I've actually gone to CMU for the past 4 years (just graduated) and wanted to let you know that the policies on campus are not as evil as the OIT page makes them out to be. The CSA program, which is required to gain access to the university network from the residence halls (resnet) is a run-once program that only checks to make sure that you have all critical WIndows Updates and an anti-virus program installed. After the agent has run and you are successfully connected to the network, you can simply delete the file and reboot to make sure that it is no longer running. They are essentially just whit-listing your MAC address. If this is still a problem for you there are a couple of solutions. First, you can contact the OIT helpdesk and talk to them about manually registering your computer. They allow this manual registration process for game consoles and other systems that do not have a browser. I'm not sure if they would still want to inspect your computer (they don't want conficker running around the network) but if you carefully explain your concerns and situation to them I'm sure there is something that you can work out (I do recommend doing this before you move in as network registration is crazy for the first week). The second option is to not use the resnet services. I think that all academic buildings on campus have at least 802.11b wi-fi that is on a separate registration system and does not require use of CSA. You can choose to use the CMICH_GOLD network which is WPA2 encrypted and supports up to 802.11n in some buildings (Pearce is one of them) or the cmich network which is usually 802.11b and is not encrypted. Granted, you will need to leave your dorm and seek out one of the academic buildings or the library, but that's the price you'll have to pay for not wanting to run the CSA.
Beyond the network registration policies, there are a couple of other things that you may want to watch out for when using the network. First, and most importantly, is the bandwidth limit they have on residential machines. The last time I was in the dorms (2 years ago) the weekly limit was 5GB of total traffic (up/down) which reset on Saturday night/Sunday morning (game consoles are not subject to this limit if properly registered). They claim they will not monitor what you do on the internet in terms of what sites you visit etc. but there is a blacklist of dangerous sites that will be blocked (you'll see a friendly octopus). As far as I know they do not throttle or filter bandwidth for things like BitTorrent, but they do comply with any requests from the RIAA/MPAA about pirated materials. Again, I've been out of the dorms for 2 years so I haven't kept completely current with changes to ResNet. I do know that computers in academic buildings (labs and personal computers over wifi) are not subject to this bandwidth cap (so do your downloading from your laptop between classes).
I know this may sound like I'm a shill for CMU's OIT, but this is not the case. I am currently employed by the university but do not work for the networking group or the Office of Information Technology. I just wanted to help clear up some of the concerns you had about how to get connected when you get up to CMU. I personally don't think it is too bad, but I also do not like having some program running through my computer to get on the network even though the program no longer runs after you have been registered. If you still have concerns about the policies in place I strongly suggest calling the OIT Help Desk and working with them to find a solution. I can't imagine that you were the first person to have some problems with this. I'm pretty impressed that you checked the polices out before move in as I went over my network quota the first day of freshman year without realizing what I was doing (it was only 1GB/week back then). I've been using CMU's network for four years and have not felt that my private data is being exposed to the university. Most networking folks I've dealt with on campus are too busy trying to keep everything up and running to bother with watching your email go through the network. Just keep up your normal safe browsing habits and keep in mind the use policies and I don't think you'll have a problem with the network. Good luck.
Slashdot Mirror
I've actually gone to CMU for the past 4 years (just graduated) and wanted to let you know that the policies on campus are not as evil as the OIT page makes them out to be. The CSA program, which is required to gain access to the university network from the residence halls (resnet) is a run-once program that only checks to make sure that you have all critical WIndows Updates and an anti-virus program installed. After the agent has run and you are successfully connected to the network, you can simply delete the file and reboot to make sure that it is no longer running. They are essentially just whit-listing your MAC address. If this is still a problem for you there are a couple of solutions. First, you can contact the OIT helpdesk and talk to them about manually registering your computer. They allow this manual registration process for game consoles and other systems that do not have a browser. I'm not sure if they would still want to inspect your computer (they don't want conficker running around the network) but if you carefully explain your concerns and situation to them I'm sure there is something that you can work out (I do recommend doing this before you move in as network registration is crazy for the first week). The second option is to not use the resnet services. I think that all academic buildings on campus have at least 802.11b wi-fi that is on a separate registration system and does not require use of CSA. You can choose to use the CMICH_GOLD network which is WPA2 encrypted and supports up to 802.11n in some buildings (Pearce is one of them) or the cmich network which is usually 802.11b and is not encrypted. Granted, you will need to leave your dorm and seek out one of the academic buildings or the library, but that's the price you'll have to pay for not wanting to run the CSA. Beyond the network registration policies, there are a couple of other things that you may want to watch out for when using the network. First, and most importantly, is the bandwidth limit they have on residential machines. The last time I was in the dorms (2 years ago) the weekly limit was 5GB of total traffic (up/down) which reset on Saturday night/Sunday morning (game consoles are not subject to this limit if properly registered). They claim they will not monitor what you do on the internet in terms of what sites you visit etc. but there is a blacklist of dangerous sites that will be blocked (you'll see a friendly octopus). As far as I know they do not throttle or filter bandwidth for things like BitTorrent, but they do comply with any requests from the RIAA/MPAA about pirated materials. Again, I've been out of the dorms for 2 years so I haven't kept completely current with changes to ResNet. I do know that computers in academic buildings (labs and personal computers over wifi) are not subject to this bandwidth cap (so do your downloading from your laptop between classes). I know this may sound like I'm a shill for CMU's OIT, but this is not the case. I am currently employed by the university but do not work for the networking group or the Office of Information Technology. I just wanted to help clear up some of the concerns you had about how to get connected when you get up to CMU. I personally don't think it is too bad, but I also do not like having some program running through my computer to get on the network even though the program no longer runs after you have been registered. If you still have concerns about the policies in place I strongly suggest calling the OIT Help Desk and working with them to find a solution. I can't imagine that you were the first person to have some problems with this. I'm pretty impressed that you checked the polices out before move in as I went over my network quota the first day of freshman year without realizing what I was doing (it was only 1GB/week back then). I've been using CMU's network for four years and have not felt that my private data is being exposed to the university. Most networking folks I've dealt with on campus are too busy trying to keep everything up and running to bother with watching your email go through the network. Just keep up your normal safe browsing habits and keep in mind the use policies and I don't think you'll have a problem with the network. Good luck.
1. Windows Updates 2. AIM 3. DeadAIM 4. iTunes 5. DivX 6. Microsoft Office 7. WinRAR 8. Newest ForceWare 9. Windows Media Encoder 10. Diskeeper