MEMORANDUM October 12, 2001 TO: NC State Students, Faculty and Staff FROM: Samuel F. Averitt, Vice Provost for Information Technology SUBJECT: Peer-to-peer file sharing statement, 2001 Peer-to-peer file sharing networks (such as KaZaA, Morpheus, Audiogalaxy or Gnutella) enable those logged in to download and share audio, video, software and other files. Recently, heavy use of popular file sharing applications has begun to degrade network performance to and from the NC State campus. Students and technical staff have asked that we update and clarify the university's position on the use of these resource-intensive programs. NC State network policy has long been that we do not censor Internet traffic except as may be appropriate in response to official complaints and in the case of illegal activity. Part of our mission is to foster student engagement and responsible experimentation with the latest technologies. Thanks in part to our high-speed campus network and our ResNet program, students in on-campus housing have formed an informal but lively learning community which we see as a significant educational opportunity at NC State. We are very reluctant to censor these activities. Illegal activity is of course forbidden on the NC State network. This is clearly stated in the rules and regulations governing personal use of NC State’s computing systems and network. These regulations are widely distributed and published online. (See North Carolina State University Administrative Regulations, section III, Personal Use, http://www.ncsu.edu/policies/informationtechnology/REG08.00.2.php, and http://www.ncsu.edu/it/rulesregs/) Although the peer-to-peer file sharing programs are not illegal, they can be used for the illegal downloading and distribution of audio, video, software and other files. Downloading or distributing material without permission of the copyright holder is a violation of federal and state law, even if it is not for profit. The penalties can be significant, including imprisonment and fines. Our refusal to censor access in no way condones violations of copyright or intellectual property laws. However, disproportionate bandwidth use by certain file sharing programs are now affecting NC State's instructional, research and business activities on the network. The problems are not with the capacity of the campus network, but with off-campus gateways to the commodity Internet. Communication Technologies (ComTech) and the Information Technology Division (ITD) are taking steps to ensure that education and research are not impaired. As part of these activities, we may put limits on the bandwidth available to specific areas of the campus network or on the amount of bandwidth allowed for particular applications. More advanced network traffic management tools are being developed so that the systems are not overloaded and campus resources are equitably shared. We ask users of KaZaA, Gnutella, Morpheus, Audiogalaxy and similar file sharing programs to be aware of the heavy burden these programs put on network resources and to be considerate of other members of the NC State and off-campus network community. ResNet, while not encouraging the use of peer-to-peer file sharing programs, will provide guidelines on how to configure and use these applications to conserve bandwidth use. See www.ncsu.edu/resnet/help/p2p/ Finally, many do not understand that their computer may become a server when they use peer-to-peer file sharing programs. Most of these applications automatically start serving shared files as soon as the computer is connected to a network, and most do not stop the server portion of the application when the user exits the main program. Instead, the server remains active while the computer is on, and users are often unaware that they are sharing files even when away from their computers. With some programs, it is very easy for users to share portions of their hard drives that could easily expose them to intruders who could download password files, various cached files and other personal information. ITD Computing Services and ResNet will continue to provide guidelines on how NC State network users can protect their personal information and participate in the network computing environment in legal and responsible ways. See also Napster statement, issued in 2000 Back To Computer and Network Use Regulations and Rules