Universities Developing Internal, Controlled P2P System 157
sukottoX writes "Penn State along with MIT and the University of British Columbia are developing a P2P application (called LionShare in the PSU incarnation) to be used only by students, faculty and staff. According to this article at the Penn State Daily Collegian, the file-sharing program, which wouldn't be completed until 2005 at the earliest, would log each transaction, allowing illegal use of the network to be traced. The purpose of this is to lessen the load on servers for tasks such as professors sending files to students, thereby decreasing the amount of manpower necessary to administer them. Funding will come in part by a grant from the Mellon Foundation, as well as from the students' information technology fee."
Do universities actually need this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Do universities actually need this? (Score:2)
Re:Do universities actually need this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Do universities actually need this? (Score:2)
Re:Do universities actually need this? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Do universities actually need this? (Score:2)
It seems to enhance the long term potentiation.
Re:Do universities actually need this? (Score:2)
What are you doing in powerpoint that you could not do in HTML?
Re:Do universities actually need this? (Score:2)
Why not just convert your slides into Adobe Acrobat PDF? Fine, so it's kinda-non-free, but at least the formal specs are public. It's designed for distribution whereas Office files are pretty much for editing only. Then students with pretty much any OS might be able to read them. Oh, and don't do a fancy "4 pages per sheet" printout; if I want more than one
Re:Do universities actually need this? (Score:2)
a central source for your lecture is needed
p2p from some random people on campus is not the way. i for one, would modify your powerpoint files...just to piss people off. the source cant be trusted
Re:Do universities actually need this? (Score:1)
Re:Do universities actually need this? (Score:2)
Maybe you are doing something wrong there m8!! Powerpoint??!! Multi gigabit??? Anyway are you teaching literature or economics by any chance?
Back off man, s/he's a scientist! :) [slashdot.org]
Re:Do universities actually need this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I have seen my university's servers "slashdotted" just before tests and such (when the _humble_ box serving the course management pages get lots of hits)
This would be a way to ease up on that. Plus, a well-done system would have very good classification of material and no spoofs (no porn instead of lecture notes), so that one can download all of the pertinent materials of a given course, easy.
Plus, think of the sharing potential. One could share class notes (I have a friend who takes his class not
Re:Do universities actually need this? (Score:1)
Re:Do universities actually need this? (Score:1)
No they don't (Score:3, Insightful)
So you think p2p would be the answer? How about load balancing the servers for the admins there. Look I don't want to sound grinchy or anything but p2p is definitely not the answer to the problems you're mentioning.
This would be a way to ease up on that. Plus, a well-done system would have very good classification of material and no spoofs (no porn
Re:No they don't (Score:2)
So you think p2p would be the answer? How about load balancing the servers for the admins there. Look I don't want to sound grinchy or anything but p2p is definitely not the answer to the problems you're mentioning.
How about leveraging existing resources avaiable on students 2.4 Ghz word processors instead of buying new hardware, load-balancing switches and expensive IT personel that don't know what they
are talking about anyway?
That's a big if. Considering the pranksters running around such schools,
Re:Do universities actually need this? (Score:2)
That does sound like a great idea, and the best application for this that I can think of. I'm doing something similar for my math notes, only using LyX instead of a Palm and raw LaTeX. I'm consider
[OT] No latex equation recognition, sorry... (Score:1)
Re:Do universities actually need this? (Score:1)
Re:Do universities actually need this? (Score:2)
So, breaking it down.... any P2P config would only create extra hops, and any school that has a class that's big enough to cause a bandwidth clog at a single server really has other problems to deal with.
Sounds like a solution in search of a problem...
Re:Do universities actually need this? (Score:2)
Why then need P2P would depend on what they are trying to do.
censor (Score:1, Troll)
Arn't they supposed to be on "Internet2" at this point anyway? what happened to that?
Re:censor (Score:2)
for example, the dorms at my old school (URI) could get 300k/sec on a transfer from an NYU dorm. however, the connection from the dorms to the rest of the world was a single T1. no good for 5000 students all sharing files.
(fortunately i lived in a house on the 'academic' network that had 10 t3's shared with other RI colleges)
Re:censor (Score:1)
I take it URI's connection was already under high load at the time?
Re:censor (Score:2)
all of them.
not a pretty sight.
Re:censor (Score:2)
Re:censor (Score:2)
i think they're trying to deploy wireless throughout the campus instead of constantly rewiring everything. they spent a lot of money wiring up every room on campus only to see 100basetx get real cheap, and then wireless goes and takes off. oops.
Re:censor (Score:2)
During its heyday, a good chunk of Napster's traffic flowed over I2 because at the time each school routed all traffic headed to another I2 school (by IP space) over the I2 link rather than the main Internet link. However, once university officials got wise to this they either excluded dorm room connects from accessing or did port-level routing.
I2's concept is essentially to be what ARPAnet was meant to be before it
shit. (Score:2)
No, a place of learning is the last place anyone should tolerate censorship. Without free speech, there is no accademic freedom. Whithout accademic freedom you don't get an education, you get an indoctrination. A free state depends on real education. Without it, we are slaves. Censorship of electronic publishing is tantamount to book burning. Shame on any University that implements this shit.
