<general rant>
I don’t know that I’ve EVER read an article in a non-tech periodical that was on a technical (RE, network, computer, whatever) subject that was accurate when I was in a position to know better. Let me rephrase; I don’t know if I’ve ever been quoted properly and in context, and in a light that demonstrates the interviewer actually knew what was going on, nor do I know anyone here who’s been quoted in that way, either.
So suffice it to say, I’m beginning to wonder how much of every other subject is that screwed up in newspapers.
</general rant>
Now, the more specific comments. For the bored, here’s the summary:
- Gainesville Sun wrote a story.
- FreeCulture has a UF branch. Yay!
- I disagree with some of their comments about the article.
The story’s not horrible. Actually, it’s one of the better pieces relatively speaking that I’ve seen the Sun or Alligator do on similar subjects (the others were just plain wrong, not mostly right with a couple of errors). Here’s the comment I tried to post on their blog, but was rejected by a mysterious spam karma message. What the heck? I’m not sure what was spammy about it, here’s the exact contents:
Actually, I got an exemption when I lived in housing 5 years ago or so. Didn’t take much initiative, and they didn’t hide it. I just asked and they allowed me to run a web-server so I could use it for testing purposes (CS student at the time).
As for open-source, you mean like, say, vmpsd? I don’t know much about it (Rob really is secretive about it; I’ve had a door shut right in front of me so they could discuss secret internals before), but if I had to guess, I’d say that while some of the tecnology is open source, and built on open source, other pieces are proprietary and will stay that way. I won’t comment either way on that, I’m not privy to what their exact reasoning is.
I’m excited you guys have formed a Free Culture group, I was hoping some students would do it at UF, I’ve long been a Lessig and Free Culture fan, and happy to see you have.
My biggest beef with the article itself is the continuous use of “UF”. As in, UF doesn’t allow file sharing. UF most certainly does. The housing department (for a number of very reasonable and well-thought out reasons) does not allow servers, filesharing is incidental. I think the ICARUS ire is mis-directed. Why don’t you go lobby Cox Cable to allow servers for the same reasons? After all, it’s legal software. Their policies are identical to almost every other home internet provider out there, and for the exact same reasons. Cox, bellsouth, etc., don’t allow servers, and for good reason; most users can’t even use IE correctly, let alone manage Apache. ICARUS just happens to be really good at enforcing the same policies others have too. Heck, the exceptions are there too if you really have to do stuff from the dorms. So in that manner, they’re actually more leniant than most other providers.
Students are totally free to experiment, study, run a webserver, file share, do whatever they want from anywhere else on the campus network (provided they don’t get compromised; then they’re my problem) besides housing, but the article (and most discussions on the subject) tend to act like Housing is the entire University network. UF is and has always been an incredibly open computing environment compared to most places out there. Believe me, I support that even though it actually makes my day-job harder.
Again, I’m very glad you guys started the group, and (if you couldn’t tell) I’m pretty interested and passionate about these issues. Looking forward to what you guys will do.
btw; that’s my personal email, and personal website; this is a personal comment, and of course not indicative of any official UF position blah, blah, blah.
Running a server like apache is not the same as running a p2p software program.
When I was in the dorms, we were all behind a NAT and did not have real IP addresses anyway. Thus, there is no way any outsider could initiate a session with my machine. Do the students have real ips now?
Left by Matt on January 26th, 2005
To respond to your comments in no particular order:
Why don’t I lobby Cox? For one, I don’t live there.
I just signed a lease for an apartment, and the stuff I agreed not to do with the Internet was truly ridiculous. Luckily, I know it’ll never be enforced, and is possibly unenforceable.
Housing, however, can and does enforce their ban on servers, and therefore filesharing. If the concern really is bandwidth, they can limit bandwidth.
And about exemptions, let’s be honest: You’re not exactly the average user, are you? The only information I have about exemptions is what’s in the article, so if you’ve gotten an exemption, you’re the first I’d heard of. I never even knew they existed until the reporter asked me about them. (Eldo had heard of them, however.)
We don’t argue that UF is some horrible, backwards university. We’re glad if we’re relatively free and open. But to suggest we shouldn’t question ICARUS because, on the whole, we’re well off is like suggesting that Americans shouldn’t question their government because, on the whole, we’ve got it pretty well. ICARUS isn’t even that high a priority for FFC (if I can speak on behalf on a group that doesn’t quite exist yet). I don’t know that we’d be able to get the system removed entirely; I’m not even sure we’d want to. Obviously, I can’t speak for everyone who might get involved, but I’m a pretty pragmatic, moderate guy: as long as I have any influence over the group, I hope to steer us away from any polemics or extremism and focus instead on smaller gains, taking a step at a time. There are a few specific changes we’d like to see regarding network policy; those are what we’ll be advanced, rather than some radical change from the current system.
As far as the constitution of ICARUS itself, I have no idea how it works. (Even if I had access to the source, I’d still have no idea; the only programming language I ever studied included the commands “POKE” and “GOTO,” and not even much of that.) But I have a suspicion that there may, perhaps, be something fishy in the makeup of the code. I think some outsiders should have access.
