Ask Carl Kadie About Censorship and Privacy at Colleges 221
We've received a lot of inquiries recently about computer policies at various colleges and universities - usually the policy goes something like: "Anything you do or say on this network is ours, we own it, we can read your email, we can delete you, too bad. All your data are belong to us." Oddly enough, these sorts of policies are in place even at schools that would never dream of snooping on students' postal mail or the books they read at the library. Carl Kadie has been EFF's longest-serving volunteer, doing work for the past ten years in the area of academic freedom and computers. He's written two book chapters on the issue and helped examine, critique and improve the usage policies at many universities. Post below any questions you have on computers and academic freedom - maybe your school has a particularly bad policy, maybe you just have a general question - and we'll pick the best ones and forward them to him for a response.
Do they have these rights to with snail-mail? (Score:3)
Since both use a medium owned by the university, and both are 'private communication', does this mean they also have the right to read your private (snail mail) letters?
-- Chris Chabot
"I dont suffer from insanity, i enjoy every minute of it!"
Get use to it... (Score:2)
Sad.
What in your opinion... (Score:2)
Re:Do they have these rights to with snail-mail? (Score:4)
Question? (Score:3)
How would you suggest balancing the privacy needs of a University community, the security issues created by such a diverse group, the issue of academic freedom, and the fact that college IT departments have serious staff/load/pay/tech issues?
WVU (Score:2)
Ironically, they don't have you log in with a unique username/password or swipe or anything in that nature. No offense to many of the students here, but they complain that most of the system is too hard to use as it is anyway, many would probably complain.
Also ironic, the system doesn't use static IPs... Which makes it a real bitch to trace through the logs anyways.
What if you are NDA'd and use the computer network (Score:2)
How does that work with Network Use Policies?
Sounds Okay to me. (Score:1)
I don't see this as a violation of a user's rights or of a user's privacy. The simple truth is, it's not your bandwidth in the first place. If you're going to use a network provided to you by an educational institution or business, you must adhere to their rules and restrictions. Don't like it? Go out and pay for your own bandwidth.
What can we do? (Score:2)
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With Power comes responsibility... (Score:5)
I'm afraid that I know the answers to all these questions and am even more afraid of those answers. So what can be done about it beyond the standard SSH and PGP rhetoric ? Is there a way to make them take responsibility for these actions, preferably a heavy enough responsibility to discourage them from wanting to take these actions in the first place?
--Z
If the want to own it all... (Score:2)
Doesn't that mean that they are partly responsible for the rampant piracy that goes on within the residential networks?
Just a thought...
Dirk
University policy (Score:5)
It is not any surprise to me that fascist user agreements are in place concerning electronic media in light of the general control-oriented attitude of many universities towards their on-campus student populations. Perhaps the problem runs deeper than simple technophobia?
Pacer
Re:Tough Shit (Score:1)
I think you'll find many less technically obsessed universities will have similar plans.
Re:Tough Shit (Score:1)
Re:Tough Shit (Score:1)
I paid $400+ for 100Mbit access.
Schools give you free network access the same way department stores hike up prices and then call it a sale.
Re:Do they have these rights to with snail-mail? (Score:1)
-Daniel
Re:Get use to it... (Score:1)
College's vs Corporations (Score:3)
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Re:Get use to it... (Score:1)
Free? Make me laugh some more (Score:1)
They have every right to complain. Furthermore, as a taxpayer, my taxes go to subsidize those schools and those tuitions, and I don't like it, I have every right to whine and complain until your ears bleed.
The AC mentality: anyone who doesn't like anything exactly the way it is should be ridiculed and mocked. That's why you are called cowards. Real people stand and fight for their beliefs instead of accepting everything like sheep taking it from the farmer.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Linux acceptability (Score:5)
Re:Sounds Okay to me. (Score:1)
Finally, saying it's not the student's bandwidth isn't really fair. After all, where do you think the money comes from to pay for the bandwidth? That's right, the students.
Re:Tough Shit (Score:1)
Education is a business. Education should never be an institution. It only becomes a farce if it does.
Legal Recourse? (Score:5)
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Logs (Score:2)
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I don't think, therefore I'm not...
U/M Ann Arbor "gets it" (Score:1)
The one thing I know they do log is who's logged on to which computer when. so don't think about sending anonymous, threatening, mail to a prof or anyone. i don't think they log all email.
Also, they let you run servers provided you supplied in creating the content you server.
When it comes to writing code for class, you own the code, not them.
They seem to "get it" across the board.
-andrew
Re:What if you are NDA'd and use the computer netw (Score:2)
-John
Re:College's vs Corporations (Score:1)
same with colleges.
Re:Tough Shit (Score:1)
Umm, "Free"!?!?!
