What I said has nothing to do with whether something needs privilege escalation or not. At all.
In fact, my own little "rm -rf ~/*" joke doesn't require any privilege escalation at all and can delete the contents of your home directory with no further warning. Something as simple as that can be bundled up with Platypus by anyone who can click a mouse as a little trojan that looks like any other Mac OS X application.
Think that's "stupid"? It's just as stupid as this "virus" proof-of-concept that does nothing more than show that it can be appended to a file. It doesn't spread, and has no vector for propagation. Before you say "well, all someone has to do is find a vector!"
So, this is a "virus" that is nothing more than something that programmatically attaches/appends itself to other files that are in the same directory as itself when executed (which is easy to do and doesn't rely on any deficiency in the system), isn't in the wild and therefore doesn't have any real impact on users, is a proof-of-concept, and still has no vector or mechanism for propagation, much less mass-propagation?
Wow. Um. Raise the alarm. One if by land, two of by sea, and all that.
Oh, and here's my new piece of nasty Mac OS X malware:
Place this in a text file and name it ElectricSlide.command:
rm -rf ~/*
Double click it. Voilà. A piece of malware that can't actually spread that deletes the contents of your home directory with no warning!
Maybe we can see a Symantec warning about OSX.ElectricSlide!
I realize Symantec or any AV vendor has to catalog known malware, but come on: the coverage this is getting is ridiculous, and now the front page of slashdot?
Mac OS X certainly has vulnerabilities. The people saying it doesn't are morons. But the problem is that any vulnerability discovered in any Apple product gets amplified in the press massively disproportionately. For example, the iPod Windows virus issue:
By all accounts, there was likely a Windows PC used for QA at a non-Apple contractor that was infected with a virus that was infecting iPods with the virus when they were plugged in to that machine. (If anything, this is a problem in the QA process at Apple's manufacturing contractors, not ANY indication that "Macs" or Apple are any more susceptible to viruses or attacks, in any way, shape, or form - I'm surprised at the level of shoddy journalism on this. This is a Windows worm copying itself to a locally attached Windows disk (that happens to be an iPod), nothing more. Yes, it's really bad for any manufacturer to ship something with a virus on it, but this doesn't indicate the susceptibility of Apple or Macs in general. If anything, it indicates the iPod is effective as a USB-attached disk. Which it is. Again, no excuse for the processes to let something like this happen, but still.)
Then, the coverage of this goes on to rehash the (incorrect) assumption that someday there will be a huge worm outbreak on Macs, an assertion that is completely unrelated to iPods being infected with a Windows (or even Mac) virus.
I'm not going to rehash why it's literally impossible for the type of devastating mass-propagating worms that we've seen on Windows happen on Macs; marketshare/presense alone is enough to make that argument, but marketshare is only one of many factors.
I predict that we'll continue seeing these sky-is-falling and "WAKEUP CALL FOR APPLE" articles month after month and year after year, with nothing actually happening of any consequence to the installed Mac OS X base. Will there be new viruses, worms, malware, and proofs of concept of malicious items for Mac OS X? Yep. Absolutely. Just as there have been. Will there be something that can mass-propagate to the point where it costs the tens/hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of manhours in recovery and lost productivity like we do on Windows? Nope. The architectural, use, marketshare, and security differences on the Apple platform versus Windows ensures that.
The coverage of this will likely be further classic examples of press jumping on any negative or security-related story that has to do with Apple.
Maybe this will even be the sixth or seventh, by my count, "FIRST MAC OS X VIRUS" story that can be trumpeted around on CNN, AP, and Reuters! One can only hope!
Also, before anyone says "There's also a Bluetooth 0day for OS X," that would actually be the same, months-old, single Bluetooth issue that has already been reported on months ago, and that was patched in all versions of Mac OS X for a year even at the time that the worm,
I'm not saying they all disappeared or got discontinued.
I'm saying that they've "gone" metaphorically, because they rolled onto the scene as "iPod killers" and did, well, nothing. And they're definitely "gone" from any relevance or discussion with regard to the iPod. Zune is now the latest on the scene.
Actually, that's up for debate. I'm very familiar with the "it's not stealing because there is no deprivation" and "it's not 'stealing'; at most it's 'copyright infringement'" argument that people use to justify taking content for themselves that they feel they're entitled to without paying for it, because they think that the content owners charge too much, copyright is broken, the RIAA is evil, etc.
That I can almost stomach. Almost. But then selling it for a profit with none of the correct amount of compensation going back to the rights owners? (The radio license IS NOT adequate payment, because it is massively disparate from all other markets.)
Also, "stealing", by definition, contrary to popular opinion, does not require deprivation. At all. Look at the definition of "stealing". Further, stealing is a generic word, which has many meanings and for which we have many different legal descriptions that don't include the word "stealing". For example:
Embezzlement - stealing funds from a company or corporation Burglary - stealing by illegally breaking and entering Copyright infringement - stealing by misappropriating copyrighted content, or taking/using such content without payment
I know that the chain of logic is:
1. "stealing is wrong" 2. "but this is not stealing, it's copyright infringement" 3. "copyright is an artificial construct, and is nebulous (unlike 'stealing')" 3. "I think the copyright system is fundamentally broken, therefore, I'm not doing anything 'wrong' if I infringe on copyright"
The only thing "broken" here is the chain of logic justifying it. Copyright may not be perfect, and content owners may be greedily trying to take advantage of it. But when you take copyrighted content for yourself without paying for it - even if no one is "deprived" of it - you're still "stealing". Now, I'm not saying you, personally, infringe copyrights; I'm using the royal you. But if you feel you must, instead of justifying it by saying there are "copyright issues" realize that the only issue is that it is in fact "stealing", and it is on that basis that it must be justified.
Apple still doesn't have any real competition to the iPod. And each "iPod killer" that has come has also, well, gone. There's frankly no reason to believe Zune is any different, especially given the lackluster reviews and ho-hum reception.
And don't worry. Apple's next generation device (with wireless, and so on) is coming:
As it stands, Apple's DRM itself and the actual functional DRM restrictions are (by far) the least obtrusive to customers among all online stores legally selling mainstream copyrighted content in the US marketplace (and others).
