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Four Arrested For Internet 'Theft' At OSU
This raises some of the same questions that Napster, alt.sex.stories and (not long ago) IRC have -- if a university is the ISP, how closely can they control the way customers (students) use the resources it makes available? Legal technicalities aside, it sounds like the students are actually saving OSU money by attaching their own masqueraded computers to unused ports on the network they're already paying for.
Maybe universities should concentrate on providing a 'target-rich' infrastructure (ports, access points, shared servers and newsfeeds), and not spend much money on PCs. Workable, word-processing-and-Internet PCs can be had for a few hundred dollars. (And high-powered workstations or servers aren't really at issue in this case.) PCs -- at least those that need to run MS operating systems -- grow obsolete at a pretty amazing clip; networking standards and equipment have a more punctuated evolution, even if it's just as exciting to look at in the long term.
We networked the upstairs rooms and ran a cable down the trash chute to the first floor, then above the drop ceiling into the cage and into a hub (breaking into the cage was the hardest part). We had fast internet for about a semester before the dorm electrician noticed and yanked the cables.
Of course, we just unhooked it and pulled down the wires in our rooms when we noticed them snooping around. They knew *someone* on our floor did it, but couldn't prove a thing...
Anyhow, what kind of insanity is it to look at this as "criminal activity" versus "harmless college mischief". Christ, maybe we should just go back to getting drunk and wizzing on the Dean's front porch.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
That said, we seem to have moved into an era of overreaction. Kids hook up ethernet, get arrested. Woman protests president, gets arrested. Girl says she's going to bring *gum* to school, gets suspended. A boy can't even have a pocket knife at school anymore...what has our world come to?
No one has a sense of humor anymore, or a sense of proportionality. What has happened to us?
New XFMail home page
/bin/tcsh: Try it; you'll like it.
You don't have to have network access and by the sounds of it these students decided to not get it but then ran the cable
I have observed that in general, wired dorms are in demand, and that many students who WANT a wired dorm are turned down because they are already filled. The School indicated that they would like to get all of the dorms wired, but didn't have the funds and time to do it all at once. From that perspective, perhaps the students did them a favor by wiring at least one room for free? Especially considering that they apparently WERE allowed to take their computer into the lab and connect to the net.
It would seem to me that the real solution would be to let the 300ft cable stay (make sure it is installed to code etc.), and bill the students $24 for a wired dorm room. I think that a $500 bond on a $24 'theft' is just plain silly in this case.
Umm, but what service are the other dorms paying for? Is it the installed ethernet connections in each room or is it access to the network?
/mill - who enjoys his firewall free 10Mbit
It seems it is the former and therefore what they have done is to make use of the network to the fullest. So instead of moving around their computers they did the sensible thing and got a longer cable.
Would they be charged if they installed air conditioning in their rooms too?
IMO they didn't steal/misused anything. They used what they had available (and paid for) to it fullest.
Sounds more like the students in this particular dorm aren't be allowed to better their situation because that would devalue the other dorms that have paid the university for it. Overpaid, too, if it works like the Netware 5 network described.
I am sure here the university would be happy if as many students as possible could get access without it having to provide it. After all it is a way to attract students.
I mentioned that the Student Technology Fee covers internet access in the computer labs, and Residential Life covers access in the dorms, you might ask who covers access in classrooms or other buildings?
;)
Well, there is another entity on campus -- Computing Information Services. These guys (plus Data Communications) pretty much run the entire campus network. They are in charge of all the labs and divide the funding into Student Tech Fee, and CIS Funding. Their own labs have slightly different policies: for example, they double as classrooms and whoever is is one of these labs when a class is about to start is asked to go to another lab or provide proof that they are enrolled in the scheduled class.
One thing that makes me wonder is that the ResLife servers go through CIS before they go to the rest of the world! So, do the CIS "Terms of Use" override those of ResLife? (Yeah, I've been a student here for FIVE years, and have worked for CIS for three, so I ought to know this.. but..