It's paid for in the Tuition. Or did you think University was free?
Oh, and alot of University's access sucks ass nowadays. Yeah, in 1991 when it was installed, it was l33t high speed, but hardly any more.
Of course, I'm only speaking from my university, but their access & their network both suck horrible ass - only thier email is remotely reliable.
The thing is, 6 years ago, that level of access kicked ass.
I honestly think that the whole "we give you free access, so you have to do everything we say" is a bullshit argument. Most students nowadays have thier own email accounts (hotmail or otherwise), and half of the compsci students I've talked to have cable. The thing is, is that they are forced by the university to use the university account to converse with thier profs - hardly anything is sent to external emails.
So, in my case, anyway, the argument has turned into "we give you a mediocre email account, and an unusably crappy dial up account, and shitty network access while on campus, and force you to use it do communicate with your professors, and everything you do on it are belong to us" .
Sorry if that doesn't exactly sound like they're bending over backwards.
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Re:Sounds Okay to me. (Score:1)
WPI's Acceptible Use Policy (Score:3)
Personally, i think that WPI [wpi.edu] has a pretty good AUP [wpi.edu], (which is not to say i haven't had problems with netops regarding a few violations, only one of which i was actually responsible for.) it doesn't say that they can read our email personal files and other miscellany, and it requires us not to go poking around. However, it doesn't say that they can't.
how do you feel about policies like that? It doesn't guarantee our privacy, but it doesn't infringe on it either. Is lack of a guarantee an implicit infringement?
Re:Heh (Score:1)
Snail Mail & Library Controls (Score:1)
Oddly enough, these sorts of policies are in place even at schools that would never dream of snooping on students' postal mail or the books they read at the library.
Don't be an ass. AFAIK, USPS service is strictly controlled by the federal gov't. There are strong limitations on what local post offices can and cannot do with your mail, no matter where it is or who is handling it. I'm pretty sure that your college couldn't (legally) snoop your mail even if they wanted to - no matter if they have access to it or even handle it.
As far as controlling your library usage - duh! The library is a college asset, and presumably the books in it are already controlled by the library. If they don't want you reading something, they simply don't have to put it on the shelves. Furthermore, they already monitor what you do read - they know which books are late and who had them last, don't they?
In short, they don't snoop your snail mail because they can't. They could snoop your library usage, but probably don't need to, since they control the available content already.
Public v Private Universities (Score:3)
To what extent does this make "It's their hardare" arguments vulnerable?
2) Do State or Federal infrastructure grants to privte Universities make their Net facilities Public Fora?
What about anti-monopoly issues (Score:3)
Re:Get used to it... (Score:1)
If, as you say, privacy is no longer an issue, then the root cause of it is that the general public, like yourself, has adopted a defeatist attitude. It is precisely this kind of outlook that makes it possible to take away privacy like that. We haven't lost yet, and I won't let it go without a fight just because someone thinks we already have.
inigima
Encryption Reference Requirement Compliancy (Score:2)
This message was brought to you in compliance with the "Slashdot Encryption Reference Requirement" stating that encryption and its merits must be invoked when discussing anything plausably relevant to it
-----Obligatory Encryption Related Post Sig------
When cryptograph is outlawed...and so on, and so forth
------End Obligatory Sig------
It is funny (Score:1)
Re:Do they have these rights to with snail-mail? (Score:4)
So what does that mean. Well, simple. No one is allowed to open you mail. It is a federal offense. There were certain "special" cases when we might open someone's mail, but only because they had requested it during holiday times, or if they wre athlete's on the road who were needing something urgent. Even that was probably breaking the rules/law, but again, it was only if requested and was something urgent. It was often loan info, looking for plane tickets for home, a check from mom and dad. And its not like we opened everything addressed to that person - they had to tell us exactly who it was coming from and what was in it.
But as far as the university "snooping" in your snail mail - well, that'd land a few butts in prison, to say the least.
People tend to forget that e-mail is indeed NOT the same as snail mail. But that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be.
Re:Get use to it... (Score:1)
Welcome to Reality 101.
You have no reasonable expectation of Privacy ... (Score:1)
Chalk this up to one of those "Well, DUH" kind of things. I don't even understand why this is attracting attention. Lack of Privacy in your home I can understand. Spyware on your personal machine I can understand. But privacy issues in SCHOOLS? Come on ...
Re:Do they have these rights to with snail-mail? (Score:3)
Re:WPI's Acceptible Use Policy (Score:1)
For the slow, just because I think of something doesn't mean I'm using school property, specifically this $1000 Athlon I bought AND OWN.
