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I spent some time at a university and got to field DMCA complaints. Typically they'd list the file getting shared and a timestamp (often without a timezone) an

by cduzz 6y ago

I spent some time at a university and got to field DMCA complaints. Typically they'd list the file getting shared and a timestamp (often without a timezone) and the university IP/port. They never included their own IP address... Of course, the traffic was behind a firewall. I had the logs but wasn't about to accuse / punish anyone when there were a bunch of potential students behind any given complaint, and without the other end of the connection I couldn't identify which one for certain. Funny thing is they refused to give their source IP because they didn't trust us to not leak it to whatever pirates to put on a blocklist. But of course, I had their source IP because I had the network traffic. Were I in kahoots I'd have just listed all 5 of the possible snitching peers to the badguys. Shady and incompetent then, same now I guess.

mulmen 6y ago
I worked in tech support at my university and also handled this type of request. Typically just triage to the network team because they didn't give students access to the network logs. We had strict requirements on not exposing student data. On the other hand we had to minimize the University's risk. This meant at least a nastygram to the offending student. I think there was some kind of three strike system where students may get booted off the campus network. The whole setup was pretty slick back then so if that happened they really wouldn't be able to do anything. Like they wouldn't even be able to get a wired connection in the library. Was a pretty neat place to work actually. Still have fond memories. Buy me a beer some time and ask me about working phones and email in ~2007 after news was published that Sarah Palin attended the Univeristy.
- dmix 6y ago
  Punishing students that aggressively over DMCA requests sounds like a terrible idea. They are so easy to abuse. It also seems like it would affect their academic ability because they pirated a few movies. Who cares.
  - mulmen 6y ago
    We investigated each accusation and the strikes were only applied if the student was actually violating the terms of use of the network. Like actually pirating stuff. I forget what it took to lose network access but it wasn't something you could do on accident. Every "strike" would have included a warning. I mean they let us run Counter Strike servers out of our dorm rooms. It was a pretty relaxed environment really.
    - jdmichal 6y ago
      Not to mention that commercial ISPs also follow a three-strike system -- unless that's changed. I haven't been keeping track since it's not relevant to me. So it sounds like the only difference is that you all did a bit of investigation before issuing a strike. My friend was in a brand new dorm built for honors students. Network topology was quickly worked out that each floor was immediately visible, and I believe other floors could be found with some work. There were several 24-hour Halo lobbies going.
      - mulmen 6y ago
        We were like a non-terrible ISP basically. Our job was primarily to facilitate learning. Secondary was to protect the university. Students pay the bills so their interests were always put first and we would go to bat for students if necessary. I don't recall if we used a three strike system or if it was more case-by-case.
      - belorn 6y ago
        While I understand the position that a university ISP has and the potential fear of getting cut by upstream ISPs if one does not address abuse issues, it still sounds a bit like removing a student's access to the university if they got three parking tickets. Sure, it is against the law, but is it the university's role to enforce those laws?
        mulmen 6y ago