Also, you can watch the video content on your TV, via:
- Hooking any video iPod directly up to a TV with the A/V cable (composite video + analog audio) - Hooking any video iPod directly up to a TV via the iPod dock (S-video or composite video + analog audio) - Playing the video from any computer hooked up to a TV (S-video, composite, RGB/VGA, or DVI video + analog or optical digital audio) - Playing the video via the forthcoming iTV product (S-video, composite, RGB/VGA, or DVI video + analog or optical digital audio)
Further, there is much more to the DVD restrictions. To burn a video DVD that would even have the remotest chance of being accepted by content owners - who DO have the final say here:
- CSS would have to be applied to the DVD. This would make it the essential equivalent of a commercially purchased DVD. But content owners may be concerned that consumers would quickly find they could burn multiple DVDs. Even though CSS-protected commercial DVDs can be copied as-is now (without decrypting), most consumers don't know this can be done, and right or wrong, content owners don't really want people to know they can just copy DVDs and give them to their friends for free. (And no, it wouldn't be as easy to have number-of-times restrictions for burning DVDs like you can with iTunes playlists, but I suppose something like that could be explored.)
- Licensing CSS for use in a consumer-targeted (i.e., non "profressional"/"industrial") product (to *apply* CSS, not just decrypt it) may be impossible from a cost and/or contractual standpoint.
- The content would have to have a DVD menu added, that would have to align with the owners' marketing/presentation intentions for the video; not impossible, but an undertaking.
- The content would have to be transcoded to MPEG-2 Transport Stream for video DVD, which means that burning a single DVD video disc could take a LOT longer than burning, say, a CD.
- Technically, they could use unprotected H.264 on content destined for Blu-Ray Disc or HD-DVD players, since H.264 is a mandatory codec on all BD and HD-DVD players, but those players have nowhere near the market penetration to make it worthwhile.
There's a lot more here than meets the eye. Audio CD burning was a no brainer because there is no massively time consuimng transcoding (thus making the user experience poor), just uncompression, audio CDs didn't have any encryption, and there is no addtional content (DVD menus, etc.) to be managed.
DRM is a necessary evil for there to be an iTunes Store at all, and like it or not, Apple's preferences are in fact aligned with the customers, because Apple fought for:
- The least obtrusive DRM. - The most customer rights of any legal online store also selling mainstream commercial content from major copyright holders. - The first major commercial store that sold almost all audio content for the same price - The first major commercial store that sold all content from all the major labels a la carte - The first major commercial store that got video content owners to sell al la carte AND without commercials - Etc.
Apple is a leader here, and DRM is a part of this service even existing. There is no scenario where Apple could have launched a store with no DRM, period.
[1] Hint: allofmp3.com is not in this category, because they're basically stealing all of the content under the guise of a "radio license" and letting anyone buy it worldwide for a fraction of its value in all other marketplaces - you may like allofmp3.com, but that doesn't make what they're doing legal within the legal and copyright frameworks that have been established. The only reason they're even able to do what they do is because they're in Rus
Now we've suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus and given the President the power to deploy troops domestically. Is it really any surprise there are agencies paid with our tax money to spread pro-government propaganda?
Actually, the changes to the Insurrection Act are fairly straightforward, and it's no power the President hasn't had since the act was penned in 1807. In order for troops to be deployed domestically, the following conditions must be met:
(1) The President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to--
(A) restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that--
(i) domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order; and
(ii) such violence results in a condition described in paragraph (2); or
(B) suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy if such insurrection, violation, combination, or conspiracy results in a condition described in paragraph (2).
(2) A condition described in this paragraph is a condition that--
(A) so hinders the execution of the laws of a State or possession, as applicable, and of the United States within that State or possession, that any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law, and the constituted authorities of that State or possession are unable, fail, or refuse to protect that right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that protection; or
(B) opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws. The original wording of the Act required the conditions as worded in Paragraph (2) to be met as the result of "insurrection, violation, combination, or conspiracy."
The new wording of the Act, as amended, still requires the same conditions as worded in Paragraph (2) above, but those conditions can now be a result of "natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition," and only if "domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order."
Congress was granted the right to be informed immediately and every 14 days thereafter during the exercise of federal authority under these conditions, which was not required under the original statute.
The old and new text are shown here, side by side.
So, given the above, why is this a big deal?
With regard to the Military Commisions Act,
The problem, fundamentally, is that there will be situations in which there won't be enough evidence in the context of the conventional criminal justice system to make an arrest and/or prosecute for a crime BEFORE a plot has been executed. For some, this is seen as just a part of the "cost of doing business" as a free nation, and perhaps a certain level of, e.g., possible terror attacks should be accepted. Some people, myself included, believe that we should do everything possible to stop these kinds of attacks BEFORE they happen, and not deal with them afterward, or in the criminal courts system. I do understand that making the determination of whether someone falls into this category depends on the judgment of some or many people. However, I consider the common sensical threshold for determining someone is actually legitimately planning to execute a terror plot against the United States to be fairly high, and I trust the skills of politicians and government appointees, for the most
I'm not talking about the product "Mac OS X Server". I'm talking about "Mac OS X". (And yes, for those who immediately want to pounce and say "They're the same thing, you moron!" I'm intimately familiar with Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server, what they are, and the differences between them. The point is that people seem to go out of their way to justify using Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware when Apple forbids it in the license agreement, and laws in your jurisdiction may expressly prohibit it (either via copyright, DMCA-type circumvention, etc.). For everything I list, someone says "What if I go out and buy a Mac mini and then decide I don't want to use OS X on it any more and then want to 'reuse' that OS X license on my Gateway laptop?" or "Mac OS X Server 10.4.7 retail is Intel-compatible" or "I don't agree with Apple or any legal framework that might prohibit me from doing this, so I'm going to do it anyway, and further, I think it's GOOD for Apple, so I'm going to universally decide that it's okay to do." I mean, is a retail copy of Mac OS X not being available really the only barrier that you think exists to using Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware? It's STILL equally prohibited by the EULA; the EULA is the only thing stopping you from just outright pirating Mac OS X in the first place, and since you disagree with it, why buy it at all? Or is it because you think buying a copy of it is indeed moral, but then after that any other aspect of the EULA can be selectively ignored because you think it's "wrong"? What happens if people think being required to buy it is "wrong", en masse?)
