University Bans BitTorrent To Stop Flood of Infringement Notices (torrentfreak.com)

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University Bans BitTorrent To Stop Flood of Infringement Notices (torrentfreak.com)

Posted by msmash on Friday November 11, 2016 @07:15AM from the unfortunate-notices dept.

A university in Canada has taken sweeping action in an effort to stem the tide of piracy notices. Following changes to Canada's copyright law in early 2015, ISPs are now required to forward copyright infringement notices to their customers. Over the past years, copyright owners have aggressively targeted users and ISPs with volumes of notices to generate more revenue. TorrentFreak adds:The phenomenon has also been felt at the University of Calgary, which acts as a service provider to thousands of students. Inevitably, some of those students have been using their connections to obtain music and movies for free, which has led to the university receiving large numbers of notices. So, in an effort to reduce the instances of alleged infringement, the university has recently banned BitTorrent usage on several Wi-Fi networks. Speaking to student newspaper The Gauntlet, vice-president finance and services Linda Dalgetty said that the effect was felt immediately. During the first eight days of the ban, the university received 90% fewer notices than usual. "I think what we're finding is it has definitely made a difference. But we have to monitor that, because statistically, we have to go through a longer time frame than eight days," Dalgetty said.According to Dalgetty, reducing the number of infringement notices wasn't the only consideration. The volume of traffic and other threats were also on the agenda. "The more streaming we have on the campus, the more it impacts network performance and that takes away the user experience for other pursuits," she said. "The third [reason] is security. The more streaming we have, the [higher chance] of inadvertently downloading something that would create issues."

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Good and bad... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 07:20 · Score: 0

There are many legitimate uses of Bittorrent, so this decision is bad in that respect. At the same time, though, what sort of monster uses Bittorrent on shared Wifi?!
1. Re:Good and bad... by zugmeister · 2016-11-11 07:32 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  what sort of monster uses Bittorrent on shared Wifi?!
  You seem to be attributing wisdom and empathy to college students. Do you see the problem here?
2. Re: Good and bad... by Midnight+Thunder · 2016-11-11 07:33 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  There are certainly valid uses, and this may be a case of throwing out the baby with the bath water, but now the challenge is how to whitelist approved sources, given the nature of BitTorrent?
  
  --
  Jumpstart the tartan drive.
3. Re:Good and bad... by PraiseBob · 2016-11-11 07:38 · Score: 2
  
  what sort of monster uses Bittorrent on shared Wifi?!
  
  What sort of network admin isn't familiar with QoS and rate limiting?
4. Re:Good and bad... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 07:40 · Score: 0
  
  Those that don't understand that wireless bandwidth in a specific range and with a specific amount of clients is incredibly fucking limited.
5. Re:Good and bad... by jellomizer · 2016-11-11 07:48 · Score: 1
  
  Other than downloading Linux Distributions...
  Most other Legitimate turrents don't have enough members to be as effecient as just downloading it directly.
  "what sort of monster uses Bittorrent on shared Wifi?!"
  People who do not know or care about bandwidth limitations and sharing with others.
  Aka. Late teens who are more interesting in getting their stuff faster without little regards to others.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
6. Re:Good and bad... by l0n3s0m3phr34k · 2016-11-11 07:52 · Score: 2
  
  The same ones that equate streaming with downloading. If your just streaming, your not actually downloading anything "whole" unless your purposely using some software to capture it all. Services like Spotify, Netflix, Hulu, Youtube etc are streaming. Programs / plugins like www.youtube-mp3.org allow you to capture said streams to a file. Bit torrent is a protocol. DASH (Dynamic Streaming over HTTP) is the streaming protocol of Netflix. Linda Dalgetty isn't an IT person, she's the "vice-president of finance and services" so doesn't really know what she's talking about here. However, I'm sure she's right about the "immediate impact" since I bet most people bittorrenting just left their torrent up after getting it and chewed up huge amounts of bandwidth. Yet even if there was zero impact on network health this has nothing to do with that; they are blocking this due to legal and fiscal responsibility.
7. Re:Good and bad... by crashumbc · 2016-11-11 07:57 · Score: 2
  
  Actually, a lot games use Bitorrent networks for file distribution. (i.e. WoW, WoT, etc). I don't know if they we affected by the ban or they operate differently enough but there are legitimate uses.
  (I know at one point you could even a regular bitorrent client to get WoW updates, I don't know if that's still true)
8. Re:Good and bad... by tnok85 · 2016-11-11 09:02 · Score: 1
  
  Usually they have a 'fall back' (and often slower) download that isn't peer-to-peer.
9. Re:Good and bad... by Vegan+Cyclist · 2016-11-11 09:36 · Score: 1
  
  I had this problem with a previous landlord, who's wifi we were dependent on for a while, and it was really annoying on many levels, and surprisingly hard to work-around when most ports are shut down. It affects a LOT more than torrent clients, and with Blizzard games, it's not just updates, it's playing many of the games. I had to play Diablo 3 (it was in Beta then) through my mobile phone connection, for example.
10. Re:Good and bad... by kriston · 2016-11-11 09:37 · Score: 1
  
  Akamai is one company that sells a service for this. It's transparent to the user.
  Windows 10 (maybe Windows 8?) also use peer-to-peer.
  