Course, private ownership has no place in students lives, I mean they're just students you know, they're there to learn so we can sell them to Microsoft or some other corporation.
privacy vs. resources (Score:1)
Students (I am one) are required to pay a fee for information services, eg networking, computer labs on campus, etc. We are given rights, and restrictions. But here's my issue. The university takes ultimate responsibility for maintenance, upgrading, and upkeep of the system. Doesn't that mean that they have the right to make sure that the same system is not being abused by the 1337, (read freshmen) the unaware, and the malicious?
People nowadays seem to view electronic media as theirs and theirs alone. It's not! We as tax-payers, may have helped build the thing, but we do not maintain it. Until and unless there is a standardardized code of behavior for networked traffic, an individual system administrator, even one the size of a major university, should have the RIGHT to ensure that their equipment is not being abused.
If you don't like it, buy your own equipment, and set it up in the basement of a major NAP.
And I don't think we should view this as any sort of analogy to federal mail. The USPS is protected by a series of laws, E-mail is not. Besides, if it were, anyone who set up a sniffer, for ANY reason would be breaking the law.
Any responses?
University of Illinois (Score:1)
As an introduction... In the U of I dorms, our usage policies are rather strict. We're permitted 500 mb per day (either direction) per MAC address. From there, we're limited to 4 MAC addresses per port, and there is one port per room. In some of the older networks in other dorms, you are limited to 500 mb per day per port. Additionally, access to Napster and Imesh has been blocked entirely (through traditional access, anyhow). There are talks of implementing a new system, which analyzes your traffic usage, and if you use more than a certain amount of bandwidth over a certain period of time (there's a 10 mbit switched line to each of the dorms, and ill usage would be something along the lines of 100 k/sec for more than 30 seconds or so), the system will throttle your connection. If you continue to use bandwidth, the system will continue to throttle your connection until the connection is made un-usable. The procedure reverses incrementally in a similar manner, so you get the idea. Many see this as an improvement, but I'm not so sure. Irregardless...
In any event, the administration contends that doing this isn't an invasion of privacy, and since we don't have a network usage fee, there's no reason we should complain, because using the resource for anything outside academic purposes is out of policy, and there is almost no way to justify high bandwidth usage (or high volume, their current, and much less accurate metric) save some very special exceptions, such as downloading Linux ... and now they contend that since RedHat and Debian are mirrored locally, that isn't even such a good excuse. Regardless, even if your usage of bandwidth IS legitimate, they shut your port down first, and re-instate it only after you've talked to the security officer, whose role is essentially "Hey, were you trading mp3s? I think you are. One more time, and you get to talk to the dean."
So after visiting University of Michigan and some other universities where essentially the official policy is "It's not our business, if they use more bandwidth, then we'll give them more to use," do you, as a researched expert in the field, think that this type of policy is reasonable? You can view the posted policy [uiuc.edu], which also mentions that gaming and other activities are prohibited, as it may impact educational usage of the network. I'm interested in hearing how this relates to what else you've seen, and how fair of a policy you think this is.
They made me sign to agree to follow all EULAs! (Score:4)
Stupid me, though, decided to read it first. One line said that I agree to abide by the software licenses of all the software packages installed on the system. When I asked to see these licenses, the sysadmin got all heated and refused. I asked if they were posted somewhere or stored on-line. He said, no. When I asked how I could sign to agree to follow licenses which were refused to be presented to me, he said, "well, you have to sign or your account can't be re-enabled".
Hmmm. Sign or be unable to do required schoolwork.
So I signed but wrote next to my signature that staff refused to show me the SW licenses they required me to agree to above. The sysadmin grumbled, but accepted the amended TOS form.
I heard similar tales from students at other universities and schools. WHY DO SCHOOLS DO THIS?
Not Just at Universities... (Score:2)
Re:If the want to own it all... (Score:3)
hold on a minute.... (Score:3)
Re:You have no reasonable expectation of Privacy . (Score:5)
Is it because of lawyers? (Score:3)
In a nutshell, Do the schools implement these policies on thier own accord, or are they usualy done at the request of thier insurer?
Thanks!
Re:Legal Recourse? (Score:2)
Unfortunately, the policy that many schools have regarding their obvious lack of regard for personal rights and freedoms is, you are able to 'opt-out' of their policies; it's called dropping out.
Since they didn't force you to go to their school, they claim they can enforce any policies they want and you can always leave if you don't like it.
Strangely enough, many high schools have even worse policies, and they can't claim the same - high school students are forced to attend. But (most) parents don't seem to care, they have the attitude that turning school into a maximum security prison will protect their kids, instead of realizing that prisons create criminals and make it worse for those wanting to 'learn' and have 'fun'.
