College Internet Security

[Tramposch 1]

Hey everybody, I was wondering about college internet security. I am not in college, but my brother is going into college and had a few questions.Do they monitor connections? My brother is an avid torrenter (bit torrents) and torrents many LEGAL anime shows (yes, i know...) and he is curious whether or not this will arouse suspicion, and if people are actively monitoring all incoming and outgoing data and ports.If there is, what are methods of avoided being brought under suspicion, excluding the option of to stop doing whatever he is doing?

[akashi 0]

You can use VPN and encrypt it's data. But, even you use the methods, they'll still catch you from using the bandwith. Especially your brother is an avid torrenter and would probably eats few gigs in just a week. They'll realize that your brother is doing something

Hey everybody, I was wondering about college internet security. I am not in college, but my brother is going into college and had a few questions.
Do they monitor connections? My brother is an avid torrenter (bit torrents) and torrents many LEGAL anime shows (yes, i know...) and he is curious whether or not this will arouse suspicion, and if people are actively monitoring all incoming and outgoing data and ports.

If there is, what are methods of avoided being brought under suspicion, excluding the option of to stop doing whatever he is doing?

[-Sky- 0]

The question in which you ask depends on certain College's. Some have Web Filters to filter illegal material, facebook, torrent sites, downloading, pornographic things etc. The username in which your brother uses will probably be limited and would have restricted access to downloading of files/video's etc. And depending on what sort of "Monitoring" software they are using, yes. They probably do monitor all Connection activities and logon/desktop sessions.

[The Simpleton 2]

I think there is no technology yet to hide the bandwidth used, is there? And there are very few answers to the question "How did you use this much bandwidth if not by downloading torrents?" :(I recommend that your brother use an internet card for these purposes so that he can have his own, unmonitored connection for using torrents. For all other purposes the college connection will do just fine. Of course, this depends on how much such connections cost in your country...

[rvalkass 5]

I use torrent files to download Linux distributions, to reduce load on individual servers. After a while I suddenly noticed I could not download any more .torrent files. Any that I had would work fine, but I couldn't download new ones. When I asked support what was up, they told me they are now blocking the download of torrents because "they're illegal". That was a massive facepalm moment for two reasons. Firstly, not all torrents are illegal (Linux distros for example). Secondly, blocking the .torrent files was their method for stopping the actual torrents, which shows a fundamental lack of understanding in what they were actually trying to achieve and how torrents work.Practical upshot: they wouldn't do anything about it, because "all torrents are illegal". Sigh...

[The Simpleton 2]

Hmm that's too bad....blocking torrents just because a majority of the bunch are illegal There is a way around this if you want - you could ask someone to put the .torrent file in an archive and then you could download it. That would solve the problem wouldn't it? :angel:

 

And talking about torrents in general, we can't really blame anyone. The usage of torrents depends upon the person. There are a lot of legal torrents out there but they are outnumbered by the number of illegal ones so they are hidden to the common eye! That's the main problem today.

[shadowx 0]

You need to ask yourself why they are blocking torrents first. Two possible ones:1) Save Bandwidth, imagine if everyone in his dorm was downloading movies 3 times a week, thats a lot of bandwidth that the college needs for other purposes and may be charged extra for.2) Legality, i know that a lot of torrents are perfectly legal, but most arent or contain adult/explicit/unsavoury content. There are many reasons why an educational facility would want to prevent this sort of thing ending up on their computers (or crossing their networks)

[rvalkass 5]

2) Legality, i know that a lot of torrents are perfectly legal, but most arent or contain adult/explicit/unsavoury content. There are many reasons why an educational facility would want to prevent this sort of thing ending up on their computers (or crossing their networks)

If that were a true concern then there would be no Internet access at all and Windows PCs would be banned. Access to the Internet and a search engine can return any amount of adult and unsavoury content, no matter how much filtering you put in place. If you're worried about the security of your network and receiving viruses and the like, then Windows PCs would not be allowed. Perhaps it's to appease the PRS/RIAA/MPAA/Whoever which seems ridiculous, but increasingly likely...

[shadowx 0]

I think the problem is that because its an education facility, probably funded or regulated some how by the national government they want to minimize the risks of copyright lawsuits and such like, given the amount of illegal material of torrent sites its no wonder the colleges want to try to minimize that content entering their systems, not because other people might get it or for security or whatever but purely because the college would be to blame for allowing the material to be downloaded in the first place and hence any law suit or legal action would be directed against them and its a risk they cant afford to take (imagine 200 copyright suits from companies like universal music, warner brothers and such.. that would be an extremely costly bill to pay).I agree with the windows PCs being burned though....The thing is the administrators can only take reasonable steps, the head of the college might want 0% virus infection, but theres only one way to do that, format all the machines, fresh install and then block everything, networks, floppy, USB and optical disks etc.... Of course thats not reasonable hence there will always be a risk, they just have to minimize it as much as they can and blocking downloads is a good way. Within limits of course.

[Tramposch 1]

Well if it helps he is going to VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University). So now I am wondering, is the only way to find out if they will do any blocking and stuff is to just torrent and see what happens?

[rvalkass 5]

Ask them: http://www.ts.vcu.edu/it-support-center/

 

That page contains a phone number, so even if he's not there yet he can phone up and ask them if they block/monitor things. It also gives you a chance to ask them why they have those policies in place (if they do).

[Tramposch 1]

I just talked to a friend who works in the IT group of VCU they said they stopped monitoring bandwidth two years ago because it cost more to monitor it then it did to buy more bandwidth :(That is pretty funny.Now the problem he had, he was torrenting ubuntu, and the time was stuck at infinity and it wouldn't download, but he said the upload speed was going through the roof.

[akashi 0]

Maybe they installed a NAT firewall or something like that. Or, the port used by torrent client is blocked somehow. Try to change the connection port or used a tunneling software. I did use an encrypted VPN and it worked. They didn't noticed that I used torrent client ;p

[Plenoptic 0]

I would recommend looking into the Ultra Surf program. It allows you to view any site without anyone knowing and it covers your tracks so no one knows who you are or what you are surfing. I used it to get past my high school filter while on the internet so I could play games in class. Go to this link to download it http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ A lot of people use it in countries that try to censor their citizens from using certain sites on the web. As for torrents, I know game distributors that make you download a game use torrents to allow faster download so it is not all just illegal movies that are out there.