  --
  Kriston
11. Re:Good and bad... by Dan1701 · 2016-11-11 09:43 · Score: 1
  
  what sort of monster uses Bittorrent on shared Wifi?!
  What sort of network admin isn't familiar with QoS and rate limiting?
  The Network Unit where i currently work, a UK University, used to have a rather nifty network appliance which sat on the network segments that student halls of residence occupied and listened for Bittorrent connections. When it detected one, it sent a hang-up to each end neatly closing the connection. We never publicly announced what was going on here, but instead let the students run into the blockage by themselves. It worked better that way, fewer complaints.
  These days network security appliances do the same job, more or less. It saves time and money and hassle receiving copyright take-down notices and then tracking down the culprits, and giving them an appropriate telling off. This is especially irritating with students because IT Services isn't technically part of the academic structure, and bollocking naughty students is an academic job, so the relevant academics have to be in the communications loop. Network-level blocks are such very much easier all round...
12. Re:Good and bad... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 10:36 · Score: 0
  
  It actually helps the students too. They can learn to use a VPN client, so when the DMCA cops come a knocking, it won't be at the university or the students there.
  Something like iPredator.se would be a benefit to everyone involved.
13. Re:Good and bad... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 10:41 · Score: 0
  
  There are a ton of people who will do HD video on a shared Wi-Fi. Here in the US, shared means "mine", with the tragedy of the commons rearing its ugly head at almost anywhere.
14. Re:Good and bad... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 11:42 · Score: 0
  
  Almost no one can implement QoS or traffic shaping correctly. Easier and cheaper to throw bandwidth at the problem, unless you're paying some ridiculous rates. My University has almost 1Tb/s of trunk bandwidth. Their slowest links are 10Gb, but the bulk of their 10+ trunk links to 3 regional IXs and direct peering with Teri 1 or major datacenters are 40Gb or 100Gb, and fewer than 6million people in the entire state. Direct peering with at least Level 3, AT&T, Verizon, Rackspace, AWS, Cogent, GTT, Sprint, XO, and Zayo to name a few.
  
  To save on trunk bandwidth, they have an onsite Netflix OpenConnect CDN. About 80,000 students and many watch Netflix. Back in the days of Napster, my cousin was uploading a constant 10Mb/s. Dorm students had open read-only MP3 shares with nearly every song, in case you couldn't find what you wanted on Napster, but Napster was easier to search with.
15. Re: Good and bad... by Altrag · 2016-11-11 12:15 · Score: 1
  
  You're assuming that they give a crap about valid uses, and I don't see why they would. Even if someone decided to challenge it, they'd likely have to show that they couldn't obtain legitimate material via other means, or would at least be significantly inconvenienced in doing so. And of course nobody's going to challenge it based on illegitimate material for obvious reasons.
16. Re: Good and bad... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 18:34 · Score: 0
  
  Isn't BT how WoW is distributed?
17. Re:Good and bad... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 19:01 · Score: 0
  
  what sort of monster uses Bittorrent on shared Wifi?!
  A cookie monster. Faced with a herd of cookie monsters, no current wifi-standard is enough.
18. Re: Good and bad... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-12 05:19 · Score: 0
  
  All of blizzards games default to bittorrent but fallback to https if it fails
Stupid by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 07:22 · Score: 0

Typical bureaucratic response by UoC admins. They (or the students) could toss those notices in the trash, they're worthless. Talk about a ham-fisted response.
"Oh noes its so hard to notify students of blah blah blah worthless toothless threat"
1. Re:Stupid by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 07:28 · Score: 0
  
  Or the students could stop infringing others' copyright, goes both ways.
2. Re:Stupid by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 07:36 · Score: 0
  
  Or the students could stop infringing others' copyright
  That is exactly the problem. These notices are fully automated and perform no validation before phishing to see if the recipient will be sufficiently scared of a potential lawsuit to just pay up. Among the many recipients, some, maybe even most--I don't know, actually did break Copyright law. But whether or not you happen to think Copyright law is a good has no relevance to whether bypassing due process in its enforcement a good thing.
3. Re:Stupid by jellomizer · 2016-11-11 07:57 · Score: 1
  
  I am sure colleges don't have full administrative control over the students on what they do.
  You can say you are a Dry campus, but there will still be a lot of drinking.
  You can tell students to use their internet responsibility... But they will not.
  So lets be honest with ourselves.
  for every Legitimate use of turrents they are 100 illegitimate uses and for that Legitimate use there are a numerous workarounds.
  So you block the feature. you don't have to punish kids, you don't have to deal with take down notices at all.
  Gone are the days like when I was in college where every student had a wide open static IP address to the internet.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
4. Re: Stupid by hackwrench · 2016-11-11 10:04 · Score: 2
  
  Or we could get rid od intellectual property law.
5. Re:Stupid by Aereus · 2016-11-11 10:27 · Score: 1
  
  Wouldn't connecting via VPN bypass the no torrenting restriction, anyways?
6. Re: Stupid by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 11:32 · Score: 0
  
  Is this some kind of inverse FUD? None if the take-down notices we (a reasonably well known university) receive contain any demands for payment; it's simply a 'please stop stealing our stuff'. I always tell the infringers it's a stupid way to do this, it's practically in the nature of torrents that it will be trivial to figure out who the infringers are.
7. Re:Stupid by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-12 00:48 · Score: 0
  
  Probably.
University by fluffernutter · 2016-11-11 07:25 · Score: 2

The university was being put in a bad position and took the easiest steps to resolve it. Their network, they can do whatever they want with it. If you're looking for someone to blame, look to the people who allowed these stupid notice emails to go through in the first place.

