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More on the University of Florida
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.
... even more than the loss of student's privacy, is the fact that other universities have approached these people about buying this ICARUS program.
I'm all for respecting the copyright, but that doesn't extend to censoring my computer. It sounds a little shady to me. What they may end up doing is forcing students to add internet connectivity options to the college-selection process, which is a shame.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
Let me tell you first hand that this is one sneaky system. I lived in the dorms over the summer when it was implemented and they didn't even inform the students. All of the sudden my connection was just off. I wasn't downloading ANYTHING, I just had kazaa open in the background (not sharing any files).
I am one of the proud 100 students caught twice mentioned in that article. Now I have my own house off-campus with cable modem service. Hell, it beats using a proxy to destroy ICARUS (it isn't smart enough to monitor packet contents, just destination). Thank God I'm transferring to University of Michigan.
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
It would be interesting to see if sales of CDR and DVDRs went up.
Also, what is to stop an informal, peer to peer wireless service starting up?
All the authorities probably want is to not be liable to the RIAA. They don't care whether you download songs or not, they just don't want the RIAA knocking at their door. They are also picking up the tab for all that bandwidth as well.
They probably realise that their students will get round it anyway, or if they don't, it doesn't say much for the ingenuity of UF students.
Humorous signatures are over-rated.
I might not agree with what the university is doing, but in this case the university can differentiate between the private property (the computer) and the public property (the bandwidth). Note I didn't say I agree with them but at least they are making this separation to the students.
However, one thing I think the University is doing that they need to be VERY CONCERNED with for themselves (and not the students) is that they are now EDITORIALIZING. In other words, they are now saying they have looked at the content and this makes them RESPONSIBLE FOR IT. As soon as you do this, you are legally in a much worse position than you were before.
A bookstore that claims that it has reviewed the titles on its shelves is in a worse position than one that hasn't. It cannot now claim that it didn't know that there was lewd material in one of its books.
This is dangerous because once the law considers it the norm for a university to monitor its bandwidth usage (and not just the amount of bandwidth but the content), they are now open to litigation much more easily. In the end, it is possible that universities might just have to forego much of their Internet access to protect themselves legally. A lose-lose situation for everyone.
Sunny
Be my Friend
You may recall Icarus as the son of Daedalus. Daedalus was an early technological innovator, who developed wings to allow himself and his son to escape the prison they were confined in by King Minos. Minos was angry that Daedalus had given a citizen the key to the maze that Minos had required Daedalus to build for Minos' benefit. Unfortunately, Icarus tried to exploit his father's wing technology incautiously, thus bringing destruction on himself and grief and guilt to his father.
Not that there's a modern metaphor there anywhere...okay, maybe. Key:
- Daedalus = the
/. crowd
- Icarus = the general computer-using public
- wings = peer-to-peer networking
- prison = DMCA
- King Minos = RIAA/MPAA etc.
- key = DeCSS etc.
- maze = copy prevention
- incautiously = without adequate anonymity
- destruction = massive lawsuits, etc.
But you knew this...Even more interesting: Icarus is the child of Daedalus (a technological wizard) and Naucrate (a government whore)!
:)
But that's okay, since there's no technological wizardry or governmental whoring involved in this one, right?
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.
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.
I'll give you the run-down.
It monitors your connection to the kazaa network. It's nothing too fancy. If you connect, you get screwed. They run the check like every 30 minutes or something. Once detected your internet is immidiately shut off with no notice. A flier will be sent to your dorm finally informing you of what happened. The first time I had to go see the head RA of my dorm complex who was also clueless on the outage. He contacted the network people who let me know that it was the new ICARUS system and that I had to go to a webpage to reactivate my account. Upon visitning the site you are told exactly what happened, and the first time I think I got my net cut off for only 30 minutes.
The second time wasn't so pretty. Same routine (although this time I KNOW i wasnt even downloading anything or sharing, just connected to kazaa... what's the crime in that?) but different sentence. My net was cut off for 48 or 72 hours (cant remember which), and I had a judicial violation. If I violated again, I would have perm. account suspension and I would have to go before a review board.
So basically, if you are on the UF network kazaa is blocked for all intensive purposes. I don't know why they don't just BLOCK kazaa instead of screwing students over in this manner. However, I'm a student, not a suit, so what do I know, right?