[483] in resnet
Re: Keeping traffic internal
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Hsu, Mike)
Sun Dec 2 02:05:49 2001
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Message-ID: <45672E99BBEDD411A4FC00A0C9CFDE1B5856A8@housing.ucr.edu>
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2001 22:56:40 -0800
Reply-To: Resnet Forum <RESNET-L@listserv.nd.edu>
From: "Hsu, Mike" <mhsu@HOUSING.UCR.EDU>
To: RESNET-L@listserv.nd.edu
"do you allow your residents to use the web? because everyone knows
exactly
what the web is used for: the procurement of porn. do you block IRC?
because everyone knows exactly what IRC is used for: warez, divx movies,
and kiddie porn. how can you sleep at night, providing all this
illegal/immoral material?
gnutella is just a tool, much like the web is a tool and IRC is a tool."
Yes Gnutella is a tool, but as you an I both know the extent to which
Gnutella has been used as simply a tool for legitimate purposes is .000001%
of it's actual use. What percentage of the time do you use the web to
search for porn? It's main use by most everyone is as an information
resource. IRC is used mainly for chatting. The only people who would see
irc as primarily used for warez, divx movies, and kiddie porn would be those
who participate in such. I use IRC to talk to friends and assist people in
#slackware and to share knowledge.
Unlike Gnutella, the web and irc have servers setup primarily for
legitimate purposes. OPN is an IRC example, and most websites are used for
the spread of knowledge. Maybe I haven't looked hard enough, but when was
the last time you saw a Gnutella server setup primarily for development, or
for review hardware, or for sharing only open source software or for
communicating with colleagues and friends?
"i have a very hard time understanding how someone who works for a
university, an institution which exists because of a belief that
education improves people's lives, can say that education is not a
solution."
I think you read me wrong on this one and I probably phrased it wrong
too and I apologize for that. What I meant is that, Yes education can be
effective. But with the size of the networks that we administor and the
popularity of p2p applications, education is not nearly effective enough.
It's the same as with drug and alcohol awareness, there is education up
the ass for drugs and alchohol. And everybody knows that it isn't the
healthiest thing, yet billions of people participate everyday. Drinking and
driving is another thing. Everyone and their mothers know that drinking and
driving can be fatal, but millions of americans do it everyday. People do
what is pleasing to them. Some people listen to reason, a majority do not.
I speak to residents everyday about the matter, here's the usual
response, "F that, I want my music/movies/pr0n." Go out to a rave or
something and try to educate people about ecstacy and see what kind of
response you get. p2p clients are a drug for people, that's why they use
it.
"as to the reasons to not get a packeteer (even though all the Cool Kids
have one): single point of network failure and cost spring to mind.
admittedly, cost may not be such a big issue for our well-endowed
cousins in scenic palo alto, but i digress :)."
Haha, yeah our resnet is not among one of the cool kids. I have to say, the
cost definitely is pretty high, we looked at a few models and so far have
decided to do without. Everyone seems to be jumping on the packeteer
bandwagon and I'll truthfully say it's a nice piece of equipment.
"this is an interesting, if strange, point. i'm equally embarrassed to
see other resnets stomping on their users' privacy and blithely censoring
vast sections of the internet. the best i can hope to do is to educate those
resnets (in the form of presentations at resnet symposia or
stridently-worded emails). i don't think any single resnet's actions
reflects on the whole world-wide concept of ResNet, though. this is a
bit like saying, "the US government is waging an unjust war against poor,
starving, innocent civillians; therefore, the notion of Government comes
down one notch." while Government may be inherently evil (i've been
reading the _Illuminatus!_ trilogy), the actions of any single
government doesn't necessarily reflect the whole.""
The main argument I have against the whole Stanford running a gnutella
server is not related to privacy and censorship, I'm talking about the fact
that by running the server it is condoning the spread of copyrighted
material. Sure it keeps some of the traffic internal but it's saying hey
use this to download copyrighted material, it's faster and costs the
university less money.
Sorry for making this soo long,
Michael Hsu
ResNet Computing
UC Riverside
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