Ever since they remodeled the Classroom Building and added another wing to the Student Union, I have noticed at least one RJ45 port on every wall in those buildings! What will happen if the friend of mine who currently lives in Stout brings a laptop to the food court in the Union and hooks it up to the internet? Will he get arrested because he's not paying for that internet access with his room rent, or is he safe from ResLife because he's simply not in any dorm? Is it then covered by the Student Tech Fee or CIS Funding?
So, why weren't the guys who were arrested not charged with carrying their computers downstairs and connecting them in the lab? This is a private lab (as opposed to the public labs all over campus), so I'd assume it is run by Reslife. But the students weren't busted for using them, so who owns those jacks?
I see either some inconsistency or a just a simple lack of communication.
BTW, I don't even consider that room as a computer lab -- it's practically part of the laundry room. It only has eight computers, and has no lab monitor to watch them. (Then again, the other labs have at least 50 computers.) These are some of the old Pentium-90 systems (w/16MB RAM) that we had in the public labs from Fall '95 to Spring '98 before we upgraded. Half of them don't work well enough to use: at any given time, one cannot see the network, another has a bad keyboard, and another will be missing Windows entirely! The only things that really work are the network jacks! And these students just wanted to put them to good use -- just like they would have if the jacks were in another building.
-Quazi
Honestly, OSU is an expensive college. Everyone I know who is or has attended it either is on a free ride thanks to mommy and daddy or because of a very nice scholarship. Of course, I know there are a lot of people who have busted their ass to afford tuition or earn the 'free ride' -- so I don't want to put everyone in the 'luck-dog' category. Still, Anyone attending there should be able to divy up the extra quarter per day if their internet connection is that much of a need for them. And last I checked, a 300 foot ethernet cable is going to run you a whole lot more than the $48 bucks per year you're saving by not having a network drop in your room.
I'd rather see a drop in every room and every possible point throughout the campus than see a school who's already bilking their students out of $15k or $25k per year trying to nickel and dime them to death on the vitally useful internet connection. But that's a moot point. I'm not saying that this isn't petty and the university is being a bunch of tight-asses about it, but a fee is a fee and they'd have to present a very impressive excuse for me to side with the students on this one.
Granted, there are a couple statements that seem a bit silly here:
Denman said the reason not all residence halls have ethernet is because OSU does not have enough money.
They sure seem to run a lot of advertisements state-wide on television, they have a well-catered -to football and basketball team and their tuition sure as hell isn't cheap -- maybe they need to drop someone's million-dollar salary by $100k and put in another 10 T1's?
"It's financial," he said. "There's not air conditioning in all the halls. There's not cable TV in all the halls.
When was the last time you used an air-conditioner or Bobcat Godthwait's Big Ass Show to research your term-paper? The university is saying that because they supposedly lack the funding for certain physical comforts and entertainment amenities, they can't afford certain things that are almost educational necessities. And the fact that they say "well, we don't have these two items -- so how could we be expected to have drops everywhere?" almost sounds like they're putting the value and need of an air-conditioner (it's warm there, but it ain't California -- come on folks) and a cable connection above internet and network access.
But then again, what the hell do I know.
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icq:2057699
seumas.com
Your right this makes the school look bad, it could have been handled differently. Some low level BOFH want-a-be did the only thing he could think of and called the police. The student will get about the same punishment as they would have had this been handeled by the school in house as with the police.
Now because of a slow thinking burreauract OSU has a black mark that may make some potental new student choose another school. It will blow over and be forgotten by everyone but the britest who consider the Network "The tool".
Who owns your data?
When I was an undergrad, there wasn't much networking to speak of. Then I went to grad school at Dartmouth. The entire campus was networked. We had network ports in the privately-owned fraternaties, even. In that case, the fraternaties did pay for the hookup, but only to cover the physical connection, not a per-port fee.
Of course, at Dartmouth, everyone is required to have a computer, and professors expect to be able to use email for class assignments (even in the humanities), turning in papers, and such.
It's been like that for over ten years.
Now I'm surprised to hear about schools charging for Internet access. You would think they would be doing everything they could to encourage computer use as a basic part of the education, not treating it like some luxury.