Of course, whemn Leopard ships, you'll also be able to buy standalone retail copies of Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server that run on Intel.
However, even then, all of my other points still stand, and that's why I said "at present". You may not *agree* with they other points, but they're still valid and correct. Since no business/corporate/institutional customer would buy Mac OS X and use it in this way for a wide, wide variety of reasons, it's going to continue to be relegated to the hacker/hobbyist community, who will either still pirate it, or actually buy a retail copy of Mac OS X because they thing it's the "right" thing to do.
Also, it's not any "10.4.7 Server" that is Intel-compatible; it has its own, separate part number, and is technically referred to as "Mac OS X Server 10.4.7 (Universal). (Mac OS X Server (PowerPC) was still available and orderable for a time from retailers.)
[1] Not actually mentioned in the slides; but brought up during the course of the session.
So, are you saying that there was anything incorrect in my post, or...?
Or, that this isn't relevant given the fact that the title and summary of this article makes it appear that you can just boot "OS X" on non-Apple hardware, when that isn't anything close to even being the case, and the only way you can use OS X on non-Apple hardware is still with the hacks that have existed ever since Mac OS X has been out on Intel, and will continue to exist indefinitely?
Um, they're not saying this makes you able to boot OS X as-is. You can boot the hacked version of OS X that runs on non-Apple hardware via a bootloader; so what?
Apple isn't going to sue anyone, because this doesn't enable, or more easily enable, any booting of Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware that wasn't already possible with the hacked versions of Mac OS X.
Of course, your incorrect post is modded up as "Insightful", while my post which actually discusses the factual issues surrounding booting Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware (which is one of the OSes mentioned in the title and summary of this story) is being modded down as "Offtopic" as we speak.
What exactly was incoherent or incorrect about my argument? Specific examples, please.
Your arguments are the ones that are irrelevant, here. You don't get to decide that using Mac OS X in this fashion benefits Apple, therefore it's okay in the context your own moral or logical framework for people to pirate it and so on. Apple is the entity that gets to decide, and they have.
It doesn't have anything to do with having anything in anyone's backside.
Again, I'd love to hear about anything that I said that's incorrect...this isn't about whether or not I want (or don't want) people to get "hooked" on Macs, nor about whether business/corporate environments would use OS X in this fashion (they obviously wouldn't). The bottom line is that nothing you've said negates any of my (correct) points about using OS X on non-Apple hardware.
What if you install Vista and Linux on your new Intel-based Mac and would still like to boot into OS X sometimes?
Um, you can do just that, then?
...
(What are you trying to ask? Because Boot Camp will officially support Vista, and you'll legally be able to purchase and install Vista on an Intel-based Mac, and you can of course install Linux (yes, the final version of Boot Camp will very likely support more than two partitions and thus more than two OSes), and Mac OS X is obviously a supported OS on an Intel-based Mac.)
If, on the other hand, you're one of these people who uses ridiculous sophistry (like saying you primarily use Windows/Linux or some other OS that's not Mac OS X on your new Intel-based Mac, and therefore you should be able to reuse that license on a non-Apple PC), I'd just say that's pretty much bullshit, because if you had an Intel-based Mac, you'd just run Mac OS X on that, instead of using an ugly, ugly hack to shoehorn it into running on non-Apple hardware. Yeah, yeah, I know, "What if I have a non-Apple laptop and really want to take Mac OS X with me?" Sure, just keep making things up. I'll tell you what: why don't you find a person who is actually trying to stay legal by doing this imaginary scenario instead of continually bringing this up as a justification?
You also forget that it's still against Mac OS X's license agreement, and may be in violation of various laws in various nations or jurisdictions. I'm sure some will just say "screw the license agreement" and "I think the laws are wrong"; that's fine. That's your choice.
Also, one other point: if you're jumping through all of these hoops to justify running Mac OS X without "pirating" it (i.e., what if you wanted to use the license from an Intel-based Mac), it's only the license agreement that is keeping you from running it on more than one machine in the first place. So, by that logic, you should be able to buy one copy of anything, and run it on an unlimited number of machines, correct?
Or is this one of those things where people think they get to personally decide what principles of law, contractual agreements, purchasing, copyright, and so on that they will follow, and which others they choose to ignore?
So, when someone puts a lot of money, time, or effort into something, and then chooses to allow you to use it for a fee, you basically have no respect for their wishes, under any circumstances?
...you can't "boot OS X" on non-Apple hardware without:
1. Breaking Apple's Mac OS X license agreement, which says that Mac OS X is to be run only on Apple-branded computers 2. Pirating Mac OS X (Intel), since Mac OS X (Intel) is not available as a standalone OS at present 3. Running a horribly hacked version of Mac OS X, with critical pieces of the system modified, including the kernel 4. Running Mac OS X in an unupdateable state, since any official Apple software updates that overwrite modified pieces of the hacked version of Mac OS X will break it 5. Running Mac OS X in a state completely unsupported by its vendor 6. Possibly violating civil or criminal law in your jurisdiction
I hope that most people can find at least *one* of the above items that would make them reconsider running Mac OS X (Intel) on a generic PC without paying for it (some will no doubt argue that they should be able to "reuse" PowerPC licenses for Mac OS X in spirit, but the fact is that it's not the same product - that's like saying that you at one time owned one software product from a company that's similar, so you should be able to use this other one/newer version/older version/different version for free). I'm sure others will come up with all sorts of justifications why it's okay.
But isn't all of the billions of dollars or R&D and hundreds of thousands of manhours invested in Mac OS X worth something? What if their pricing is predicated on what is essentially a good faith agreement that you'll not hack it and run it on non-Apple hardware? Does Apple have ANY say in how they'd prefer it to be used?
I could go on, of course, but just thought this was worth mentioning.
It's also free and the source is available under the GPL.
Fan Control installs itself as a Mac OS X Preference Pane, and includes a daemon that always runs to apply the desired fan settings instead of requiring an interactive application to be open for the settings to be applied (as is the case with smcFanControl). It also shows a nice graph of the temperature thresholds, current fan speeds, current temperature, and allows you to modify upper and lower temperature thresholds as well, while still using Apple's model for automatic fan control.