--
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
1. Re:University by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 07:32 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Or, you can blame the people pirating the movies and music. If they weren't dicks, everyone could use BitTorrent to download all them Linux ISOs.
2. Re:University by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 07:47 · Score: 1
  
  The network admins should watch closely what's going to happen to their budget: Without that traffic, the network is probably underutilized. Whether that means it has to be downgraded or otherwise necessary upgrades can be postponed, the budget for operating the network isn't going to be what they expected. Yes, it's their network and they can do what they want with it, but if they think passing on copyright notifications to students is a burden, they'll be surprised how burdensome a lower budget can be.
3. Re:University by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 07:53 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  All 5 of those people have many other ways to download them.
4. Re: University by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 09:18 · Score: 1
  
  How many Linux isos do you need to download? You download one, run the installer, then it's smallish updates from that point on. If you're maintaining a Linux box by downloading a new ISO for each update and trashing the whole filesystem with a new install, you're thinking like a Windows user, not a linux admin.
5. Re:University by kriston · 2016-11-11 09:25 · Score: 1
  
  That's not really how it works. Those notices are sent not just to the edge network owner. They are also sent to that network's internet provider.
  If the university chooses to ignore the letters, eventually their upstream provider will be left with no choice but to cut the university off.
  
  --
  Kriston
6. Re:University by LinuxIsGarbage · 2016-11-11 11:43 · Score: 2
  
  Or, you can blame the people pirating the movies and music. If they weren't dicks, everyone could use BitTorrent to download all them Linux ISOs.
  If they were smart they would use KODI + Exodus Add-on, and get their pirated movie / tv fix without overloading the network with Torrent traffic (I assume linear streaming is better), and eliminate the chances of copyright notices.
  Music can just be downloaded off Youtube.
7. Re:University by starblazer · 2016-11-11 12:07 · Score: 1
  
  and you dont think the excess bandwidth wont get eaten up by Netflix or youtube?
  Reaaarry?
8. Re:University by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 12:37 · Score: 0
  
  That's not really how it works. Those notices are sent not just to the edge network owner. They are also sent to that network's internet provider.
  If the university chooses to ignore the letters, eventually their upstream provider will be left with no choice but to cut the university off.
  Yeah. That's going to happen.
  No. Way. In. Hell.
9. Re:University by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 16:10 · Score: 0
  
  someone uses bittorrent for Linux ISO's ? really?? a quick check and most of the major distros have sfa seeders. people prefer to download an iso direct from the distro or one of the mirrors, fuck adding extra overhead of bittorrent.
Fair enough by Dynamoo · 2016-11-11 07:29 · Score: 3, Interesting

"My network. My rules."

--
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
1. Re:Fair enough by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 07:38 · Score: 0
  
  "My network. My rules"
  Legal != Fair
2. Re:Fair enough by PraiseBob · 2016-11-11 07:43 · Score: 1
  
  Except in this case, it's a public university. So, it isn't their network. It technically belongs to all of the citizens of Canada, and the network admins may not have the legal rights to arbitrarily block certain types of traffic simply because the paperwork is inconvenient.
3. Re:Fair enough by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 07:52 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Actually, education is under provincial jurisdiction, not federal. So, it would be more accurate to say it technically belongs to all the citizens of the province of Alberta, Canada.
  That being said, your post is still nonsense. For example, the trans-canada highway technically belongs to all the people of Canada, but that doesn't mean that the local unicycle club can block all the lanes of the highway by setting up some sweet jumps to do unicycle tricks with.
4. Re:Fair enough by kuzb · 2016-11-11 07:55 · Score: 1
  
  Try to enforce your own policy on the network and see how much it belongs to you.
  
  --
  BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
5. Re:Fair enough by lactose99 · 2016-11-11 07:56 · Score: 2
  
  The citizens of Canada also implemented the copyright law at the heart of this matter, either directly or indirectly via their elected representatives. The school is only doing what the public has asked of them in this regard.
  
  --
  Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
6. Re:Fair enough by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 08:04 · Score: 0
  
  Umm bit torrent is a protocol. If I send an infringing picture over http does that mean all http traffic needs to be blocked?
7. Re:Fair enough by slinches · 2016-11-11 08:33 · Score: 1
  
  This (also terrible) analogy is more analogous:
  They are banning the transport of all unicycles on the trans-Canada highway because someone is repeatedly claiming that people who use it keep stealing his unicycles.
  
  --
  Knowledge Brings Fear
8. Re:Fair enough by Dunbal · 2016-11-11 08:40 · Score: 1
  
  On the other hand when a criminal uses the trans-canada highway to make a get-away in a red minivan it doesn't make sense to say that people in red minivans can never use the highway again.
  
