[BC] Streaming

[Thomas G. Osenkowsky]

It also affects productivity and system speed for other users. I worked for
a University that was changing the switches in the dorms to routers. The IT
Department monitored traffic to see when it slacked off so they could
schedule the required down time. Students had been complaining about slow
speed, buffering, etc.

To their surprise, there was a substantial amount of traffic starting around
7 pm and lasting well past 3 am, all from outside the campus accessing files
on the network. It was tracked down to a couple of entrepreneurial students
who were using the campus servers to store porn images for a site they were
managing. When confronted, they explained that the profits from this site
were paying their tuition and hence the salaries of the IT folks. Naturally,
IT didn't see it that way and the offending files were removed and the speed
returned to normal.

Tom Osenkowsky, CPBE

>I can think of three large companies, here, that
>block audio & video streams.  I guess they don't
>want their employees forcing them to purchase more
>bandwidth.
>Is this likely to become more or less common?