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Online Quiz As a Gateway to P2P
Andy Guess points out an interesting approach taken by a Missouri university to limiting (and limiting legal exposure because of) on-campus, on-line copyright violations, as described at Inside Higher Ed: "In order to download (or upload) files on any peer-to-peer network whatsoever, all on-campus users at Missouri S&T have to pass an online quiz on copyright infringement. But not just once. Passing the test — with a perfect score — enables peer-to-peer access for six hours on the user's on-campus registered machines."
Test software: Hello Mr. Manson, 1) Is murder legal?
Charles Manson: no
Test software: 2) Is murder bad?
Charles Manson: yes
Test software: 3) Would you feel bad if you murdered someone?
Charles Manson: yes
Test software: 4) Do you presently feel like murdering?
Charles Manson: no
Test software: 5) murder, Murder, MURDER!!!
Charles Manson: no, No, NO!!!
Test software: Congratulations, you have scored 100%. You now have 6 hours of access to the cutlery drawer.
Trolling is a art,
True or false: Copyright infringement is stealing?
Guess I'd fail. :)
How long before some smart kids come up with a script to automatically complete the quiz? (and possibly sell it to fellow students)
The Mothership
So how many seconds will it take for someone to write a script to automatically take this quiz for you every 6 hours?
Education is no substitute for intelligence, as people who run institutions of higher education are usually well educated.
Of course, if I saw a check from the RIAA's bank made out to the university President, I'd have a higher opinion of the intelligence of the people running Missouri U.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
How pointless is this? First off, people need to know that P2P != Illegal. Seriously, because I can download ROMs and other copyrighted work easily over HTTP should that be banned too? I can download others via FTP. I can download still others over various chat programs. The fact that P2P can allow you to easily download files quicker with less cost then with HTTP suddenly makes this technology "evil"? And before anyone says "Oh but most people download illegal things via P2P!!!", how many more illegal things do people download via HTTP? Im guessing a lot more, with "pirated" YouTube music videos being posted all the time (yet thankfully the RIAA isn't suing the users of YouTube... yet) And also, has anyone tried to download Linux ISOs of a popular distro a day to a few weeks after release via HTTP? You are lucky to get 30 KB/Second whereas with P2P you can top 200 KB/Second easily.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
So basically, their students can access the internet for 48 hours a month. Sounds great.
Like passing a test on the law on driving before getting a drivers license (for X years). Having to get a driver's license hasn't stopped auto accidents, or auto crime for that matter.
They say it eliminates the student from being able to claim ignorance of the law, but when has that ever been an excuse? If they just want to shape traffic (as the article mentions) then they could do that without having 6 hour licenses.
So, this is just more useless bureaucracy. And how long until someone makes a bot to defeat the test?
all on-campus users at Missouri S&T have to pass an online quiz on copyright infringement
If I headed this university, I'd make my students take quizzes on math, chemistry, physics and whatever else the university teaches, to get access to P2P. I mean, if they want their music bad enough, they'd have a great incentive to do well at school.
But quizzes on copyright infringement? talk about brainwashing. As if they had nothing more productive to cram their brains with. Sheesh... On top of it, it's a trap: if a student is caught downloading illegal material, he can't claim ignorance.
All in all, a rotten idea that could have been a great one. You can feel the twisted minds of **AA execs behind this sorry scheme...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Let's see this 'test'
Is it a test of the specific actual copyright law? Os it some thing put together by someone who thinks they know copyright law?
I would love to see a copyright attorney go over the test. One that isn't employed by a media company.
Every 6 hours is just stupid.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I have taken many tests and I have found that getting a perfect score is not so much about knowing the material as about knowing the expectations of the person who wrote the test.The answer would vary depending upon how well the person "grading" the test understood "stealing" and "copyright infringement" and your local, state and national laws.
I'm going there this fall, will this create troubles when trying to recieve updates or downloads for, say the latest linux distro, which i have previously used p2p for.
There was a time when university campuses were bastions of free thought and conscience. Of course, the administrations were usually composed of the worst variety pedantic, bum-kissing bureaucrat the academic version of Social Darwinism could produce.
