FC: Alleged Penn State P2P pirates escape with only warnings

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Previous Politech message:
"Penn State warns students that P2P trading can be a federal felony"
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04614.html

---

From: "Justin Leto" <jleto () psu edu>
To: <declan () well com>
Subject: 220 students at Penn State get warning over file sharing violations
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 13:03:30 -0400

Declan,

The recent roundup of 220 Direct Connect users ended anti-climatically
with the University backing off of threats of severe punishment by only
issuing warnings and forcing students to sign forms before their network
connections were turned back on.

OTC, the Office of Telecommunications, has the authority to shut off
your network connection at their discretion. This is separate from
Judicial Affairs which can charge you with violations of the student
code of conduct which includes copyright violations. But the university
has co-mingled the two and have used student's access to the network as
leverage to gain quick capitulation from students accused of these
violations. Not to mention that finals week is two weeks away.

But interestingly, JA's overature was testament to the fact that the
evidence they had -- simply a snapshot of the "lists" of the shared
files and not the computers with the alleged copyright material
themselves --  and the number of cases involved indicated that they
didn't have the resources to gather the real evidence nor did they have
the resources to prosecute hundreds of students through a lengthy and
cumbersome hearing process to determine their guilt or innocence. This
seems to be a dog and pony show for the RIAA. They essentially said as
much in the article.

They also are concerned about lawsuits.

A side-bar to all of this is whether the university monitored content on
the network against claims they made to the contrary. Non-technicals
would be ignorant of the difference between monitoring traffic as it was
transferred over the network and using p2p programs to monitor the files
being shared on other users systems but essentially we are talking about
the university monitoring students through the network.

I have been told, however,  that the university was given the lists by
Direct Connect users (students) at Penn State Erie after a dispute
occurred. They were identified on http://dc.kicks-ass.net and even the
student radio station 90.7 WKPS-FM, State College broadcasted their name
and contact info over the air. I haven't been able to confirm this,
however, so I'm not exactly sure how the university got the lists and
they haven't indicated it either way -- whether these students were
caught and worked with university officials or if the RIAA obtained
these lists. I also have been told that the RIAA has been working with
JA (i.e. supplying them with lists of users) but this isn't surprising.

Penn State students in the dorms can easily be identified by their IP
address. The first part of their address is their userid that when
plugged into the PH server http://www.psu.edu/ph will tell you who they
are. Essentially this is how the Penn State Erie students were
identified by users.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
Name: ZACHARY DAVID KRAUSE
E-mail: zdk101 () psu edu
EduPerson Primary Affiliation: STUDENT
Address: 0251 PERRY HALL
STATION ROAD
ERIE, PA 16563
Telephone Number: +1 814 217 2861
Title: UNDERGRAD STUDENT
Campus: PENN STATE ERIE, THE BEHREND COLLEGE

IP: 66.71.10.190 Nick: [PSERIE]Mystik
ECR124.rhbd.psu.edu

Name: ETHAN COLLIN RICE
E-mail: ecr124 () psu edu
URL: http://www.personal.psu.edu/ecr124/
Address: 0251 PERRY HALL
STATION ROAD
ERIE, PA 16563
Telephone Number: +1 814 217 2861
Title: UNDERGRAD STUDENT
Campus: PENN STATE ERIE, THE BEHREND COLLEGE

Cheers,
justin
Penn State

Here are two articles that appeared in the student daily:

File-sharing students get warning from J.A.
Judicial Affairs decided to deal with the cases as if they were
off-campus violations, though all occured in dorms.
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2003/04/04-24-03tdc/04-24-03dnews-06.asp

USG technology director: PSU in violation of policy
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2003/04/04-24-03tdc/04-24-03dnews-07.asp




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