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More on the University of Florida

Posted by michael on from the vote-with-your-tuition-dollars dept.

setzman writes "According to this article, the University of Florida has implemented a software program known as ICARUS (Integrated Control Application for Restricting User Services) to monitor student activities on the campus network. If a user downloads music or videos the system deems to be illegal, they will lose their connection and be punished by being forced to watch industry propaganda, lengthy suspensions of access, or even a written reprimand. Yet the system hasn't resulted in an increase in CD sales? Hmm... Maybe they will figure out another way to improve their failing business model?" We covered this some months ago but the Associated Press is just catching on.

3 of 341 comments (clear)

  1. I'm confused by kinnell · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Yet the system hasn't resulted in an increase in CD sales? Hmm... Maybe they will figure out another way to improve their failing business model?

    Does the University of florida sell CDs? Is the drop in CD sales affecting the sources of income for the University of florida? If not, isn't this a stupid comment? If the RIAA were blackmailing the university into implementing this then I would agree that this is a rights violation, but get real: the University of Florida is perfectly well entitled to take steps to ensure it's network isn't used for illegal purposes, not to mention monitoring the use of it's resources. Yes, downloading copyrighted material is illegal, whether you think this is right or wrong. If you don't like this, go to a different university, or get a private net connection.

    --
    If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
  2. How is this bad? by geirhe · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Network connections at university do not come from a horn of plenty. They cost money. A lot of money. The internet connections are there to help the students learn. All rhetoric aside - Kazaa doesn't teach anyone anything you need to know at a university. Being able to see the cost of using things like Kazaa is, however, a sought-after skill. We need more people like that where I work, at least.

    I don't think the other students should have to foot the bill for those who want to use huge amounts of bandwidth. Those who want to swap can get their own, private internet connection.

    When a private ISP does this, I will care.

  3. False-positive? by mcbridematt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Didn't NPR run an article on this? But NPR's article stated that using P2P AT ALL will trigger the warning.

    Thats got me worried.

    P2P CAN Be used as a legimate software distribution medium. i.e FreeBSD and some other free software tend to get a lot of hits on my upload queue.

    So, if users were getting Linux ISO's over p2p in the university/corporate network, and this software triggers false warnings, who knows what will happen.