I'm not sure about free thought and conscience anymore, but the administration part seems to be just about the same.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Just require a capcha to download a file. Will stop P2P police on its tracks while not posing much of an inconvenience to users.
And in 2 years the quiz will ask student to enter the name of one or more criminals "stealing" music/movies.
Police State U: turning in a friend, today!
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
It's a university. The questions should be about math, history, the constitution, spellign, or whatever courses the student is taking. Well, and of course, net etiquette like having your FTP session only after business hours. Why "educate" so narrowly?
Oh, they say it's because the university got a lot of DMCA notices. I bet the university had a lot of other problems, too, though. Ask the students questions about the university budget. Ask them questions about using government to solve problems. Then when/if the problems happen again, the university can at least say, "Well, we made sure the students understood things."
Yes, we need a more sophisticated test, one measuring true underlying intention. I can imagine it going like this:
Holden: You start up DC and notice that copyrighted files are being shared, Leon.
Leon: Do you make up these questions, Prof Holden? Or do they write 'em down for you?
Holden: The files are being shared, and other students are rapidly downloading them. We can't stop them without your help. But you're not helping.
Leon: WHAT DO YOU MEAN, I'M NOT HELPING?
Holden: I mean you're not helping! Why is that, Leon?
[Leon has become visibly shaken]
Holden: They're just questions, Leon. In answer to your query they're written down for me. It's a test, designed to provoke an emotional response. (pause) Shall we continue?
How long before someone automates the test?
This from the FOOLS that renamed the school twice:
1) Missouri School of Mines,
2) University of Missouri at Rolla
and now:
3) Missouri University of Science and Technology.
Will they keep a log of the wrong and creative answers?
I'd like to see some collegiate level essays on the question of whether file sharing is legal or not.
I'm sure this would prove rather elucidating for a lot of people.
I'm really interested in the creative answer essays from those in the law programs.
hmmmmmm
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Max eight uses per month and who picks what is a 2p2 app?
What if the quiz system is down and some needs something for class right now?
Do you have retake the test if you need the network in Class? in lab? what if for class you need more then 8 times? Are the it staff under the same limits?
Parts of the windows update system act like p2p networking and M$ is working on a p2p update systems as well. It will be very bad if some update system get blocked by this?
Library's have been closed and sued by the BPAA(book publishing association of america) for "making available" copyrighted materials.
When you put a young mind to it, there's nothing that a good re-education can't accomplish, eh?
;~(
I'd say the voters have failed to maintain the necessary grades as the country is clearly failing.
This should at least be under ' its funny.. '
Its just stupid.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
As a student at Missouri S&T, there are a few things I didn't see in the article.
* Several of the questions use double negatives so you really have to stop and think about what a True/False question is really asking.
* If you don't get a perfect score, you have to wait two minutes before you can retake the test. And the questions are different each time. Sometimes the double negatives have been removed causing you to trip on the same question twice, just because it looked very similar to the one asked two minutes earlier.
Also, I wasted two of my six P2P sessions just trying to get my client set up to jump through all their hoops.
Google hit #1 for "Missouri University copyright quiz"
is
From http://mizzouit.missouri.edu/security/dmca-quiz.html
which states:
"If you have downloaded copyright-protected files without paying for them then, quite simply, you have broken the law."
No, quite simply, that statement is bullshit as well as many other statements on that page. It is under-informed fear mongering and spreading the big-media meme that downloading and sharing is somehow bad.
There are many options (including our site) for people who own copyrights to distribute creative works, get financial sponsorship, or distribute their works for free if they choose to - and furthermore to allow others to distribute their works for them if they license their work in away to enable it. While these issues (downloading, payment, redistribution, illegal actions) are all closely connected to the copyright on the content, making such a blanket statement is irresponsible.
Paying for content rarely enables sharing today. It is the *licensing* and the actual laws are the important part for users to understand when they download or redistribute content. People need to read and understand the licenses and the law to know if they are breaking them.
In order to access the buildings that hold Philosophy, Biology, Archeology, Anthropology, or Sociology, a student must first pass a test regarding Theory vs Fact. Those who pass the test with a perfect score are allowed to attend one class session. This system has reduced complaints from supporters of Intelligent Design theories. Naturally there has been some 'grumbling' from supporters of Darwinian Theory. Overall the administration feels this method works.
