FW: Napster at MSU?

[Paul Donahue]

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Donahue [mailto:donahu16@msu.edu]
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2000 12:56 AM
To: 'Zac Cogswell'
Subject: RE: Napster at MSU?


well i'm trying to stay out of this as much as possible, other than
observing and noteing that where I work (VMC) isn't the only place on campus
having network problems. I tend to not point it to napster because that's
just ignorant in some ways. Yes it's a bandwitdh hog, but we're MSU (ISP for
most of central michigan), plus we do such things as backup of entire
servers over the campus network, have Virtual University multicasts etc.
just to name a few of the things. Plus there's IPX data along with a whole
bunch more protocols just floating around through the campus network and
through our routers, so I think to point the finger at just napster is
pretty bad. It might sound like I'm a bit offended, and I can say that I am
in some ways, because admittedly I am a user of napster, but I am
responsible in limiting the number of connections that can connect to me
etc. But I digress...

My point:  DON'T DO PORTSCANS ON THE ENTIRE MSU NETWORK!!!! If you think
that say 100 people running napster (maybe lots more, maybe less) is causing
bandwidth problems, think what would happen if everyone decided to start
portscanning to "help" out Doug and others at network services. Yes I am
very interested in the results, and REALLY want to see them, but if we all
do our own tests we will probably be shot by the people at network services.

My suggestion: Let's let the network services people handle the problem.
Let's be responsible power users and report what we find, however make sure
that we stay out of the way. The last thing we need is a bunch of people who
think they know what's going on mucking about with what they may or may not
know.

DISCLAIMER: Before you all hate me, I share the "hacker spirit" and want to
genuinely help out, however with the nature of the problem I think many good
spirited people doing their probing would cause more harm than good.

-----Original Message-----
From: linux-user-admin@egr.msu.edu
[mailto:linux-user-admin@egr.msu.edu]On Behalf Of Zac Cogswell
Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2000 6:59 PM
To: pfaffben@msu.edu; linux-user@egr.msu.edu
Subject: Re: Napster at MSU?


At 06:51 PM 3/1/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Zac Cogswell <cogswell@msu.edu> writes:
>
> > No, but you can scan every machine on all of MSU''s subnets for
napster's
> > default ports at various points during the day/night for a week - that
> > should give an idea as to how many people run it....
>
>I'd strongly suggest not doing that - scanning all the MSU
>subnets might well (and perhaps rightly) be considered an AUP
>violation.

I don't see how it is against the AUP, although it is in the grey area... I
guess some people could interpret scanning as an attempt to "infiltrate
(e.g., gain access without proper authorization) a computing system or
network, either on the MSU campus or elsewhere." (AUP) but its a weak case.
IMHO, the worst you might do is set off some IDS and get an e-mail from an
admin... although, with the amount of traffic that is on the network, I
doubt anyone would notice/care.


|
|  Zac Cogswell
|  cogswell@msu.edu
|
|  "I can't give you a brain but I can give you a diploma"
|          ---- The Wizard of Oz to the Scarecrow
L


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