Computing Services' network-wide restrictions on Napster, the popular music file-sharing program, began in March and along with the consequently longer download times comes a rise in student frustrations.
Punch Taylor, director of Technical Services, explained that the decision followed a recent investigation into the extent of Napster traffic and its effects on the network's resources.
"It was found that 50 to 60 percent of the Internet traffic on the college's network was Napster-related," Taylor said. "We knew it was taking a lot of space, but we did not know how much. We were actually surprised."
The Kiewit staff obtained these results using special software and an instrument, both designed by the company Packeteer. This instrument sits between the path of Dartmouth's network and the Internet and is being used to monitor and control outbound Internet traffic from the College.
Currently the software is restricting Napster traffic at all hours of the day, causing download times for single songs to rise significantly above previous levels. Songs that once took two to three minutes to download now may take upwards of 40 minutes to an hour.
"Its really annoying not to be able to have the same access to songs as before," said Cameron Nienaber, '04.
Phil Frost, '04, expressed similar sentiments.
"It pretty much annoys me that they've done this," Frost said.
Some students, however, were more sympathetic to the problem faced by computing services.
As a computer science major, Aaron Fiske '02 understands the technical situation.
"It's the college's network and it's their personal business to restrict that use. I don't personally like it, but it appears legitimate to me," Fiske explained.
The Packeteer software is solely used to restrict the use of Napster, and, although the possibility is present, there is no intention of assigning priorities to any other programs within the network in the near future.
Clarifying the logic behind the recent restriction, Taylor said, "The [school's] Internet connection costs a lot of money, and we don't pay to trade songs."
The high volume of Napster traffic slows down other functions of the network, such as the research of both students and professors. Taylor pointed out that many professors transfer large quantities of research material over the Internet, and this will now take priority over Napster.
Along with Internet use, the network offers many other services such as BlitzMail, the DCIS library catalog, public printing and servers.
The decision to restrict Napster is not connected to any recent or past network failures, such as the extended collapse of the College network that occurred beginning on March 4th.
Although the exact cause of the network crash is still not known, it is not suspected that high Internet or Napster traffic played any part.
Instead, Taylor theorizes that the collapse might have been a multi-cast problem, a situation where one computer sends data to another and that computer reciprocates. This process repeats and feeds on itself until the system crashes.
This particular pattern is not caused by computer users, but instead is a software problem. Measures were taken between terms to prevent future multi-cast problems.