What's that smell? Ah, that's my karma burning...
Abolish copyright and stop this bullshit. 6 hours?? Why not 5? or 3? Please.
I have a feeling that this is mostly a means for the university in question to avoid being sued by the RIAA. Additionally it should make it really, really for said university to enact disciplinary action (revocation of access rights to university computing equipment, etc.).
This reminds me of "The Great Loyalty Oath Crusade" in Catch 22, where all of the pilots had to sign a loyalty oath to the USA at each meal, before each briefing, before take-off, and so on.
Yosarian points out that all that signing makes the oath meaningless. No one reads it or considers it, they do it like they wipe their nose. Catch 22 has a lot to teach us.
Even if I believed in intellectual property (which I don't), I would think this was a silly thing.
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
Here's the guy responsible for this:
From: http://web.mst.edu/~kfl/
Karl F. Lutzen, CISSP
Office: CS 334
Office Hours: Monday through Friday by appointment.
Email address: kfl@umr.edu
Phone: 573-341-6398
enable encryption set your client to use ports other than the default
What you may not know, if you have never been on the UMR (now Missouri Science and Tech) that there is a huge P2P system called Seek42 that encompasses the entire network.
It essentially adds every PC to it's search network as a share. Professors, students, staff...EVERYONE uses it. Cool, but worm-city.
i wonder if the 8 times is based around your MAC address... just mask it, rinse and repeat! So many holes in this method, it won't take long for students to find loop holes in it
Windows Update is not P2P - it is your computer directly contacting a central server for downloads. I can't think of any college who uses P2P apps for tests or classroom materials. If you RTFA, you will notice it only blocks P2P applications (Limewire, Kazaa, eMule, etc.), not the entire network.
"But this one goes to 11!"
Question 1: Is it illegal to copy a CD?
Of course not, unless:
1) the work qualifies as copyrightable (i.e. sufficiently original); AND
2) the work is eligible for copyright in this country (e.g., choreography prior to 1978 is not); AND
3) all necessary steps were timely taken by the rights holder to enable copyright protection; AND
4) the time period for the copyright has not expired; AND
5) the copyright has not been waived, discharged, invalidated by a court, or otherwise vitiated; AND
6) the work has not at any time entered the public domain; AND
7) permission to copy was not obtained from the rights holder, or the valid terms placed on that permission to copy were not adhered to; AND
8) a fair use exception does not apply, THEN
It MIGHT be illegal to copy the CD.
It could be a capcha-like concept, whereby it's not something that can be automatically joined but requires actual human intervention. It could be a damage limitation exercise - copyright violations can't be indefinite, but are constrained by the access time. Depending on how it's done, it could be a familiarization/educational exercise in teaching students how to distinguish between fair use and copyright infringement. (Bear in mind that "fair use" at an educational facility is often not the same as "fair use" elsewhere by special agreement, because researchers need rather more freedom than the average person and have limited budgets.) It could even be a way to try and encourage students to use P2P for other things than just sharing music and Doctor Who rips. Really, there are so many possible ways something like this could be approached and implemented that assumptions about their reasoning are as futile as trying to stop students filesharing.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You mean, if I could just download one and not get caught. No, I certainly wouldn't MUAHAHA
Taken from https://itweb.mst.edu/~p2preq (I am a student at S&T)
Question 1 The copyright holder can still sue after filing a DMCA violation notice.
True
False
Question 2 What can be protected by copyright?
Creative works in tangible form
Ideas
None of these
Facts
All of these
Question 3 Do you disagree with the Acceptable Usage Policy
No
Yes
Question 4 No files shared on Peer-to-Peer networks are actually viruses
True
False
Question 5 The Digital Millenium Copyright Act was created in order to:
All of these
Extend copyright law in order to keep up with technology
Make it illegal for people to share information on the Internet
Make Peer-to-Peer file sharing networks illegal
Question 6 Do you intend to infringe copyright?
No
Yes
Unless they force us to take a class on "Why Copyright infringement is bad," how do they expect us to know this BS? Morals? Ethics? Fox News?
