Flying high in Florida
p2pnet.net News:- The University of Florida was the first to sign up as an unpaid RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) police unit with a home-made application to spot what it claims are illicit p2p incursions by U of F students.
Called ICARUS, short for the Integrated Control Application for Restricting User Services, with it, school authorities shut down network access every time ICARUS comes across anything resembling p2p activity.
And ICARUS anti-p2p software has reduced traffic on the campus network by about 85%, says an April Chronicle of Higher Education story.
We got the news in a .pdf sent to us by a reader so we can’t say if that should read “reduced file sharing traffic on the campus network by about 85%,” although it probably does. The Chronicle doesn’t have open access so we couldn’t check this out at source.
In the meanwhile, the university aparently reports a “low rate of recidivism” for offenders, says the piece, going on:
“Out of 3,123 first-time offenders who received warning messages and were disconnected from the network for 30 minutes, only 334 incurred a second offense and were disconnected for five days. A mere 37 students were third-time offenders and were reported to the Student Judicial Affairs Office.”
Some students and privacy advocates oppose the blocking effort, arguing Icarus not only bans illegal downloading but also legitimate uses of peer-to-peer file sharing, says the report, adding:
“In addition, some students have already devised ways to modify file sharing practices to escape the program?s notice. However, officials at the university are pleased with the software and plan to market Icarus to other colleges and universities.”
June 3rd, 2004 at 1:06 am
Icarus is destined to fly too close to the sun only to crash and burn…seems fitting for the RIAA et al.