Just reply to this post, but change the subject line to something like "Cheap State U charges $50/semester" or "Forward Thinking College; free." Then in the comment, you can elaborate if there's more to say. (Maybe this should be a poll.)
I don't see why we're all crying a river over this. They took electricity that they weren't paying for. That's called stealing. I hope they get the electric chair. And yes, i see the irony.
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Actually they don't have a right to use the university network based on your claim that they paid for it.
I tracked down where these particular student's lab fees and tuition went that paid to the school.
In fact they only have a right to 2 urinals, 3 desks in the chem labs, 8 days of doughnuts for the Sunday Alumni gatherings, 12 promotional OSU mouse pads sent to possible students, roughly 24 acres of lawn mowed on July 19th 1999, and about 34 stall doors in the men's bathrooms in several buildings. Maybe they can use those resources how and when they want?
Oddly I did find that some of my tax dollars went into a grant that paid for the renovation of 3 old buildings there. I plan to go collect on that by removing the foundation of 1 of the buildings, but I guess I can't.
Personally I was expecting I paid for the U's network, so I could hook up, but unfortunately I hear you can't pick where your money goes . . . because it's not yours after you give it to them regardless what you would like to get back from it.
Okay, this is the third time in this thread that I've come across this guy. He simply keeps saying things like THEFT and STEALING in big capital letters. The moderators need an "uninformed" option.
/. post. So they can use the network, just not where it would actually useful for them. Somewhere it mentioned that students pay for some sort of technology fee that goes directly to the campus network. So they DO pay for it. Hard to steal something you pay for and are already allowed to use, eh?
If you've read the story and the accompanying links you'll find that while it happens to nicely fit the university's technical definition of "theft", it doesn't really pan out too well with some rather well-known facts of the real world.
These students did in fact have a right to use the university network. They used it every day, in their various labs and study facilities. Says right there in the news articles that were linked in the
The price is $24/semester, not $24/month. The difference in price suggests that the fee is not actually the charge for the service.
The students are given access to the internet, the students are allowed to plug their own computers into the net, if they bring them downstairs.
$24/semester sounds like what someone would charge to make sure that the rooms with connections went to the students that want them and will use them. It probably doesn't even pay for wiring the rooms (think -- hubs, cable, patch panels, sockets in the rooms...). Does anyone think that these students failed to request dorm rooms with the internet connection?
So, a few lucky students are allowed to rent cabling at $24/semester. The rest are told to go fuck themselves. But some students say, "fine, you won't sell to us, we'll buy from someone else", and they end up in jail.
they should be kicked out of school. i mean, it makes sense that they should be aressted for using 280 feet more ethernet cable than they usuall do, especially if they are paying for the service! not only this, but they were suppling other people on the floor a valuable service without the university's consent, and for those of us who do go, or have gone to universities, know that there are rules against things that may be convenient. for example, eastern michigan university (my uni) knocked out the elevator service to walton hall after they discovered that it was more conveninant for the smokers on the top floor to use it then to go down 5 flights of stairs. but the fact that these people would have the nerve to help out the people in their hall and to attempt to raise their quality of life, without braking any laws is unexcusable! OSU should fry these fuckers.
or they could let them go and owe them a HUGE apology....
Folks, as it says, they were paying the "technology fees". The technology fees pay for purchase and upkeep of the campus computer infrastructure; therefore, they were entitled to use that infrastructure. As the first article clearly states, there is a $24/semester difference in rates for rooms with ethernet/withour ethernet--however, since they're paying the technology fees anyway, the extra $24/semester is merely a surcharge for the *added convenience* of having a room with Ethernet connection pre-installed. Furthermore, as the guy quoted in the first article said, the college would like to have all the rooms wired for network connections but doesn't merely because of the costs involved.
:-)
Seems to me that the attorney(s) for the students should argue that the students had every legal right to access a network which they were paying for, and that the $24/semester extra for a pre-wired room is for defraying the costs of physically wiring the rooms in question. Again I repeat: all students are defraying the network upkeep costs, and those who pay the $24/semester extra are defraying the cost of physically wiring their rooms.