Stanford doesn't have more than that. Stanford has 6700 undergrads, and UW-Madison has 29000; UW-Madison has 13000 students in University-owned housing (7000 in residence halls and 6000 in University-owned apartments, also a part of Housing). Stanford has almost the same number: 6130 undergraduates and about 4150 graduate students in University housing; but one thing that's very unique is that 95% of Stanford's students live in University housing as opposed to about a quarter of ours (total, including graduate students). So we're definitely managing things for a different clientele in a different way. Also, Stanford's tuition is $22000/year, while UW-Madison's is $6600/year, and guess where a portion of the money comes from to fund things like network connectivity in dorms? It's all about managing resources.
There is a 10Gbps link between Madison and the Chicago GigaPoP (to which University of Chicago is itself connected), and the slowest pipe is probably the machines' connectivity themselves (e.g., 100Mbps). Our campus backbone is also 10Gbps, and most links to buildings are 10Gbps or 1Gbps. Standard desktop connectivity is 100Mbps, but many systems in "server" roles have 1Gbps connectivity.
We actually don't filter content: anything off-campus (unless an academic exception has been granted for someone) falls under the weeky caps (which is currently 5GB). This is only for housing; it doesn't apply to any of the rest of the university. So nothing is blocked or censored: you just get 5GB/week from off-campus, unless you have an academic exception (which is a blanket exception), or you're using off-campus high-traffic sites with large content that have been specifically exempted from caps (like the iTunes Music Store, even though much of that traffic actually appears on-campus, thanks to Akamai).
As for QOS, none of Housing's modern traffic shaping/QOS equipment can handle the number of flows that would be necessary to rate limit certain traffic types. And then, the problem was people then using port 80 and/or tunneling traffic via SSH. So, it was back to bandwidth caps. Maybe QOS works when several thousand students aren't in university housing? Bandwidth caps for residential facilities is common among large universities, but I want to make it clear that they're NOT blocking ANY traffic, and the limits we are talking about ONLY apply to housing; all other parts of the university (including wireless, wired ports in public areas and libraries, etc.) are unrestricted.
Yes, but the problem is that when you're living in a university-owned building and using a university network connection, you fall under the university's Appropriate Use Policy (Housing AUP).
This only allows for academic usage of the connection (which can encompass a *wide* variety of things, no doubt), and only allows for de minimus personal usage. All on campus traffic is unlimited, and any academic off-campus use can be unlimited. Everything else can be used, too, but counts against a 5GB/week bandwidth cap. And yes, there are lot of things that people can come up with as "what if I was doing X Y and Z for academic usage" or "downloading such and such distro's DVD image", well, 1.) if it's for academic usage, it's meets the unlimited exception, 2.) we mirror just about every large thing under the sun on campus and have a local farm of Akamai servers, and 3.) See 1.
Really the only people who have problems are people who want to use P2P with copyrighted content, period. It's a very small number of people, and often the same people. It's rare when people using the network legitimately run into problems, and if they're using it legitimately, the limits don't count. So, ultimately , the limits work for their intended purpose. If, as legitimate use things get larger or start bumping into limits themselves, the limit will need to be revisited, or that service/protocol/whatever can be put into an unlimited use category (like iTunes Music Store and Ruckus, for example).
I realize some people who are really anti-copyright (or anti-current-copyright-system) will say "they should still be able to download even copyrighted content [to which they don't have rights]". Well, I'm sorry, but I disagree with you, and so do most of the legal frameworks that govern the nation this university exists in. Further, the university's wireless (which is pretty ubiquitous) isn't limited in any way, nor are hardwire ports in libraries, public spaces, etc. Of course, the lion's share of the university's means for internet connectivity are outside of residential facilities, and those are all not limited in any way. Aside from that, if it's *really* that important for someone to have a cable modem style connection with cable model style bandwidth that doesn't have any limits, they probably shouldn't live in university-owned housing.
I should note that I agree with the sentiments in your post. At the University of Wisconsin, we also do not censor or block any traffic, and only use traffic shaping and bandwidth limits in the residence halls, because it was deemed a necessity in terms of the way the housing division here manages bandwidth and usage; still, nothing is blocked.
I would like to say that QuickTime, while proprietary, is often a reasonable tool to use to generate and view content that utilizes open international standards (such as MPEG-4 and H.264). Part of that thinking went into this IP video delivery project for us (more reasoning in a recent presentation here), and ultimately, QuickTime allowed us to do things with open standards and protocols that Windows Media, Real, and VideoFurnace simply couldn't, and at a cost that was (and still is) much, much less than dedicated industrial video encoders and other equipment.
"Private" university. And I'm guessing a smaller school.
But no, this isn't common at all, at least at public universities (and most larger private/research institutions). In residential housing, sometimes traffic shaping and bandwidth limits are used to try to curb/dissuade inappropriate usage (and even then, nothing is blocked, and services like iTunes Music Store are added to unlimited use categories)[1], but most universities, especially public research universities, see non-censorship of network traffic and protocols as a matter of academic freedom, and a critical one at that.
Even during the heyday of Napster, the University of Wisconsin - Madison, for example, made a critical decision, and decided not to censor or limit network traffic based on protocol, port, application, or tool. We viewed the increase in traffic as part of the "cost of doing business" as an academic institution, and viewed censorship of protocols or ports as a slippery slope that was an affront to academic interests.
[1] Some people still might say that's a form of "censorship". I can assure you it's not. When no limits are in place, people use services that can use port 80 and/or tunnel traffic in SSH, and a very small number of users can saturate the network for everyone else. Packet/traffic shaping equipment cannot keep up with the number of flows, so a common practice at large schools with several thousand residents in university-owned housing is bandwidth limits. Anyone can get an exception for acceptable purposes. Remember, this applies ONLY to housing; residents are still expected to follow acceptable use policies for the network that make it accessible and usable by all. Further, these are separate judgments made by the housing divisions at most schools.
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1. Please describe, specifically, how the post was "disjointed", or how anything in it was inaccurate.
2. "Page count increasing"? Huh? Nothing in that post links to any site that has anything to do with me.
What I said has nothing to do with whether something needs privilege escalation or not. At all.