  --
  Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
9. Re:Fair enough by cdrudge · 2016-11-11 09:03 · Score: 1
  
  ...but they aren't stealing the content. They are infringing on copyright.
  Yeah. I'm that guy.
10. Re:Fair enough by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 09:05 · Score: 0
  
  Wait.. I thought Canada couldn't have copyright infringment because you guys have a piracy tax on all the media. If that's not paying for a license for everything, where is the money going?
11. Re:Fair enough by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 09:12 · Score: 0
  
  OK.
  They are banning the transport of all unicycles on the trans-Canada highway because someone is repeatedly claiming that people who use it keep getting their unicycles copied down by artistically bent autists on the side of the highway that run home and try to make homemade unicycles. and these unicycles are so lovingly made and well crafted that the unicycle manufacturers feel threatened.
12. Re:Fair enough by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 09:21 · Score: 0
  
  Except in this case, it's a public university. So, it isn't their network. It technically belongs to all of the citizens of Canada, and the network admins may not have the legal rights to arbitrarily block certain types of traffic simply because the paperwork is inconvenient.
  Actually working at a university myself, though not the one in question, I can pretty much guarantee there is an AUP (Acceptable Use Policy) tied to all the accounts that have network access. Copyright infringement would most definitely be covered by that AUP.
13. Re: Fair enough by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 09:22 · Score: 0
  
  If 80-95% of the http traffic is being used for infringement, maybe you should.
14. Re:Fair enough by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 10:44 · Score: 0
  
  But unicycles are already banned on most major highways because they are dangerous and block traffic.
15. Re:Fair enough by Rakarra · 2016-11-11 13:45 · Score: 1
  
  Except in this case, it's a public university
  You're right, it's a public university, in which case they can block ALL uses of the systems that don't have a particular academic necessity.
  In other words, it's not your private connection, so it is not for personal use in a way that impacts other students' ability to use the network. Those are the rules that my US-public university operated under, and they didn't get into any trouble with that.
  
  It technically belongs to all of the citizens of Canada,
  I don't know if it's the same in Canada, but this is a pretty common misconception for public universities, in that it's a "public university" so all resources are owned by the people and people can do whatever they want because, uhh.. somehow it's "theirs." It's like when I worked at the University computer cap and someone got huffy when you told them they couldn't print out their thousand pages of personal stuff on the high-quality-paper color printer and they say their taxes pay for this and so they can do whatever, blahblah. They get shown the door quickly, and their account gets yanked if they're a repeat offender. It works the same for public and private universities.
16. Re:Fair enough by bigfinger76 · 2016-11-11 15:44 · Score: 1
  
  Life != Fair
  College students should have this little nugget of truth down by the time they get there.
17. Re:Fair enough by dryeo · 2016-11-11 15:54 · Score: 1
  
  Actually we got blackmailed by the citizens of the USA. "If you want access to our market, you thieving arseholes, who are worse then all 3rd world countries, you better pass these laws" Americans are obviously in favour of those draconian copyright laws.
  Now we're likely to get hauled into court and forced to pay, sometimes as much as 3 times the cost of a DVD but usually only the cost of a DVD. Then we get the American companies threatening to haul us into court if we don't pay. As most of us are exposed to American propaganda (even our DVD's threaten us with the FBI), some think paying up front is better then a trip to court.
  
  --
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
18. Re:Fair enough by dryeo · 2016-11-11 15:58 · Score: 1
  
  Wait.. I thought Canada couldn't have copyright infringment because you guys have a piracy tax on all the media. If that's not paying for a license for everything, where is the money going?
  We only have the copying (it covers legal time shifting as well as copyright infringement) levy on cassette tapes and blank CDROMs. After the courts ruled that the levy made it legal to copy music for personal use, the copyright cartel lost interest in adding the levy to DVDs etc.
  
  --
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
19. Re:Fair enough by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 22:13 · Score: 0
  
  "My network. A complicated mixture of interacting rules from me, government, local authorities and my providers. A business environment, in other words."
20. Re:Fair enough by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-12 04:11 · Score: 0
  
  USA here. I was told by the University that because they are public, their computer labs are open to the public but students get priority. Also, because they are public, they are not allowed to limit what you view on their computers as long as it's legal. If you are watching porn and someone gets offended, they may ask you to switch to a computer that is difficult for others to view.
21. Re:Fair enough by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-12 04:38 · Score: 0
  
  That's not how Universities in my state operate. Public Universities are open to the public. The "resnet" part was slightly different because they were not "public", but in general, if it's legal, you're allowed to do it and the University is not allowed to stop you unless it interferes with others students. We were strait up told that blocking adults from legal content runs afoul of the Constitution and would jeopardize their state license and funding. Not to mention they are very liberal and democratic. A most of the Universities budget is managed by the student government. $10mil building renovation, student government made that choice. Build a new dorm, student government. Increase faculty wages, student government. Heck, got expelled? You have the right to request a jury of your peers review the case. Students at random will be selected and they will decide if your expulsion will stick.
how do they know this is the university? by nimbius · 2016-11-11 07:29 · Score: 1

Magnet links should make tracing down this kind of activity pretty difficult. Either companies are honeypotting Bittorrent emissions themselves, which would be entrapment, or theyre just observing over-the-wire for bittorrent traffic and assuming some nefarious activity.

