Solution For College's Bad Network Policy? 699
DAMN MY LIFE writes "I'm going to Central Michigan University in the fall. Upon examination of their poorly organized network usage policies, I'm worried that using their internet service will expose my web browsing habits, emails, and most importantly, passwords. Another concern I have is the 'Client Security Agent' that students are required to install and leave on their systems to use the network. Through this application, the IT department scans everyone's computer for what they claim are network security purposes. Of course, scanning a person's hard drive can turn up all kinds of things that are personal. Do all colleges have such extreme measures in place? Is there any way that I can avoid this? There are no wireless broadband providers available in the area, I already checked."
Solution For College's Bad Network Policy? (Score:5, Insightful)
A different college.
Re:Solution For College's Bad Network Policy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Set up a VPN server using OpenVPN on a remote site and then run the OpenVPN client on your PC. All traffic will then be encrypted on the college network.
Using a virtual machine and TrueCrypt can also save you from additional headaches.
This assumes that you at least have sufficient rights on the client PC.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A technical solution that "gets around" it will most likely get you suspended; it's happened before:
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/27/203232 [slashdot.org]
(and a good friend of mine who was a professor also was denied tenure over this incident). Sadly IT at universities tends to be a little kingdom of people who think they are more important than everything else going on - in fact, this isn't just at universities...
The best thing you can do is go to the dean of the school you're planning to attend and say, "
Re:Solution For College's Bad Network Policy? (Score:4, Insightful)
As the GP suggests, keeping the sensitive material in an encrypted VM which accesses the net via VPN should be enough, unless the so called "Client Security Engine" includes keylogging or screen capturing functionalities, begging the question: how far can they spy on their students? Shouldn't they have privacy to do their online banking, exchange private e-mail, access medical records, or many other *perfectly legal* activities?
Re:Solution For College's Bad Network Policy? (Score:4, Insightful)
So the only solution is to destroy that little convenience he shall have by getting access onto their network, by having to do all his work in a VM?
What about development? Let's theorize that the poster is a programmer. Should he, in spare time, do all the compiling in a VM, for the convenience of being able to do svn/cvs/git commit?
Academia in the whole world has gone nuts. I understand blocking access to content, but invading the privacy of my laptop is too much. I'd rather not use their crappy network at all. They'd have to give me a laptop to force me; I wouldn't install their spyware onto my private property.
Worst of all is that, in US, you guys are even paying full tuition, without any (or with little) state sponsorship for the academia. It's incredible that you guys are not fed up with it. Over here in Croatia, students have been protesting and blocking normal functioning of university departments for three weeks - because our Minister of Education is trying to push paying for education even for our "best and brightest". And US students are dozing off happily and enjoying this kind of shit ... and PAYING for it. What the fuck.
Re:Solution For College's Bad Network Policy? (Score:5, Insightful)
It works like this.
People: "College is soo expensive!"
Government: "Here are subsidies for schools, and for student loans!"
College A: "Hmm, look, money! We could build some spiffy new facilities that'll look good on the tour, and attract a slightly richer set of people!"
College B: "Hmm, look, money! Good thing, too, because otherwise we couldn't keep up with College A and C. We need nicer stuff to attract the same students. And besides, what university administration doesn't like spiffy-looking new facilities?"
People: "College is still soo expensive!!"
Throwing money at colleges in the US may produce a variety of desirable effects. However, "cheaper college education for all" is not necessarily among them. Universities are experts at price discrimination (the art of charging someone as much as you can get away with). They even have you fill out forms ("financial aid") so they can figure out exactly how much to charge you!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"Everyone needs a college education" is a scam created by the baby boomers. They use higher and higher education / experience requirements so they can lock out the next generations from the workforce. The previous generation, they used a "overqualified" scam as an excuse to not hire older people. They also used any excuse to fire / lay off the older people to scam them out of pensions. After the bailout scam, there may not be any higher paying jobs anyway.
Be practical. Don't bother going to college unless
Re:Solution For College's Bad Network Policy? (Score:4, Insightful)
You do it like the Australian PBS shakes down big pharma.
An Australian agency does a cost-benefit analysis on the "product" getting offered. If the price is right, and the "product" (i.e. course) is beneficial*** then you offer a subsidy. If the cost-benefit is not there, you don't subsidize.