I will say that ICARUS, on balance, is not all that bad. Things could be a lot worse. But things could be better too. We just want to take a few steps in that direction.
Left by Gavin on January 26th, 2005
Matt; at least some do. I’m not sure the exact makeup of the network, but Network Services has gone back and forth a couple of times, telling folks they should or shouldn’t use NAT (that they shouldn’t when the NAT router was overloaded, and should when it wasn’t…)
Actually, there really ~isn’t~ much of a difference in many respects to running p2p and apache. Both are remotely accessible network services allowing files to be transferred. Heck, many p2p apps actually are working via http or a look-alike if you look at the protocol, in which case, they’re exceedingly similar. Granted, the complexity of options isn’t the same, but the issues associated with both are.
Gavin: Mostly off-topic word of advice for contracts that you don’t agree with: Take them seriously. I’ve learned the lesson the hard way–if there’s something there that you don’t like, but don’t think they’re going to enforce, get it in writing that they’re not going to enforce it. I’ve seen too many students taken advantage of by shady apartment leases that way (mostly unrelated to the network, but hey, you never know). Same goes for verbal ammendments to contracts (again, especially with gainesville apartment folks) — if they promise something that’s not writen on the contract, hand write it on their and get everyone to initial it. You’re a lot better off in the long run.
I realize you weren’t saying UF as a whole is a bad place, my beef is with the slant of the article itself (and nearly every article on the subject that’s been written). They always treat housing like the entire campus, when in actuality it’s at most 10%-15% of all the hosts on our connection.
For what it’s worth, I’ve got an exemption with Cox too.
Or rather, I asked for a clarification of their policy that forbids servers got one. I wanted to run ssh. They responded that I could. In the end, most folks are usually reasonable; and to me, if you have an entirely reasonable desire, ask and see what they can do.
In the case of housing; if someone wants to run p2p for an entirely reasonable reason, there are 1) ways to do it that don’t involve running a server, and 2) they should ask first and see if it’s ok. Granted, I lived their in pre-ICARUS days, but it sounds like the exemption is still there, so again I don’t see what the problem is.
Have you looked at the link I posted to why housing doesn’t allow servers? I think there’s a disconnection between the discussion housing is trying to have and the discussion you’re trying to have. They’re saying that they don’t allow servers for the following reasons: a,b,c. And you respond by saying, “but p2p has good uses too!” You’re both right! But you’re not really talking about the same issue. Can you address how you think bandwidth shaping (I believe that’s your immediate suggestion?) addresses the original issues that housing has with servers? I think you’ll do a lot more to furthering your argument if you do so. They have three concerns; security, bandwidth, and legal issues. I’m not a particularly big fan of their legal issues section, but it’s at least mostly reasonable. Bandwidth would be the most obvious issue you’re addressing with shaping, but that’s actually a tricky issue too. For example; if shaping is allowed, students who are doing legitimate studies of p2p will have far less bandwidth than they do now, because they’ll be lost in the crowd of people just downloading the latest music. The most difficult issue to address, and in my mind (hey, my job title does have the word in it!), the most important question is that of security.
I think to bring about change to Housing’s policy, you should come up with clear and reasoned steps to each of their reasons for not allowing servers. Don’t argue the merits vs. the drawbacks of p2p specifically, because that’s not what they’re asserting in their regulation of it. They simply don’t allow any servers, period. You’ll notice that housing has never forbidden any file sharing that ~doesn’t~ act as a server, they just tell the average user that it’s hard to know for sure and the safest way is to not run it at all.
Left by Jordan on January 26th, 2005
You know what the funniest part is? ICARUS isn’t even really ~about~ p2p. That’s really not what it’s mainly focused at or the problem it’s attempting to solve. And yet that’s always what’s focused on. Oh well.
Left by Jordan on January 26th, 2005
Hey Jordan, sorry our comment spam detector ate all of your comments. Comment spam is a serious problem, and I’m sorry to discover that our problems were not solved by our spam plugin.
Left by Nelson on January 27th, 2005
I’ll confirm your general rant on the inaccuracy of newspaper reporting in specialized fields. Newspaper reports on legal issues are pretty bad.
Left by Daniel on January 27th, 2005
“Actually, there really isn’t much of a difference in many respects to running p2p and apache. Both are remotely accessible network services allowing files to be transferred.”
So is ssh, but I consider that to be drastically different than http. The big difference, aside from the lack of complexity in a p2p app compared with apache, is that a web server just sits and waits for connections from the outside world. You advertise the server and outside users initiate sessions. With a p2p app behind a NAT, there is no way for an outside user to initiate a session with your machine unless the NAT router has port forwards set up for you. What makes a p2p app p2p is that you can initiate sessions both ways. Apache is useless without port forwards, a p2p app is not.
You can always reduce these things to a level where they are all the same. After all, aren’t all programs just regular expressions modifying streams of bits?
Left by Matt on January 27th, 2005
Just to add some perspective, here at Illinois, the dorm are capped to 700 MB of downstream transfer per day, per port. Upstream is only about 100 MB. After that, your bandwidth goes to about 1KB/sec. p2p software is allowed, it is just useless.
Left by Matt on January 27th, 2005