Sniffing the Wireless Traffic of MIT Students

An anonymous reader writes "Someone got permission to sniff the wireless traffic during an MIT class. The professor: none other than Robert Morris, creator of the first Internet worm! The lecture: computer security! I love it."

Comments

Thank you, Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Highest number of packets: MDNS (Multicast-DNS, Zeroconf) with a whopping 30% of all packets. Because computer Barbie says: Configuration is hard.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[Itninja]

But the case is so pretty. I...can't...stop....must...resist....

Re:Thank you, Apple

[0100010001010011]

How large were the packets?

And the timeline of ZeroConf:
The IETF Zeroconf Working Group was chartered September 1999 and held its first official meeting at the 46th IETF in Washington, D.C., in November 1999. By the time the Working Group completed its work on Dynamic Configuration of IPv4 Link-Local Addresses and wrapped up in July 2003, IPv4LL was implemented and shipping in Mac OS (9 & X), Microsoft Windows (98, ME, 2000, XP, 2003), in every network printer from every major printer vendor, and in many assorted network devices from a variety of vendors. IPv4LL is available for Linux and for embedded operating systems.

May 2002: Apple announced their Zero Configuration Networking solution under the product name Rendezvous.

That's like 'blaming' Apple for Wireless networking because they're one of the first vendors to actually use 802.11b back when they just called it "Airport".

It was still hard to find 'wireless' cards/access points that weren't freakishly expensive in 2001 when I went to college. And when I finally did get a Card in early 2002, the utilities to actually manage it were useless.

However, Apple debut it in 1999:
"AirPort debuted on July 21, 1999 at the Macworld Expo in New York City with Steve Jobs picking up an iBook supposedly to give the cameraman a better shot as he surfed the Web."

You might as well have said:
So thanks apple! Not only are you taking up most of the packets with the mDNS that you "invented" it was all possible over the wireless network that you also "invented".

Re:Thank you, Apple

[arth1]

I thought AIM was for 13 year old girls and pedophiles.

What in the above stats convince you otherwise?

Re:Thank you, Apple

[arth1]

It's not THAT Apple uses zeroconf, but HOW they use it.
There's nothing in the zeroconf specs that say you have to constantly flood the network with queries.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[metamatic]

On the other hand, Zeroconf was basically invented by Stuart Cheshire, who works for Apple (and invented the tank game Bolo, another good way to waste network bandwidth).

Re:Thank you, Apple

[ThrowAwaySociety]

Highest number of packets: MDNS (Multicast-DNS, Zeroconf) with a whopping 30% of all packets. Because computer Barbie says: Configuration is hard.

*rolls eyes* Yeah, what's with kids these days and their automagical service discovery.

Back in my day, we manually entered protocol names and IP addresses. Forget zeroconf, we didn't have DNS. We kept a list of IP addresses in a text file on our systems. And if we didn't know the IP address, we went out and walked over to the datacenter, uphill, both ways, in the snow, and we wrote it down using our own blood for ink so we wouldn't forget it.

And we liked it that way!

Re:Thank you, Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

260000 packets, 21 sources, 45 minutes = almost 5 packets per source and second. If that's an acceptable price for not having to enter a printer IP address, then you must really hate trivial configuration tasks.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

> I thought AIM was for 13 year old girls and pedophiles.

Mmmm 13 year old girls...
um, wait, what is this about?

Re:Thank you, Apple

[arth1]

BZFlag is better, but speaking of multicast and games...
Back in the good old days, one could get a whole IPv4 multicast address assigned to a game, like 224.0.1.2 (SGI-DOGFIGHT)

Re:Thank you, Apple

[paiute]

Tsk, tsk. Mod MIT -1 overrated. I sure wouldn't pay out my ass to send my kids there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes

Re:Thank you, Apple

[hoggoth]

I don't there there are many 13 year old girls at MIT. Draw your own conclusions.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[Em Emalb]

If that upsets you, you should have been around for the AppleTalk days. Combine that with Token Ring and you can pretty much drop a network to its knees with little to no user-generated traffic.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[ElectricTurtle]

Mmmmmm... now that's good sarcasm!{/Jon Stewart}

Re:Thank you, Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they counting AIM and ICQ separately? I know ICQ accounted for most of my Internet usage when I was in school...

Re:Thank you, Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't there there are many 13 year old girls at MIT.

1) See above, then come see me after class -- Your ESL teacher
2) You didn't get it - even the guys at MIT have the minds of 13 year-old girls. They just know how to play with engineering Ph.D daddy's expensive toys.
3) Oblig - a - tory!

Re:Thank you, Apple

[dgatwood]

At an average of 50-60 bytes apiece, that's a total of a whopping 47 kbps, or 0.0047% of capacity. Yes, that's an acceptable price.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Each packet is an interrupt (assuming no IRQ aggregation or a mostly idle network) which wakes up the CPU of every system in the multicast group. Bandwidth on a wireless network is also not just the payload. Small packets produce a relatively large amount of synchronization overhead.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a 13-year-old female pedophile, so, yeah, I showed up as three of those entries.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[natehoy]

Now get the hell off my LAN! :)

Re:Thank you, Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

there is nothing...[buffering]...wrong with RealMedia!

Re:Thank you, Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

BAHAHAHHA - well played, sir.. well played

Re:Thank you, Apple

[Rockoon]

Look at it this way:

259932 MDNS packets

...over 45 minutes...

...and 21 sources...

Thats 5776 packets per minute, 275 packets per minute per machine.. or an average of 4.6 packets per second per machine, of just MDNS traffic.

Now, this shit does what, exactly? Why exactly does it need to spam the network every 220ms?

Re:Thank you, Apple

[gyrogeerloose]

Excellent rant, but you forgot to tell us to get off your lawn.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[CapnStank]

What I find more interesting is:
"Number of traffic sources in the room: 21"

Maybe I can't comprehend this properly but 22 AIM > 21 sources?

Re:Thank you, Apple

[Zen Hash]

What I find more interesting is: "Number of traffic sources in the room: 21" Maybe I can't comprehend this properly but 22 AIM > 21 sources?

Maybe someone was logged into more than one AIM account from the same machine.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[dgatwood]

So that students can find each other's iTunes libraries, among other things. You may not realize it, but mDNS plays a pretty significant role in college dorm life.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[jimbolauski]

Bolo, another good way to waste network bandwidth).

Bolo is not a waste of network bandwidth, with it's ring communication it is very light on on the bandwidth latency was always the problem.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes

Re:Thank you, Apple

[butlerm]

At an average of 50-60 bytes apiece, that's a total of a whopping 47 kbps, or 0.0047% of capacity

The effective capacity consumed could be quite a bit higher than that due to CSMA/CD overhead and the like. If someone else is transmitting a station has to wait a random amount of time before transmitting, for example. That is a non trivial factor that can easily take a busy 10 Mbps network down to 3 Mbps of usable capacity, for example.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[tsm_sf]

Well in all fairness if the token happens to fall out you can spend hours looking for it.

Billable hours.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I thought AIM was for 13 year old girls and pedophiles.