The agency is completely isolated from Parliament (to prevent corruption)
* Or if the Fed is too wasteful, state based agencies**
** Actually, merge some of your states - California and Idaho should not be in the same category
*** the benefits of education (especially higher education) are very very hard to judge, especially if there is some chance that the metric will be gamed. Targeting student-teacher ratios can reduce admin / building overheads, but it also cuts research. Targeting graduate salaries can just make schools pick privileged, well connected students. Student satisfaction (which Australia targets) is risky - as it reduces rigor. Targeting research is also a nightmare (as researches then game the metric). Subjective judgments are open to lobbying.
Education is just one of those wicked problems where the free market isn't ideal (as students are too poor and too inexperienced to make their own decisions, and it's a return to feudalism if rich kids are the only ones who get a good education), but the state can't just set some metrics and create a pseudo-market by dishing out subsidies. Health is another.
Re:Solution For College's Bad Network Policy? (Score:4, Insightful)
So the only solution is to destroy that little convenience he shall have by getting access onto their network, by having to do all his work in a VM?
Nah, that's backwards. Use the VM as a router/firewall to the campus network and install the campus spyware inside the VM. Then use the bare-metal for all the real work. If he sets up the VM right it will act just like a NAT firewall and unless someone logs in and really starts looking at what the VM is doing (rather than just what files are installed in it) campus IT will never be the wiser.
Re:Solution For College's Bad Network Policy? (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's just hope that this tool only monitors files on his computer and communicates them to the base. It could also monitor some other stuff, like names of hardware equipment, such as VMWARE CD-ROM DRIVE or whatever.
Pretty much any of that can be configured out of the VM in one way or another. Worst case he can use Xen which, being open source, can be completely modified to report anything.
Or it may insist on talking directly to its network. Or it may actually be responsible for authenticating the detected MAC address.
Not a problem. MAC addresses are full programable and the virtual nic maps directly to the physical nic - i.e. it hands packets directly to the physical nic, fully formed and vice versa. I'm doing something very similar at home right now - running pfsense in a vmware machine on a Windows XP host as my internet firewall. I disabled the all of XP's ip protocols on the wan nic so that the pfsense firewall runs the entire show on that physical nic.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Which appears to require MS Windows.
Given the the classicly high rate of computer infection among teens, this could be make sense for the school administration. Of course, it might be easier if they just required everyone to just get a Mac.
Re:Solution For College's Bad Network Policy? (Score:4, Insightful)
And then you don't get on their network. You're not grasping the concept here--you don't use their trojan, you don't get a connection.
Re:Solution For College's Bad Network Policy? (Score:5, Interesting)
Run their trojan in WINE, in an account that can't do anything?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And if that doesn't work?
Re:Solution For College's Bad Network Policy? (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe VMware Thinapp in Sandbox mode?
Or just give them a full-blown VM with an installation of XP and nothing else.
Set up the physical network interface so that only the VM uses it, and use virtual interfaces to route from the host OS to the VM and then out to the network.
You can run a NAT firewall (XP's connection sharing might be good enough) on the VM.
If you are feeling ultra-paranoid you could install typical applications in there too, like MS Office, etc. So if they look at everything on the VM it will look like a regular college-kid computer, but unless they are really smart they will never know that the "real" computer is just using the VM to NAT out to their network.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Solution For College's Bad Network Policy? (Score:4, Interesting)
To be fair, I've been a linux user over a decade, and upon returning to uni one of the first programming courses I had was .net with microsoft everywhere. So I setup a development environment with monodevelop and mono.
Development has been rather painless so far at least for CLI programs, and the resulting binaries run with the .net framework aswell as mono, on linux, windows and mac.
The moment I no longer need to use c# I'll instantly go back to c++ and c coding. Even in instances where your uni 'makes' you use microsoft stuff, linux is so flexible nowadays that there is almost always some way to do it in linux without them being any the wiser.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I didnt major in CS but all of the classes I took, except for the first intro sequence class (which was Dr. Scheme on OSX because the lab was larger) were run from the standpoint of linux (the lab machines ran debian but a lot of people went for their own installs or made OSX work for some stuff).
The classes I took started in Scheme (Common Lisp would have worked but DrScheme was a good teaching environment). They then pushed into C
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
2 computer solution... the better one (Score:4, Informative)
Then just enable internet connection sharing, and connect your good laptop. Simple!
If they are into packet sniffing, just use ssh tunnel for the traffic
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You probably think that's funny, but I appled to and got accepted to Central Michigan University in 2001 and decided not to attend because of a bad conversation with a sysadmin where he told me students should not have the ability to host any type of content. I went to (relatively) neighboring Grand Vallley State University (gvsu.edu) instead, and I'm glad I did.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Here is the bottom line. If the campus system is not to your liking, and you absolutely cannot refrain from criminal activity on your computer, and you cannot get into another school, then buy a wire cellular broadband connection.
