Previous Politech message: "Penn State warns students that P2P trading can be a federal felony" http://www.politechbot.com/p-04614.html --- From: "Justin Leto" <jletoat_private> To: <declanat_private> Subject: 220 students at Penn State get warning over file sharing violations Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 13:03:30 -0400 Declan, The recent roundup of 220 Direct Connect users ended anti-climatically with the University backing off of threats of severe punishment by only issuing warnings and forcing students to sign forms before their network connections were turned back on. OTC, the Office of Telecommunications, has the authority to shut off your network connection at their discretion. This is separate from Judicial Affairs which can charge you with violations of the student code of conduct which includes copyright violations. But the university has co-mingled the two and have used student's access to the network as leverage to gain quick capitulation from students accused of these violations. Not to mention that finals week is two weeks away. But interestingly, JA's overature was testament to the fact that the evidence they had -- simply a snapshot of the "lists" of the shared files and not the computers with the alleged copyright material themselves -- and the number of cases involved indicated that they didn't have the resources to gather the real evidence nor did they have the resources to prosecute hundreds of students through a lengthy and cumbersome hearing process to determine their guilt or innocence. This seems to be a dog and pony show for the RIAA. They essentially said as much in the article. They also are concerned about lawsuits. A side-bar to all of this is whether the university monitored content on the network against claims they made to the contrary. Non-technicals would be ignorant of the difference between monitoring traffic as it was transferred over the network and using p2p programs to monitor the files being shared on other users systems but essentially we are talking about the university monitoring students through the network. I have been told, however, that the university was given the lists by Direct Connect users (students) at Penn State Erie after a dispute occurred. They were identified on http://dc.kicks-ass.net and even the student radio station 90.7 WKPS-FM, State College broadcasted their name and contact info over the air. I haven't been able to confirm this, however, so I'm not exactly sure how the university got the lists and they haven't indicated it either way -- whether these students were caught and worked with university officials or if the RIAA obtained these lists. I also have been told that the RIAA has been working with JA (i.e. supplying them with lists of users) but this isn't surprising. Penn State students in the dorms can easily be identified by their IP address. The first part of their address is their userid that when plugged into the PH server http://www.psu.edu/ph will tell you who they are. Essentially this is how the Penn State Erie students were identified by users. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- Name: ZACHARY DAVID KRAUSE E-mail: zdk101at_private EduPerson Primary Affiliation: STUDENT Address: 0251 PERRY HALL STATION ROAD ERIE, PA 16563 Telephone Number: +1 814 217 2861 Title: UNDERGRAD STUDENT Campus: PENN STATE ERIE, THE BEHREND COLLEGE IP: 66.71.10.190 Nick: [PSERIE]Mystik ECR124.rhbd.psu.edu Name: ETHAN COLLIN RICE E-mail: ecr124at_private URL: http://www.personal.psu.edu/ecr124/ Address: 0251 PERRY HALL STATION ROAD ERIE, PA 16563 Telephone Number: +1 814 217 2861 Title: UNDERGRAD STUDENT Campus: PENN STATE ERIE, THE BEHREND COLLEGE Cheers, justin Penn State Here are two articles that appeared in the student daily: File-sharing students get warning from J.A. Judicial Affairs decided to deal with the cases as if they were off-campus violations, though all occured in dorms. http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2003/04/04-24-03tdc/04-24-03dnews-06.asp USG technology director: PSU in violation of policy http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2003/04/04-24-03tdc/04-24-03dnews-07.asp ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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