I hate my college...(this really is a software question)

[GraingerGuy]

ok...here's a question for you guys. The school that I am at is now limiting each student to 100MB of downloading per 12 hours. (Which I think is REALLY REALLY RETARDED! Damn power trippy rat bastards) I know there has to be a away around that. Any suggestions?

I do agree with the limiting thing. It's cool that they did...I think they should have done it a while back...but 100MB per 12 hours?

This college that I'm at is a small school (probably around 2000 people) If they get that other T1 line, they are going to have all that bandwidth sitting there doing nothing....that I'm still paying for even though I'm not using it. That's bull.

[Ladogaboy]

You might be able to do a few things, but as far as downloading onto your own computer, I don't know.

One thing that you might want to try: go to your library or other on campus labs, and download on one of those computers. I doubt that your school would limit the downloads for computers in a lab. Once you've done that, you could either set up a folder (this depends on your network) either on your computer or on the computer in the lab. Give yourself access and transfer the file, or setup an icq/aim account so that you could transfer files.

Just some ideas.

[Memo]

Unless they made you install anything on your computer then the cap is server side and you probably wont be able to do anything.

[GraingerGuy]

Is there a away to say mask my ip and make the server think that I have not done much as far as downloading goes?

[Jeffbx]

The best thing to do is to become friends with the guy in the systems dept (or get a job there) & convince him to remove your limit.

There are ways to mask your IP, but it's pretty easy to detect that if they have any type of intrusion detection system running (and they probably do, if they're smart!) In that case, it's better to get 100MB/day than to have your internet access revoked if they catch you.

[rajatQ2]

i work for the division of my college that manages the traffic in the residence halls. Its hard to tell you how to avoid the rate limiting without more info. For example, how are you assigned an IP address? are you given a static IP or DHCP'd?
If you get a static IP, i would say that you are in trouble. I dont know of a way to get around that problem. You would be able to tell if you have static or DHCP by the method which you used to set up your computer on this network for the very first time.

If you get an IP by DHCP, you need to find out how many IP's are allowed per room, and if you will get in trouble for 'having more than one computer in your room'. The easiest way to get 2 IP's (thus twice the download limit) is to get a second ethernet adaptor. They are dirt cheap ($20) these days, and windows 2k and above will let you "disable" one ethernet card while you are using the other. When you reach 100MB, disable one card, reboot, and enable the other card, reboot, and you're back up for another 100MB.
The reason being, each ethernet adaptor has a unique MAC address. DHCP servers (unless configured otherwise) assign IP addresses by MAC addresses.

Tricks of the trade Good Luck, post whatever info you can find about your network.

[DoPeY5007]

Originally posted by rajatQ2

If you get an IP by DHCP, you need to find out how many IP's are allowed per room, and if you will get in trouble for 'having more than one computer in your room'. The easiest way to get 2 IP's (thus twice the download limit) is to get a second ethernet adaptor. They are dirt cheap ($20) these days, and windows 2k and above will let you "disable" one ethernet card while you are using the other. When you reach 100MB, disable one card, reboot, and enable the other card, reboot, and you're back up for another 100MB.
The reason being, each ethernet adaptor has a unique MAC address. DHCP servers (unless configured otherwise) assign IP addresses by MAC addresses.

heh nice little trick

[timotheos]

does that limit you from playing games too? I mean alot of info is sent back and forth playing Unreal for example. Would the limit cut you off in the middle of UDP packets?

That would suck

[Ladogaboy]

Originally posted by timotheos
does that limit you from playing games too? I mean alot of info is sent back and forth playing Unreal for example. Would the limit cut you off in the middle of UDP packets?

That would suck

When my college did this, they actually restricted based on the program being used. I don't know how they did it, but they were able to relegate bandwidth depending on what program. Websites had highest priority and downloads had a lower priority. I don't think it worked exactly the way they said, however, because different programs were effected differently.

For instance, all of my friends on Napster were slowed down to lower than 1 kbs downloads, while I was able to download off of audiogalaxy at about 100-200 kbs (suckas!!! ). Anyway, I didn't work in my college's computer center, so I don't know exactly how it worked, but they were able to judge by which programs were being used.

[rajatQ2]

hey lagoda,
that's because different programs will use different ports. switching and routing equiptment can be set to handle data on different ports in different ways

[Ladogaboy]

Originally posted by rajatQ2
hey lagoda,
that's because different programs will use different ports. switching and routing equiptment can be set to handle data on different ports in different ways

Oh, that's good to know.

Also, you said something about being assigned a DHCP address versus an assigned IP address... Can't you refresh and change the DHCP address yourself, from your end?

[rajatQ2]

ladoga,
depends... most of the time, No. routers will remember your mac address
f you have servtain stuff like a dail up connection you can get adrifferent Ip address by reconnectiong
drunk,
rajatq23

[keiyen]

On a similar note, my college has decided to limit all peer to peer file sharing/transfering programs like napster, audiogalaxy, kazaa, morpheus, bearshare, etc. FTPs and IRC still work at good speeds though, so how exactly do they tell if it's a peer to peer program you're using? When I try those programs, I get < 1kb transfer rate, so it really sucks, heh.

Any suggestions or alternative programs I could try perhaps?

[Ladogaboy]

Originally posted by keiyen
Any suggestions or alternative programs I could try perhaps?

I'd say, stick with FTP and IRC if those are working for you.

If not, try and find friends who have high bandwidth access, and have them send files to you through aim, icq, or whatever.

[skynet]

For $5 a month you people who are limited to 1k a sec can get up to what I have seen of 90k a sec. www.http-tunnel.com

[pagemap]

Ladogaboy-
My college appears to use the same method of traffic management as your college (maybe our college?). My college uses a device known as a "packet shaper", the trade name being Packeteer. It inspects each packet header for info regarding the sofware being used. This way software that port hops will still be able to be managed correctly and you can't outsmart the system simply by changing ports.

Here is a screenshot of the packeteer interface:


Hope this helps.

[Dave_7]

Originally posted by skynet
For $5 a month you people who are limited to 1k a sec can get up to what I have seen of 90k a sec. www.http-tunnel.com

Hmmmm.... Interesting.

Very much so.




Dave.

[pagemap]

Yes, the HTTP tunnel sounds very interesting. Some guys in the dorms including myself were considering setting something up similar to this. We were going to get an off-campus SDSL line, then on that line we were going to have a proxy, that way we still get fast downloads off kazaa, etc.

The HTTP tunnel way seems much cheaper, and easier by many, many times.

[skynet]

HTTP Tunnel is great I love it. I pay the monthly fee and it is well worth it. I usually get about 40-50k/sec but I have seen it go up to 90k. And it is very easy to use. You basically load the program, then tell kazza or what ever use socks 5 server 127.0.0.1:1080. Basically it is the same thing as your SDSL idea.

[pagemap]

Do you know how to setup direct connect to work with http tunnel?

[bissond]

Wow, I thought my school sucked. (I guess any college that doesn't allow constant limitless downloads of 100k/s sucks )


At good ol' Purdue, we had a dual T3 network. Those were the days. Limitless 700k/s downloads all day everyday. This year one of the T3's has been cut out... I get 1k or less. Sometimes even websites time out!! f***ed up! They have a rate limiting system in place that drops packets like mad! The lowest end is supposed to be a 56k connection and that's for if you download 1Gb or more in any 24 hour period, which I constantly do. This is Purdue University. BIG TEN! And their network sucks. how embarrassing.

So they tried to tell us that they are fixing it, but in reality they ended up telling us that what we have is good enough and just to deal with it. So now I'm moving off campus to get a Cable or DSL connection.

Which is better? The DSL is more expensive, which might mean fewer people on the connection... I don't know.

Thanks,
-Evil Lord Drewcifer

[pagemap]

Bissond-
Someone at purdue mentioned that they only allow you 100 meg per day, after that they slow you down severely.

[rajatQ2]

we just bought 12 bandwidth throttling boxes where i work for the dorms at univ. of Illinois. they are essentially gigabit routers, minus some typical router features, plus a few more. They are the tits!

[pagemap]

rajatQ2-
Could you provide more info on these boxes? Such as the brand/model number.

[rajatQ2]

try looking into a cisco 6500. a software package that could be used in conjuction is "packeteer". Good Luck

[rajatQ2]

Originally posted by pagemap
rajatQ2-
Could you provide more info on these boxes? Such as the brand/model number.

what we are using has a custom software package on it, so it wouldn't be of much help to you. sorry

[billxp]

I heard alot of users have set the p2p software to use port 80.

Since its mostly used for the web they really cant block it.

Just an idea.

If it works for you post it. I'm curious.

[Bojangles]

how do you set the ports that p2p apps use? for example kazaa?
also is there an alternative to http-tunnel? i keep getting an error "Error sending data over persistant connect"