This is just the classical "only criminals have something to hide", and I flat out don't agree. There are plenty of other reasons to insist not to have your privacy invaded - just one is that your passwords may be abused by some undergraduate dork working in the IT department.
Also, I find your comments regarding freedom and how it must be deserved are patronizing and completely missing the point.
Re:Solution For College's Bad Network Policy? (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
Just tell them you use Linux, even if you don't. They'll probably be able to add you to a white list.
Mod Parent Up Please! :) (Score:5, Informative)
E
Re:Mod Parent Up Please! :) (Score:5, Informative)
Yep and you could run windows in a virtual machine with NAT setup and the client installed. That way, they'd get to scan "your machine" but wouldn't be able to access anything on the Linux side.
Re:Mod Parent Up Please! :) (Score:5, Insightful)
x86 virtualization is about basically placing another nearly full kernel, full of new bugs, on top of a nasty x86 architecture which barely has correct page protection. Then running your operating system on the other side of this brand new pile of shit. You are absolutely deluded, if not stupid, if you think that a worldwide collection of software engineers who can't write operating systems or applications without security holes, can then turn around and suddenly write virtualization layers without security holes.
-- Theo de Raadt
Re:Mod Parent Up Please! :) (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, other silly Windows programs, like SolidWorks, PSpice, Photoshop won't run either. Might make certain classes difficult depending on your major, though I'm sure it can be worked around. In the worst case, you could keep a Windows partition specifically for essential programs.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mod Parent Up Please! :) (Score:5, Insightful)
Or you could do the exact same thing with Windows if you don't run programs willy nilly and use a more secure (or at least, minority market share) browser.
And you could use filesystem encryption and run the Client Security Agent under a low-privilege account, which you could make not capable of seeing certain folders on your hard drive. Just make it able to scan a couple token Program Files folders, its own folder in %appdata%, and %windir% and you'll probably be fine.
Dealing with idiotic, forced software is a pain no matter what your OS is.
Re:Mod Parent Up Please! :) (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
At my university, they explicitly exempt Macs and Linux from having to use Cisco Clean Access. They port scan the Linux / Mac box, and use network level checks to make sure your computer is secure (or at least appears secure.)
The big problems are with Windows. With a campus as big as ours, all Windows boxes must run an up to date virus scanner. This policy must be enforced. To do otherwise is just stupid. Every computer, even Linux machines, are continuously being probed looking for vulnerable ports.
Re:Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Or they will deny you access.
Re:Linux (Score:5, Informative)
My university(Ohio State), tried implementing similar policies last year. They rolled it out to some portion of the student population and said at the forefront that anyone running Mac or Linux was exempt.
Turns out, a couple weeks in and they completely dropped the policy.
On a related note: Some how, when you connect to the residential network, they can detect some botnet signatures on your machine and will deny you access. Your mac address is blacklisted until you reformat. It runs some utility to make sure you actually have reinstalled before they restore your access.
Re:Linux (Score:5, Informative)
My university(Ohio State), tried implementing similar policies last year. They rolled it out to some portion of the student population and said at the forefront that anyone running Mac or Linux was exempt.
As an IT employee at Ohio State, I can assure you that there is more of this in the pipeline since it's mandated by the Board of Trustees.
I can't see comparing what is going on at OSU with what the OP reports at CMU -- Ohio State's efforts to lock down the network and restricted data are quite comprehensive [osu.edu] and IT staff, like you, are concerned that it's done properly. Mac/Linux support is on the way -- most vendors do not support it so it's quite difficult for the University to support it. The scanners they run on your computer are not there to look at your personal files, track down copyright infringement, or anything else you might be worried about -- they simply look for OS/software patches and run an anti-virus/malware scan. If you don't run the scan with the agent, you will not have any network access. If you take some of the suggestions here and bypass the security agent, you are violating the AUP [osu.edu] and, if caught, could face academic misconduct charges.
I can assure you that the University's IT office is underfunded enough that even if they wanted to go out of their way to scan your computer for anything else (they do not), they would not be able to.
On a related note: Some how, when you connect to the residential network, they can detect some botnet signatures on your machine and will deny you access. Your mac address is blacklisted until you reformat. It runs some utility to make sure you actually have reinstalled before they restore your access.