Seriously though, it can't be too hard of a test, its annoying, unfair, and almost certainly useless in convincing broke ass students (such as myself), that we should pay $16 for a CD with 2 good songs, or download DRM laden audio files that I can't use on multiple devices.
Orbis terrarum est non altus satis
* 14 years
* Life of the creator
* 25 years
* Life of the creator plus 70 years Do we get to hack their server after the Chastity Bono Act becomes law in the late 2010s?
So is P2P a knife or a gun? Well, if HTTP is walking, then I would put P2P as a bicycle, but definitely not an automobile. Persecution of protocols is ridiculous anyway. P2P clients will just have to have a library of protocol plugins, and keep trying them (and port variations) until they find one the ISP is not blocking. That is what happens anyway on a manual basis.
Everyone will be a fat lesbian with a famously MILFy mom?
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
We just need to start linking "traffic shaping" to racial profiling. In effect, the two are not that different. Just because "you" (the airline security guy or the ISP) think that person/packet X is more likely to "cause trouble" doesn't mean that they/it should be treated differently. Let's get some good ol' negative connotations attached to this issue and get the non-nerds amongst us to understand that these practices are bad for everyone.
In theory, theory always works in practice. In practice, theory rarely works. <><
anything for pr0n. even studying your ass to hell in your freshman year.
Read radical news here
Joke fails it.
The Chastity Bono Act is the name that I have always used to refer to the sequel to the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (aka the Sonny Bono Act). Some analysts interpret the Supreme Court's upholding of the CTEA in Eldred v. Ashcroft (2003) as giving Congress a blank check to extend copyright terms right when copyright in works first published in the 1920s is about to expire. This hypothetical bill would extend the U.S. copyright term by 30 additional years, to the life of the last surviving author plus 100 years (for works first published in 1978 or later that are not made for hire) or 125 years (for other works). Congress would rationalize it as a "harmonization" to Mexico's life-plus-100 copyright term, just as it rationalized the CTEA as a "harmonization" to the European Union's life-plus-70 copyright term.
You get a total of 8 activations, each of which gives you six hours of use. So if you did write such a script, you'd have no "p2p access" after two days.
No, my question is, how long till students either revolt or go somewhere else? More importantly, is this a university which can afford to lose their CS department? (Do they have one to begin with? I don't know, just asking...)
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
As a student and actually fighting against the 15GB quota per day on my personal internet access, I thought myself lucky for a while and wrote Missouri U an email thanking them for being so infernally mad to implement such censorship.
"Hi,
My name is Antoine Nilsson and I live in Sweden (Europe, No, Sweden is not same country as Switzerland).
As you might know, Sweden has different copyright laws, including one that allows us to share our bought music. Therefore I wonder, if I send music that I have bought and ripped to my American friend who studies at Missouri U, does he break any copyright laws then?
Also, I wonder, how many in the school board got bribed and what sums did they get (just for statistics)?
I also thank you with all my heart for the fact that you accelerate the retardation of the American people with your internet censorship, so when the European Union stand on your border, the occupation of US will be swift and painless.
Sincerely yours,
Antoine
PS. We has polar bears (and you can't have them). DS.
PPS. This mail contains no bombs, anthrax or terror threats of any kind. DDS"
link to the polar bear: http://www.yaoi.se/art/files/art/299.jpg
This does nothing other than mitigate the university's liability in the situation. Now the RIAA and MPAA can't go after the schools, only the students. Brilliant way to shift liability for the act if you ask me. This also makes the pot smaller for the RIAA. Students have much less money than educational institutions, maybe the MPAA will stop bothering with this bullshit when they can't squeeze any big dogs.
Given the silliness, I'm banking on per MAC address. *SMACK* So much for *that* limit.
I bet you raise as much fuss about the phrase 'identity theft', don't you?
~ Aero
They're just teaching the kids not to seed. Bastards!
The article states that in addition to taking the test, users only get 8 P2P sessions a month. That's only 48 hours. I think that's much more of a factor in the reduced number of Copyright Violation Notices than taking the test is.
In my school, we use TVUplayer to watch TV during mid-day and sometimes use the software, combine with a projector, to show viewing of the major futbol competition like the UEFA Champions league. If this "quiz" shit ever happen in my school we are going to have big problems hosting future shows.
