The University doesn't want you to use KaZaA, or other programs for sharing audio and video files. The trouble is figuring out how to stop you.
Administrators have tried filters that block traffic between peer-to-peer programs, a general cap on files uploaded from the school's network and even a direct appeal to students. Its efforts to curb such usage, however, have had minimal success, and the University is now looking for other options.
Two issues are troubling about the use of P2P programs: the fact that downloading copyrighted material is illegal, and that these programs use up an enormous amount of the University's bandwidth.
"There's currently a limit on the amount of outbound bandwidth ResNet - the dorms - can use," said Chris Cramer, information technology security officer for the Office of Information Technology. "[Peer-to-peer] programs are using up all of the available bandwidth for ResNet now."
The University began implementing measures to cut down on bandwidth use in 2001, when officials first noticed extremely high outgoing traffic - possibly five times the current level.
At that time the University placed filters on P2P traffic, but after a while usage began to rise again.
"[Despite] all of the limits they had put on, the P2P programs were getting around. Because all of this bandwidth was getting used up again and P2P programs were changing characteristics, we couldn't place limits easily. We had to figure out something to do," Cramer said. "Otherwise, essentially we [were] going to use up all the bandwidth in the state of North Carolina."
With the gradual failure of the P2P filters, the University resorted to a cap on the total bandwidth use for outgoing traffic in the fall of 2002. "In theory, the bandwidth cap should just limit the availability to upload from our network," Cramer said. "We're looking into complaints that there may be other issues."
In recent months, students have complained that they are having difficulties downloading files from the Internet.
While the cap does not specifically target incoming or outgoing traffic, it does allocate only a certain amount of bandwidth to different types of services, which might be causing slower download speeds for some P2P programs, said Kyle Johnson, director of information technology services for Student Affairs.
"If we decided that no service could take more than a certain percent of the network, after the service reached that point it would level off, and as more students used that service, it would take longer," Johnson said.
In addition to the cap on outgoing traffic, OIT has tried other methods of cutting down on P2P bandwidth usage, including an e-mail to the student body in January. The e-mail, signed by Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta and Vice President for Information Technology Tracy Futhey, warned students of the legal ramifications of P2P file sharing and asked them to stop using such programs.
Despite OIT's emphasis on overuse as the main problem with P2P programs, Moneta said the e-mail was primarily a response to a recent federal court ruling that network providers must turn over to the recording industry any names of subscribers whom the industry suspects of illegally downloading copyrighted files.
"The e-mail was really just to alert students that they were at risk," he said. "We foresaw the potential that the recording industry was going to be more aggressive in prosecuting student violators."
Both problems with P2P programs - the high, and ultimately expensive, bandwidth traffic and the risk of illegal downloading - have driven University officials to consider future changes in policy to further limit the use of such programs.
"Some schools are putting bandwidth caps per user, per week," Cramer said, adding: "Cornell [University] is planning to start charging students for excessive bandwidth use."
He said Duke is very different from other universities that have already taken steps to address the issue. "What we would be looking for is something that would fit in with Duke and Duke's values," he said.
Furthermore, none of these courses of action are even final proposals at this time, Cramer said, as the Information Technology Advisory Council - a group comprised of students, faculty members and administrative representatives - has yet to consider them.
"New measures would be implemented after we've had a chance to discuss [them] with ITAC and let folks know about them in advance," Cramer said. "OIT wouldn't just go off and do this on their own."
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