This isn't magic -- they run typical network vulnerability scanners [nessus.org] and block you if a virus or bot responds from your IP. DHCP and switch info tells them your mac address.
Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
There are always operating systems that don't support your trojans. Do you have an iPhone version? Symbian? BSD? What about simply plugging two machines into the same NATed router? You scanners probably won't detect any machine behind its own firewall either.
I'm guessing you don't know much about academic institutions beyond your little world. Academic misconduct rarely if ever extends to resource misuse cases, especially such minor ones. Imagine a student ran bittorrent seeds for pirated pornography on school servers, well they'd get a warning. If they repeated the infraction, they'd have all access terminated. If they circumvented that, they'd surely be expelled, and maybe face intrusion charges. But even then it's not clear their transcript would read "academic misconduct". In particular, there would be no "F (academic misconduct)" on their transcript because they haven't cheated in any classes.
Sadly, residential networks create a perfect environment for windows worms. But viruses that support Mac & Linux usually do so passively by wrapping their executable within non-executable formates, like office or PDF. So IT should ask Mac & Linux users to scan for viruses as a courtesy to their windows using fellow students, but compelling scans using closed source software will only discourage compliance.
I concur with the other posts that say running Linux will grant you an exception most anyplace. If that doesn't work, then share your roommate's connection using a NATed router.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Requiring the use of a specific piece of spyware smacks of corruption to me. I'm sure someone's getting paid for that. What if a student wants to run a different scanner? They have to run two scanners? What if they want to change the configur
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Newsflash: It's -their- network. Now, chew on this:
Say it was -your- responsibility to keep a network running which was used by a bunch of college students who don't know the first thing about maintaining and protecting their PCs. What, in your expert opinion, would be a "well guided" and "well managed" solution?
Re:Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
When they keep out the commercial ISPs so they're the only network available and when their classes require network access, I'm a little less concerned about their rights to their network. If they're going to force you to eat their dog food, they at least have to make it palatable.
I don't know why universities bother providing network access if it's sooo hard to maintain. Comcast, AT&T, etc. handle the off-campus students just fine without any of that crap. It's not like their job is any easier or their customers are any smarter.
If I were running the network at a university, I'd leave the dorms to the commercial providers and let them compete for business. In the labs have the students use university PCs which are locked down as needed. For wireless, you offer a "clean" network that requires CCA or whatever and a guest network that is on the other side of the firewall and throttled.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
While I appreciate your candor, name calling is certainly not necessary to get your point across. As I explicitly mentioned in my response, "it's mandated by the Board of Trustees." The Ohio State Board of Trustees took it upon themselves to mandate a NAC solution to the "security problem". I apologize if I somehow alluded to it being my idea. We were told that we could either implement it or lose our jobs. You may have quit; I chose to do my job since honestly, it's really not that big of a deal. Everyone can do their work and everyone can use whatever OS they want, as the OP indicated.
You seem to be indicating that this plan is for University owned Staff/Faculty/lab machines only. If this is the case, it's no different than standard business policy, and it's just good sense (why would it need to be mandated from on high?).
GP thinks the plan you're implementing at your superior's request is for student-owned computers that they're using on campus. If that's true, then you'd be a wimp for not quitting when the Trustees planned a "let's roger the students" policy. You furthermore would
Computer science major (Score:5, Interesting)
Odds are they'll simply tell him that linux is not supported under their network.
Disallowing operating systems other than Windows might make certain parts of CMU's computer science program [cmich.edu] more difficult for students.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This has come up before... When I was at CMU (cmu.edu), Central Michigan University sued for the rights to the acronym and won. That's why you will only find t-shirts, hats, etc. with "Carnegie Mellon" written on them now. We got to keep the domain name as part of the deal.
So, it doesn't surprise me that they have CMU all over their site and whatnot, but whenever I say "CMU" people always know which school I mean :)
Use a VM (Score:5, Interesting)
If they want you to install the client security agent, fine - install it in a VM under VMWare or VirtualBox. Either that, or make sure you have a firewall running and explicitly deny any traffic out from it.
Re:Use a VM (Score:4, Informative)
That may not work if the network authenticates against your MAC address.
Re:Use a VM (Score:4, Informative)
And then you set up the internal VM as a proxy, and you proxy your main computer's internet through the VM. Bam, problem solved.
Seriously, think these things through.
No. (Score:4, Informative)
Do all colleges have such extreme measures in place?
No, mine doesn't. Technically we just have to have antivirus software installed, and keep up with MS's security patches, and they really don't ever even check for those.