Re:Linux acceptability (Score:2)
There are many misconceptions floating around about this "hacker OS"
University policys (Score:1)
Re:U/M Ann Arbor "gets it" (Score:1)
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Re:Legal Recourse? (Score:1)
Web Traffic (Score:1)
But it is their network and they can have whatever usage policy they deem fit. Is there any way to assure myself privacy?
Re:WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN? (Score:2)
The proper response, by the way, is "WHAT YOU SAY?!"
There's a fandub of the opening floating around the Net; check it out if you can find it.
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Re:Sounds Okay to me. (Score:1)
Dorm Use as home (Score:1)
Drexel University Acceptable Use Policy questions (Score:2)
2. Accounts are assigned to individuals and are not to be shared unless specifically authorized. You, the user, are solely responsible for all functions performed from accounts assigned to you. Anything done through your account may be recorded. It is a violation of University Policy to allow others to use your account. It is a violation to use another person's account, with or without that person's permission.
According to Drexel, this also not allowing other people to even SIT at your computer and USE it. It also, according to them, means you CAN NOT run LINUX and give an account to a friend. The way I read this rule is that you can not give away your username and password to the DREXEL accounts! I would need to give out my username and password to the email server, or to one of the UNIX systems to be in violation of the rule, which I believe is absolutely fine. But they are trying to twist it so that if your computer is connected into the network, all access to that system is restricted to you and you alone, and I feel that this is absolutly unacceptable. Especially when I do in fact pay for this service with the room and board.
And they are in fact enforcing this on Linux systems. 2 of my friends have been sanctioned for running Linux (one of them had given an account to his younger brother, the other was just running Linux and his system was hacked, so they SANCTIONED HIM for GETTING HACKED!!!).
The other part that I have a question on is this:
8. You may not attempt to bypass computer or network security mechanisms without the prior express permission of the owner of that computer or network system. Possession of tools that bypass security or probe security, or of files that may be used as input or output for such tools, shall be considered as the equivalent to such an attempt.
Now in this rule, they first state that you MAY attempt to probe security if you have the express permission of the person's computer or network that you are probing. This seems perfectly reasonable. But, in the very next sentence they then state that having and software of devices that are used to probe systems will be considered a violation of the acceptable use policy. Now, I am a UNIX network administrator. I have EVERY RIGHT to own devices and software that will probe systems for I regularly check both my own systems, and those at my work from my home computer. I also from time to time will probe some of my friends systems when they as me to (the case of my friend who was hacked I did indeed probe his system). I have never probed any system other then ones I have been authorized to do so, but according to the policy, even though I have authorization, I can't own any software or devices that do the probing!!!
If I had the choice, I would NEVER AGREE to this policy. But I do NOT have a choice. If I was able to get xDSL, or cable modem service, or a T1 (hell even a modem), I WOULD DO SO. But we as students are not allowed to get any of these in the dorms. The phone system we use does not allow modems. We can not get xDSL because we can not choice our phone service. And we can not get cable modems because do not get cable (have very poor satellite service with Direct TV, in which we get ~30 channels).
What options do we have other then to take whatever crap they feel like dishing out? I never even realized how bad the policy was until my friend was hacked several months ago.
His system was completely compromised (they had root access). They then used his system to hack other systems. The IT center at Drexel cut his connection (I agree with them doing this), but then without even doing ANY investigation, they brought him up on charges of mis-use of a computing device, and attempted hacking. This would have DEVISTATED ANY chances of him getting a job in the future (Computer Science major). He came to me right away looking for any help. His logs were wiped, but we had a seperate log that we setup that periodically captured all processes running. In that log I found an in.telnet process that someone was logging in as root from an IP outside IP address. Using this, I then traced the connection back to an address owned and run by Shaw Cable Modem services, out of Maryland, USA. Even with this information the IT department would not believe that he was hacked, and they were going through with the charges. The worst part of it was that the IT department was SURE to have logs of the access to the machine, but they REFUSED to even look at them for us, for this would PROVE that he had been hacked. Not until I got help from my computer ethic's professor were we able to work out the situation.
He was still sanctioned for running LINUX, and getting hacked! He had to do 20 hours of work for the University, just for running Linux. Now this is an OUTRAGE!
P.S. for those that want to know, his system was compromised with the buffer-overflow security hole in wu-ftpd-2.6.0. I am 99% positive that this is how they gained access.
Re:You have no reasonable expectation of Privacy . (Score:1)
What about those of us at state-run, public schools, who are required to stay in the dorms first year? Are you saying that, by going to college, I am giving up my right to privacy?
Re:You have no reasonable expectation of Privacy . (Score:1)
There is a reasonable expectation of privacy in your vehicle, to the extent that police officers need to observe probable cause before they search your vehicle. Is there an analagous situation for computers? I certainly expect privacy on my computer. (Wether thats legally enforceable is another question)
So when I put my computer onto a publically funded school network, is there a case to be made that I have reasonable privacy rights unless I'm driving dangerously (i.e. eating up massive bandwidth or pinging every machine on the school net...)