Well, 13 year old pedophiles have at least little to worry about if they are caught.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[dgatwood]

True, and this being Wi-Fi, that's a very real problem. I was thinking more of wired ethernet when I made that comment. This is one reason why for high density Wi-Fi coverage areas, you should generally reduce the transmit power to limit the range of the radio and use more radios.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Baloney!

Bolo used to bring the Appletalk network at my high school to its knees. The secretaries couldn't even print.

Yet another reason Bolo was awesome.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[butlerm]

Shared media Ethernet (Thin ethernet over coax, or 10baseT with a hub instead of a switch) has a similar requirement for CSMA/CD, and with the accompanying reduction in usable bandwidth. 10 Mbps -> 3 Mbps is common.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[spazdor]

There's room in an MIT security course for plenty of both.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[BZ]

21 sources, right? Sending broadcast packets on a WiFi network? But WiFi has no concept of broadcast packets; these are simulated by the access point transmitting the packet to each wireless client individually.

The question is what tcpdump (which was used to create the logs) would show here. Would it show one broadcast packet? Or 22 separate packets (1 from source to AP, and 21 from AP to destinations)? I think last time I tried (when mDNS traffic from a few hundred laptops all in one room was totally swamping the one access point) it was the latter... but I could be misremembering.

If the latter, then looks like the actual send rate for any given machine is about 1 packet every 6 seconds. But the quadratic growth in number of actual packets in the air due to lack of real broadcast packets makes things suck.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[ceoyoyo]

I think you're right -- looking at a wired network, Macs don't send anything like 5 MDNS packets per second.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to slow them down if you're on a wifi network.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[dgatwood]

Yeah, but when is the last time you actually saw non-switched ethernet in the real world, though? I fried my last legacy 10-base-T hub about eight years ago and couldn't buy anything non-switched to replace it even way back then.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[YodaYid]

ThrowAwaySociety and natehoy, you made my day :-)

Re:Thank you, Apple

[butlerm]

Come to think of it, wireless ethernet is an excellent example of non-switched ethernet. (smile)

Re:Thank you, Apple

[Rockoon]

But the quadratic growth in number of actual packets in the air due to lack of real broadcast packets makes things suck.

Exactly. The idea that "WiFi doesnt have broadcast functionality" is lost on me. I don't care what excuse there is for why there are 4+ packets per second per machine if that 4+ is an unreasonable amount for what is being accomplished...

It is an unreasonable amount, IMHO.

Imagine that instead of 21 sources, its 100 sources? Does that mean 20+ packets per second per machine? Really? The cafeteria where I work (12,000 employees or so) has 100 or so people fucking around with their iphones and androids pretty much around the clock, 7 days a week.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[BZ]

> The idea that "WiFi doesnt have broadcast functionality" is lost on me.

Ethernet has the concept of a "broadcast packet". You put a single packet on the wire, set its destination address to the broadcast address, and the network stack on every single machine on the same wire as you gets the packet (normally the NIC would filter out packets addressed to IPs other than its own, but the broadcast IP is special).

802.11, on the other hand, doesn't have a useful concept of "put a packet on the wire" that would apply in the way it does to ethernet. Each of the devices on the network effectively has an individual point-to-point connection to the access point, at least as I understand. So to simulate a broadcast packet, a whole bunch of actual radio messages have to be sent.

> I don't care what excuse there

I think you need to check the difference in definitions between "reason" and "excuse".

> Imagine that instead of 21 sources, its 100 sources?

Then your network starts collapsing, if they're all on a single access point. Of course a competently set up network that has to handle that many people typically has more than one access point.

> Does that mean 20+ packets per second per machine?

If there were 4+ packets/s with 21 sources, then with 100 sources you would expect about 100+ packets/s in this situation.

The upshot of which is, if you're going to have broadcast packets over 802.11, then you need to be very careful with the number of clients per access point; otherwise it's easy to saturate the network. Or the other way around, you shouldn't use broadcast much if you can avoid it.

Unfortunately, mDNS is designed for your typical home use situation, where the expected number of sources is 5. It works fine in that situation; it just starts to break down when used in large gatherings.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're using the term "invent" a little loosely. Zeroconf is merely a variant of previous service discovery methods, so "invent" really is misleading. And tank games are written, not "invented".

Re:Thank you, Apple

[dgatwood]

I meant non-switched wired ethernet. Smart aleck. :-)

Re:Thank you, Apple

[Rockoon]

Ethernet has the concept of a "broadcast packet".

I know what UDP broadcast packets are. You missed the point in that it doesnt matter what they are. The existence of UDP broadcast in no way validates how this MDNS operates.

MDNS is sloth and while in the confines of your typical LAN its only minor sloth, its still sloth. There is a better way even under those confines, so its design is inherently wasteful and flawed.

Broadcast packets blah blah blah.. its lost on me. "Its bad because we used broadcast packets" is an excuse, and is not the same as "its bad because even though we minimized the need for packets, they still must be broadcast" which is an explanation. The later simply isnt true.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[BZ]

You just don't seem to be getting it. All I said was that the reason that the packet frequency is as high as it is in this case is because of a fundamental design decision with mDNS and the way wireless networks operate, not because someone purposefully set some sort of packet send timer to fire every 200ms. Anything else you choose to read into that is your problem.

Re:Thank you, Apple

[Rockoon]

All I said was

No, thats not all you said. You went on about excuses vs explanations...

If you wish to retract some of the things that you have said in order to make my points no longer relevant to your remaining argument, do so. However, since you havent, my points are relevant.

I dont think you have a personal interest in MDNS, so I must conclude that you have a personal interest in not looking like you commonly make incorrect statements and assumptions. If thats the case, just dont reply.

Get Your Facts CORRECT ! : +2, Prior Art

[Anonymous Coward]

You state:
"Robert Morris, creator of the first internet worm!"

You are obviously unaware of The “worm” programs—early experience with a distributed computation

I hope this helps your reference callouts.

Yours In Akademgorodok,
Kilgore Trout, C.I.O.

Laptop Useage in Class?

[SmilingBoy]

I haven't been to university for 9 years, but are students really using laptops during class???

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Ephemeriis]

I haven't been to university for 9 years, but are students really using laptops during class???

Laptops, netbooks, smart phones, tablets... Yup.

In theory they're typing notes or recording the lecture or something.

In practice, I suspect it is more of a distraction than anything else.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[adeft]

My IT based education took place mostly in computer labs with desktops built into the desks the students sat at. The desk itself was a clear window with your monitor below it, keyboards were stowed underneath. PSU class of aught 6.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Monkeedude1212]

In my class 2 years ago, it was pretty much mandatory. Prof would be walking you through a PHP script for logging onto the server. If you weren't following along, you were considered not learning the skill.

In this way, the prof could look around at everyones laptop. He'd be able to see how people coded differently, and give suggestions on how to either improve their style, or what languages they'd be most comfortable in, what editor they might like, etc etc. It went beyond simple reading of the code, it was an inspection of how you wrote the code you did, and I found it very helpful.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[gront]

Yes. Absolutely.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/08/AR2010030804915.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010030805078

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[AnEducatedNegro]

son, I was in university 10 years ago using my laptop in class. it's great for taking notes, though i am more jealous of kids nowadays because they have tablets and ipads. how i would have killed for that instead of using a wacom tablet and a laptop....

it was also to disguise the fact that i was writing video games in my intro to computer architecture classes

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[rwa2]

Probably not anymore... now if you had a CDMA / GSM / EDGE 3G sniffer, that might be entertaining nowadays...