I sincerely hope that they and their attorney(s) use this argument, since it is very valid in legal terms. Furthermore, if this argument stands at court, the students could quite legally piss off the asshole admins who turned them in by immediately going back to their dorms and re-wiring the connection in question.
Does anyone know how to contact these guys 'n' gal to tell them how we at Slashdot support them, and about this legal argument? Seems to me that if they get a really sympathetic judge, their attorney(s) might be able to get an immediate dismissal.
On an even more important note, students at OSU ought to protest, and hard. Surely someone knows a high-placed administrator or, better yet, director/regent who can get all outraged over the affair. Someone ought to get a sever tongue-lashing (mmm, that doesn't sound so bad after all...) at least for this, as it is a very poor public relations move. If the students push the angle I stated above, then it should garner them 99% of the sympathy, and it's all a matter of spin. Many here have been jumping to the conclusion that what they did *was* theft, but the facts state otherwise. It's this spin that the students need to use, and if they do then media all across the state will run stories which lambaste OSU, and that's what these students need. End of lesson!
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
It's not so much the internet theft, it's the potential for property damage and liability.
Sure, these guys did it OK, but if they don't get punished it'll be open season on dorm wiring. Then some idiot fumbling around the wiring will get zapped to death with 120V AC across the temples. The university gets sued for millions.
The guys who install professionally are licensed, bonded, etc.
Did they use plenum grade ethernet cable? What if a fire broke out? Did they mark these cables? After they graduate, who's going to maintain and troubleshoot this system?
No, it isn't rape or murder, but it *is* a crime. If convicted, I'd probably give them $100 find and a misdemeanor blot on their records but that's about it. OTOH, if the punishment is more severe I'll understand why--the university will be trying to set an example. Sometimes you have to do that to maintain discipline.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
There was a time when some college students were charged with theft of computer cycles, since they made unauthorized access to the university's mainframe.
The courts found that since the university login screen included phrasing similar to "Welcome to our computer, enjoy using it", that the authorization to use it was implied.
Ever notice how all login messages now say "Unauthorized use, copying, distribution, or public showing will result in FBI activity"? Or is it just my Betamax video tape?
So, these guys were authorized access, since they had an account on the network. That account was not limited in any way in terms of port, access point, machine, day/date or time. In fact, they were able to, and capable of, connecting to the network in an unrestricted manner.
Every reasonably secure system includes the capability to limit access based upon specific combinations of time and location. None of these were in place.
If you don't post a no-trespassing sign, then people can walk across your property to reach their own. They are supposed to ask permission, but they don't absolutely have to. What's most significant is that unless you provide some obstruction that INTENTIONALLY prevents unauthorized access to either property or equipment, then the authorization to use it is implied.
Want to keep people off you property? Build a fence. Don't want to build a fence? Post a sign.
Want to get people off your network? Tell them so at login.
Want to prevent people who otherwise have access from gaining access surreptitiously? Lock the account in specific ways. Easy.
But the university did none of this. Instead, they leave each student's account wide open and then beat their breasts and tear at their hair when some enterprising students take it upon themselves to SLIGHTLY improve their living conditions at their own expense.
Let me get this straight.
1. These students ran a cable from their room to a computer lab to which they NORMALLY had access and which they regularly used.
2. They connected to an active, open, unlocked and unsecured ethernet port that was not used for any other purpose, but which would have been available to them to use if they were standing in close proximity.
3. They shared their improvements with their fellow students, thus reducing the onerous difficulty of accessing network resources.
4. This effort worked to narrow the "digital divide" experienced by students of low cost housing.
When compared with more affluent students who could afford higher cost housing, the difference in network access is alarming!
And for all of this, these generous, intelligent, innovative and mildy inventive students went to jail??????????
And we have the nerve to call this theft??????
Unbelievable!
We should reward them for their community improvement efforts.
Oh. wait. let's see now.
Maybe there's something to this. After all, if other students became accustomed to convenient access to the network, then they would begin demanding it more strenuously in all low cost dorms.
Ok.
And then the school would either have to ante up, or admit to a prejudice based upon economic status. Affluent students are given the tools to improve their grades, less affluent students are forced to waste precious time simply to connect to the network.