Universities cant censor (Score:2)
Also, when you sign up at a school you willingly give up some of your rights to free expression and privacy. Same as when you accept a job offer..
They didnt take it, you gave it up.
Sure it might suck, but they are 100% within their rights to do so. If you dont like it, you dont goto school there. ( or work there, etc )
Why not use bittorrent? (Score:1, Insightful)
Legit uses (Score:1)
Re:Legit uses (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, thats just one possible view of this.
Re:Legit uses (Score:2)
Anyway, thats just one possible view of this.
Another possible view is that because third party solutions incorporate Spyware, Adware, Eulas
ETC, ETC, ETC
Re:Legit uses (Score:2)
In an RIAA-less world, where song swapping hasn't brought copyright violations to the forefront, would these organization build their own network or would they use an existing service?
One of the reason they are building their own network instead of using one already made is so they can track who gets what, when. This requirement has primarily surfaced due to the actions of the RIAA.
In effect, the RIAA has made a self-fulfilling prophecy:
1. People use P2P
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Uhhh? (Score:2)
Re:Uhhh? (Score:2)
However, the underlying protocol would work for this just fine. (In fact, you could probably just get away with changing the client; servers could probably be the same, though I don't know all that much about the internals.) I'd say that a customized Bittorrent client would probably be fairly effe
Re:Uhhh? (Score:2)
to prevent thought crime, of course. (Score:2)
The funding is to block out all but the spyware they are building. That way they can track the little nits and crush the ones with double plus ungood thoughts. You don't want people at a University thinking, do you? This makes Carnivore look innocent.
They are destroying what the internet should be. By placing a central inteligence at the core and forbidding alternate services, they are creating one giant collection of dumb terminals. Nice work Penn! Shame on you MIT for
Re: (Score:2)
sigh (Score:1)
I always loved that about going to a University. I was paying for them to keep up their Windows addiction.
Top Heavy (Score:3, Interesting)
I should think so. This is oddly top-heavy. How is it going to cut down on traffic if students are using Lionshare for class AND Kazasterwire for their friends?
dumb heavy. (Score:2)
That's easy, you expell the students who run Kaza and what not. It's not right, but it can be done. If your mac address does not give you away, a remote call through IE to get your prcessors UID will. My fear, soon to be realized, is that only "approved" applications will be alowed on campus networks.
Anonymous speech is integral to free speech. If there is no anonymous electronic publis
Re:Top Heavy (Score:2)
What does this really accomplish? (Score:2, Insightful)
Bad movie reference (Score:2)
But when it comes to brute strength (in number of users)
I'm afraid their network's at the shallow end of the gene pool.
$1.1 million ??? (Score:2, Funny)
... because we all know how difficult it is [ufl.edu] to write a P2P system. [/sarcasm]
Methinks it is time to switch careers!
Re: (Score:2)
LionShare uses LimeWire (Score:2)
as for illegit uses.. (Score:4, Interesting)
and as for legit uses, there's practically no need for such system. local data transfers are CHEAP, and so is hd, it's no biggie to have fast networks that make the need for it(p2p) practically nil(actually it makes more sense to have most such data few centralised servers).
oh well, i guess some universities run their storage servers off from dsl or something.
Re:as for illegit uses.. (Score:1)
Re:as for illegit uses.. (Score:2)
Re:as for illegit uses.. (Score:2)
Until the direct connect hub is seized [theregister.co.uk] by university police, who will sit [theregister.co.uk] on [theregister.co.uk] the evidence indefinitely.
Re:as for illegit uses.. (Score:2)
yes even sadder is that the pc's worth goes down the drain every day i
Re:as for illegit uses.. (Score:2)
As for "double police systems", consider the fact that at every OSU football game there is a collection of Ohio State Highway Patrolmen, Franklin County Sheriff's De
Why won't BitTorrent work? (Score:2)
The only reason I can think of is that what they are really trying to do is institute the transaction logging, and the file distribution is the official reason given.
BitTorrent has logs (Score:2)
Re:BitTorrent has logs (Score:2)
Yes, but this way they can block all _other_ P2P applications, and offer their own in its place. Which just happens to log all transfers. I can't remember now if it was specified or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if those logs are kept somewhere more, well, central than most P2P applications.
Controlled? I beg to differ (Score:3, Interesting)
The program is being designed as a way for students, faculty and staff to exchange personal and academic materials on a sanctioned, secure peer-to-peer network. Another advantage is that large files, which would be impossible to send via e-mail or another method, can be shared.
While it all sounds nice and warm inside, how long will it be before it becomes abused. Now wait before you think it's trolling of me to say this, think about how lax security is at colleges.
Problems aren't with p2p they're with the users of it, and while some may think sharing a file or two isn't a crime, the fact is, it adds up. So for this to work think about the kind of boolean settings someone is going to have to program to search for illegalities.