Different Rights for Students and Smployees? (Score:1)
Inventive students don't help (Score:3)
As soon as we prohibited antisocial activity X, clever students would come up with equivalent activity Y which would not be covered by the original wording, but caused similar (or worse) harm. It turned out that it was terribly difficult to clearly delineate what was and was not acceptable use of the campus facilities in a way that was actually useful (ie protected the privacy of staff and students, allocated server resources fairly, protected the Uni from legal liability). So we gave up
Classic quote: "Our firewall isn't there to protect the campus network from the outside world. It's there to protect the rest of the world from our students."
Public funding. (Score:3)
When publicly available dial up and broadband access is cheap and universal, why should a taxpayer funded institution have any obligation to incur extra expense to achieve "freedom"? Why not let the individuals who value freedom buy and use the services that meet their goals, and let the taxpayer funded institutions buy the services that meet the goals of the funding (taxpayer / university) community?
Re:Get used to it... (Score:1)
Re:My college has an archaic censorship system... (Score:1)
It's not the NetWare that is your problem. It's the administrators. IMIO, even old Netware versions are some of the most stable, reliable, and secure file server operating systems on the market- as long as the administrator knows what's what. The newer (Netware 4.11-.12,5 and 5.1) are almost bullet proof. I administer 2 NW servers supporting about 3000 users, one of which has been in continuous operation for almost 4 years.
Inferring that win2K would be better is a troll (and a very poorly informed one at that...), and suggesting that someone replace what is obviously a file server with a BSD box has to be a joke... BSD and Linux both can be used as file servers but why would you want to? There are other OSs that are much more suited to the task.
Re:Legal Recourse? (Score:1)
Perhaps not legal recourse, but there is allways technicalogical recourse. Use encryption. A lot. For everything, or at least as often as is practical (you may not be able to encrypt your assignments if your professers don't have keys). You can at least digialy sign your documents.
But don't stop there. Work around campus to advocate the use of encryption to the entire student (and instructor) population. Eventualy, even your assignments can be encrypted.
Remember, encryption is not just for terrorsits, its for normal people, too.
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Re:College's vs Corporations (Score:1)
Nothing's more changing than constancy. (Score:2)
But they're in a bind. They've taken enormous money from ten thousand loudmouthed societal newbies, and see it as an expensive proposition to have to compete with them for public-relations on a level playing field. They don't want to have to present the counterargument to every argument the kiddies devise. So they resort to the muzzle. And then justify it in strange, hypocritical ways that make you wonder if they missed the last 250 years of the history of political freedom.
Mario got that. He worked via enlightened negotiation. The protest culture that followed didn't get it. They just saw the struggle as a big party and wanted it to continue. Bitching is fun. Solving society's problems is work. Divisiveness is self-empowering. Not everyone takes the time to respect your rights. Four dead in O-hi-o.
The moral: Emotional acts, fameseeking, and pavlovian drives are barriers to progress in conflict resolution.
--Blair
That is EXACTLY what I am saying. (Score:2)
Never assume you have privacy, especially when you KNOW you aren't in complete control over that privacy. If there's more than one key to your house/dormroom, assume that key can be used.
Re:Heh (Score:1)
If mail service doctrine was written today (Score:1)
Re:Get use to it... (Score:1)
I think private freedom is the most serious issue at stake here (assuming basic needs are met, which is definately the case). Is making more money more important than freedom?
Many of the founders of the US thought that personal freedom was valuable enough to risk losing their life or property.
It seems you just want to believe you can't do anything, so that you don't have to take action. And this consumer attitude you call "reality 101" - in fact it's just being lazy.
When is network logging an invasion of privacy? (Score:1)
Is logging only TCP/IP headers (ip addresses/ports/packet size) an invasion of privacy? How about if we log packet data as well? What if this data is deleted after a fixed interval and only looked at when there's evidence of a security problem? Under what circumstances would you see traffic logging as a problem?
Thanks.
It's not a post office or a library (Score:4)
That analogy can only go so far. The thing you have to remember with Internet access is that the potential for abuse is so great.
How can you abuse the post office? Get a lot of mail? Since all mail delivered is paid for through postage, receiving more mail just means more business for them.
How can you abuse the Library (assuming you don't just destroy books or not return them, which are against "the rules" anyway)? One person can only read so many books. You really would have to go out of your way to abuse a library so that it's noticeable to a large percentage of the libary's users.
How can you abuse a computer network?
In short, networking technology is just ripe for abuse, and having been an administrator at an ISP, I know that there is always that 1% of the people out there who will greedily waste 90% of everyone's shared resources without even being embarrassed.