Obviously, the cost of network access is much HIGHER than 24.00US per semester. How do you measure the lost time in travel, concentration, queuing up in line?????
For those students with tight budgetary constraints, the school in question seems determined to make it difficult for them to operate on a par with affluent students.
But hold on now. One last point.
My tax dollars help support that school (I refuse to believe that OSU receives NO federal monies.).
My investments in the private sector probably do as well, to some extent.
So, OSU.......use my tax bucks and string a few hubs and routers!
Or, if you're serious, then restrict access of all students to specific ports, (which you are able to do), and face the public outcry with your heads held high. After all, you will have shown the struggling student that is of little use to improve themselves, since they will never catch up to the levels of productivity that more wealthy students enjoy. And just to make sure, you'll throw them in jail if they try.
Where's that ACLU web site? They should read this article.
whew,
theBitBucket.
That'd be funny if I hadn't live for a number of years in Hebrew University of Jerusalem dorms, where you had to obtain permission for having basically any electrical device. I don't think they have those rules now, but they did once. Also, they had prohibited electrical heaters - and having the fact that said dorms had absolutely no thermo-isolation except 5cm solid concrete walls, there was real problem to live there at winter. Jerusalem temperatures get below zero (Celsius) at winter, so try and live in non-isolated concrete barrack (with no wind protection either, and that's first floor, mind you) at -1 and strong wind outside. Only solution dorms provided were gas heaters, which smelled like gas station after massive leak and provided you with industrial-strength headache after 5 minutes of being hear you. And if you try and get you normal electiral heater, you risk it to be confiscated and you fined and even removed from dorms. And, mind you, dorm supervisors had right to check you room for prohibited devices when you are out! Just enter and dig your stuff, at their will.
So the guys there, with Ehernet access at dorms, are having top-grade conditions compared to me and my fellows had when studying.
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
So they weren't paying for the access; that's service theft. Technically, the university has the right to arrest them.
But *why*? It's not that big a deal.
Just chop their cable, or feed it into an outlet or something. That'd be a lot funnier, they'd learn their lesson, and nobody'd have to deal with the police. Not to mention the deterrence factor... every kid who came into that hall thenceforth would hear the tale of the illicit cat-5 that got rerouted into an electrical socket.
I always figured it was just my school, but apparently all college administrators are insane.
PLEASE get this right. They'll be charged with
(if under UK law) "obtaining services by
deception", NOT with theft. Their local legal
system will make a similar distinction. The
only people looking silly for calling it
theft are those repeating and trumpeting
the allegations; the authorities will use the
right wording and not sound idiotic when it
actually comes to charging/arraigning these
people.
To Whom It May Concern:
I recently read of an incident on the OSU grounds, where students were arrested for 'theft of ethernet'. As a concerned outsider, I must say that this decision makes OSU appear foolish and frighteningly overreactionary.
I fully understand that there are rules which always must be followed, however I am quoting from your own 'Appropriate Computer Usage' guidelines Section 1.02 paragraph A when I note that:
This sentence strongly implies that all students are granted access to the networks at OSU.
The sentence after this notes a requirement to take into account various obligations before allowing access to 'University information resources', and it would seem that you are defining this rule to have been infringed upon. It is unlikely that this is true, as in the previous sentence you have used the terms 'networks' and 'information technology resources' as seperate entities. Seeing as your policy does not clearly define any of these terms, it seems clear that all students are allowed unconditional access of the OSU network, so long as they are not allowing improper access to OSU servers.
Section 1.02 Paragraph D states the possible repercussions for breaking the OSU Appropriate Computer Usage agreement. It notes:
This sentence mentions nowhere the possibility of punishment outside of University channels, even assuming that what these students had done was truly a punishable crime.
Section 1.03 Paragraph C states that users may use only their own computer accounts, however it makes no rule against the sharing of network access.
Section 2.01 Paragraph C Sub-Paragraph 9 has a statement regarding unauthorized access of networks. This paragraph which reads:
This paragraph does not apply to the students in question as Section 1.02 Paragraph A clearly states they had the right to access the network. Beyond that, the proposed penalty for this infraction would seem to be a possible revocation of OSU computing privileges, not arrest.
