How does illegal file-sharing hurt the University of Utahs online security and networking?
A. The number of complaints that Utah receives per week has grown significantly over the past few months, after steadily dropping the last several years. File-sharing hurts security on campus in that the staff is prevented from working on more beneficial projects for the University. Peer to Peer file sharing applications and the files being shared are also an avenue for malware (viruses and worms) to be spread. From a networking perspective, the U suffers under current file-sharing because of the resources it eats up. The people at the OIT Network Operations Center (NOC) and Information Security Office want to help limit the University of Utah’s liability under the DMCA, but aside from this concern, they also want to provide a reliable network for all users. Therefore, the NOC has limited the amount of network resources that may be used for file-sharing on housing networks. The purpose of the cap is to make the network usable for schoolwork and other important activities. It is not to