Re:No. (Score:5, Interesting)
One of my college roommates was responsible for the dorm networks; they definitely had policies that pissed people off (usually the people who were abusing the network the most), but it was done so that the limited resources were usable by everybody. Among them:
P2P traffic was capped at 50% of total bandwidth.
There was a rolling monthly bandwidth cap. Exceed it, and you were capped at 56k modem speeds for about a week until you were under the cap again. (On-campus traffic was not counted, and not limited; many large downloads such as linux distros were mirrored on-campus.)
If you picked up a virus, you were isolated from the network. The only thing you could get to was windowsupdate.com, until you removed the virus and called the helpdesk to promise you had an antivirus installed.
Re:No. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Every honor code I've ever heard of has been used as a tool for a college to rid itself of students that it deems undesirable. In my experience, enforcement of these codes varies enormously. Recently, the University of Virginia came under fire for using its honor code to expel students for seemingly trivial offenses.
Honor codes are great in theory, although the ones I've seen put far too much power in the hands of far too few.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Mine does not even require antivirus software, although they deliberately design the system into tricking students into installing it, and some other crap. However, if you machine is rooted, and begins disrupting the network, they reserve the right to ban your computer from the network.
Question (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you required to run Windows? If not, don't.
That's insane. (Score:5, Informative)
Dude, I don't know what to say, that's insane. The only suggestion I have is to either not use the Internet on your personal computer or find another university to go to. sigh... Looks like along with all the other stuff that determines what school a kid goes to, we're going to have to add "how screwed up is your Internet access policy?" to the list.
Stupid question, what if your machine is a Mac or Linux box? This "Client Security Agent" seems to be a Windows-only beast. Whatever it is, it would be a cold day in hell before I let a university that I'm paying money to dictate that I have to have their software on my machine to use the Internet access that my tuition and fees are paying for!
Looks to me like a clear-cut case of some overzealous IT goob forgotting who is paying whose salary. I'm not saying that you're the Chairman of the Board, but you most certainly should expect to have the right to have full access to this academic resource without this kind of burden.
As a practical matter, you could just call up their IT department and tell them that you have a Linux box, even if you have Windows, and that your machine doesn't run their "Client Security Agent." Whatever they tell you to do to get on the network, just do that on your Windows machine and be done with it. If they tell you that it can't be done, seriously. Go somewhere else. If this university is that stupid, you shouldn't particularly want a diploma from there anyway.
If you do call them up and ask about Macs and Linux machines, let us know what they say.
Re:That's insane. (Score:5, Informative)
That being said, this is for windows only. Mac and Linux are only single time scans (for what, I do not know), and after that your MAC is white listed with your ID. The beauty is that once registered, it's MAC specific, not OS. I should note that our provider is promising a Client Security Agent for Mac soon, but I doubt a Linux one is coming.
Re:That's insane. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:That's STILL insane. (Score:4, Interesting)
That's the polite reason they give for shitlisting Limewire.
The real reason tends to be that a number of the students manage to get themselves royally fucked with a wall of infections, not once, not twice, but over and over again until someone takes the computer from them, sets it up themselves, and put Limewire in a big ol' shitlist to keep them away from it again, usually.
This is one I'm not pulling out of my ass: When colleges take up classes, usually the first two weeks of that, I get calls from students who were doing things on Limewire, and have screwed up their systems. Two weeks before finals, I get another wave of Limewire-wielding students who have infected themselves. I recognize some of the students as ones I helped. Others, I see a track history of this on by looking at their cases.
Granted, this trend is slowing down as they start catching on, having lost papers needed for finals a few times, but it still is there.
On an aside, I'm fairly sure most of these schools have an AUP for connecting to their network that you agreed to when you signed up. If they put it there, and you didn't like it... then why would you be there?
Re:That's STILL insane. (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to be confused. You are paying the school money for the ability to attend their classes. You are paying the school for the ability to use their network.
In no way do you have merit to dictate those terms. If you don't like it, then don't attend or try to convince them to change those terms. Either way, "Adults" should understand this is a contract, and you have very little negotiating power.
Re:That's STILL insane. (Score:5, Insightful)
But again, it is my machine, and it is my money that is paying for that Internet connection. Accessing it is not a privilege that the university has graciously given to me for free, it is a paid-for service, and you'd better have a damn good reason for taking my money and then denying it to me. "You might get infected or break copyright law" is not a valid excuse.