--
Good people go to bed earlier.
1. Re:how do they know this is the university? by 110010001000 · 2016-11-11 07:36 · Score: 1
  
  I work for a company that does deep packet inspection and classification of traffic. It is easy to determine Bittorrent traffic. They aren't attempting to determine if it is nefarious, they are just blocking Bittorrent. I'm kinda surprised all Universities dont. It is a big bandwidth hog.
2. Re:how do they know this is the university? by twotacocombo · 2016-11-11 07:37 · Score: 2
  
  Either companies are honeypotting Bittorrent emissions themselves, which would be entrapment
  Honeypots are not entrapment. They have not forced or coerced you into doing something you weren't setting out to do anyway. I believe the concept of entrapment can only be applied to law enforcement entities, as well.
3. Re:how do they know this is the university? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 07:43 · Score: 0
  
  Either companies are honeypotting Bittorrent emissions themselves
  wat
  they just connect to the swarm themselves, and log every ip
  then they see who the ip belongs to and send them a raft of notices
4. Re:how do they know this is the university? by lactose99 · 2016-11-11 07:58 · Score: 1
  
  Either companies are honeypotting Bittorrent emissions themselves, which would be entrapment
  Citation please?
  
  --
  Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
5. Re:how do they know this is the university? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 08:01 · Score: 0
  
  except that, you know, ip addresses aren't people.
  how many people on campus, or even the campus library are running tor exit nodes???
6. Re:how do they know this is the university? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 08:20 · Score: 0
  
  they give 0 shits
  its the isp's responsibility to determine which user it was, the notice just has the ip time stamps and what was infinged
  campus wifis almost all use eduroam now so they know
  its not like some kid plugs a seedbox into some random jack in the engineering building
7. Re:how do they know this is the university? by dunkindave · 2016-11-11 09:13 · Score: 1
  
  Either companies are honeypotting Bittorrent emissions themselves, which would be entrapment
  Honeypots are not entrapment. They have not forced or coerced you into doing something you weren't setting out to do anyway. I believe the concept of entrapment can only be applied to law enforcement entities, as well.
  Mostly true. To oversimplify it, entrapment is the idea that everyone has their price, so if you make something attractive enough even an honest person becomes tempted and may succumb. Joining a bittorrent swarm and seeing who else (by who I mean what IP addresses) is also in the swarm isn't in any way an enticement, let alone an unreasonable enticement, so isn't entrapment.
  However, entrapment is an affirmative defense, meaning the accused admits doing it but claims a mitigating factor that excuses it. This rule applies both if law enforcement does it, and if a private entity does it. You just have to convince the Court or jury that it excuses the action.
8. Re:how do they know this is the university? by kriston · 2016-11-11 09:28 · Score: 1
  
  Magnet links protect the directory, e.g. The Pirate Bay.
  Identifying the sender and receiver is trivially easy.
  How else could a BitTorrent client connect to the sender?
  
  --
  Kriston
9. Re:how do they know this is the university? by BarbaraHudson · 2016-11-11 10:10 · Score: 1
  
  There is no such thing as entrapment by non-law-enforcement individuals or organizations. Only cops. Definition of entrapment
  
  1. the luring by a law-enforcement agent of a person into committing a crime.
  2. an act or process of entrapping.
  3. a state of being entrapped.
  It's perfectly legal for me to do something that, if the police were to do it, would be entrapment. So no, your claim that it also applies to private entities is a fantasy, same as the democrats thinking that Clinton could win.
  
  --
  "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
10. Re:how do they know this is the university? by BarbaraHudson · 2016-11-11 10:16 · Score: 1
  
  Either companies are honeypotting Bittorrent emissions themselves, which would be entrapment
  Citation please?
  They can't provide one. The legal definition of entrapment is a member of law enforcement inciting someone to commit an illegal act. If I make it known that I leave my door unlocked, knowing that someone is going to go in and steal something, and I have a hidden camera there, I haven't entrapped them, even though my actions have certainly encouraged them to commit a crime.
  
  --
  "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
11. Re:how do they know this is the university? by im_thatoneguy · 2016-11-11 10:30 · Score: 1
  
  We need a Slashdot Bot which just responds to the word "entrapment" in a post and corrects the author.
  You can honey pot legally The police can even sell you drugs and arrest you. It's not entrapment unless you can prove that they convinced you to do something that you wouldn't have done except because of their coercion. You could setup a pot stand on the street titled "weed sold here" and arrest you when you came up and tried to buy weed. The test is whether a normal law abiding citizen have been persuaded to commit the crime.
  And none of that matters because you're talking about a *private company* supposedly entrapping people. It's perfectly legal to post copyrighted works online if you own the copyright without a password. It's even legal for a torrent to download it. What isn't legal is to then upload it to someone else. Leeching is legal. Sharing copyrighted works isn't.
  I can post all of my photos online and you can't start printing copies of them just because I didn't put them behind a paywall.
12. Re:how do they know this is the university? by david_thornley · 2016-11-11 10:36 · Score: 1
  
  I doubt dictionary.com is a good source for international legal advice. If I was worried about whether I (as a private person) was committing entrapment I'd rather consult a lawyer familiar with my state's laws.
  I don't think it would be wise for me to offer to pay someone to perform an illegal act, anyway. Law enforcement can often do that, provided they are conducting a bona fide investigation.
  
  --
  "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
13. Re:how do they know this is the university? by david_thornley · 2016-11-11 10:42 · Score: 1
  
  In your example, you haven't incited an illegal act, and if the police did it it wouldn't be entrapment.
  What you would have done is more parallel to a police sting operation, in which they don't incite crime but make it attractive for a criminal to commit a crime they would already have done somewhere they can be arrested.
  If I were a police officer and walked up to someone and offered them money for drugs, that's entrapment. If I say I want drugs and the guy offers to sell them, that's a sting, because it's the sort of offer that wouldn't incite a non-drug-dealer to make an offer.
  
