Re: [TCLUG:14628] RE: Napster

[Dan Debertin <danield@bitstream.net>]

On Tue, 14 Mar 2000, Eric M. Hopper wrote:
> 
> 	And what is the mission?  Presumably, for a school network, I
> would assume that it's ensuring that students have access to the things
> they need to to learn.  Doesn't that include Napster?
> 
> 	It is hard to see how downloading songs all day is really a
> learning experience, but setting up Napster and getting your first few
> songs is.  Blocking prevents even that.

Let me furnish an analog for you: If I have a Harley-Davidson motorcycle
(which I wouldn't, BTW :), and I sit up at night in a residential district
revving that thing just as loud as I possibly can, keeping everyone awake
and preventing everyone from utilizing the silence to make their own
sounds, I learn quite a few interesting things about internal combustion
engines, the tolerance level of the human eardrum, thermodynamics, and my
own ego. Not to mention the considerable effects on one's self-esteem! But
common human decency says that regardless of the subtle pieces of
knowledge that I may gain by making loud noises with my motorcycle, I am
still impinging on others' rights -- here, their right to silence, which
is a resource that is valued and in-demand in residential areas (indeed,
it is part of the property value), and in the current discussion about
bandwidth, which is also valued and very much in-demand. So when people
start yelling and throwing small vegetables at me, I move on and rev my
bike in places where silence is not so valued (Sturgis, for example :).

What I am saying is that your defense of Napster on the grounds of the
small amount of knowledge possibly gained by learning how to download
songs (yeah, I'll put *that*  on my resume after I graduate...) is just a
rationalization, and while it is technically true that you may learn
something by hogging bandwidth, it is only an infinitesimal point in your
favor.

> 
> 	IMHO, Napster is just as deserving as a distribution download.
> If you caught someone downloading ten different distributions of Linux
> and burning them onto CDs, would you block their access to sites that
> had ISO images?

Napster isn't being blocked because it's Napster.  It's being blocked
because that's where the bandwidth is going .... people don't come to
these choices easily, but only after quite a bit of analysis. If lots of
people were actually downloading Linux (or other operating system) ISO
images such that bandwidth for others was dimished significantly, you can
bet that the U's network managers would say something. But the fact of the
matter is that lots of people aren't. Lots of people *are* using Napster
in a way that dimishes bandwidth for others significantly, which is why
the U's network managers *are* saying (and doing) something.

> 
> 	The comments about downloading 200Ms of Linux being somehow more
> valid and deserving of bandwidth than downloading 200Ms of songs
> requires sysadmins to make a value judgement about the traffic.  Of
> course a sysadmin type is going to place a higher value on downloading
> Linux because they understand why it's useful.

see point above. You do make a good point about value judgements though --
sysadmins would look somewhat more kindly on students downloading
linux; it is after all possible to learn quite a bit with Linux, although
essential life skills like leeching songs one won't get in this fashion
:).

 > 
> 	Perhaps a budding musician is downloading the collected works of
> Jim Morrison for study.  

sure. anything's possible. Perhaps I'm doing a PhD in sysadmin enragement
studies, and I decide that I want to see what happens if I send obnoxious
spam to root at every ISP on the planet. Could happen. Does that make it
okay? (sorry, my cup runneth over ... your point is valid but rare)


> *shrug* Making blanket value judgements is
> dangerous and wrong.

true, very true.... but this is not a value judgement at its heart. It is
a bandwidth judgement.

> 
> 	I don't know.  You are sometimes forced into that position.
> Value judgements are hard, and shouldn't be treated lightly.  Blocking
> all Napster traffic is making a blanket value judgement that most likely
> isn't correct.

That's just it. They *are* forced into that position, and I *don't* think
they take it lightly. I'm a network guy/sysadmin, which means that I
actually believe in the Internet (esp.  learning institutions) being
a free-wheeling place where anything is possible for all concerned. It's
when I have to make decisions between the "anything being possible" part
and the "for all concerned" part that the job becomes tough, and when it's
important not to take these things lightly. 

I'm still not sure what I think of the decision to block the Napster
traffic, but I sincerely doubt that anyone took this decision "lightly". 

It is indeed a difficult problem.


~Dan D.
__________________________________________________________________________
--  The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a
--  nation to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions.

++ Daniel M. Debertin
++ Senior Systems Administrator
++ danield@bitstream.net
++ Bitstream Underground, Inc.
++ (612) 321-9290