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University Network Policies and Punishment?
A not-so Anonymous Coward asks: "I'm a student in the dorms at the University of Colorado, where every room is wired with Ethernet. I bought an 802.11b access point and card, and have been using them on the network. 2 days ago, I came home to find out that my network access had been shut off. When I called ITS, they said it was because I was running the access point, and this was against policy. I proceeded to look through CU's site, and read the entire AUP and terms of use. Nowhere in these agreements is any ban on using wireless equipment in-room. When I called back to see when I could get my access turned back on, I was told that the one person that could help me was out sick. So far my access has been off for 2 days and counting, and chances are slim that I'll get it back by Monday, leaving me with a total of 5+ days without access, all for a violation I was unaware of, and had no warning about. Do I have any rights to force them to turn my access on earlier, or do I just sit without access until they get around to helping me?" Now assuming the AP was not completely open to public access, what possible reason is there for such a limitation? Most kids now go to college with laptops, and an AP is probably the best way for them to work (ie, not tied to the wall). My recommendation would be to politely talk to the University IT department? If anyone else has been in similar situations, how did you go about dealing with the University to get your account/email address/network access restored?
on the insecurity of 802.11b
Try hacking your own gateway with airsnort
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
I was banned from my University's network a couple of days ago after an e-mail incident - a large university announce-only mailing list had been accidentally left unmoderated and was being flooded with rubbish from all over the campus. I posted a message explaining what had happened (for the benefit of the users asking "Why am I getting so much mail!?") and suggesting everyone just wait it out until the list admins re-moderated the list.
As you can imagine, I was pretty surprised when my room connection stopped working and I recieved an e-mail informing me that I had been banned for a week!
After a short e-mail exchange with a network admin it became apparent that someone had sent an abusive message to the (now moderated) list using my name as their signature. The message had been picked up by a list moderator who suggested I was banned along with the other public abusers of the list. E-Mail headers were checked, my name was cleared and my connection was reinstated (the guy who pretended to be me could be facing a £250 fine though).
The point of this rather uninteresting story? University network admins are reasonable people, but you have to aproach them in the right way. I was painfully polite in every one of the e-mails I sent them, I explained my circumstances in detail and made sure to thank them for their time. Provided you put your case in a clear, concise and above all polite manner you should be fine. What you SHOULDN'T do is go demanding better treatment and quoting University rules left right and center - that won't help your cause in the slightest.
"Most kids now go to college with laptops..."
That's a ridiculous statement and an indication of the extent to which we in the (extended) tech community often have our heads in the clouds.
Sorry to be off-topic, but I've spent the day trying to figure out how to shoehorn another 10,000 low income kids into a subsidized summer daycamp program without a budget increase. Issues of class and disposable income are in the front of my mind at the moment.
No, his tuition is paying for his education. His residence charges are another thing altogether. I would argue that his internet access falls under residence charges, which decidedly isn't an education.
*everything* is Orwellian to cats.
At UMKC (umkc.edu) the IT department has just recently instituted this policy. The staff has had wide speculation but the one that seems to make the most sense is.... Money. The university is currently charging $450 for a quickly one hour drop of a new CAT5 port. Not only does this finance the people doing the drop, but also the subsequent equipment upgrades required to provide consistant 10 megabit access. While I do not agree with my university's methods or logic, I do see where they're coming from. There is probably something similar occuring at the Univ. o Co. You should consider asking what the cost of a new port is...
This is relatively suprising that he got 'caught' considering the length of time the CU ResNet and ITS takes to find things like this.
It took weeks, months, and more for them to actually send an email to the guy running a CounterStrike server down the hall, and it took them even longer to find my server.
It seems the CU ResNet policy is to give the student the runaround whilest not providing any information or help at all. I've heard a few different situations that come up:
Server Is found:
* ITS sends email to user explaining they are in violation of the AUP
* ITS shuts down all external access to user dropping all packets from and to outside networks, and sends email like above
* ITS shuts down all external access without any explanation
* ITS literally disables the port the offender is on, after the one or two of the above procedures.
Which happens is anyones guess. Will the offense actually be recorded or not is anyones guess.
Here's my experience:
I was running a mp3 ftp server. I know. AUP violation plain and simple. So i'm suprised, but not perplexed when my connection gets turned off. I call ITS to see whats up (and how long I'll be down, etc.). They have no record of the violation, and they can see my machine, MAC address, etc just fine.
They come out and test the connection by plugging in their own equipment and everything works. I show them I still get link light on my machine, and the switch I have attached (another little linux box I have for development). They connect through the switch and still they work. They give up and go back to research some stuff on the internal routers.
Two days go by.
We finally get a call back from the techs. They explain my machine was blocked off at the external routers, the same procedure if we were to be 'blackholed', except the record was never entered. The tech who finally found the problem removed the block, and I was back on instantly.
So in general, suprising he got to even talk to someone.
Anyway, as to his specific problem though, I would think that if he can prove his access point was secure, so that nobody outside the campus, could get on (the only way they could is through a NAT or if they set up their machine with the dhcp servers on the network. You must register your MAC with those servers to get access outside the campus), he should be fine. There were many of us in the dorms that had more than one machine hooked up on switches, and no complaints there.
--onyx--