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and despite your skepticism, it's actually useful:
-Take notes
-look up a reference that the prof didn't bother to explain
-If you're bored, you can pay half attention instead of just falling asleep.

Mind you, like the rest of college, you get out of class what you put into it. There are certainly kids who go to class for attendance points and spend all period playing farmville.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Hunter0000]

Speaking for myself, I find them a good distraction during mandatory classes with professors I have already discovered can't teach whatsoever and I am better off reading the book (and sometimes I do that instead of use a laptop). For those who can though, I never do.

At least at my uni you can usually tell how respected the professor is by how many laptops/iPhones/random gadgets are being used in-class.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't been to university for 9 years, but are students really using laptops during class???

You're kidding, right? Did you forget a digit?

The first laptops came out, what, a little over twenty years ago? They appeared in university classrooms about five minutes after that.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Securityemo]

Yeah, sure, why not? If you can't keep attention, that's your problem.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you could say that : http://edc.carleton.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/1480737317_0d5042886b1.jpg

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Quantumstate]

At my maths course in the UK there are two people who use laptops in lectures, one is a laptop which converts into a tablet so the guy takes note with a stylus. Then other guy types the notes up using Word 2007. Everybody else uses paper. The only exception is the computing course (introductory programming) where a lot of people had laptops and which were recommended.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[cgenman]

When you're not taking class in a room full of computers. All of my grad classes have involved desktops in front of us. Add to that students who have both laptops and iphones / androids out in front of them, and you have a pretty wired group. iPads are just starting to filter in, but look perfect for keeping up with information.

They're great for taking notes on. You can take some detailed notes, then send them around to absent students after class, or search your notes for snippets. Eight months later when you're wondering how you wrote that code to do a bubble sort, or what that cute anecdote about the October revolution was, you can just search. You can also search for clarification online, or bring up an example of something you'd be curious about.

Of course, lots of students drift off with them. It's a shame, really.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

You should go take a class (any class), and sit in the back. I've seen people browsing ESPN for the whole lecture, playing Flash games, reading the news, voting on $HOT_OR_NOT_CLONE, looking at page after page on $PICTURE_CAPTIONING_SITE, you name it.

For bonus entertainment, try to get in on study groups with these same people to hear them gripe about how hard it is to learn the course material.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[SmilingBoy]

Not in European universities which are the only ones I have been to. Many students had a laptop towards the end of my studies but none of them took them into class. WiFi or UMTS (or even GPRS) did not exist at this time. I should add that I studied economics and not computer science. We did have some (econometrics) classes in computer labs, but that was about it...

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Bakkster]

At least at my uni you can usually tell how respected the professor is by how many laptops/iPhones/random gadgets are being used in-class.

Or, at least how easy the class is. I knew 90% of the subject matter in my physics and chemistry classes, yet was forced to attend physics by electronic attendance. I just distracted myself until there was an interesting demonstration or an interactive question for participation points.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Bakkster]

Availability isn't the same as cultural standards for their use. One might assume that his university discouraged (either actively or through peer pressure) their use in class, and he is surprised that acceptable standards have changed.

It used to be that you excused yourself to the bathroom to use your smart phone, and using it when company was present was seen as disrespectful. Now blackberries are used in the middle of meetings, and teenagers text while carrying conversations with others in the room.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[yo_tuco]

"In theory they're typing notes or recording the lecture or something.

In practice, I suspect it is more of a distraction than anything else."

Not much different than when we were bored with a lecture and played hangman on our HP41C calculators back in the 80's.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[ElectricTurtle]

You're kidding right? You didn't even have 802.11b? That came out eleven years ago and was all over my university when I was there eight years ago (where I also used a laptop in class, and I know the law students were all required to have laptops). So do Europeans have fire? Or the wheel? I mean please.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[HeckRuler]

Yeah, I can type a hell of a lot faster then I can write. And I can actually read it afterward!

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[HeckRuler]

That sounds awesome. A hell of a lot better then my ComSci department that made us write out code on paper for the tests.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[MoonBuggy]

I'd be very surprised if Wacom were willing to cannibalise sales of the Cintiq range by putting equivalent quality digitisers in tablet PCs.

They don't even seem to make it particularly well publicised which laptops are using their brand of digitisers, which to me seems as though they want the money for the hardware without risking brand erosion from a lower quality product.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[cshay]

When I visited friends at UK universities I noticed that students seem to have a lot less spending money than their US counterparts. So this might have something to do with it. In the USA university costs so much money, the cost of a laptop is insignificant.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[korean.ian]

Only a distraction if you let it be. Returning to school this year, I use my notebook to take notes in all my classes except econ, because graphing is not much fun in TextEdit.The notebook is pretty valuable, although I suspect it would be of less use in a science/maths lecture. Easy text formatting for highlighting different pieces of information within the structure of the notes, useful for looking up relevant information, and of course I can type faster than I can write, so while putting down the important bits of what the professor is saying, I can also easily inject my own thoughts/comments on the subject as they come to me.

Do lots of kids use facebook and shit during class, of course they do, they're on mommy and daddy's dime, why wouldn't they fuck around? Not all do though. I'm sure there's correlation between grades and facebook use in class, and once could certainly theorise causation....

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[EvanED]

I have a ~2 year old Thinkpad tablet. I'll rave about it to anyone who'll listen, but it's probably not what you'd need for graphics/photo editing, though it's certainly fine enough for taking notes with OneNote in reasonably small handwritten text.

The biggest problem for graphicas work I suspect is that there's a fair bit of parallax between the digitizer surface and the display surface, so moving your head or turning the tablet alone will "move" the cursor several pixels.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[HungryHobo]

Oh I'm in comp sci now and we still have to do tests on paper.
If anything we do use the computer labs for tests less than most of the rest of the science faculty.

Though to be fair we're also far more likely to figure out how to bork the system to cheat which would only be fair in a security exam.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[SmilingBoy]

11 years ago was 1999, and that was maybe when the standard was released. I left university in June 2001. Two years are not a lot of time to build up a wireless network. I certainly have not heard of anybody using the Internet over a wireless network until maybe 2002 or 2003 and started using it myself in 2005 only (in hotels).

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[jellomizer]

It is far more common now...

I Graduated from my Undergrad about 9 years ago too. The people who actually used their laptops during class were considered arrogant rich snobs. Who just wanted to show off their bling. Most students didn't have laptops, it was only reserved for either the Arrogant Rich Snobs or the people who live so far away from the college that they need to fly to school so they have a small computer to bring. The really techie people of the time had the huge desktop towers 2 feet tall minimum. Loaded with CD Rom and CD-RW Drivers (you needed 2 because the CD ROMS were 8x while the CD-RW were 2x) 3 1/2 Floppy Drives, 17"-19" CRT displays...