Because of that high abuse potential, network administrators need policies that allow them take action when there's a problem. I admit that it's not an ideal situation, but for now it's a compromise position that a lot of us who are just innocently going about our business are willing to deal with.
One solution might be to make up and enforce heavy-handed rules for every aspect of Internet use. Set things up so that all of the machines on campus have very small individual pipes to the backbone. Heavily restrict server space, mailbox size, and firewall the hell out of everything. Lock up the whole network nice and tight... but that sucks too.
Face it, it's not an easy problem to solve. Shaking our fists in the air at network administrators who are just trying to maintain a stable network that is available for all of their users is unfair and counterproductive.
It would be nice if eventually the technology automatically prevented some chances for abuse. It'd be nice if our culture embraced a system of ethics that would make such safeguards unnecessary.
Instead of just carping at authority in a typically
Re:WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN? (Score:1)
Re:College's vs Corporations (Score:2)
In general a university should allow the most open use of its network posible. Now this may in some occations entail limiting access to some systems as so not to overwealm the net, but in general things like mail/usenet and web should be as open as posible.
I'm begining to think that they should let the post office regulate email.
Or I should sign all me email with the decree of Rabbi Grishiom. He was the 10th century rabbi who first said that a courier should not read the mail he was carring for people.
Stay on Topic ... (Score:2)
If you are living in a home that no one but your family has access to, you have a reasonable expectation of privacy. That's different.
Think about this ... when you live at a college, think of all of the people who have access to your dorm, mail, etc. The number is staggering.
Web Filtering and Whats on my box is mine (Score:2)
I am violating my school's policy by posting this. (Score:4)
Re:Linux acceptability (Score:4)
That said, I don't think they can, or should, discourage a student group from forming. They may, however, ask you to make it clear to anyone that you give Linux to, that they're not going to receive any help from the support staff, other than being assigned an IP address...
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Finding Balance? (Score:5)
I work in Computing Services for a tech-oriented private university. Our usage policies aren't as bad as some, but they definitely give us broad priviledges. We've been through many, many proposed revisions that keep being killed by some combination of faculty, staff or lawyers. The basic problems:
- There doesn't seem to be a concise legal way to say "Don't be an asshole and don't break the law," which is all we really want.
- It's occasionally necessary for staff to look at private information for technical reasons (reconstructing mail spool after disk crashed, making sure the nifty new backup program actually worked, etc.). We have a huge infrastructure, and if we had to stop and check every time we might accidentally see something, we'd never get anything done unless we made our staff size much larger. We don't have the budget to do that.
- Occasionally, the sysadmins will find something really bad during the course of routine work. "Spending a long time in federal prison" kind of bad. We try to keep these sort of events quiet to avoid publicity for the user in case it's not their fault (someone cracked their account, etc). We don't want our users on the evening news, but this'll happen with most "notify lots of people before doing anything" plans.
- There are two opposing viewpoints that are both vocal in our community. One says "privacy over all" while the other says "learning and sharing over all". We have quite a few people who make their home directories publicly readable as a sort of protest against the "privacy freaks" (their words). Finding a policy that makes both happy is very difficult.
In light of these constraints (financial and social), how do we give more rights to our users without seriously impeding our ability to do our jobs?--
Well to start... (Score:2)
To start, you might try not talking like your opinion is the fundemental revealed truth and those who disagree with you just don't "understand". That seems to turn a lot of people off. You might be better off asking
"What is the best/most effective argument to win over non-techie or other disagreeing types to my point of view that the computer/internet is just another form of media and should be treated just like we would books/video/magazines?"
If the additude in your question spills over to your conversations with those you don't agree with (techie or non) you are unlikely to win converts no matter what arguments you use.
Kahuna Burger
Re:hold on a minute.... (Score:2)
Also, unless you're encrypting your mail, it's totally out in the open for anyone with a sniffer etc. to read at any hop along the way. If you wouldn't send it in a letter without a sealed envelope, don't send it in an unencrypted email.
Re:Legal Recourse? (Score:3)
As a former sysadmin (and before that a former student hacker in trouble, so don't assume I don't know your side of the story), I can guarantee you that if everything is permissible in the name of free speech and I as sysadmin can't do anything to stop you, then the service you're going to end up with will be worthless. Because a few immature "l33t hax0r" types will make a point of abusing resources to the point where nothing more can be done.
If the University has any sense, they will have a grievance and arbitration board, and any actions by the staff considered overbroad or out of bounds can be taken before that board for appeal.
Of course I've actually argued with Mr. Kadie about these issues (MANY years ago) on public newsgroups. He seems to believe that every organization has the resources and the responsibility to follow rules as complex as the FBI's rules of engagement. Most Universities do not have that luxury.