What is staff going to do when snoop|grep -i *.mp* doesn't work because users decided to rename files to madonna.zip or madonna.sda? It's just something to contend with when indeed they do get these p2p programs out. So while it all sounds nice, and the intentions are good, these 'foundations', schools, and business shouldn't advertise or rather expect no shady dealings to go on using p2p on their networks. Sure it'll be closed to the outside world for a minute or two before someone figures out how to use something like datapipe [clara.net] to break that theory.
Controlled? Sorry never heard of the word
Re:Controlled? I beg to differ (Score:1)
Poor excuse (Score:2)
Oh logging? You mean as in DHCP logging? Sure but what happens when $USERJOE decides to hang out in $USERJOHN's room and oops uses his connection while there to share files with someone else? Aside from that, what happens when
Re:Poor excuse (Score:2)
Re:Poor excuse (Score:2)
That he's getting practice out of it doesn't make it any more legal.
Oh logging? You mean as in DHCP logging?
RTA. The article strongly implies that the logging will take the form of a secured, username/password pair when signing onto the service. Nothing as low-level as DHCP.
what happens when(if) users start doing stupid little things like hijacking addresses, arp hijacks, yadda yadda to try to circumvent the p2p programs, t
Re:Poor excuse (Score:2)
RTA how about you READ MY POST logging as in what IP address is connecting. Forget username/password combos since big football players wont care if their username is bubba password football. So how do you expect to track people when some people are stupid enough to write l/p's and leave them on post it notes right on their machine.
Oh, and i
Re:Poor excuse (Score:2)
Directly from the article's second paragraph:
develop a technology called LionShare, a file-sharing system that requires students to log in each time
Plainly, they're logging USERNAMES, not just IP addresses. Otherwise the student's wouldn't have to "log in each time".
So how do you expect to track people when some people are stupid enough to write l/p's and leave them on post it notes right on their machine.
Yes, there are ce
Re: (Score:2)
So what else is new? (Score:1)
Idiots.
Re:So what else is new? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
web page (Score:2)
Re:web page (Score:1)
Re:web page (Score:1)
Re:web page (Score:2)
Keep in mind that the web was designed for scientists to share information in the first place; even a sufficient knowledge of raw HTML is so trivial that anybody working in education should be able to grasp it with little training.
Re: (Score:2)
Gateways? (Score:1)
Certain to be Popular (Score:2)
I'm sure this will be popular. It will easily displace every other P2P system in existance.
OTOH, it could make grading easy in the future. To wit:
Got caught trading illegal files -- F
Didn't get caught trading illegal files -- A
Re: (Score:2)
Top secret patch (Score:1)
Re:Top secret patch (Score:1)
That said I'm sure the universities have some sort of way of auditing what the file contents actually are. Of course then they could read anything in those files. I doubt the university would do that for other reasons though.
All of that said they're still missing the key tenant of this whole issue: never underestimate
But Always... (Score:2)
Some days the Lion gets you.
But always dress for the hunt (in your RIAA-proof underwear, no doubt).
Why log? (Score:2)
Why not have clients simply check documents' fingerprints and digital signatures, and only share/download "legit"/"authorized" content? That's the truly distributed way to do this.
I wonder how overloaded those webservers can get from a handful of students downloading some PDF'ed powerpoint presentations though..
Why not a better P2P client (Score:2)
what's going on here? (Score:1)
I mean you're telling me that you couldn't take like 2
email (Score:1)
How can the RIAA snoop? (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, how long will it take before the students develop something that encrypts the name of the file as it is transferred, but offers another server somewhere to rehash the names? (I don't know the technical details of this so please forgive any ignorance on the matter).
Some ideas for their system (Score:2)
Accept that the first release is going to be the "Spoofed Client" Programming Contest.
Accept that you have just given students a great kicker to explore embedding seriptious content in the containing school-oriented files . Suddenly, the school is put in the position to declare random bits as being intelligent content or not. My personal container fav: That crazy TIFF
By forming a closed system, you have effectively removed spyware for the RIAA to inject into. Once in, this system is golden. I like it.
How the press decides on what's legal (Score:2)
Illegal P2P networks? What law is their against Gnutella? Bridget, you got some 'spaining to do...
2006? (Score:2)
Re:2006? (Score:2)
I didn't misread it, I mistyped it.
Students are clever. Get some 802.11 hardware. (Score:2)
A few access points comprising an isolated network with authentication using a secure file transport client would be undetectable. When I was in university, we ran unofficial and against policy ethernet and cable lines with little difficulty. Wireless should make it a snap.
Wonderful... (Score:2)
Hmm... (Score:2)
-Carter
Re: (Score:2)
Good Idea, Bad Implementation (Score:2)
The problem with this implementation is that it is a "sneaky" way to do it which allows people to still get
Why? (Score:2)
some quick info from a LionShare dev (Score:2)
Re:It's not P2P. (Score:1)
If it's not p2p... and only profs will be able to post content... and there's auth and central server...
They need a grant to make a website? Sheesh!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)