06/05/2008

First they renamed my alma mater. Now they do this kind of nonsense:

According to an Associated Press report, the Missouri University of Science and Technology now requires students to correctly answer six questions about digital copyright law before they can use peer-to-peer tools. If they pass the test, they get six hours of access to the software.

Umm, what? You’re required to pass a test about copyright law, and then the university will kindly let you mess around with P2P software?

The sheer idiocy of such a thing notwithstanding, I can’t imagine how the campus network administrators will be able to prevent five thousand fairly smart engineering students from using P2P software in their rooms, completely independent of any university oversight. Encrypting traffic, using non-standard ports, and even spoofing MAC/IP addresses are three trivial ways to circumvent The System.

Boy, things have changed since my days there, when we used our 14.4 modems to connect to the campus mainframe (which, of course, was running VAX). Good times.