And the fact remains that most of the loudest proponents on campus of "free speech uber alles" are also usually the last ones to actually exercise any responsibility in their behavior, and thereby poison the well for all their peers. Mr. Kadie's heart may be in the right place to insist on just treatment, but nonetheless, some thought needs to go into the issue as well; you can't just say that a University IT group of 3-8 people responsible for 5000 students have to follow the same due process that the police go through because 1) they don't have any legal obligation to do so and 2) there is no way they could be effective under such constraints.
Leasing arrangements, etc. (Score:2)
It all depends on how your "leasing" arrangement works. You might want to look at it.
I know that at my school, The University of Alabama in Huntsville [uah.edu], the state is the lessor and the student is the lessee. In that arrangement, all the lessor has to do is perform routine health inspections--which my current apartment complex can do, too, if they feel the need.
At UAH's dorms, folks can do lots of what they want with their connection, but running servers usually gets you pzapped, because our bandwidth really is in short supply. UAH also kadinked Napster for the same reason [officially]. I do know I saw the effect of Napster on our network personally, because my computer in the SGA Office would slow to a crawl, connection-wise, when all the students got out of classes and fired their downloads back up.
But back to my original comment, your privacy questions mainly have to do with the way your leasing/rental arrangement works. If you're signing a lease, read the lease. If you're paying a fee [and there can be a difference], there's a big difference. Varies from school to school and lease to lease, just like the rest of the world.
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Re:You have no reasonable expectation of Privacy . (Score:2)
That applies to your employer just as much as to your university.
Re:University policy (Score:2)
This is illegal. Federal law prohibits the university from sharing just about any kind of record with the parents (except e.g. PLUS loan records, where the parent is the borrower) without the student's consent. IIRC, the applicable law is the FERPA - Family Educational Records Privacy Act or something close to that.
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Check in...OK! Check out...OK!
Re:That is EXACTLY what I am saying. (Score:2)
There's no such thing as absolute security, but there's a big difference someone having the legal right to watch everything you write and someone breaking the law to do it.
How do you handle bandwidth issues? (Score:2)
I go to a fairly devout Christian U., that has very aggressive censor ware against sex, porn, illegal activities, but that isn't the focus of my question. Unlike many schools, my U. did nothing to block Napster use, and I always found this a little surprising.
When we came back from X-Mas break, Napster was blocked. People moaned and groaned, but it turns out it wasn't even our school's call (though they might have had a say in it) Our school gets its access from a state-wide government-run ISP for educational institutions, and the ISP decided to block Napster, Gnutella, and probably others.
Rather than copyright issues, they cited bandwidth problems. Although, I miss my Napster, I find this hard to argue with. (Theoretically) the network is for educaitonal purposes, and my average dorm-connection speed has doubled since Napster was blocked. But this could easily become a slippery slope, what is to keep them from blocking things like FTP, or Real Audio, both of which I have used for research, but can present bandwidth problems.
How would you suggest balancing to need to reserve bandwidth for serious school-related purposes, and still provide a useful Internet service?
Rights (Score:2)
First of all, a student is a customer, not an employee, so the school doesn't have any of the rights of an employer.
In a dorm situation, landlord-tenant law applies, and states restrict the power of landlords. For example, in most states you have the right to "quiet enjoyment" of the leased premises. This varies widely by state, though.
Confiscation of anything without a court order is theft and should be reported as such to the local police and district attorney.
Whether a school that offers network access in dorms is subject to regulation as a regulated common carrier has been litigated at Stanford. Stanford won. It was a big deal, too; Stanford operates a full-blown telco (voice, data, cable TV, videoconferencing, DSL, and cellular), charges for everything, and requires on-campus residents to use their services, including ordinary phone service. Students don't even get to choose a long distance carrier.
No academic freedom=NO freedom at colleges (Score:2)
With PC "speech codes" to some wacko colleges even outlawing ALL male pronouns, things have gotten very stupid.
Professors who dare teach Western literature and history have had their courses cut out or else controlled... Feminist professors get to exclude men from here classes and NOT end up getting fired (what would happen in reverse?).
Should anyone be surprised, that in this atmosphere of TOTAL lack of free speech, or free thought, or ANY freedom to challenge the "truths" of the establishment (left wing) that personal privace is any concern?
In all honesty, these days, if you are going to be anything but a teacher, doctor, or lawyer, avoid college like the plague. Lack of a college degree really won't hinder you at all if you have IT skills and experience. Saving yourself 4 years of falling behind in the job market, and a LOT of money will put you ahead.