Dude, your money only pays for a very small part of the school's network. Do you think they should let you piss in the university president's office because it is your penis, and it is your money that pays for that office? These measures are designed to prevent the school from getting sued and to prevent network users from spreading viruses to other users. It is their network, and they can require you to meet some basic security requirements if you want to use the network.
Re:That's STILL insane. (Score:5, Insightful)
So? I don't care if it makes your dorm room smell like a fresh spring breeze. If I don't want it, then you have no right to demand that I have it.
Actually...they do. Most Universities (like the one I work for) have an acceptable use policy. Agreement to the acceptable use policy is part of the school giving you permission to use THEIR network resources. You may have paid tuition, but the school's network does not belong to you. It belongs to the school, and if the school's policy says that you have to have a screensaver featuring fluffy bunnies in order to access their network then tough shit if you don't like fluffy bunnies.
If you were a private company, then maybe I can understand, it's your network, you have the right to set the rules.
Ok.
Even if you're a private university, though, I most certainly do not understand, because again, MY tuition and fees pay for that network, and Internet access is pretty much required to complete just about any degree these days. Deny it, and you might as well tell a student that he can't have any textbooks.
If you don't like it they can admit someone else.
Not to mention that it sounds like you've fallen into the same trap that the RIAA/MPAA has fallen into. "Because some people use Limewire for illegal purposes, since you have it installed, you must be using it for illegal purposes." Sorry bub, but the whole "guilty until proven innocent" thing doesn't fly very well with me.
I do agree with you here. At the university I'm at we don't do the "guilty until proven innocent" thing. We got a little more proactive and setup a layer 7 firewall on our network that blocks all P2P traffic. Of course there are ways around it via VPNs and proxies, but the installation of that firewall resulted in about a 60% reduction in our network resources and an overall speed increase for the entire campus (we have about 3000 employees and 25000 students).
If you have some reasonable suspicion based on tangible evidence that my machine is spewing out malware or otherwise violating policies designed to protect the university or its network, then by all means, shut off it's connection, show me what you've got, and we'll deal with it like adults.
We do this in addition to the Security agent scans checking for current anti-virus and Windows updates (Mac, Linux, and wi-fi based cell phones are automatically exempt).
I wouldn't want my machine, if infected, to convey malware any more than you do. If you want to make such a "Client Security Agent" available for me to use, then thanks, I'll consider it.
But again, it is my machine, and it is my money that is paying for that Internet connection.
Yep, and thank you for your money. It is being used to pay for OUR network and OUR Internet connection. If YOU want to use YOUR machine on OUR wireless network (that we have graciously provided you with - we don't have to give you an Internet connection) you'd damn well better install the security agent or you can wait in line to use a computer lab where some idiot making $9.00/hour from your tuition (thank you again) can watch everything you're doing on that computer.
Accessing it is not a privilege that the university has graciously given to me for free, it is a paid-for service, and you'd better have a damn good reason for taking my money and then denying it to me. "You might get infected or break copyright law" is not a valid excuse.
Actually it is a privilege you've been given for free even though you paid tuition and student fees. I can only speak for the institution where I am em
Re:That's STILL insane. (Score:4, Informative)
So, I would argue that they do, in fact, have every right to require it of you. You're using their network in a way that they don't have explicit control over, when they are providing you otherwise with the necessary resources for your classes. Sounds like a privilege to me, and if you want to use it, you need to play by their rules. Not that I personally like that idea, of course, but it's what I see as being the reality of the situation.
Also, at least at my school, the CSA came into place very shortly after one of those major worm outbreaks in 2002 or 2003. I remember hearing that around 95% of the network traffic was being generated by the worm, and that the entire university was basically suffering the effects of a DoS attack for the better part of a month since very few of the students' PCs were protected by proper AV and anti-malware software at that time. From then on, practicality alone dictated that they forced the students to install AV software and that they routinely ensure that it's still there.
Re:That's insane. (Score:5, Interesting)
Lying about your OS might not work. My university used a similar system and it definitely used OS fingerprinting techniques. I basically was dual-booting Windows and the BeOS and used Linux in a VM. In exact, one week intervals I'd be forced to log in (all outbound traffic blocked, DNS resolved everything to their internal HTTPS server, all HTTP was redirected to a captive portal page, screwing up caching of SSL certificates and DNS in the process of course). The page used the User Agent string to determine whether to show a log-in form or to merely insist you download "Cisco Clean Access". But, changing one's User Agent still didn't allow logging in, that's where the OS fingerprinting came into play.
