Daily Network Monitor

The House of Representatives recently passed bill HR4137, raising troubling questions about privacy rights on college campus networks. While the bill itself is a tremendous education package, one section covering “Campus-based Digital Theft Prevention” is igniting heated debate throughout the blogosphere. Bill HR4137 requires administrators to perform network filtering, profiling and monitoring students for potential illegal activities.

In addition, the bill requires that colleges provide a P2P file-swapping alternative, which may be as simple as public link to the iTunes Music Store or as complex as a suite of network monitoring tools for administrators and file-sharing applications for students. Failure to comply with these mandates could result in the withholding federal funds fromdelinquent campuses, though there is currently no pressure to adopt new technology foran un-passed bill. If federal funding were affected, universities could venture to lose access to Pell grants, Safford and Perkins student loans, which could directly effect applications and admission rates.

While the use of peer-to-peer networks does not necessarily constitute illicit illegal activities, this kind of network monitoring could harbor many negative feelings among users. For this reason, EDUCAUSE, the foremost association of network administrators amongst college campuses, have consistently opposed these kinds of privacy invasions, as the use of VPN tunneling and encryption can easily be subverted by resourceful and persistent users.

While many believe this provision in HR4137 is nothing more than a concerted effort by lobbyists championing the broken business model of the entertainment industry, it should be noted that the Motion Picture Association of America recently revamped their numbers regarding film piracy losses from college campuses (they cut their estimate of 44 percent by two-thirds). And while it is not news that the MPAA is hardly a credible source for metrics in the creation of law, the impact of their influence in Washington DC remains to be seen. Without the opinions of industry professionals, I fear this bill could result in something far more sinister and start us down a slippery slope of profiling and restrictions on innovation and research. Academic officials should not allow legislators far removed from the complexities and needs of college campuses to determine how to run their networks. HR4137 is just another overreaching attempt by the government to pry into student’s lives and play with our equipment.

Voting history on bill HR4137 can be found here at opencongress.org. Whichever side of the fence you fall on regarding this issue, I encourage all of you to contact your Congressional representative and voice your opinion.