2My mexican university (www.iest.edu.mx) blocks everything. You can only access port 80 (subversion through http doesnt work either) and streaming content is also blocked. Besides all that, there's a HUGE filtering list on the proxy, so you can't access any webpage you'd like.
So...that's not news for us. - tomarocco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Ahhhhh...it's good to be out of school...
Just think, when you drop out or graduate this will become a non-issue. If you are really smart, you are friends with the syadmins and can get around this situation...but then again, going to a university does not necessarily make you smart. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Is it any wonder why Digg's traffic is plummeting after seeing how it has been taken over by wackos like this?
- cinnix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's Cardiff University. A friend of mine is still able to use bittorent, they have just blocked access to a few sites, and not any bittorent packets. As you can imagine they are all going nuts over it.
- nukem996, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Well hopefully my university will never do that. There policy is pretty relaxed about Internet usage. It basically says don't do anything illegal and they only shut off your Internet connection if they get a letter from a company complaining about you, then all you have to do is go down to an office and sign a paper saying you won't download again. To be honest I'd probably transfer if my university did this. I download tons of legal stuff, for school, threw bittorrent(I do a lot of Linux stuff).
- thripper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2My university forces students to use a proxy (no connect). Passive ftp or http:// . They left only 5050 open to any destination. Nobody likes it ... . mac-based filtering included.
- kaosphere, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2that's right. anything to keep the bandwidth usage/cost down. However block/throttle everything is a bit overboard and I hope we will not do that to our students. As for everybody's favorite legitimate torrent - linux isos, check your local computer science department, generally they have mirrors setup.
- b3tamike, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Here at the University of Florida all P2P is (and has been) banned. Penalties are loss of internet (30 minutes on first offense, 3 hours on second offense, indefinitely on third offense).
They have a detection system called ICARUS (http://uf.freeculture.org/wiki/ICARUS) that can automatically detect the violation and shut you off.... so even legitimate BitTorrent downloads are not allowed. - skyfire1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2No ***** Sherlock. What else is new?
- fangfufu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@nixonrichard
only 4% student in uni use campus shuttle for illegitimate reasons. - teckieee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1ahhh who caress.. well after the warning from RIAA this kids are leechers anyway maybe its good to the torrent community... and my share ratio!
- geekee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"The University of Washington solved the Bit Torrent issue by capping the traffic campus wide at some stupid low level."
That's a terrible solution. Punish everyone to solve the bandwidth problem created by thieves. Better to just ban torrent. -
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