That was the only part that used fingerprinting though. I found that I could log in from the BeOS or from Linux in a VM, so that's what I always did. Assuming the programmers behind that system are competent, I'd think they've patched that hole by now. People using Cisco Clean Access never saw that page, so I doubt they always got downloads and online games disconnected on weekly intervals. Anyway, I was using a heavily nLited and tweaked version of XP, so I knew it was secured (yes, I double checked with antivirus scans and blackhat tools every now and then), but Cisco Clean Access didn't (it apparently couldn't determine the patch status of some windows component I'd removed). I could log in with another OS and simply reboot to use Windows though. CCA was kinda a pain for normal users as well. My roommate came in with a decently updated Vista machine and basic computer usage skills (he could download and install software easily enough). I timed him, it took him six hours to clear all of CCA's requirements.
Oh, amusingly enough I complained about the system before it was fully implemented, asking about how they expected game consoles to log in, or how dual-boot users like myself would be affected. The IT person I talked to had no idea about dual-booters, but stated that game consoles weren't allowed on the network because they can't run an antivirus. After I pointed out that it's almost unheard of for such devices to be infected (and a few reasons why), he replied that he'd seen it happen in his personal experience, and provided a link of "such a case" (it was to a security bulletin for law enforcement saying that modded Xboxes might contain hacking tools). I kinda chuckled when I saw the system-wide e-mail a week after implementation saying that policy had been reversed, and that IT would whitelist game console MAC addresses upon request.
I've faced this same issue (Score:3, Interesting)
thumb drive linux (Score:4, Interesting)
I had the same problem (Score:5, Informative)
1) The clean access agent only actually requires that you "authenticate" as clean to the network about once every two weeks. I installed a copy of Windows on a small partition at the end of my drive, put the clean access agent on it and authenticated myself. Whenever I was "cut off" from the network, I would reboot into the other (isolated) Windows partition (make sure your actual in-use partitions aren't mounted), do a scan to regain access and then reboot again. Worked reasonably well.
2) Because our network was so slow, I eventually decided that it wasn't worth the trouble. In the residence I was in the phones were provided by the local phone company and the cable was provided by the local cable company. It was a bit of a grey area regarding the policies in place in the residence, but I was able to have cable internet installed directly into my room. Perhaps you can do the same?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yea, in response to number 2:
My university (Penn State) has free telephone to every room, and the copper goes straight to the phone company. They actually tell you at the orientation stuff that you can go ahead and get DSL to your dorm if you don't like their network setup. Some people do, though not many. Though their network policy isn't bad...just a 4GB weekly bandwidth limit.
My Solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:My Solution (Score:5, Informative)
McAfee? Wow.
I happen to do a little work for a local in a town that some of us are familiar with [annarbor.org]. She happens to be involved with the local university [umich.edu] who also uses McAfee as their supported antivirus solution. I got called in a panic by this person because her system was crazy infected. It turned out that the infection disabled the McAfee framework service (which can't be started in safe mode) and totally owned her laptop.
The reason? The updates stopped working [umich.edu]. I opted to put AVG free on there asked her to try it out, and if she wanted to we could look into purchasing the more complete suite if she wanted.
Point of the story? I'm rather upset that CMU, or other schools would *force* a particular AV solution. I'm more upset that they force down one that has, IMHO, a critical flaw in design. Namely, you can't update, install, or uninstall the scanner in safe mode (yes, safe mode with networking). It just sets up too easily for a massive infection. Fortunately, the policy of the University I mentioned earlier did not have restrictions on AV, so this was still acceptable.
I don't know what deal McAfee has with pretty much everyone that provides AV to "non-commercial" users... but I find it terrible, resource intensive, and just too easy to knock out.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I second everything that you say about McAfee.
I work help desk at a McAfee campus and am also responsible for doing repairs on student and faculty computers.
You have to register your computer using a special utility that records your MAC address and whether or not you have McAfee installed. In the mean time, you'll get an IP address from the "unregistered" block and the firewall won't let any of your traffic leave the LAN.
(Yes, this can be spoofed by wireshark-ing a registered person's MAC address, or even
entrepreneur (Score:5, Interesting)
"There are no wireless broadband providers available in the area, I already checked."
Start one. Given what you've told us, there should be plenty of demand.
Whoa what? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the first link:
"If you use our network, we own what's on your hard drives. Thanks!"