  --
  "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
14. Re:how do they know this is the university? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 13:13 · Score: 0
  
  My university heavily throttled Bittorrent traffic (to the point that it was effectively unusable), and that was over 12 years ago. I'd say this university was really late to the game here...
15. Re:how do they know this is the university? by BarbaraHudson · 2016-11-11 13:31 · Score: 1
  
  You're free to look up other sources. I did. They all agree - entrapment only applies to law enforcement. Mind you, I already knew this, and I'm surprised that it's not common knowledge. When was the last time you saw a show where someone who wasn't a cop was accused of entrapment?
  And no, the law is the same in all states. Try again.
  It's entrapment when law enforcement acting without the target knowing they are law enforcement induces the target to do an illegal act that they would not otherwise have done in order to catch them committing a crime. It's not entrapment if the target knows they're dealing with law enforcement - then it's conspiracy to commit a crime. It's not entrapment if the target would have committed the act anyway. It's not entrapment if the target doesn't commit the crime. It's not entrapment if it's not done by law enforcement - then, it's again conspiracy to commit a crime.
  Paying someone is not a necessary element of entrapment. Any inducement by law enforcement is sufficient. Even just verbal pressure.
  I can leave my front door open and make it look like nobody's home, and not respond when someone calls to see if anyone is home. If they then enter, they have committed an unlawful entry, and yet they can't argue that they were entrapped because I'm not a cop.
  
  --
  "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
16. Re:how do they know this is the university? by BarbaraHudson · 2016-11-11 13:35 · Score: 1
  
  If the police did, it most certainly would be entrapment. Entrapment is when an agent of the law does anything that would encourage the target to do something that, without the act, the target would not have committed the crime. Making a place look like it would be easy to rip off is entrapment when done by cops, because the target would argue that they never would have done the act without being baited. And if I've done it, I most certainly have encouraged them to commit an illegal act (a crime of opportunity) that they wouldn't have done otherwise, but since I'm not a cop they have no defense of entrapment, same as if you leave a laptop on the seat in an unlocked car and someone who would not normally have even thought of committing a crime commits a crime of opportunity.
  
  --
  "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
17. Re:how do they know this is the university? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-12 05:02 · Score: 0
  
  Bittorrent has more recently(5 years?) added a lot of encryption to thwart DPI. What you have now is a lot of random ports being used over both TCP and UDP, coupled with ambiguous hand-shake signatures. BitTorrent over HTTPS? Sure, why not? To port 443 encapsulated inside of HTTP! Cat and Mouse game.
18. Re:how do they know this is the university? by david_thornley · 2016-11-14 04:23 · Score: 1
  
  That's not how the courts see it around here. The police have parked cars here and there intended to be attractive to car thieves, on the principle that only a car thief would care about such things. The idea is that only a criminal would take advantage of a good opportunity to commit a crime. They can't push anyone towards taking advantage of one of these opportunities, or that would be entrapment.
  
  --
  "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
19. Re:how do they know this is the university? by david_thornley · 2016-11-14 04:30 · Score: 1
  
  I was hesitant about accepting an on-line dictionary for legal advice, but if you've checked other sources I'll accept that.
  Around here, presenting an opportunity to commit a crime is not considered entrapment. It's okay for an undercover police officer to hang around a suspected drug dealer in the hope of being offered a deal, because someone who is not a drug dealer will not offer the deal. It's entrapment if the officer asks to buy drugs, because that's an inducement to commit a crime.
  
  --
  "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
. . . to generate revenue [lost to piracy] by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 07:35 · Score: 0

Fixed that for you.
"In other news..." by CCarrot · 2016-11-11 07:37 · Score: 1

"...the volume of VPN and Tor traffic on campus has mysteriously increased."
It's a virtual whack-a-mole game, when will the MAFIAA finally realize this?

--
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
1. Re:"In other news..." by 110010001000 · 2016-11-11 07:38 · Score: 1
  
  Doubtful. VPNs are another step that you would need to pay for to get anything decent, and you can't pirate through Tor.
More examples of stupid admins in U of C by PKFC · 2016-11-11 07:41 · Score: 5, Informative

So this is the same place that paid $20,000 to decrypt a malware attack that locked down its email and AD infrastructure... http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/university-calgary-ransomware-cyberattack-1.3620979
I doubt they've learned much about how to operate a network at this rate.
1. Re:More examples of stupid admins in U of C by hyades1 · 2016-11-11 09:08 · Score: 1
  
  In some respects, U Calgary isn't even really much of a university. Its incestuous relationship with the local oil barons makes the quality and reliability of anything that comes out of there, including research and graduates, suspect.
  
  --
  I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
2. Re:More examples of stupid admins in U of C by capebretonsux · 2016-11-11 09:20 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  I work for the uni and you don't know how correct you are.
  