        I can't recall a specific case of a student actually getting banned for anything DMCA or piracy related. We issued warnings to the most egregious offenders and that was always enough. To actually get banned from the network you'd pretty much have to get expelled first. The point was we did have the capability to enforce it and keep the network secure.
- riknos314 6y ago
  Similar at my uni. Our particular system handled tracking computers by MAC address. For absolutely no reason other than being a bored CS student working in IT I scraped the MAC addresses of all the uni-owned lab computers from the hardware inventory list, and configured my linux install to pick a random one to spoof at boot.
  - andrewnicolalde 6y ago
    LOL, but what would happen if that computer was in active use?
    - wiredfool 6y ago
      Only a problem if you're on the same subnet.
- nonamenoslogan 6y ago
  Interesting, I too worked in tech support at that University in 2007--though I left 3 years ago. We could know each other, what a small world.
  - mulmen 6y ago
    I think I started in ~2007? I left shortly after I graduated in 2010. My username is based on my actual name if that helps. I've bumped in to a few people from that place over the years, always a pleasure. Hope you're doing well, whoever you are :)
- Causality1 6y ago
  Frankly I'm surprised it was that lenient. The last time I was in university it took less than twenty minutes of torrenting to get my laptop's MAC address permanently banned from the wifi.
  - cduzz 6y ago
    The system I setup would quickly detect p2p (and some worm/virus stuff) and put you in a quarantine vlan (for virus) or just drop 2-3% of your packets (p2p). That particular network didn't have infinite bandwidth... As far as actually investigating / reporting file sharing stuff, we'd sometimes track down the students and let them know that they were suspected of doing things that were against the extremely lenient network access policies but we certainly never cooperated with the (non-LEO) agencies reporting. The thing that was most irritating to me was that if they were reporting abuse, if we had enough information to do something about it we'd obviously also have the remote IP of the entity reporting the abuse yet they refused to offer it even when we'd send them "we have 3 potential people, with 3 remote IP addresses ; which is yours?" which would always just get the same vaguely threatening boiler plate...
- endblacksea 6y ago
  Don be worry. Study hatd is what u nees to go on. I stand in for u at dcma case. Ask tthem look for me. Ddt-ted. Just a small gal what they want . Want to follow law. Can. Old ppl all qick up in burger king and follow the queak. Sleep early and promise me contubuild back to the socity . Must help 5 person and keep the believe that lending a help hand when u are in need. Kennysouthpark
antman 6y ago
I had created a script tha found the common external ips that appeared around those timestamps and blocked them. Problem mostly solved.
ngokevin 6y ago
At my university of 20K+, we automated everything as student devs. Parsed the DMCA emails, followed the traces through various types of networks and network logs (public network with leased IPs, dorm networks, MAC addresses, etc) to see who was holding the IP at the time, responded to the DMCA email, and sent students automated emails with warnings and quizzes and reprimands. We put on management frontend on top of it to display data and let admins do manual actions.
thaumasiotes 6y ago
> Shady and incompetent then, same now I guess. I received a warning from my university over a complaint that was (apparently) filed against me. The complaint accurately identified a song that was part of a massive torrent from which I had downloaded a single song. If memory serves, I downloaded "Leader of the Pack" and was accused of downloading "Hotel California". I concluded that they were happy to make accusations without even having any evidence that I had done anything wrong. (Technically, I had... but they didn't appear to have a clue what it was.)

