[Lvlug] OT: Webserver/router woes

[Christopher Hever]

On 6/17/07, Chris <chris at kutztownlinux.org> wrote:

> If you haven't been to a university lately many have implemented a
> technology called CleanAccess  (or similar) that forces uses to identify
> themselves by logging in, install non-free software, and then they
> censor various protocols to prevent peer-to-peer traffic.

I am all too familiar with such limitations. In my first semester at
NCC, I was disappointed to find out that I couldn't directly access
IRC. FTP behaved very strangely as well. I never checked, but playing
the excellent software libre strategy game Battle for Wesnoth against
other humanoids would probably also be out of the question.

I don't really buy the arguments given for crippling the feed. One
could argue that disabling peer-to-peer sharing would limit bandwidth
consumption, but it's usually easier to consume much more bandwidth
over a short time with regular-ass HTTP downloads, because BitTorrent
et al are usually slow as hell. I'd be lucky to pull 2k/s. And for all
the goofing off on the Intarwebs I did there, I sure left with a high
grade, so I don't really buy the academic argument either.

> Fight it! I am constantly complaining on behalf of others. Many ISPs
> excuse themselves from the duties of running an ISP and consider it
> necessary when it is not. If it were necessary every ISP would do it...

Speaking of protests, I have an open media format petition.

That'll be a top-level post though.

-- 
"The righteous considers the cause of the poor, but the wicked does
not understand such knowledge." --- Proverbs 29:7