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Issue
33 - September 2002
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How
Does Peer-to-Peer Affect the CityU Community?
By
Raymond Poon
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Over
the past few years, a number of "peer-to-peer (P2P)"
file-sharing applications have emerged to enable sharing or
swapping of files among participants of a community (or members
of a network). A computer can become a participant of a community
by running any one of the applications specially written for
that community. Once running, the application automatically
shares the files of the participant's computer with the other
participants' computers worldwide if the former does not take
specific actions to block the access. As such, participants
by default can search other fellow participants' computers
for files that may interest them, and bring those files to
their own computers.
In fact,
a growing number of our users are already using these P2P
file-sharing applications to download from or exchange through
the Internet a large number of music collections (in MP3 format),
video clips, multimedia files, etc. that are to be/being stored
on University-owned computers. Some even host similar download
services or actively engage in swapping of video or music
files. To the University community, these non-academic activities
pose serious threats, which include but not limited to the
following:
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Hog
University's network bandwidth (both Internet and Intranet)
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Consume
unnecessarily a large volume of useful disk storage
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Put
both the University and the participant at risk if unlicensed
copyrighted materials were found on University equipment.
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If
the participant's computer is not properly managed and protected,
it can contract viruses or attract hackers' codes through
file swapping, and then becomes a source to spread and even
be used to launch attacks to other computers.
To protect the
campus network, the Computing Services Centre (CSC) will adopt the
following common practice that is widely accepted by other universities
in order to curb and limit the impact brought about by these applications:
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Users
on campus network and on modem pool will be advised
not to install or use any one of the P2P file-sharing
applications as listed in the table below (the list
will be updated when new ones or new versions are
found). If they choose to install or not to remove
the application, they must ensure that their systems
are properly set to prevent them from acting as a
provider of unlicensed materials to other users. Should
they fail to do so, they shall be fully liable for
any damage caused or legal action brought against
them.
Name
of Community (Name of Network) |
P2P
Application Written for the Community |
Aimster |
Aimster |
Audiogalaxy |
Audiogalaxy
Satellite |
FastTrack |
KaZaA
Morpheus
(Old) |
Gnutella |
BearShare
Gnotella
Gnucleus
GTK-Gnutella
LimeWire
Mactella
Morpheus
PE (Current)
Phex
Otella
SwapNut
XoLoX |
iMesh |
iMesh |
MFTP |
EDonkey2000 |
NeoModus |
Direct
Connect |
OpenNap |
WinMX |
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For
those machines running any one of the above P2P file-sharing
applications on the Internet, they will be set to have one
of the lowest priorities among all types of data transfers,
and their total combined bandwidth consumption will initially
be limited to at most 500 Kilobits per second. It will be
further adjusted accordingly or may remain unchanged depending
on the bandwidth situation.
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