Now I am working on my Masters things have changed... Everyone has a Laptop and you look like you are Old-School if you don't have one for class. Class assignments expect you to use your laptop and tests are even done by laptop just so it is easier for the professor to read your work.

Also a big change in the past decade was the expansion err umm infestation of PowerPoint. When I was in Undergrad professors used the Overhead Projector with the dry erase markers. Digital projectors were limited for classes that really needed them. Like a CS class that needed to show real examples. Today every class has a powerpoint.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[pjt33]

I graduated from university 8 years ago and already some people were using laptops during lectures. Not just CompScis either.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Quantumstate]

It is not that people don't have laptops, virtually everybody has a laptop (apart from a few desktop users like me). I don't know of a single person without a computer.

A computer is essential unless you want to visit the computer lab every other day to check for emails.

There just isn't a culture of having laptops here which perpetuates itself.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[ElectricTurtle]

Jesus you people must live in caves. In 2002 wireless was ubiquitous both at Seattle University where I was going and Seattle in general. You couldn't swing a cat without hitting a place that offered wireless access and many used it.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a grad student, I can tell you that laptops are a distraction generally. There are a few students who can use them responsibly, but the majority play games—anything from wasting time with solitaire to wasting their parents' money in online poker. Some sit there and Facebook or IM friends. These are grad students, too... the same ones who like to boast about being more responsible than undergrads. I've never seen any of my colleagues use their laptops to take notes.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Monkeedude1212]

He was an amazing Prof, and a good deal of them were similar, it was a small classroom of about 40 folks, unlike the 100 person lecture halls at Universities. Thats why I prefer the Polytechnic. It might not be as impressive on the resume but its hands on training that companies can respect if their HR department is smart.

Don't get me wrong, there is always that one prof no one likes. I remember learning how to use VB in Excel... As if that class wasn't bad enough, we had an old military commander who would make you do pushups if you were late, or harass you in front of the class if you giggled at something.

As for tests - we only ever wrote on paper for word questions, usually short answer like "Why is security important?" and all that kind of stuff. We never wrote a test for Java, or C#, or VB, or any language or markup we learned. Instead we were given big projects to test our meddle.

The final project, worth quite a bit of the grade, was to partner up with someone, and build a fully functional travel agency web site, with one persons laptop doing the webhosting (locally in the lab) and the other person hosting the database. You were graded on every possible aspect, aesthetics, usability, functionality, efficiency, etc etc. You had to be able to accept customer registrations, bookings, and even payment through paypal (though the intructor set up the account). It was quite complex, especially for two people to do everything from start to finish. Some people were really bold and used Flash for spiffying up their website, and it looked amazing, but their back end would be a little sloppy. Other people would use simple HTML and javascript buttons to affect their hyperlinks, and while it didn't look amazing, their code could handle more than what was requested of the assignment, like trip suggestion based on criteria specified by the customer, and so on and so forth.

All in all, everyone did pretty good. And it was a great experience because you really learned what aspect of web programming you enjoyed. Some folks went off to be DBA's, other web designers, and some folks like me, .NET developers.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Anonymous Coward]

'...my own thoughts/comments...'

Boy are you in for a shock, as that is no longer permitted...

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[pluther]

Hell, I was using a notebook (as we called 'em back in Ye Olden Days) computer in class back in 1990, and I wasn't the only one.

No wireless, though, so I didn't surf the web with it.

No web either, come to think of it...

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[SmilingBoy]

It was at a top university in London, so not really a cave.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only a distraction to students who don't take a particular class seriously. I have horrible handwriting, but just the act of notetaking, be it writing or typing, is one of my key learning tools. I don't even have to refer to my notes necessarily, but my visual/kinetic learning style makes me able to learn faster that way. My problem is that often my brain works about 100x faster than my hand with a pen in it does. I can type and make up for that. I've noticed that yes, in the lower level freshman classes with 400+ students, laptops are often just used as a distraction, the further up you go, the smaller the classes, and the more dedicated to learning people become. Especially when they realize, like I did, that every time I fucked off in a class or skipped, I was basically wasting $50.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I can type a hell of a lot faster then I can write. And I can actually read it afterward!

If you learn to spell, it'll make sense, too!

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[StikyPad]

Ah, so just like work then.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[ElectricTurtle]

I'm not talking about just the university, I'm talking about the whole city. Wireless was pervasive throughout the entire metro-area. I know, I used to wardrive Seattle starting in 2002. Every neighborhood had access points.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Doctor Faustus]

I suspect it is more of a distraction than anything else.
And a way to stay awake.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[nicolas.kassis]

I had asteroid on my TI-83 ;p

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[nicolas.kassis]

That says a lot about the usefulness of lectures now days. I'm one of the worst offenders in class. But at least I'm coding something useful OR posting on slashdot ;p I know this will break most lecturers heart but most student don't understand much listening to lecture. It's usually a water hose of information that don't compare to good online notes. At least for the more visual students.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[blackfrancis75]

what languages they'd be most comfortable in,

And here I thought programmers were meant to be versatile, and chose the best language for the task at hand.
At least, that's the utopia we should be teaching students when they're just starting out, surely ;)

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Timmmm]

Only in America. Nobody does in the UK. (Ok, there are always a few idiots...)

Then again, we got fill-in-the-gaps style handouts in our (Cambridge Engineering) lectures. Sounds silly but it was actually really good, for the following reasons:

1. Keeps you awake and concentrating - if you don't listen you don't get complete notes.
2. There's no way you could reproduce the volume of material gone through in the lectures.
3. You can draw diagrams - try doing that in real time on a laptop.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[jimbolauski]

In practice, I suspect it is more of a distraction than anything else.

As opposed to the cross-word, the distraction of yesteryear.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Monkeedude1212]

Except that's never how the real world works, sadly. Go look at any available programming positions. They want experience in certain fields, since the architecture is already in place, it just needs updates and maintenance.

I much prefer understanding the general theory behind programming, so that you can easily go between languages with a quick brushup in Syntax, thats the way I've been taught. But to say that I should be as good at writing Java in emacs as I am at writing C# in Visual Studio is quite a difficult task to implement. Everyone is different, I think once the knowledge base of logic is there, specialization in language is key to getting a good job and enjoying what you do.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[dcw3]

Not much different than when we were bored with a lecture and played hangman on our HP41C calculators back in the 80's.

You insensitive clod! I had to use a sliderule...seriously.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[grolaw]

More than 23 years ago I took a Toshiba T-1000 to law school. I'm a fairly good typist, but gave up trying to keep up contemporaneous note taking within the first two weeks. I found that the best thing to do was to condense and rewrite my hand-written notes on the laptop after class.

Yes, I was the first student to bring a laptop to any class in my law school.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[blackfrancis75]

a) who would write Java in emacs? ;) j/k
b) if language specialization has to occur in the real world, I still think it better that it begin after schooling. Surely Uni is the time for equal exposure to available tools.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or lunar lander...

Was the 41c the one with the prom modules in the back. or was it the one with the magnetic card reader?

The one with the card reader was more like late '70s. I had both.