Section 4.01 of the Appropriate Computer Usage agreement states the Consequences of Misuse of Computing Privileges. There is no privision in this agreement for external law enforcement. none.I hope the attention which this case has attracted will make school administrative officials take notice of this obvious massive oversight on their part. The only crime which is clear to me is a case of wrongful arrest.
I hope that the school will realize that any legal action against these students will produce only two things, a student who will face unjust future bias in their career, and a university which shows that it is willing to not only discipline it's students unjustly, but to do it in a manner which leaves legal questions for future employers.
In my opinion, even if these students have done something which is against the spirit of the school's usage agreement, is to clear all charges against the students and have any record of the occurances expunged from their records. Additionally, the University should reconsider the ability of whomever decided that arrests were warranted to competently perform their job function.
This is a matter which should've been handled internally, and without fuss.
Sincerely,
Kevin Way
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WOW! A friend of mine lives literally *TWO* doors down from one of the guys mentioned! And the cable had been there (a blue RJ45 cable coming down from the ceiling into the fella's room) for a good month before anyone ever did anything about anything! My passive self never wanted to ask him what the cable was all about -- maybe his friends had a personal network going and most of his friends lived above him on the second floor. But now that I've read the article on the front page of the O'Colly and the front page of Slashdot (I'm still amazed it made it!), I realize that something was up!
. htm
As for the fact that they were paying for internet access in the first place, they were paying the "Student Technology Fee" which is an automatic fee that's charged for every hour that a student is enrolled in on campus. This fee covers the cost of the STF-funded computer labs only. (I used to work in one of these labs for three years, and my managers used to remind me that that was where my paycheck originated..) On the other hand, Residential Life (http://www.reslife.okstate.edu/main.htm) charges their own rates and runs their own servers to support dorm ethernet access. The dorm these guys live in is the "old/cheap" 50-year-old dorm "Stout Hall" -- the one with no air conditioning, no cable TV, no in-room carpeting, and no internet access (just a sink that spits out filthy water and lead pipes insulated in asbestos that rattle during the night).. Students can't even get modem access because the campus is using a propretary digital phone system! And these guys just let the little renegade inside them take over, protest and steal some internet access.
ResLife has been proposing to refurbish this building for years, but they didn't have a place to put 400+ students. Until..
http://www.reslife.okstate.edu/pictures/new/new
..ResLife decided to put up new apartment-style housing, demolish the high-rises, and decommission Stout Hall. The students currently in Stout have first dibs to signup for the apartments. They will be quite nice -- two or four bedrooms, with an ethernet jack in each room and at least one extra jack in the living room!
..the guys just couldn't wait to move I guess..
Hell, we just got Southwestern Bell ADSL off-campus all over town here in Stillwater, and it is a hell of a lot cheaper and more reliable than living on campus with ethernet access!
-Quazi
So what if someone installed wireless networking, such as the Apple AirPort? This would do the same thing, but it wouldn't leave any physical evidence. And unless the school specifically bans it, it would seem to fall under a presumption of fair use, assuming that it's also being used for laptop connections by the people in the room where it is connected.
So these kids were violating University policy. At most schools, there's a school-run judicial system. The school issues a fine, and it then proceeds through that system; in most cases, students just pay the fine. For more serious issues, penalties may include prohibitions from campus social events or suspension.
I assume OSU has such a system; correct me if this is wrong.
So why was that system not used? Usually colleges do all they can to keep their discipline issues in their own system, avoiding the added publicity and buerocracy that police involvement brings. Why not just issue a fine to the students to recover the unpaid access fees (and possibly a penalty fee)? Is this consistent with how OSU handles other discipline issues, or are they trying to make some sort of example here? If the latter, could that unfair application of the law be a defense in court?
Two Stout Hall residents were arrested Monday for stealing access to the Oklahoma State University electricity network.
"CIS reported that someone had attached an extension cord to an unused outlet in the basement of Stout Hall into private residential rooms in the building, allowing the residents of those rooms access to the university's electricity," Altman said.