  In response to the malware ransom, they mandated that all employees are now banned from using gmail, yahoo, etc. for work-related stuff because 'they don't control those servers.' Then, in spectacular irony, they then migrated their email system to Office 365, which has proven to be an abysmal user experience, and emails appear to be sent through microsoft's servers anyways - which the uni doesn't control and are SO slow. (It could just be that Office 365 works fine, but that our servers are misconfigured in some way)
  
  This recent bit about bittorrent is idiotic as well, as anyone who wants to use the wifi has to login using their IT credentials, so they could easily find out who is downloading what and take action against the infringing individuals instead... but that would require a reasonably competent monkey in the IT dept.
3. Re:More examples of stupid admins in U of C by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 09:36 · Score: 0
  
  Hey, University kiddies: Just use Bittorrent over Tor, then no one will know what you're doing or where it's really coming from. Win-win.
4. Re:More examples of stupid admins in U of C by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 09:55 · Score: 0
  
  You are worse than Hitler
5. Re:More examples of stupid admins in U of C by PKFC · 2016-11-11 10:07 · Score: 1
  
  My mom works for U of C too and I wanted to slap those people for their ham fisted communications and messaging about the whole ordeal. I've seen good implementations of O365 and the company I work for now is beginning their implementation too which is likely larger than the U of C by a small margin. I would have thought that other email addresses would be banned for work related purposes as a matter of principle from the get go. The saddest thing overall to me is that the malware ransom didn't come out of the President's salary.
6. Re:More examples of stupid admins in U of C by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 11:20 · Score: 0
  
  HURR DURR YOU ARE WORSE THAN HITLER
  LOL what's your problem? University kids get ass-raped for tuition, ass-raped for books, ass-raped for pretty much everything, and then they get ass-raped for movies and music, too? LOL fuck that shit. It's not like Tor isn't getting bigger all the time, the NSA and CIA aren't going to ever allow it to go away, they'll keep promoting it, and they can't make Tor so that you can't use it to proxy anything else, so why the fuck not? Fuck the police, fuck governments, fuck the MPAA, fuck the RIAA, and fuck whiners whining about piracy. Let the kids have a few free movies and tunes to listen to, they'll be ass-raped after graduation, when their degee will get them nothing more than a dishwashing job or a low-paying grunt job of some sort, trying to pay back an insane amount of student loans, so who the fuck should even care if they pirate a few things? Stop being a bitch.
7. Re:More examples of stupid admins in U of C by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 12:52 · Score: 0
  
  You're wrong it's a pretty decent university. Associating with rich alumni is not useful evidence. If you have proof of collusion and failure to produce qualified graduates then belly up to the bar and show us your proof. Otherwise it's all smoke and mirrors.
8. Re:More examples of stupid admins in U of C by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 13:49 · Score: 0
  
  No, we use Office 365 at our university too.... it's always slow half the time. I can check a couple other email accounts by the time their hog of a website loads.
9. Re:More examples of stupid admins in U of C by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 15:20 · Score: 0
  
  Kiddies : Hey this is slow!
Encrypted traffic by bigbang137 · 2016-11-11 07:49 · Score: 2

Good luck banning encrypted traffic assholes.
1. Re:Encrypted traffic by GameboyRMH · 2016-11-11 08:02 · Score: 1
  
  My favorite trick for getting torrented content on hostile networks is to simply let my seedbox, on a very good network, handle the torrent download and then transfer the file to my local computer via SSH. It requires more lead time but it works great and is completely undetectable. I don't even need to use a VPN this way!
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
2. Re:Encrypted traffic by kriston · 2016-11-11 09:33 · Score: 1
  
  No, the encryption is ineffective. It's not really encrypted that heavily and traffic shaping devices have been able to identify what these streams are for years and years already.
  
  --
  Kriston
3. Re:Encrypted traffic by bigbang137 · 2016-11-11 09:59 · Score: 1
  
  Encryption must be applied to the headers and the content. Perhaps its strength and application can be improved. Once this is done, traffic shaping devices can at best guess at what is happening - a guess that may not stand up in university court. In any case, using those devices would take extra work for the university, and until they do, they can choke on it.
4. Re:Encrypted traffic by BarbaraHudson · 2016-11-11 10:19 · Score: 1
  
  Doesn't have to "stand up in university court." And if you take it to a real court, you'll lose. There's nothing in the law that says your rights have been infringed by placing restrictions on access to a private network.
  
  --
  "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
5. Re:Encrypted traffic by david_thornley · 2016-11-11 10:46 · Score: 1
  
  I'd expect a VPN to use apparently unbreakable encryption. It's not that hard. If I found that a VPN services was using something lame like DES, I'd find another.
  What a traffic analysis would find is that GameboyRMH sent some sort of message to a computer outside the system, and then downloaded a file from it at some later time, and that's in the best case scenario where there's no other traffic.That's not going to tell anyone anything.
  
  --
  "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
6. Re:Encrypted traffic by kriston · 2016-11-11 10:59 · Score: 1
  
  It's not really the data, it's the way the data is transmitted. Multiple, single sockets connected to dozens of IP addresses scattered all over the world is a good indicator.
  
  --
  Kriston
7. Re:Encrypted traffic by bigbang137 · 2016-11-11 12:04 · Score: 1
  
  In a real court, at least in the US, the burden of proof is even higher. Something that looks like torrent traffic, assuming it is fully encrypted, may not be necessarily be torrent traffic. It could very well be a research software that is being run by some university students. You'd actually have to prove that infringing material was transmitted, and that could be more difficult. Let's say I modify the torrent protocol by 10%, so now it's no longer the torrent protocol. The traffic shapers may still detect it as being torrent traffic, but the university would be technically be wrong if they labeled it as such.
8. Re:Encrypted traffic by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 13:57 · Score: 0
  
  Except if it's to a VPN outside the network then it will just appear as lots of communication to one machine....
9. Re:Encrypted traffic by BarbaraHudson · 2016-11-11 14:37 · Score: 1
  
  This has nothing to do with 3rd party claims against people making illegal downloads, and everything about the school saying "fuck it, we don't need the hassles" and cutting off torrent access. This won't affect things like isos of Linux - most unis have servers with multiple distros on them.
  