Either was f**king expensive. around $900 for a calculator.
I typed in the assembler for the game, and saved it on whichever one had the card reader.
Somewhere in a box I still have a book of programs to type in for both calculators.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Mister Whirly]

3. You can draw diagrams - try doing that in real time on a laptop.

What year in the past are you visiting from again? Students where I work have been doing this for years now. And tablets you can write or draw freehand on have been around for years as well, no matter what Apple wants you to think.

Here in the US college students also use their laptops to record entire lectures that they can play back later and take excellent notes from as well. (That takes care of # 1 and 2) Also, if you are good at typing, you can type notes much faster than you can write them. Also makes reading and sharing of the notes easier later.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Ethanol-fueled]

most student don't understand much listening to lecture. It's usually a water hose of information that don't compare to good online notes.

Pff. If that were true then they'd offer accredited engineering degrees online. Go to MIT open courseware, buy the texts and download the lectures and materials, and come back and let us know when you CLEP a structural engineering or linear optimization class.

Shit, trolled again :(

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[DamnStupidElf]

As opposed to the cross-word, the distraction of yesteryear.

At least that promoted vocabulary and a little bit of logical thinking.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Yea it is, we have the internet now!

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a prof for assembly that made us code tests on paper. sometimes as much as 1000 lines of assembly, on paper. Rediculous when there were 5 empty computer labs we could have used.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wrote an animated roulette game on my TI-82

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[icebraining]

I searches are faster too - I spend half of my statistics ("math doesn't need computers") studying time flipping pages.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[stop bothering me]

Have you had a look at OmniGraphSketcher as a quick way to sketch graphs?

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Sir_Lewk]

I had Wolfenstien :)

Of course I've done most of my calc game playing on an 89, those things are nuts.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Yea it is, we have the internet now!"

Let me write this down. Let's see, "being distracted and not paying attention in class with a networked device is not the same kind of being distracted and not paying attention in class with a non-networked device." Got it!

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[masterwit]

Writing on paper forces me to study. I do not have the chance to have the compiler catch some errors, run my code, etc. Being able to write the few lines necessary on paper shows that I know the syntax and can think like the compiler and computer in the sense I can anticipate potential problems. Now if your argument is towards "which method to chose" vs. "how to do this method", well multiple choice works great there too, or even fill in the blank! Sorry handwriting has forced me to learn a good bit...

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[ceoyoyo]

I never left university, but I clearly remember at least a few students using notebooks in class back then. Particularly in computer engineering classes.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[ceoyoyo]

Coding on paper makes you a better coder. Be thankful you had a CS department that made you do that. Few do anymore.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[rdnetto]

Laptops, netbooks, smart phones, tablets... Yup.

In theory they're typing notes or recording the lecture or something.

In practice, I suspect it is more of a distraction than anything else.

Speaking as a current uni student, both are true. When interesting/important stuff is being covered, most people use them for notes. When the material is less useful (examples, anecdotes, etc.) or just plain boring it's easy to find heaps of screens with Facebook on them (or in my case, /.).
Currently the tech users seem to be a minority (~10-30%), but I wouldn't be surprised at all to see it reach a majority with less than a decade.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[freaker_TuC]

not everyone uses a laptop in class!

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[Anonymous Coward]

Coding with punch cards makes you an even better coder. In that if you can last through the insanity-inducing monotony of an antiquated system then you're probably anal enough to write some decent code.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[saskboy]

Which begs the question, what is the effect of reading /. in class? And is it opposite of the Facebook effect?

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[ceoyoyo]

True. Coding on paper makes you a better coder because it forces you to think about what your code is doing rather than just writing something and hitting build/run until it does what you want.

Punch cards - weeds out the dilettantes.

Paper - forces you to think and plan properly.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[djdanlib]

Yes, I remember a few years ago the annoyance of people clickety-clicking away through the whole class. The people who were legitimately taking notes on their computers never seemed to be caught up to the rest of us, but always justified it somehow. Some professors expressly forbade it from their classrooms, which was nice.

The AIM chatters were really bad - burst of typing, silence, burst of typing, silence... sometimes a snicker or whatever. Even worse were the ones who were also listening to music on their earbuds where you could hear it if you were right next to them. Ever wanted to strangle someone with their headphones? Why even bother going to class??

I tried to take notes with a laptop once (two days and I was done trying that) but my typing is so much slower than the professors can speak, and thus requres a lot of attention that could be better spent engaging the material being presented. So you fall behind and miss opportunities to ask questions. Then there's diagrams - can't type those - and all the math - also hard to type.

I once saw a kid a couple rows up get busted for watching some movie while we were watching a video in class. Forcible ejection, hooray! The professor just happened to sit down in the back to watch the video and caught the guy, who was totally oblivious.

It's distracting. I used to wish people would either upgrade to pen and paper, or get tablets. But that was a while ago. Maybe things have gotten better.

Summary: You're better off without the laptop in class.

Re:Laptop Useage in Class?

[korean.ian]

Thanks for the recommendation, that looks like it could fill the need quite nicely.

Re:Famous WoW Guild Facebook

[arkane1234]

so?

Instant Messenger

[adeft]

I didn't think people really IM'ed anymore......and NO traffic to myspace?

Re:Instant Messenger

[Monkeedude1212]

You thought it just... went away?

I don't see how IMing would ever go away...

Re:Instant Messenger

[HeckRuler]

You know how your cell phone can "text"? You know how kids these days are all over that shit?

Well he's a pro tip, you can also do that with a computer.

Re:Instant Messenger

[hvm2hvm]

really? so what's the next step from IM? the one that should have made it obsolete already...

actually, now that i think about it, you're probably just trolling considering your question about myspace

Re:Instant Messenger

[Anonymous Coward]

how is it that a site supposedly visited by tech people, one person was shocked to find out that laptops are allowed in college classrooms while another thought IM was dead?

Re:Instant Messenger

[betterunixthanunix]

Perhaps if all instant messaging was being done using AJAX? Gchat, Facebook's IM feature, etc. This would not show up as "instant messaging," just more HTTP traffic, unless I am missing something.

Re:Instant Messenger

[Monkeedude1212]

Ah, makes sense when you put it that way. I still considered those as "Instant messaging" services.

In fact, I don't think any of those web browser chat features use port 80 or 8080 or 443. But I might be mistaken. I thought its not HTTP at that point, but a webapp running on its own.

Re:Instant Messenger

[betterunixthanunix]

To the best of my knowledge, web apps are only able to communicate using http/https -- the port might change, but the HTTP protocol will still be used. Hence, a packet sniffer will show what appears to be HTTP traffic, possibly on a nonstandard port.

It's not uncommon...

[zero_out]

It's not uncommon. In fact, at my alma mater, the students do the same thing in their IT security class. It's an exercise to show how easy it is to sniff packets, and find passwords for things like email accounts. This is meant to encourage better security. If the students don't know why something is important, they won't care. When I was in grade school, many kids didn't see why algebra was important, so they didn't care, and didn't bother learning the material.

Re:It's not uncommon...

[QuantumRiff]

At my school, after sniffing one lecture, I went right on down to the IT department, and showed them my packet sniffings of a proffessors machine infecting 6 unpatched machines in the library. They thanked me for it.