An OSU staff member told police about some of the same people stealing electricity connections before CIS reported the offense, Altman said.
Eddie Denman, assistant director of Residential Life, said there is a slight difference in rent rates for residence hall rooms with and without electricity.
"It's not a lot of money. The difference is $24 (per semester)," he said, comparing Willham Complex and Kerr-Drummond Hall, two halls equal in all ways except electric connection.
Denman said the reason not all residence halls have electricity is because OSU does not have enough money.
"It's financial," he said. "There's not running water in all the halls. There's not ethernet in all the halls.
"There's a lot of things at the university that we'd like to do, but we just don't have the money."
Travis Wolcott does not understand why he cannot access the campus electricity network when he is an Oklahoma State University student who pays technology fees.
Wolcott said he and other students regularly take their own appliances downstairs and connect to the electric outlet with 20-foot cables.
"They (police) have yet to tell us what is the difference between plugging in our lamps downstairs with a 20-foot cable and plugging in our lamps upstairs with a 300-foot cable," Wolcott said.
He said he and the other students wired their lamps in their rooms from an old beauty parlor in Stout Hall.
"It was unused, and it had been unused for (about) three years," Wolcott said.
Wolcott said he did not tap lines into the OSU system.
Other options for connection include other electricity providers and campus fireplaces.
To use other electricity, a student has to purchase a gasoline-to-electricity power converter and can only use the connection after business hours.
Wolcott said that option also doesn't provide enough current.
"The lights in the basement are not bright enough for us to read (class assignments) by," Wolcott said. "They don't have enough filaments. Most of them don't even have dimmers."
Having the electricity connection strung up to his room gave him immediate electricity access, along with other students.
"More people came down to our room to dry their hair or to read stuff" instead of walking through the rain to the Mathematical Sciences Building, Wolcott said.
Now, the four students have been barred from using the campus fireplaces, and their OSU water connection has been canceled.
Jackie Bolin, Stout Hall director, said she could not comment on the situation because of the ongoing investigation.
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Hmm. Let's see.
a) They apparently had NO contract or other written or verbal agreement giving them the right ot use the universities PRIVATELY owned network (it's not a public right, you know..). So.. instead of paying the appropriate fees to the university, they used a connection they had no business using. What's the problem here? They WERE stealing.
Now... as for the punishment.. the U should go lightly on them. This is rather similar to other college type pranks.
This is just a minor offense for the students, I can't imagine it ever being a big deal for them in the future. Who this is really bad for is the University. Here's a little free publicity telling the world that your school doesn't offer standard internet access, which is quickly becoming a commodity, especially on college campuses. It just speaks very poorly for this school, especially to prospective students that are growing up in a completely technologically soaked world. Even the nongeeks want to be able to check their email from their dorm room. A school that won't put out the money for a little information infrasturcture is going to quickly fall behind.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
I am an OSU student, and although I like the whole free access vibe of the Slashdot community, this is one time I am not going to say "damn the man, let em go". There are several things that people should know about this situation. First of all OSU provides internet access to most of the dorms. The one these students lived in is a dorm that is used for low cost housing, most of the services provided in other dorms, such as cable, air conditioning, and internet access. Basically its place to hang your hat and a phone, and without air conditioning, its damned miserable to live in from April till October. If they wanted internet access so bad, they have a choice of almost any other dorm on campus to live in, many with low cost options like the dorm they lived in. Basically they have the option to get the access legitimately. Sure it may cost them a little more a month to get a room with access, but ethernet connections to a fiber backbone aren't cheap. On top of that, there is a computer lab with full access for them to reach the net in the dorm, and several sizable labs all across campus. Its not like they were completely locked out of the net. Basically they were using a service they hadn't paid for, and were reasonably priced and available. Its also important to remember that they were charged with misdemeanors, not felonies. They'll pay a small fine, maybe some community service and go home. If your looking for a reason to crucify OSU, this isn't it. Crucify OSU for its poorly run netware 5 network that goes down more than a drunken sorority girl.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett