[BurpetheadX]

My university of UNC-Charlotte is a pretty good representation of your average college campus these days. Not to big, not to small, has people ranging from lower to higher intelligences.

I live in a brand-spanking new 400 person dorm, with a 100T network. Within 2 weeks, they bumped it down to 10T because of viruses and trogans plauging the network. They bumped it down to a tenth the speed to "slow the spread of the malicious material."

Any unprotected Windows machine that is plugged into the network will have 5 pieces of spyware installed within 30 seconds. We've had dorm meetings about the issue, and the well educated admins are aware that it is a Windows problem, and that Macs don't have to deal with it.

There have been many newsletters trying to teach the students about antivirus/spyware protection. Here is the latest that came to me at my HOME mailing address.

http://home.nc.rr.com/burpetcom/UNCCcomputersaftey.jpg

Macintosh owners may skip this step.

[Sherwin]

[G4ME]

gotta love that, at least you IT is preventative of crap like that, mine just lets us have free norton.

[Superchicken]

Our's pretends like Macs don't exist. Talking to our network guys they sound like windows fan bois off of slashdot. It's so bad, that said we've had the number of Mac users in dorm jump from 2 guys last year to, 6 guys this year Now if only Apple's Market Share would jump that much . They disable SMTP and POP for the dorm too which is sooo freaking lame, thus I've gotten a lot of use out of gmail.

[RGB]

Be happy they only reduced your bandwidth. Last year at KU my dorm was cut off from the internet completely for two or three days once or twice throughout the year. Some of the other dorms were offline for over a week right before 2nd semester finals.

Us Mac users had to suffer because of the poor decisions by others to run Windows in there. They couldn't even wipe a drive, install Windows, and make it through Windows Update before the spyware and viruses the update was supposed to protect were installed.

[TheMosco]

At my college the second you get a virus your port gets shut down. It gets shut down most of the time before you even know you have a virus. You can't get it turned on until you bring it the net ops people to get it cleaned.

[effgee]

Originally posted by BurpetheadX:
... Within 2 weeks, they bumped it down to 10T because of viruses and trogans plauging the network. ...

Am I the only one who thinks this to be a rather poor line of reasoning for cutting back bandwidth? That's like hooking up your out-of-the-box PC to a 56k modem instead of your DSL line and praying that you'll catch less viruses that way ... very, very odd. My guess would be ...

1. They sincerely believe their own drivel; ergo those have got to be some of the dumbest IT folks in the history of mankind.
2. Too much sharing of "shady" material (or humongous legal files) going on among the students and the IT folks want to make sure that the network infrastructure isn't maxxed out all the time.
3. Connectivity got too expensive and the Administration is saving a couple of $$$ on their ISP bill.
4. A comnbination of some/all of the items above.

[waxcrash]

Originally posted by Superchicken:
Talking to our network guys they sound like windows fan bois off of slashdot.

umm�the last time I checked, Slashdot members are pro-linux that frequently bash Windows.

[Ghoser777]

The majority may be linux fan boys, but there are plenty of windows fans boys on there as well.

[macaddict0001]

If i was them i would use a master firewall. then most viruses would be internal.(unless the user was dumb enough to install one him/herself)And with an internal viruse you can just kick off the guy/gal who sent it.

[Avenir]

This from my campus OIT site:

Take Charge of Your Mac

Most users believe that Macs are immune to viruses and other security threats._ Actually, this is not the case at all._ It is just as important for Mac users to secure their computers, as it is for Windows and Unix users._ To TAKE CHARGE of your Mac, you want to ensure the following:

� You apply Software Updates when they become available
� You use up-to-date anti-virus software

The windows "take charge" list is pretty long. All they do for us is give us a free copy of Norton. Campus is pretty Mac friendly though, and OIT has a lot of people that know they're better, so it helps.