  --
  "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
This is a university you see... by GeekWithAKnife · 2016-11-11 07:57 · Score: 2

a place where the next generation wishes to learn, gain knowledge expertise.

What a brilliant idea, to ban BitTorrent! -Why didn't anyone else think of that?!

--
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
1. Re: This is a university you see... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 09:27 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  They could also ban Token Ring.
  It wouldn't affect the quality of the education any differently.
  Except maybe for a few Fine Arts students studying anime.
2. Re:This is a university you see... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 16:15 · Score: 0
  
  and what does bittorrent on a library's wifi have to do with learning? They can ban any of a million other things too that will have no effect on learning.
Meanwhile, spoofers continue to snicker... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 07:58 · Score: 0

While continuing to use a spoofed IP address pointing to the school while downloading even more "digital images" of works.
Now, on the other side, all of those online gamers are fucked having to return to the limited, single download point to update their 30GiB games...
1. Re:Meanwhile, spoofers continue to snicker... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 14:22 · Score: 0
  
  Spoofing an IP address on a download would only cause the downloaded data to go to the wrong address.
Thank you by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 07:59 · Score: 1

Thank you UoC for taking back your network, and getting rid of pointless torrent traffic. Poor fucking kids. Poor, POOR fucking kids. Go outside and learn to live.
1. Re:Thank you by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 09:07 · Score: 0
  
  Don't you know university students only go outside to riot (under the guise of "protest", or "st. patrick's day")?
  Be careful what you wish for.
Do it right. by SuricouRaven · 2016-11-11 08:52 · Score: 1

Someone get a dump server up and running. Twenty-odd terabytes of storage should do it, for anyone in the know to upload and download as they see fit, all safely on the university network.
not new by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 08:53 · Score: 0

My college in Pennsylvania banned bittorrent back in 2004. If you used the on campus internet, bittorrent wouldn't work.
Re:What kind of monster by hackwrench · 2016-11-11 09:59 · Score: 1

The freedom and liberty loving kind. In other words, the best kind!
Canada by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 10:34 · Score: 0

Is a big pussy country
Streaming vs. P2P by TeknoHog · 2016-11-11 11:21 · Score: 1

When I was an undergrad, the university was more worried about wasting the capacity of overseas links than what you used it for. It makes more sense to share stuff within the academic network than for each user to stream their own copy of the same thing. A lot of students realized this a long time ago, but today we care more about being legit than conserving resources.

--
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
My University by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 11:50 · Score: 0

Back in 2006 or so, I got banned from using the University internet because I "used too much bandwidth and a lot of the traffic was from Korea." I played and watched Starcraft matches. They wouldn't turn my internet back on unless I took a piracy class and let them scan my computer (which took them a week). Just idiotic.
Uni network admin here by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 13:22 · Score: 0

I just don't feel like logging in but here is how we handle BT.
IDP the entire traffic flow doing to the dorms. We ONLY filter BT and P2P however (and also malware/virus/worms/etc just to keep from being a botnet...). And a note...we also block TOR exit nodes...not using TOR...just the exit nodes.
I personally don't care what the residents use the network for. They pay for it, they can use it how they want. Hell...we don't even have any bandwidth restrictions...if they use an ethernet cable..they have 1G to use.
The reason for the blocking then? The stupid DMCA notices and infringement shit...no other reason. The amount of notices was stupid (10-20 per day!). So our policy is that they can do WHATEVER as long as it doesn't show sourced from our IP range. VPNs, proxies, tunnels, ALL work without an issue.
This is the best compromise we could come up with.
Re:Slow Clap by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-11 13:34 · Score: 0

Don't worry, BitTorrent probably won't be allowed on any networks in the US coming soon. Wonder how the IT nerds who voted Trump will feel when every ISP becomes AOL 2.0?
No comment about net neutrality? by dumky2 · 2016-11-11 22:48 · Score: 1

Strange...

--
These comments are mine; I do not speak for my employer.
Re:Slow Clap by MoarSauce123 · 2016-11-12 00:07 · Score: 1

They come down on those who are stupid. These students never heard of VPNs, eh?
one does not simply block bittorrent by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-12 02:39 · Score: 0

I'm guessing they must have pruchased an application level firewall too? we use cisco ASA;s and their layer 7 is crap, unless I'm missing something. Anyone have other ways to do this - besides mortgaging your house and purchasing a palo alto? and then learning it too?
So what about legit bittorrent uses by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-13 09:19 · Score: 0

Syncthing (I think)
Resilio (used to be Bitorrent Sync)
Are they looking at IP addresses of trackers or just that "Bitorrent Traffic = Here Be Pirates! Yarr!" ?
I'm surprised this is being reported by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-14 09:58 · Score: 0

Don't practically all universities block P2P traffic already? I know they do here in Ausfailia at least.