by cduzz 6y ago

mulmen 6y ago

I worked in tech support at my university and also handled this type of request. Typically just triage to the network team because they didn't give students access to the network logs. We had strict requirements on not exposing student data. On the other hand we had to minimize the University's risk. This meant at least a nastygram to the offending student. I think there was some kind of three strike system where students may get booted off the campus network. The whole setup was pretty slick back then so if that happened they really wouldn't be able to do anything. Like they wouldn't even be able to get a wired connection in the library. Was a pretty neat place to work actually. Still have fond memories. Buy me a beer some time and ask me about working phones and email in ~2007 after news was published that Sarah Palin attended the Univeristy.

dmix 6y ago
Punishing students that aggressively over DMCA requests sounds like a terrible idea. They are so easy to abuse. It also seems like it would affect their academic ability because they pirated a few movies. Who cares.
- mulmen 6y ago
  We investigated each accusation and the strikes were only applied if the student was actually violating the terms of use of the network. Like actually pirating stuff. I forget what it took to lose network access but it wasn't something you could do on accident. Every "strike" would have included a warning. I mean they let us run Counter Strike servers out of our dorm rooms. It was a pretty relaxed environment really.
  - jdmichal 6y ago
    Not to mention that commercial ISPs also follow a three-strike system -- unless that's changed. I haven't been keeping track since it's not relevant to me. So it sounds like the only difference is that you all did a bit of investigation before issuing a strike. My friend was in a brand new dorm built for honors students. Network topology was quickly worked out that each floor was immediately visible, and I believe other floors could be found with some work. There were several 24-hour Halo lobbies going.
    - mulmen 6y ago
      We were like a non-terrible ISP basically. Our job was primarily to facilitate learning. Secondary was to protect the university. Students pay the bills so their interests were always put first and we would go to bat for students if necessary. I don't recall if we used a three strike system or if it was more case-by-case.
    - belorn 6y ago
      While I understand the position that a university ISP has and the potential fear of getting cut by upstream ISPs if one does not address abuse issues, it still sounds a bit like removing a student's access to the university if they got three parking tickets. Sure, it is against the law, but is it the university's role to enforce those laws?
      - mulmen 6y ago
        I can't recall a specific case of a student actually getting banned for anything DMCA or piracy related. We issued warnings to the most egregious offenders and that was always enough. To actually get banned from the network you'd pretty much have to get expelled first. The point was we did have the capability to enforce it and keep the network secure.
riknos314 6y ago
Similar at my uni. Our particular system handled tracking computers by MAC address. For absolutely no reason other than being a bored CS student working in IT I scraped the MAC addresses of all the uni-owned lab computers from the hardware inventory list, and configured my linux install to pick a random one to spoof at boot.
- andrewnicolalde 6y ago
  LOL, but what would happen if that computer was in active use?
  - wiredfool 6y ago
    Only a problem if you're on the same subnet.
nonamenoslogan 6y ago
Interesting, I too worked in tech support at that University in 2007--though I left 3 years ago. We could know each other, what a small world.
- mulmen 6y ago
  I think I started in ~2007? I left shortly after I graduated in 2010. My username is based on my actual name if that helps. I've bumped in to a few people from that place over the years, always a pleasure. Hope you're doing well, whoever you are :)
Causality1 6y ago
Frankly I'm surprised it was that lenient. The last time I was in university it took less than twenty minutes of torrenting to get my laptop's MAC address permanently banned from the wifi.
- cduzz 6y ago
  The system I setup would quickly detect p2p (and some worm/virus stuff) and put you in a quarantine vlan (for virus) or just drop 2-3% of your packets (p2p). That particular network didn't have infinite bandwidth... As far as actually investigating / reporting file sharing stuff, we'd sometimes track down the students and let them know that they were suspected of doing things that were against the extremely lenient network access policies but we certainly never cooperated with the (non-LEO) agencies reporting. The thing that was most irritating to me was that if they were reporting abuse, if we had enough information to do something about it we'd obviously also have the remote IP of the entity reporting the abuse yet they refused to offer it even when we'd send them "we have 3 potential people, with 3 remote IP addresses ; which is yours?" which would always just get the same vaguely threatening boiler plate...
endblacksea 6y ago
Don be worry. Study hatd is what u nees to go on. I stand in for u at dcma case. Ask tthem look for me. Ddt-ted. Just a small gal what they want . Want to follow law. Can. Old ppl all qick up in burger king and follow the queak. Sleep early and promise me contubuild back to the socity . Must help 5 person and keep the believe that lending a help hand when u are in need. Kennysouthpark

antman 6y ago

I had created a script tha found the common external ips that appeared around those timestamps and blocked them. Problem mostly solved.

ngokevin 6y ago

At my university of 20K+, we automated everything as student devs. Parsed the DMCA emails, followed the traces through various types of networks and network logs (public network with leased IPs, dorm networks, MAC addresses, etc) to see who was holding the IP at the time, responded to the DMCA email, and sent students automated emails with warnings and quizzes and reprimands. We put on management frontend on top of it to display data and let admins do manual actions.

thaumasiotes 6y ago

> Shady and incompetent then, same now I guess. I received a warning from my university over a complaint that was (apparently) filed against me. The complaint accurately identified a song that was part of a massive torrent from which I had downloaded a single song. If memory serves, I downloaded "Leader of the Pack" and was accused of downloading "Hotel California". I concluded that they were happy to make accusations without even having any evidence that I had done anything wrong. (Technically, I had... but they didn't appear to have a clue what it was.)