"The New Age. The New Beginning."
What's more they seem to apply this to all online users including faculty. Apart from the limitations on research (particularly if P2P is adapted for Grid computing-based file transfers) this displays a complete lack of trust in their faculty. With an administration like that I imagine attracting and retaining good faculty will be incredibly hard/impossible (why go there when you can go somewhere they trust you to act responsibly?) so the result will likely have a negative impact on student education.
Copyright infringement is NOT, of course, stealing at all. It is copyright infringement. They were careful to distinguish the two when they made the laws.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
If too many people actually become educated about copyright and its real intent, they will start calling for it to be abolished, or at least roll it back. Knowledge in the wrong hands can be a very dangerous thing. Ignorance is strength
What?
Anybody who feels this is censorship is really REALLY not paying attention. From what I gather, this is nothing more than something to protect network resources. If you visit their web site, the name S&T stands for Science and Technology. Therefore, one can assume high tech research on the campus may require protection of the internet resources and bandwidth. This would be the reason for packet shaping. Prioritizing the importance of the traffic and sending the important stuff through first. As for the quiz. If I were an IT security officer, I would think this was a smart move, not only for liability purposes, but also from a standpoint of enforcement and protection. If you have signed off on this, stating you understand the law, and still violate it, you can't come back to me and say "I had no idea this was a problem. Please don't restrict my access." Taking a look further into their site, they have tools which allow for class collaboration without having to use P2P sharing directly from the student's system. Therefore, the policy likely doesn't keep the student from doing their work, it probably actually frees up network traffic to allow that work related traffic to flow faster. The university is State Funded, meaning they can't just increase fees to accommodate additional bandwidth needs, so they have to work within certain constraints. These constraiints pose a challenge to all Universities to ballance the need for an open network and making sure research and educational traffic gets priority. The University isn't censoring. Furthermore, if the student feels he has a God Given right to break the law, there is nothing stopping the student from obtaining a broadband card and stealing the works on his own dime. I pay taxes too and don't feel I should be paying for students to break the law. It is encouraging to see my hard earned $$ going towards at least being sure the student is aware they are breaking the law, as opposed to being blissfully ingnorant and pretending it doesn't happen.
Most UMR* students leave the dorms as soon as they can. This is a relatively minor inconvenience for freshmen and some sophomores. Minor because since most students live off-campus and large hard drives are cheap, its simply a matter of bringing back sneaker-net for the "last mile", and once the movies/music/warez/whatever is on the local network, sharing folders and USB drives take care of the rest in short order.
As for the comments about losing the CS department - my experience was that the CS students were some of the quickest to get out of the dorms, because the IT policies were so annoying even before this, and you could get faster and more reliable connections via cable and dsl. This isn't likely to bother too many CS students.
*I will continue to call it UMR, changing the name to MS&T "Because nothing in the UMR name emphasized technology" is stupid.
Hallelujah! Someone gets it. Thank you. Well said. To me it is clear that the intent of the set up is to make sure the users at least have a clue as to what they are doing when they use the P2P protocols, but the actual use isn't analyzed. The users cannot deny later they had no clue about copyright issues and try and beg off. Oh, here's another good thing this does: if a person has a laptop running P2P at home, leaves the software running and brings the system onto campus, they are not going to get nailed with a DMCA violation just because they forgot to turn off their software. This does provide some protection to the less-than-bright. Remember: The RIAA is targeting .edu's, no matter what they may say in the press.
oh, but wait...
It appears you might have missed my ironic point: you forgot to qualify your assertion about "law and custom" with any of the numerous limitations of the exclusive rights in a copyrighted work. In Slashdot's jurisdiction, some of these limitations include the right to criticize a work (17 USC 106), the right to resell or lend a lawfully made copy (17 USC 108), the right to make copies of a computer program as necessary in order to run it (17 USC 117), the right to make non-commercial copies of a sound recording (17 USC 1008), and the right to make all uses of a work roughly a century after it is published (17 USC chapter 3).
Besides, if a work's copyright has been sold so many times that the copyright owner is no longer identifiable, who "is entitled to the privilege of sole distribution rights to that work, and sole rights to profit from the distribution of that work"?