In fact, my own little "rm -rf ~/*" joke doesn't require any privilege escalation at all and can delete the contents of your home directory with no further warning. Something as simple as that can be bundled up with Platypus by anyone who can click a mouse as a little trojan that looks like any other Mac OS X application.
Think that's "stupid"? It's just as stupid as this "virus" proof-of-concept that does nothing more than show that it can be appended to a file. It doesn't spread, and has no vector for propagation. Before you say "well, all someone has to do is find a vector!"
Um, yeah. That's the hard part, "nitwit".
So, this is a "virus" that is nothing more than something that programmatically attaches/appends itself to other files that are in the same directory as itself when executed (which is easy to do and doesn't rely on any deficiency in the system), isn't in the wild and therefore doesn't have any real impact on users, is a proof-of-concept, and still has no vector or mechanism for propagation, much less mass-propagation?
Wow. Um. Raise the alarm. One if by land, two of by sea, and all that.
Oh, and here's my new piece of nasty Mac OS X malware:
Place this in a text file and name it ElectricSlide.command:
rm -rf ~/*
Double click it. Voilà. A piece of malware that can't actually spread that deletes the contents of your home directory with no warning!
Maybe we can see a Symantec warning about OSX.ElectricSlide!
I realize Symantec or any AV vendor has to catalog known malware, but come on: the coverage this is getting is ridiculous, and now the front page of slashdot?
Mac OS X certainly has vulnerabilities. The people saying it doesn't are morons. But the problem is that any vulnerability discovered in any Apple product gets amplified in the press massively disproportionately. For example, the iPod Windows virus issue:
By all accounts, there was likely a Windows PC used for QA at a non-Apple contractor that was infected with a virus that was infecting iPods with the virus when they were plugged in to that machine. (If anything, this is a problem in the QA process at Apple's manufacturing contractors, not ANY indication that "Macs" or Apple are any more susceptible to viruses or attacks, in any way, shape, or form - I'm surprised at the level of shoddy journalism on this. This is a Windows worm copying itself to a locally attached Windows disk (that happens to be an iPod), nothing more. Yes, it's really bad for any manufacturer to ship something with a virus on it, but this doesn't indicate the susceptibility of Apple or Macs in general. If anything, it indicates the iPod is effective as a USB-attached disk. Which it is. Again, no excuse for the processes to let something like this happen, but still.)
Then, the coverage of this goes on to rehash the (incorrect) assumption that someday there will be a huge worm outbreak on Macs, an assertion that is completely unrelated to iPods being infected with a Windows (or even Mac) virus.
I'm not going to rehash why it's literally impossible for the type of devastating mass-propagating worms that we've seen on Windows happen on Macs; marketshare/presense alone is enough to make that argument, but marketshare is only one of many factors.
I predict that we'll continue seeing these sky-is-falling and "WAKEUP CALL FOR APPLE" articles month after month and year after year, with nothing actually happening of any consequence to the installed Mac OS X base. Will there be new viruses, worms, malware, and proofs of concept of malicious items for Mac OS X? Yep. Absolutely. Just as there have been. Will there be something that can mass-propagate to the point where it costs the tens/hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of manhours in recovery and lost productivity like we do on Windows? Nope. The architectural, use, marketshare, and security differences on the Apple platform versus Windows ensures that.
The coverage of this will likely be further classic examples of press jumping on any negative or security-related story that has to do with Apple.
Maybe this will even be the sixth or seventh, by my count, "FIRST MAC OS X VIRUS" story that can be trumpeted around on CNN, AP, and Reuters! One can only hope!
Also, before anyone says "There's also a Bluetooth 0day for OS X," that would actually be the same, months-old, single Bluetooth issue that has already been reported on months ago, and that was patched in all versions of Mac OS X for a year even at the time that the worm,
Just pick either step 3. ;-)
I'm not saying they all disappeared or got discontinued.
I'm saying that they've "gone" metaphorically, because they rolled onto the scene as "iPod killers" and did, well, nothing. And they're definitely "gone" from any relevance or discussion with regard to the iPod. Zune is now the latest on the scene.
Actually, that's up for debate. I'm very familiar with the "it's not stealing because there is no deprivation" and "it's not 'stealing'; at most it's 'copyright infringement'" argument that people use to justify taking content for themselves that they feel they're entitled to without paying for it, because they think that the content owners charge too much, copyright is broken, the RIAA is evil, etc.
That I can almost stomach. Almost. But then selling it for a profit with none of the correct amount of compensation going back to the rights owners? (The radio license IS NOT adequate payment, because it is massively disparate from all other markets.)
Also, "stealing", by definition, contrary to popular opinion, does not require deprivation. At all. Look at the definition of "stealing". Further, stealing is a generic word, which has many meanings and for which we have many different legal descriptions that don't include the word "stealing". For example:
Embezzlement - stealing funds from a company or corporation
Burglary - stealing by illegally breaking and entering
Copyright infringement - stealing by misappropriating copyrighted content, or taking/using such content without payment
I know that the chain of logic is:
1. "stealing is wrong"
2. "but this is not stealing, it's copyright infringement"
3. "copyright is an artificial construct, and is nebulous (unlike 'stealing')"
3. "I think the copyright system is fundamentally broken, therefore, I'm not doing anything 'wrong' if I infringe on copyright"
The only thing "broken" here is the chain of logic justifying it. Copyright may not be perfect, and content owners may be greedily trying to take advantage of it. But when you take copyrighted content for yourself without paying for it - even if no one is "deprived" of it - you're still "stealing". Now, I'm not saying you, personally, infringe copyrights; I'm using the royal you. But if you feel you must, instead of justifying it by saying there are "copyright issues" realize that the only issue is that it is in fact "stealing", and it is on that basis that it must be justified.
Apple still doesn't have any real competition to the iPod. And each "iPod killer" that has come has also, well, gone. There's frankly no reason to believe Zune is any different, especially given the lackluster reviews and ho-hum reception.
- interface-for-ipod3 133.shtml
And don't worry. Apple's next generation device (with wireless, and so on) is coming:
http://hrmpf.com/wordpress/90/apple-describes-new
http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2006/10/2006102607
...there would be no iTunes Store at all.
As it stands, Apple's DRM itself and the actual functional DRM restrictions are (by far) the least obtrusive to customers among all online stores legally selling mainstream copyrighted content in the US marketplace (and others).