Re:It's not uncommon...

[Anonymous Coward]

Next on "Welcome to the Jungle": A savage Windows XP laptop preys on six unsuspecting library computers. Watch the packets fly!

Re:It's not uncommon...

[Anonymous Coward]

I did a similar thing and got kicked out of uni.

YMMV

Re:It's not uncommon...

[rgviza]

At my school (ASU), after sniffing one lecture, I threw up a little in my mouth. Damned sweaty bohemians that think a magic crystal works as deodorant. Not in Arizona heat...

Re:It's not uncommon...

[DamnStupidElf]

You forgot to use the backdoor the worm had installed in the computer to send an anonymous email, didn't you?

totally offtopic, but fun

[oddTodd123]

Wikipedia will do this to you. I clicked the link for Robert Morris, followed links to read about his first startup, and found their original business plan, which contained this gem in their list of needs, dated 8/24/95:

2. Secure server software ($5000). This does not seem to be an absolute necessity; there are a lot of sites on the web where you can send your credit card number unencrypted, and to date there have been no reports of the numbers being stolen. But catalog companies may *believe* that a secure link is necessary, and spending this $5000 would give Webgen a much more professional look.

Money well spent

[Reason58]

FTFA:

I got permission from Robert Morris and Sam Madden to monitor the wireless traffic during their Computer Systems Engineering class and made an announcement at the beginning of a class period explaining what I’d be doing.

He told everyone up front he was going to do this and people were still chatting, watching TV, reading about Warcraft, and updating their blogs. Just imagine how bad it would have been if he hadn't said anything. I bet some hard working people who were rejected by MIT are really happy to read this.

Re:Money well spent

[Chapter80]

Awesomely, AIM, Jabber, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo! Messenger were all represented in the traffic...

AIM is the clear favorite.

I've lost respect for MIT's admissions process.

Re:Money well spent

[cgenman]

I'm kind of surprised that they don't announce this at the beginning of every class, log all interactions, and present that data back to the student when deciding upon grades. When people know they're being watched, they tend to behave differently.

Re:Money well spent

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah like hide their activity, encrypt it, and continue doing what they were doing.

Re:Money well spent

[HeckRuler]

Well those hard working people apparently weren't smart enough to sail through highschool physics/calculus, since they apparently had to work at it.

It's a real kick in the pants, but some people are quick, clever, and sharp enough to achieve in a few minutes what it takes you hours to do. Life isn't fair, deal with it.

Re:Money well spent

[Anonymous Coward]

One CS class in college two students famously played chess every single day. The professor never said a word, and this was in a class of 10 students.

Being attentive in class is one dimension among many that determine your ability in a class, and when it comes right down to it doesn't say a whole lot, especially in easier courses where attention is less necessary.

Re:Money well spent

[Anonymous Coward]

""Awesomely, AIM, Jabber, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo! Messenger were all represented in the traffic...

AIM is the clear favorite."

I've lost respect for MIT's admissions process."

Depends. What were the AIM users doing? If the guys were talking to their girlfriends, it's a clear case of deliberate misdirection.

Re:Money well spent

[Reason58]

There is a lot to be said for work ethic. Trust me, I know. I'm posting this from work.

Re:Money well spent

[Anonymous Coward]

how can you be sure that a lot of the IM traffic was not from IM clients that autoload and run in the background rather then actual chatting

Re:Money well spent

[Anonymous Coward]

AIM is the default protocol for iChat. You have to know what you're doing to change it.

Re:Money well spent

[CAIMLAS]

I have to wonder: where is the IRC connection?

Re:Money well spent

[dcw3]

Well those hard working people apparently weren't smart enough to sail through highschool physics/calculus, since they apparently had to work at it.

And there's little that's truely fair in the college application process these days. So much of it is up to random individuals, quotas, and how you felt on the day you took your boards.

It's a real kick in the pants, but some people are quick, clever, and sharp enough to achieve in a few minutes what it takes you hours to do. Life isn't fair, deal with it.

I deal with it every day when interview new prospects. I'd gladly take a hard worker that gets along as a team player than some wiseass wizkid.

Re:Money well spent

[BikeHelmet]

I've lost respect for MIT's admissions process.

It's the best network next to Jabber.*1 It doesn't strip out or alter the formatting, so you can send code fragments through it, and copy them directly into an IDE.

*1 I have very little knowledge on Jabber, but know enough about the MSN and Yahoo networks to proclaim AIM is superior.*2
*2 I'm not talking about the clients.

Re:Money well spent

[Anonymous Coward]

As counter to your argument, even Stephen Hawking had admitted to not being a spectacular student in University, despite having tutors(who nonetheless thought he was a masterful intellect), due to a lack of work ethic. He only really did anything substantial when he began to work hard after his bachelor's degree, because in his mind it was a necessity, to generate income to care for his new lady. Take the smartest guy, and give him average work ethic, and the absolute average guy, and give him an incredible work ethic, the average guy will almost invariably know, do, and accomplish more in his lifetime. To quote Einstein: "It's not that I'm so smart, I just stay with problems longer."

Life is fair in that specific way. Deal with it.

Re:Money well spent

[rdnetto]

I'm guessing that most didn't care. Casual chatting, etc. isn't exactly stuff you'd get too bothered about if someone was observing you.
In fact, given how crowded lectures are I'd be more worried about someone shoulder surfing then someone sniffing traffic.

Re:Famous WoW Guild Facebook

[longacre]

No it didn't. profile.ak.fbcdn.net = facebook.

hmm

[hypergreatthing]

you need permission to receive radio transmissions?

What's next? permission to listen to people shouting at others across a room?

Re:hmm

[arth1]

Bad anology. It's about the expectation of privacy.

If I sit stark naked in my recliner at home, nothing prevents a passing balloonist from filming me through the window, but if he did so, I would still call it invasion of privacy. Because my expectations are that no-one will see unless they actively take steps to do so.

Similar for WiFi -- no-one will overhear the traffic unless they actively take steps to do so. When they do, it's an invasion of privacy.

Re:hmm

[cgenman]

You need permission to tape a conversation over the phone, even though the other party is sending that information to you. Certainly you'd need permission to tap that phone line, even if you did so remotely somewhere else. Why should the principle be different, just because the medium is wireless?

Re:hmm

[Chapter80]

Not sure where you're from, but just an FYI... In many states, it is legal for one party of the conversation to record a phone line without the permission of the other. However, some states are "Two Party Notification States".

Re:hmm

[Lumpy]

you can call it all you want. The Law states that any photo taken from outside the property is not. That is what matters, not what you think.

It's how I dealt with a Asshat neighbor. pointed a security cam at his house. Caught him throwing trash over the fence to the next door neighbors. I sent the footage to the cops and he got nailed. He threatened to sue me based on "invasion of privacy" and I dared him to do it, i even egged him on with" you ain't got the balls" and 'chicken" because I know the judge would eat him alive.

It's also why you can be arrested for indecent exposure when you are naked in your home. If I can see your dirty naughty bits from outdoors.

if you want privacy, keep the blinds closed.

