Originally there was a quota system at Newcastle, and if you went over that limit they started prying into your online activities (flagging).

I personally downloaded at least 20gigs last year. However all of this was legit, msdnaa related downloads. Most were 1-2gig blocks. I have no idea how much was tallied up from the ebooks provided by Knovel etc would amount, but I personally have a few gigs worth (some we given to me). I've also downloaded a few engineering progs, such as trial versions of autocad etc. My biggest indulgences would be downloading drivers and patches in the past when I didn't have DSL at the time.

I know of someone who reguarly downloaded RS via his laptop, and owned a premium account (and hence uncapped speeds). And carried a 1TB external to boot.


I suspect that these are the contigency measures sue gould was talking about. IT can quite easily block particular ports and domains on the uni's pipe. I would expect that for sites where there is legitimate use admist blatant abuse (youtube), they would simply throttle the traffic from the relevant domain.

However I don't approve of people playing WoW (yes I've seen people playing WoW on laptops at uni), or using bit torrent. Whilst I didn't care what goes on in the AIC as I rarely used it, I didn't appreciate people using engineering computer labs for shits and giggles.

In the distance I can hear Stephen Conroy calling you; "come back to bed".

I fail to understand the reference...

I walked into one of the eng computer rooms last semester to find no computers available and about 8 people streaming the same episode of how i met your mother. I just announced loudly that there was a lab on in here and pointed out them individually n told them to get out. I guess they assumed i was a tutor.

WAIT I get it now...

Fuck you Jericho.

Pretty sure that would be entirely unfeasible (there are lots of lots of sites) and not particularly useful (I mean, if the site were blocked, download the .torrent files elsewhere and email them to yourself. Trivially easy to get around, and I'm sure there are many more ways.) Jericho's reference to Conroy was probably aimed along this line - the proposed internet filter would be useless for similar reasons.

The university does block torrent applications at the software level. The same software that stops me from running OpenOfficePortable on uni computers is enlisted to block mutorrent etc etc. But that software, of course, only runs on the university computers. On your own laptop connected to the uni internet it is a different story (I'm guessing this is how people see folk using bittorrent and WoW on campus?)

From the email I'm guessing they've come up with further means to prevent the abuse of the network.

RS is RapidShare? Seems to get a lot of use at uni. Wouldn't be surprised if that's what was going on over the holidays.

You do make a good point... that said, some form of blocking/detection software would at the very least be offputting to the pricks who insist on using heavy-duty downloading softwares. And there are some things you could probably block (MMO's like WoW being the big one, unless I have misinterpreted how it works, which is likely). Also would e-mailing yourself the .torrent files actually waste uni internet when you opened them, and if so, would it be possible to block that?

Yes I know I sound like Stephen Conroy but these concerns are at least semi-legitimate, even if they wouldn't work.

Reminds me of a time during my design project where we told everyone not doing chem eng to get out of es 321. Given the small year sizes, its pretty easy to spot who belongs and who doesn't. And before you ask, there's signs on the door saying the lab is reserved for chem eng use only.

I figured this was obvious, as I can't imagine getting WoW working on a uni computer. But yeah, I've walked past someone outside engineering playing a mmo on a laptop.

Of course. The beauty of ddl is that is on a standard port (80). RS, MU, FF, HF....

Kids* can play WoW on the Uni Server, I've seen it done. I've also played Warcraft 3 and AOE over the Uni server, though you need to be tech savvy to accomplish such feats. And it was more of a case of "can we do it" rather than "lets play warcraft on our laptops at uni, lol".

*(WoW is a RPG for children.)

Clarify for me. By Uni server you mean networks?
Using the uni network infrastructure to LAN is a trivial matter. And frankly, whilst against uni policy, practically harmless. That should be obvious.
Playing WoW, on the other hand uses external links, and consumes more tangible resources.

Of course, if you by Uni Server you meant the actual computers/systems - Well thats just not cricket. But to my knowledge I don't see this being possible with out inside help (IT staff).

WoW is also an addictive drug used by adults, developed from earlier drugs like EQ, EQ2 & UO.