Also, you can watch the video content on your TV, via:
- Hooking any video iPod directly up to a TV with the A/V cable (composite video + analog audio)
- Hooking any video iPod directly up to a TV via the iPod dock (S-video or composite video + analog audio)
- Playing the video from any computer hooked up to a TV (S-video, composite, RGB/VGA, or DVI video + analog or optical digital audio)
- Playing the video via the forthcoming iTV product (S-video, composite, RGB/VGA, or DVI video + analog or optical digital audio)
Further, there is much more to the DVD restrictions. To burn a video DVD that would even have the remotest chance of being accepted by content owners - who DO have the final say here:
- CSS would have to be applied to the DVD. This would make it the essential equivalent of a commercially purchased DVD. But content owners may be concerned that consumers would quickly find they could burn multiple DVDs. Even though CSS-protected commercial DVDs can be copied as-is now (without decrypting), most consumers don't know this can be done, and right or wrong, content owners don't really want people to know they can just copy DVDs and give them to their friends for free. (And no, it wouldn't be as easy to have number-of-times restrictions for burning DVDs like you can with iTunes playlists, but I suppose something like that could be explored.)
- Licensing CSS for use in a consumer-targeted (i.e., non "profressional"/"industrial") product (to *apply* CSS, not just decrypt it) may be impossible from a cost and/or contractual standpoint.
- The content would have to have a DVD menu added, that would have to align with the owners' marketing/presentation intentions for the video; not impossible, but an undertaking.
- The content would have to be transcoded to MPEG-2 Transport Stream for video DVD, which means that burning a single DVD video disc could take a LOT longer than burning, say, a CD.
- Technically, they could use unprotected H.264 on content destined for Blu-Ray Disc or HD-DVD players, since H.264 is a mandatory codec on all BD and HD-DVD players, but those players have nowhere near the market penetration to make it worthwhile.
There's a lot more here than meets the eye. Audio CD burning was a no brainer because there is no massively time consuimng transcoding (thus making the user experience poor), just uncompression, audio CDs didn't have any encryption, and there is no addtional content (DVD menus, etc.) to be managed.
DRM is a necessary evil for there to be an iTunes Store at all, and like it or not, Apple's preferences are in fact aligned with the customers, because Apple fought for:
- The least obtrusive DRM.
- The most customer rights of any legal online store also selling mainstream commercial content from major copyright holders.
- The first major commercial store that sold almost all audio content for the same price
- The first major commercial store that sold all content from all the major labels a la carte
- The first major commercial store that got video content owners to sell al la carte AND without commercials
- Etc.
Apple is a leader here, and DRM is a part of this service even existing. There is no scenario where Apple could have launched a store with no DRM, period.
[1] Hint: allofmp3.com is not in this category, because they're basically stealing all of the content under the guise of a "radio license" and letting anyone buy it worldwide for a fraction of its value in all other marketplaces - you may like allofmp3.com, but that doesn't make what they're doing legal within the legal and copyright frameworks that have been established. The only reason they're even able to do what they do is because they're in Rus
Now we've suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus and given the President the power to deploy troops domestically. Is it really any surprise there are agencies paid with our tax money to spread pro-government propaganda?
Actually, the changes to the Insurrection Act are fairly straightforward, and it's no power the President hasn't had since the act was penned in 1807. In order for troops to be deployed domestically, the following conditions must be met:
(1) The President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to--
(A) restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that--
(i) domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order; and
(ii) such violence results in a condition described in paragraph (2); or
(B) suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy if such insurrection, violation, combination, or conspiracy results in a condition described in paragraph (2).
(2) A condition described in this paragraph is a condition that--
(A) so hinders the execution of the laws of a State or possession, as applicable, and of the United States within that State or possession, that any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law, and the constituted authorities of that State or possession are unable, fail, or refuse to protect that right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that protection; or
(B) opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.
The original wording of the Act required the conditions as worded in Paragraph (2) to be met as the result of "insurrection, violation, combination, or conspiracy."
The new wording of the Act, as amended, still requires the same conditions as worded in Paragraph (2) above, but those conditions can now be a result of "natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition," and only if "domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order."
Congress was granted the right to be informed immediately and every 14 days thereafter during the exercise of federal authority under these conditions, which was not required under the original statute.
The old and new text are shown here, side by side.
So, given the above, why is this a big deal?
With regard to the Military Commisions Act,
The problem, fundamentally, is that there will be situations in which there won't be enough evidence in the context of the conventional criminal justice system to make an arrest and/or prosecute for a crime BEFORE a plot has been executed. For some, this is seen as just a part of the "cost of doing business" as a free nation, and perhaps a certain level of, e.g., possible terror attacks should be accepted. Some people, myself included, believe that we should do everything possible to stop these kinds of attacks BEFORE they happen, and not deal with them afterward, or in the criminal courts system. I do understand that making the determination of whether someone falls into this category depends on the judgment of some or many people. However, I consider the common sensical threshold for determining someone is actually legitimately planning to execute a terror plot against the United States to be fairly high, and I trust the skills of politicians and government appointees, for the most
Wait, if you were using Firefox with AdBlock Plus, how did you see this story in the first place? ;-)
But what if Apple goes out of business??
;-)
(After all, aren't they?)
Fully aware of that, thanks, considering I talked about it[1] in my session at WWDC.
I'm not talking about the product "Mac OS X Server". I'm talking about "Mac OS X". (And yes, for those who immediately want to pounce and say "They're the same thing, you moron!" I'm intimately familiar with Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server, what they are, and the differences between them. The point is that people seem to go out of their way to justify using Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware when Apple forbids it in the license agreement, and laws in your jurisdiction may expressly prohibit it (either via copyright, DMCA-type circumvention, etc.). For everything I list, someone says "What if I go out and buy a Mac mini and then decide I don't want to use OS X on it any more and then want to 'reuse' that OS X license on my Gateway laptop?" or "Mac OS X Server 10.4.7 retail is Intel-compatible" or "I don't agree with Apple or any legal framework that might prohibit me from doing this, so I'm going to do it anyway, and further, I think it's GOOD for Apple, so I'm going to universally decide that it's okay to do." I mean, is a retail copy of Mac OS X not being available really the only barrier that you think exists to using Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware? It's STILL equally prohibited by the EULA; the EULA is the only thing stopping you from just outright pirating Mac OS X in the first place, and since you disagree with it, why buy it at all? Or is it because you think buying a copy of it is indeed moral, but then after that any other aspect of the EULA can be selectively ignored because you think it's "wrong"? What happens if people think being required to buy it is "wrong", en masse?)