Re:hmm

[CraftyJack]

It's called "civility".

You ask before doing things could piss other people off even when you are technically within your rights to do so, and other people are willing to cooperate with you to mutual benefit.

You can choose to forgo "civility", but then other people will refer to you as an "asshole" and you will have fewer opportunities to benefit from non-zero-sum cooperation.

Re:hmm

[drinkypoo]

You need permission to tape a conversation over the phone

Not if I'm taking part in that conversation, unless I go to some shitty state where I have even less rights than California.

Re:hmm

[swb]

Don't egg anyone on. It raises you to "willful participant" status.

Had it escalated to a physical confrontation you may have had trouble claiming self defense.

You always want to remain a "reluctant participant".

Re:hmm

[pluther]

Actually, California is one of the aforementioned states that require both parties on the phone to be notified of recording.

Fun tip, though: If you call a company and get a message that "To insure quality of service, this call may be recorded," this implies two things:
1. If you don't hang up, you are giving permission to be recorded.
2. Since they're stating it, they are also giving permission to be recorded (otherwise their recording would be illegal), and thus you can make your own recording and produce it in court to prove perjury when they produce an edited version.

Re:hmm

[rgviza]

>It's also why you can be arrested for indecent exposure when you are naked in your home.
yup. happened in my neighborhood.

Re:hmm

[Mister Whirly]

If you are broadcasting radio waves that can be picked up by anyone within broadcast range, your expectation of privacy should be zero. It would be different with wired, becasue that would mean someone would need physical access, and would most likely be trespassing and possibly breaking and entering to obtain physical access. When I can sit out in front of your house on public property and receive radio waves you are sending out, no crimes are being committed. What I am doing is passive, not active - the one actively broadcasting would be you. If you don't want your privacy "invaded", don't publicly broadcast what you are doing.

Re:hmm

[butlerm]

18 USC 2511 (g): It shall not be unlawful under this chapter or chapter 121 of this title for any person (i) to intercept or access an electronic communication made through an electronic communication system that is configured so that such electronic communication is readily accessible to the general public;

Unless intercepting unencrypted wireless traffic on an open network is a violation of some other law, it appears the Electronic Communications Privacy Act doesn't restrict it at all. (I posted this on the linked blog as well).

In other words, if you want to have an expectation of privacy on a wireless network using a readily available technology, you better use encryption and exercise some modicum of discretion about who you share the keys with.

Re:hmm

[butlerm]

There is long standing precedent that anyone can listen to virtually anything broadcast over the radio, as long as he or she does not disclose private transmissions to third parties or use the contents for his own benefit.

Several years ago Congress enacted restrictions on the interception of private "oral communication", including prohibiting the manufacture of ham radio equipment that could tune into certain bands (such as the original analog cell phone spectrum).

With those caveats, anything that is broadcast that is "readily accessible to the general public" appears to be fair game.

Re:hmm

[mgblst]

You realise you are in the wrong. You can't just film your neighbours 24 hours a day, and there is no court in US that would not shoot you down.

In your world, I guess I could follow you around public places filming everything you do, and you would not care about this at all?

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that it applies to MIT, but crazily in the UK - yes you do.

And we're not "citizens" we're "subjects", but the first page of our passports has Betty asking everyone to be nice to us so that's OK, surely?

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, and if you stand stark naked in your window and people can see you from the street, you will get arrested for indecent exposure.

And if you broadcast unencrypted WiFi packets, people may legally receive them, if you like that or not.

I mean what possible reason would the world have to tolerate your exhibitionism? Society has a compelling interest for you NOT to broadcast unencrypted packets. Why should there be laws on the books protecting you from the consequences of actions that are undesirable to begin with?

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Prove it.

Lmpy is right, you have zero clue to law.

Do nothing. Act casual.

[Itninja]

from TFA: "...monitor the wireless traffic during their Computer Systems Engineering class and made an announcement at the beginning of a class period explaining what I'd be doing."

So does this represent what would really be so if he hadn't told them ahead of time?

Re:Do nothing. Act casual.

[Anonymous Coward]

So does this represent what would really be so if he hadn't told them ahead of time?

No, otherwise there would have been more pr0n torrents...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Biased statistics

[Mathinker]

As other posters have noted, the fact that packets would be sniffed was announced to everyone; one wonders exactly how that biased the results.

Unfortunately, as the blog post notes, it's impossible to find out without breaking one (or maybe several) laws.

Re:Biased statistics

[treeves]

One wonders what fraction of the students understood what it meant that the packets would be sniffed.

Re:Biased statistics

[d3matt]

I'm not a privacy lawyer, but how is running tcpdump while connected to a WiFi hotspot a crime? Is there case law to back this up?

I can tell you right now that the telcos monitor your wireless traffic all day long without batting an eye.

Re:Biased statistics

[FlyingBishop]

Don't most universities have a blanket provision that they may monitor any and all traffic over their network? I have to imagine that would cover them in this situation, though they would probably be in trouble if they were doing large-scale monitoring.

That said, the law actually requires schools to do monitoring of piracy.

Re:Biased statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

If they didn't know what sniffing implied, then they really shouldn't be students at MIT!!!

Re:Biased statistics

[treeves]

Agreed, but we've already seen things (in this very article) that indicate that (a) they shouldn't be there, or (2) MIT doesn't have the population of students we might think it should.

Re:Biased statistics

[mgblst]

This is only Comp Sci class, they probably didn't even know what "sniffing" was, and why these "packets" smelt so good anyway.

One up

[Skyshadow]

Shoulda saved the results of the sniffing to Richard Stallman's account for old times sake.

Some more RAW wireless data

[punit_r]

CRAWDAD is a community based effort of sharing data captured on a wireless network, only after anonymizing. This has proved to be very useful to the research community in general.

Very real statistics about the protocols used and the kind of traffic patters observed over a period of time can be observed from the data sets. All of this with users not being very conscious of their activities. I say this because some of the data sets are for durations as long as 5 years. It is a lot easier to avoid surfing pron for a 45 minute lecture than to avoid it altogether for the entire duration of stay on campus. Having said that, I am sure some of the detailed statistics like popular IM clients, top 20 websites etc can not be found out from the CRAWDAD traces.

Re:Some more RAW wireless data

[tristan]

Yes, we host lots of similar traces on CRAWDAD and are always looking for more. This paper describes one of the largest traces, taken over five years on the Dartmouth campus (alternative link for non-academic users).

robert morris, MIT instructor

[Anonymous Coward]

Robert Morris is a first class douche.

It beats sniffing MIT students

[RandomUsername99]

It beats sniffing MIT students. Trust me.

Re:It beats sniffing MIT students

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, we're better at math than at reading. Can I help it that the bottle actually said "Eau de Colon"?.

Re:It beats sniffing MIT students

[Anonymous Coward]

It beats sniffing MIT students. Trust me.

Ok, we'll trust your vast experience in the matter :-)

You call that a summary?

[Wannabe Code Monkey]

Someone got permission to sniff the wireless traffic during an MIT class. The professor: none other than Robert Morris, creator of the first internet worm! The lecture: computer security! I love it.