If I were a consipracy theroist, I'd almost say that the horrid US educational system, from K-college serves the establishment ruling class (government) by producing ignorant mis-informed robots who do what they are told and don't question authority... Though we haven't QUITE declined to the point where this is reality yet, we are headed there.
Re:It's not a post office or a library (Score:2)
Nice straw man. I'm not advocating removing the right to post anonymously. It's just that most people who post anonymously do so to protect their karma, say something rude, etc. Useless crap. I have just as much of a right to *not* read useless crap as others have to post it. I also have the right to let them know that I won't be reading their useless crap.
Devil's Advocate (Score:2)
It solidly tests out at 8-9 megabits on any test site that goes fast enough.
Now, she pays $550 a month for rent, but has a connection that would cost well more than that. I am not talking in DSL prices, we are talking a connection equivalent to a fractional T3 which would cost approx $2000/month.
In exchange she agrees to not run a server, or abuse the bandwidth, and I have read the AUP on it and it does say they will monitor e-mail. Is this a fair price to pay?
Also the bandwidth that college students enjoy would be expensive for them outside of academia.
No, I think you're missing the point... (Score:2)
A valid reason to read an email message is to see why you just sent out ten million copies of it through the campus mail server.
The point I was making is that there are two sides to this. Casually dismissing the rights of some users is just as bad as casually dismissing the rights of administrators or casually dismissing the rights of other users who want nothing more than a stable network with moderate access to bandwidth and don't appreciate your "right" to decimate services while protecting your own assumptions of privacy.
I've been a network administrator before. I know that it's not easy meeting the needs of your users, especially when one or two out of thousands are determined to fuck everything up.
Give administrators the authority to take action to preserve the network for the significant majority. Hold network administrators accountable when they abuse their authority to play politics and advance their own selfish agendas. Hold users accountable who abuse their access privileges.
Above all, avoid kneejerk reactions based solely on one narrow point of view when deciding large policy issues that affect a lot of people.
isr1022.urh.uiuc.edu was:Re:University of Illinois (Score:2)
This ia a little piece of history dealing with CCSO and UIUC dorm room servers.
Back in the stone ages, sometime in the 1993 or 1994 time frame, there was isr1022.urh.uiuc.edu. CCSO had ceased to carry the alt.binaries.* newsgroups, so one enterprising student with a 486 and 1.8 Gigs of hard drive space paid for an off-campus newsgroup feed and mirrored those groups. To make his and other's lives easier, he even used AUB to decode the newsgroups and made the resultant binaries available via FTP and HTTP.
Mind you, as a responsible network citizen, he limited access to the uiuc.edu domain. Still, at one point, he was doing 5 Gigs of traffic a day. The machine ran Slackware Linux and had the world's cheapest NE2000 10BaseT ethernet card ever. Even so, it rocked, and had pretty awesome response times. (BTW, 1.8 Gigs of HD space cost something like $800 back in those days)
I've heard that CCSO used to make up these pie charts that showed bandwidth by subnet. However, there was one slice of the pie that was notable, because instead of a subnet, it was a single machine: isr1022.
The other notable thing was that CCSO had refused to carry those newsgroups because of the "drain on resources". However, a crappy little 486 (albeit with a big ass hard drive) was able to handle resultant traffic with relative ease, so even back then, linux kicked ass.
In any case, I suspect that this machine got CCSO and URH thinking about what would happen when everybody had the ability to set up a server like this, and that today's 500M cap is a result of that thinking.
Re:Linux acceptability (Score:2)
How about: vote with your feet!
Example: the official Free-Unix student organization here on campus has 2 of us from Academic IT as "faculty" advisors...
Re:No academic freedom=NO freedom at colleges (Score:2)
Can you name some of these colleges? This isn't a flame, I'm just curious as to whether you have concrete examples.
Feminist professors get to exclude men from here classes and NOT end up getting fired (what would happen in reverse?).
I assume you're talking about the Mary Daly case. If so, the administration removed her from her position because of her insistence on female-only classes. If you have any other examples, I'd like to hear them.
As for the rest of your statements, I think you're overreacting. While many colleges have attempted to initiate regulates based on political correctness, they've been constantly defeated in court when they try to enforce them. I think a lot of this is just so much media hype; despite attacks from both the left and the right, most colleges have managed to remain free-speech safe.
In all honesty, these days, if you are going to be anything but a teacher, doctor, or lawyer, avoid college like the plague. Lack of a college degree really won't hinder you at all if you have IT skills and experience. Saving yourself 4 years of falling behind in the job market, and a LOT of money will put you ahead.
College isn't about money. It's a cliche, I know, but it's still true. If you have IT skills that will easily get you a job, be thankful; it gives you the freedom to study solely for enjoyment. Take the 4 years; if you're that eager to work, go part-time at least, to see if you enjoy it.
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