Network Computing | ||||||||||||||||||||
Issue
33 - September 2002
|
||||||||||||||||||||
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:
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:
|
||||||||||||||||||||