I'm sorry, what fuck was that? Was it a few short sentence fragments that amounted to little more than a crappy twitter post? Oh, it was supposed to be a summary? Are you fucking sure about that? Because it doesn't look like anything of the sort. It looks like shit. I'm glad you love it though! Really, really glad! Isn't it crazy that someone would be sniffing of wireless networks in a computer security class? I sure do think so! It's awesome! How about that! Now if only I could get a professional editor to edit my posting before it goes up and maybe I'll be able to approach your level of communication!

so i cant seem to figure

[nimbius]

out what this article is actually about, and why i should give a shit...famous professor at expensive college gets approval for lesson plan related to security?

in college to demonstrate secure passwords, i had a professor run john the ripper on our auth hashes in shadow. live-fire security demonstrations are always a good tool in college because it provides a route for hands on learning and a finer appreciation of the subject matter, but its no different than an accounting or finance class being asked to bring their tax returns in.

Re:so i cant seem to figure

[FlyingBishop]

You should give a shit because these are students at a premiere finance college, and you got to see some data about what their tax returns looked like.

Re:so i cant seem to figure

[Anonymous Coward]

Grammar and Punctuation Police!!! Wooo Woo Woo ... pull over

That's the bastard!

[Anonymous Coward]

Morris cost me at least a couple days work with his stupid worm, and I'm not alone in that.

WWW != Internet

[Mostly Harmless]

From TFA: "Using the Internet means a lot more than HTTP traffic!"

Maybe that's because the Web != the Internet? I know that the Web represents most of the active time many people spend on the Internet, but really? When did the two become synonymous?

Re:WWW != Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Alice:How's your September going?

Bob:Long one, huh?

Alice:Been about 17 years now....

Re:WWW != Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

While I/We know the internet is not just web traffic, most people don't.

Re:WWW != Internet

[ceoyoyo]

I think it was around 1996.

Seriously. The average Joe has used "web" and "Internet" as synonyms since the average Joe heard about the Internet. "Developers" have been confusing the two since web page designers became "web developers." Ever since web apps came along pretty much everyone has forgotten that anything but http ever existed.

world of warcraft...

[ulzeraj]

Interesting to see mmo-champion.com as 10th most accessed http host on a MIT class.

Re:world of warcraft...

[VTI9600]

Well, you can't be a true champion if you're not accessing these sites in every waking moment of your day, right?

What I don't get is how this qualifies as news. I think that a more Onion-esqe title like "Packets exchanged over wireless network" (film at 11!) would be more appropriate. But somebody mentioned MIT, so its gotta be worth reading about.

code in pen and paper

[Anonymous Coward]

God I hate that!

Seriously, how do you debug code on paper? and just writing the dang thing out with a pen/pencil gave me craps in the wrist.

Re:code in pen and paper

[Nadaka]

My most annoying test was writing a grammar and recursive descent parser for a set of complex regular expressions on paper.

That professor was simultaneously the best and worst teacher I have ever had. He was a total hard ass, but if you managed to pass his classes, you really ended up learning.

Re:code in pen and paper

[StikyPad]

I hate wrist craps, especially when they're watery.

Anyway, the benefit of taking tests like that is that you don't *have to* debug. Syntax is usually a secondary concern (if it's a concern at all -- we were allowed to use pseudocode), and design is emphasized over implementation.. which is good, because any monkey can debug or look up syntax (and even the most skilled coders will have to), but creating an elegant design takes some amount of skill and insight.

Re:code in pen and paper

[Anonymous Coward]

Syntax is usually a secondary concern (if it's a concern at all -- we were allowed to use pseudocode), and design is emphasized over implementation.. which is good, because any monkey can debug or look up syntax (and even the most skilled coders will have to), but creating an elegant design takes some amount of skill and insight.

Count yourself lucky. I've seen write on paper exams where you had to have the professors API for a class memorized and write near perfect syntax C++. A dropped semicolon wouldn't get you in trouble but that was about it.

Re:code in pen and paper

[HeckRuler]

Actually, the first com sci class was mostly about learning the syntax of C++. So yeah, it mattered.

Not the first worm

[Anonymous Coward]

Just the first Internet worm to get caught. There were several benign ARPAnet worms before that.

MIT Runs Unencrypted WiFi?

[Anonymous Coward]

1) MIT runs a wireless network for students without encryption so anyone capture packets in 2010? That is worth a Slashdot posting.

2) With a sample size of ~50 people for 45 minutes, not really relevant to anything, much less Slashdot.

Scratch n Sniff

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I'd rather sniff their bicycle seats...

Re:Laptop Usage in Class?

[Tetsujin]

I haven't been to university for 9 years, but are students really using laptops during class???

You're kidding, right? Did you forget a digit?

The first laptops came out, what, a little over twenty years ago? They appeared in university classrooms about five minutes after that.

I was in college around the same time period - late 90s. Yes, laptops existed. Personally, though, I couldn't afford one. My sister bought herself a laptop running Windows 95 - a 90 MHz Pentium, I think it cost her over $1000 at the time. (And since she bought it on a credit card, with interest it became a real beast to pay off...) I don't think she used the battery very much - mostly it was to replace her old dedicated word processor machine and act as her dorm-room PC.

And then, apart from the whole cost issue, battery life wasn't so great back then, either. I think you could maybe expect a couple hours, tops? Not real sure, as I said I didn't own a laptop back then. Being practically tethered to an outlet seemed to make the whole process a bit silly - and personally, I think using a laptop in class would have mostly just been a distraction for me.

Though I did have an urge to not be stuck in my dorm room any time I was working on stuff... The large number of computer labs around campus helped there, but I also had a TRS-80 model 100 (and, later, a Palm III) that I could use for writing papers and such from any place I felt like being.

But, you know, things change. Hardware got better and cheaper. I wouldn't say I'm jealous, exactly, but the gear that's out there these days is very cool... If today's college students find it useful in class, good for them. Technology should work for you, after all.

Nothing new at MIT

[JelloJoe]

Nothing new here. The same thing was done in 2005 when I was in the class. It was done by the professor himself and the next day he was able to display the IM conversation two kids were having in the class. One end was encrypted so he didn't think he could be caught, but the other end was not, so the prof was able to display the chat. Basically the chat had something to do about how bored the student was. It was quite amusing.

Re:Get Your Facts CORRECT ! : +2, Prior Art

[betterunixthanunix]

Hm...I did not notice any creeper or reaper references in that paper...

Someone Watching

[kellyb9]

I'd be curious to know how much traffic patterns would change if the students DIDN'T know they were being monitored.

Nonsense.

[CountBrass]

Everything I need is on Slashdot. It is the entire Interwebs.

can't play hangman with a sliderule

[commodoresloat]

we used to play stab-man instead

Re:Get Your Facts CORRECT ! : +2, Prior Art

[tsm_sf]

Ob. Shockwave Rider

Asteroid?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pose much of a challenge - shooting a single asteroid?

I'd rather pick my bellybutton, but to each their own..

It would be ...

[bagsta]

... interesting if someone could sniff the wireless traffic in dormitories...