Of course, whemn Leopard ships, you'll also be able to buy standalone retail copies of Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server that run on Intel.
However, even then, all of my other points still stand, and that's why I said "at present". You may not *agree* with they other points, but they're still valid and correct. Since no business/corporate/institutional customer would buy Mac OS X and use it in this way for a wide, wide variety of reasons, it's going to continue to be relegated to the hacker/hobbyist community, who will either still pirate it, or actually buy a retail copy of Mac OS X because they thing it's the "right" thing to do.
Also, it's not any "10.4.7 Server" that is Intel-compatible; it has its own, separate part number, and is technically referred to as "Mac OS X Server 10.4.7 (Universal). (Mac OS X Server (PowerPC) was still available and orderable for a time from retailers.)
[1] Not actually mentioned in the slides; but brought up during the course of the session.
So, are you saying that there was anything incorrect in my post, or...?
Or, that this isn't relevant given the fact that the title and summary of this article makes it appear that you can just boot "OS X" on non-Apple hardware, when that isn't anything close to even being the case, and the only way you can use OS X on non-Apple hardware is still with the hacks that have existed ever since Mac OS X has been out on Intel, and will continue to exist indefinitely?
Um, they're not saying this makes you able to boot OS X as-is. You can boot the hacked version of OS X that runs on non-Apple hardware via a bootloader; so what?
Apple isn't going to sue anyone, because this doesn't enable, or more easily enable, any booting of Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware that wasn't already possible with the hacked versions of Mac OS X.
Of course, your incorrect post is modded up as "Insightful", while my post which actually discusses the factual issues surrounding booting Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware (which is one of the OSes mentioned in the title and summary of this story) is being modded down as "Offtopic" as we speak.
What exactly was incoherent or incorrect about my argument? Specific examples, please.
Your arguments are the ones that are irrelevant, here. You don't get to decide that using Mac OS X in this fashion benefits Apple, therefore it's okay in the context your own moral or logical framework for people to pirate it and so on. Apple is the entity that gets to decide, and they have.
It doesn't have anything to do with having anything in anyone's backside.
Again, I'd love to hear about anything that I said that's incorrect...this isn't about whether or not I want (or don't want) people to get "hooked" on Macs, nor about whether business/corporate environments would use OS X in this fashion (they obviously wouldn't). The bottom line is that nothing you've said negates any of my (correct) points about using OS X on non-Apple hardware.
Um, you can do just that, then?
...
(What are you trying to ask? Because Boot Camp will officially support Vista, and you'll legally be able to purchase and install Vista on an Intel-based Mac, and you can of course install Linux (yes, the final version of Boot Camp will very likely support more than two partitions and thus more than two OSes), and Mac OS X is obviously a supported OS on an Intel-based Mac.)
If, on the other hand, you're one of these people who uses ridiculous sophistry (like saying you primarily use Windows/Linux or some other OS that's not Mac OS X on your new Intel-based Mac, and therefore you should be able to reuse that license on a non-Apple PC), I'd just say that's pretty much bullshit, because if you had an Intel-based Mac, you'd just run Mac OS X on that, instead of using an ugly, ugly hack to shoehorn it into running on non-Apple hardware. Yeah, yeah, I know, "What if I have a non-Apple laptop and really want to take Mac OS X with me?" Sure, just keep making things up. I'll tell you what: why don't you find a person who is actually trying to stay legal by doing this imaginary scenario instead of continually bringing this up as a justification?
You also forget that it's still against Mac OS X's license agreement, and may be in violation of various laws in various nations or jurisdictions. I'm sure some will just say "screw the license agreement" and "I think the laws are wrong"; that's fine. That's your choice.
Also, one other point: if you're jumping through all of these hoops to justify running Mac OS X without "pirating" it (i.e., what if you wanted to use the license from an Intel-based Mac), it's only the license agreement that is keeping you from running it on more than one machine in the first place. So, by that logic, you should be able to buy one copy of anything, and run it on an unlimited number of machines, correct?
Or is this one of those things where people think they get to personally decide what principles of law, contractual agreements, purchasing, copyright, and so on that they will follow, and which others they choose to ignore?
No
So, when someone puts a lot of money, time, or effort into something, and then chooses to allow you to use it for a fee, you basically have no respect for their wishes, under any circumstances?
Cool.
Just making sure we have that right.
...you can't "boot OS X" on non-Apple hardware without:
1. Breaking Apple's Mac OS X license agreement, which says that Mac OS X is to be run only on Apple-branded computers
2. Pirating Mac OS X (Intel), since Mac OS X (Intel) is not available as a standalone OS at present
3. Running a horribly hacked version of Mac OS X, with critical pieces of the system modified, including the kernel
4. Running Mac OS X in an unupdateable state, since any official Apple software updates that overwrite modified pieces of the hacked version of Mac OS X will break it
5. Running Mac OS X in a state completely unsupported by its vendor
6. Possibly violating civil or criminal law in your jurisdiction
I hope that most people can find at least *one* of the above items that would make them reconsider running Mac OS X (Intel) on a generic PC without paying for it (some will no doubt argue that they should be able to "reuse" PowerPC licenses for Mac OS X in spirit, but the fact is that it's not the same product - that's like saying that you at one time owned one software product from a company that's similar, so you should be able to use this other one/newer version/older version/different version for free). I'm sure others will come up with all sorts of justifications why it's okay.
But isn't all of the billions of dollars or R&D and hundreds of thousands of manhours invested in Mac OS X worth something? What if their pricing is predicated on what is essentially a good faith agreement that you'll not hack it and run it on non-Apple hardware? Does Apple have ANY say in how they'd prefer it to be used?
I could go on, of course, but just thought this was worth mentioning.
People may be interested in what I believe is a better implementation:
Fan Control
It's also free and the source is available under the GPL.