[SSharon]

Originally posted by TheMosco:
At my college the second you get a virus your port gets shut down. It gets shut down most of the time before you even know you have a virus. You can't get it turned on until you bring it the net ops people to get it cleaned.

Same by me at the University of Maryland.

Also, are dorms are all at 10baseT since there are a few older ones that are not wired for 100 so everyone is stuck at the slower one to make things fair.

[MARINEOSX]

Mac owners may skip this step.

[SeSawaya]

well its time to sound like an old man now.

You guys are SO lucky to have personal computers and internet (fast internet at that) in college.

I cant even begin to imagine how different/better my education would've been if I'd had the resources I have now. Crazy what 10 years can do. What will it be like 10 years fomr now?

you guys are lucky, enjoy it

[wataru]

Originally posted by BurpetheadX:
My university of UNC-Charlotte is a pretty good representation of your average college campus these days. Not to big, not to small, has people ranging from lower to higher intelligences.

So do they teach you how to use the word "too" in college these days?

[TheMosco]

Originally posted by SSharon:
Same by me at the University of Maryland.

Also, are dorms are all at 10baseT since there are a few older ones that are not wired for 100 so everyone is stuck at the slower one to make tihngs fair.

Yeah same here with 10baseT... and I go to a tech school. Next year everyone will be on 100baseT so we can all download from DC++ faster .

One kid on my floor is a management major and he had a ton of spyware. He was playing a game once and a popup came up and it wouldn't go away so he was trying to play the game with it. It was funny. He had 100s of popups on the screen at once at one point. I finally installed adaware, firefox, and spybot for him. Silly management majors...

[wdlove]

It seems like there is always something to spoil the fun. They just need antivirus for everyone. Then they can boost you back up to 100T.

[Agasthya]

Why the hell do they suggest that Mac and Linux users purchase a firewall software? Idiots.

[Kilbey]

Originally posted by SeSawaya:
well its time to sound like an old man now.

You guys are SO lucky to have personal computers and internet (fast internet at that) in college.

I cant even begin to imagine how different/better my education would've been if I'd had the resources I have now. Crazy what 10 years can do. What will it be like 10 years fomr now?

you guys are lucky, enjoy it

Same here. We had free dial up when I was in college, but it was 14.4. But hardly anyone used it so I always got a good connection.

[olePigeon]

I didn't even have internet. I spent all my time dialing into my friend's BBS from my Apple //e. After that I got a IIvx (yeah yeah, one of the worst macs ever) and starting dialing in from my 9600 baud modem.

Those were the days.

- olm Dork on port 15!

[MilkmanDan]

Originally posted by olePigeon:
I didn't even have internet. I spent all my time dialing into my friend's BBS from my Apple //e. After that I got a IIvx (yeah yeah, one of the worst macs ever) and starting dialing in from my 9600 baud modem.

Those were the days.

- olm Dork on port 15!

Dude, I owned a IIvx.... such... memories....

My college gives out free ani virus software to the mac users as well as the PC users. Such a waste of CPU power.

[BurpetheadX]

Originally posted by wataru:
So do they teach you how to use the word "too" in college these days?

whoops

[storer]

Originally posted by wataru:
So do they teach you how to use the word "too" in college these days?

YAY, ON THE GRAMMAR POLICE! I noticed that one to, or should i say, "too."

[DeathToWindows]

I'm an undergrad at BU and while the IT personnel are not known for embracing cool new tech, we do have an utterly kick-ass network...but if you file-share, they'll eat your rear.

Everyone gets free antivirus... which I refuse to even touch (the compressed object is on my HD, but it's there as an emergency tool)... if you're a windows user, upon plugging into Resnet, your comp gets to spend half an hour or more scanning itsself... and if you don't have the software, you are forced to install it... all I have to do is plug in and reboot.

BU has people who know macs from a hole in their butt... and I can live with that.

Their CiscoVPN for 802.11b is just evil.

[the_glassman]

I like how they tell you to purchase firewall software if you are a Mac user! lol