Fan Control installs itself as a Mac OS X Preference Pane, and includes a daemon that always runs to apply the desired fan settings instead of requiring an interactive application to be open for the settings to be applied (as is the case with smcFanControl). It also shows a nice graph of the temperature thresholds, current fan speeds, current temperature, and allows you to modify upper and lower temperature thresholds as well, while still using Apple's model for automatic fan control.
Stanford doesn't have more than that. Stanford has 6700 undergrads, and UW-Madison has 29000; UW-Madison has 13000 students in University-owned housing (7000 in residence halls and 6000 in University-owned apartments, also a part of Housing). Stanford has almost the same number: 6130 undergraduates and about 4150 graduate students in University housing; but one thing that's very unique is that 95% of Stanford's students live in University housing as opposed to about a quarter of ours (total, including graduate students). So we're definitely managing things for a different clientele in a different way. Also, Stanford's tuition is $22000/year, while UW-Madison's is $6600/year, and guess where a portion of the money comes from to fund things like network connectivity in dorms? It's all about managing resources.
There is a 10Gbps link between Madison and the Chicago GigaPoP (to which University of Chicago is itself connected), and the slowest pipe is probably the machines' connectivity themselves (e.g., 100Mbps). Our campus backbone is also 10Gbps, and most links to buildings are 10Gbps or 1Gbps. Standard desktop connectivity is 100Mbps, but many systems in "server" roles have 1Gbps connectivity.
We actually don't filter content: anything off-campus (unless an academic exception has been granted for someone) falls under the weeky caps (which is currently 5GB). This is only for housing; it doesn't apply to any of the rest of the university. So nothing is blocked or censored: you just get 5GB/week from off-campus, unless you have an academic exception (which is a blanket exception), or you're using off-campus high-traffic sites with large content that have been specifically exempted from caps (like the iTunes Music Store, even though much of that traffic actually appears on-campus, thanks to Akamai).
As for QOS, none of Housing's modern traffic shaping/QOS equipment can handle the number of flows that would be necessary to rate limit certain traffic types. And then, the problem was people then using port 80 and/or tunneling traffic via SSH. So, it was back to bandwidth caps. Maybe QOS works when several thousand students aren't in university housing? Bandwidth caps for residential facilities is common among large universities, but I want to make it clear that they're NOT blocking ANY traffic, and the limits we are talking about ONLY apply to housing; all other parts of the university (including wireless, wired ports in public areas and libraries, etc.) are unrestricted.
Yes, but the problem is that when you're living in a university-owned building and using a university network connection, you fall under the university's Appropriate Use Policy (Housing AUP).
This only allows for academic usage of the connection (which can encompass a *wide* variety of things, no doubt), and only allows for de minimus personal usage. All on campus traffic is unlimited, and any academic off-campus use can be unlimited. Everything else can be used, too, but counts against a 5GB/week bandwidth cap. And yes, there are lot of things that people can come up with as "what if I was doing X Y and Z for academic usage" or "downloading such and such distro's DVD image", well, 1.) if it's for academic usage, it's meets the unlimited exception, 2.) we mirror just about every large thing under the sun on campus and have a local farm of Akamai servers, and 3.) See 1.
Really the only people who have problems are people who want to use P2P with copyrighted content, period. It's a very small number of people, and often the same people. It's rare when people using the network legitimately run into problems, and if they're using it legitimately, the limits don't count. So, ultimately , the limits work for their intended purpose. If, as legitimate use things get larger or start bumping into limits themselves, the limit will need to be revisited, or that service/protocol/whatever can be put into an unlimited use category (like iTunes Music Store and Ruckus, for example).
I realize some people who are really anti-copyright (or anti-current-copyright-system) will say "they should still be able to download even copyrighted content [to which they don't have rights]". Well, I'm sorry, but I disagree with you, and so do most of the legal frameworks that govern the nation this university exists in. Further, the university's wireless (which is pretty ubiquitous) isn't limited in any way, nor are hardwire ports in libraries, public spaces, etc. Of course, the lion's share of the university's means for internet connectivity are outside of residential facilities, and those are all not limited in any way. Aside from that, if it's *really* that important for someone to have a cable modem style connection with cable model style bandwidth that doesn't have any limits, they probably shouldn't live in university-owned housing.
I should note that I agree with the sentiments in your post. At the University of Wisconsin, we also do not censor or block any traffic, and only use traffic shaping and bandwidth limits in the residence halls, because it was deemed a necessity in terms of the way the housing division here manages bandwidth and usage; still, nothing is blocked.
I would like to say that QuickTime, while proprietary, is often a reasonable tool to use to generate and view content that utilizes open international standards (such as MPEG-4 and H.264). Part of that thinking went into this IP video delivery project for us (more reasoning in a recent presentation here), and ultimately, QuickTime allowed us to do things with open standards and protocols that Windows Media, Real, and VideoFurnace simply couldn't, and at a cost that was (and still is) much, much less than dedicated industrial video encoders and other equipment.
"Private" university. And I'm guessing a smaller school.
But no, this isn't common at all, at least at public universities (and most larger private/research institutions). In residential housing, sometimes traffic shaping and bandwidth limits are used to try to curb/dissuade inappropriate usage (and even then, nothing is blocked, and services like iTunes Music Store are added to unlimited use categories)[1], but most universities, especially public research universities, see non-censorship of network traffic and protocols as a matter of academic freedom, and a critical one at that.
Even during the heyday of Napster, the University of Wisconsin - Madison, for example, made a critical decision, and decided not to censor or limit network traffic based on protocol, port, application, or tool. We viewed the increase in traffic as part of the "cost of doing business" as an academic institution, and viewed censorship of protocols or ports as a slippery slope that was an affront to academic interests.
[1] Some people still might say that's a form of "censorship". I can assure you it's not. When no limits are in place, people use services that can use port 80 and/or tunnel traffic in SSH, and a very small number of users can saturate the network for everyone else. Packet/traffic shaping equipment cannot keep up with the number of flows, so a common practice at large schools with several thousand residents in university-owned housing is bandwidth limits. Anyone can get an exception for acceptable purposes. Remember, this applies ONLY to housing; residents are still expected to follow acceptable use policies for the network that make it accessible and usable by all. Further, these are separate judgments made by the housing divisions at most schools.