There's a get out (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:There's a get out (Score:4, Informative)
You're not as interesting as you think you are (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm one of the evil characters involved with running a college campus network. Let me assure you that I couldn't give a rat's ass about what files you have or what's in your email or anything about you, really. All I care about is keeping the network free enough from malware that it can still function. It's always a matter of playing the percentages - if more than about 5% of the machines on the net are infected and misbehaving, the resulting traffic makes the network become essentially unusable for everyone. Students scream. Faculty scream. Then the university president screams at me.
So all I want is to make sure *enough* people are clean. If you're clever enough, you can get around the restrictions. But there aren't *that* many clever people, and those people usually aren't getting infected with stuff anyway, so I don't care about the outliers.
You're not a person to me. You're a data point. Don't be an interesting one and we'll all get along just fine.
Re:You're not as interesting as you think you are (Score:4, Insightful)
At that time, most of the file sharing was being done directly via file shares and often times there'd be virus infected files. From what you're saying, it's probably not that much different than when antivirus software would delete files on r/w enabled shares.
But to be honest, the terms kind of scare me, just because you're a professional doesn't mean the nitwits running that network are, and it's a blatant violation of copyright law to declare ownership over files in that manner.
Re:You're not as interesting as you think you are (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep. Just because you personally don't care what he has on his computer, he shouldn't worry that there might be a bad egg in the IT department who will drain his bank accounts and post child pornography on his facebook page.
Yes sir mister IT guy, we'll let you have all of our data and trust you not to do anything bad with it, whatever you say.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should anyone have to consent to allow their computer to be searched by strangers? Just ban any node that is misbehaving, and there is nothing more than
Both CYA & BS (Score:3, Informative)
I am assuming that you will be living in the dorm, otherwise the CMU website gives a list of ISPs. http://www.oit.cmich.edu/it/it_isps.asp [cmich.edu] The list includes mobile broadband cards from Sprint, etc., so I'm not sure what you mean by no wireless broadband providers, though this would be a huge downgrade from the internet speed you can probably get on campus.
The Acceptable Use Policy looks to be general CYA boilerplate B.S. which lets you know that you have some expectations of privacy, but don't hold your breath if there's a subpoena or other legal action trying to get the data. As to the CSA, this appears to be an overreaction to the perceived security risks of Windows systems. On the other hand, bandwidth is expensive, and the IT department may have decided that this is a good way to prevent the spread of viruses and bots on the campus network. All of this is probably academic as it doesn't look like it's Windows only. http://www.oit.cmich.edu/faq/faq_network_dialup.asp#get [cmich.edu] Mac or Linux should probably work.
join the computer club (Score:5, Insightful)
You're at college. Get involved. Stop referring to IT/IS as "them" and instead make it "us". Participate with the student computer club, or the professional IT/IS department, and then you'll have a voice in campus policies, and after you pick up some credibility, you'll get the access you need to do your own stuff.
This is the point of being at college, after all.
Waaah. (Score:5, Informative)
Simply put, their network, their rules. When you're paying, you can decide the rules you follow, and deal with the consequences if you break some other major rules (laws). If you don't like their rules, complain to them, or go elsewhere. Not like you're forced to stay. Attempting to side-step the rules (especially publicly on slashdot, you know someone in the IT department at your university reads this site) is a very bad plan. Unless if you happen to be a random genius at network security (and if you're asking us, you aren't), you will not outsmart your school's IT department. This isn't high school anymore, where renaming forbidden
common, not good (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a popular new trend in university network "security." It will be hard to find a school which is not at least considering this.
I have been at a university (UC Irvine) where a system like this (Cisco Clean Access) was put into effect by the housing department despite people in the computer science department and central computing services pointing out that the aging network infrastructure could not support it. When the network went down immediately after activation, they did not admit any mistake and blamed the outage on malicious users. Students who were found using or advertising workarounds (using a virtual machine, user agent spoofing) were disconnected from the network and threatened with criminal lawsuits. Good times were had by all.
My suggestions are:
-live off campus, no matter what school you're at (it took UCI 3 months to go from first suggesting such a system to ruining their network)
-when you need to use the internet, get a connection through a research lab, not a student lab or general network (if research labs have to have this system, leave the school, all the good faculty have already left)
It's so simple (Score:3, Informative)
Let me see if I have this right...
You want us to tell you how to hack around the network/security/TOS of your university?
How about this observation from someone that also runs a network for students:
Comply with the policy when you use their infrastructure.
Now, how to go about that without invading your privacy? Easy - dual boot with encrypted file systems on the second partition. Keep pablum on the system you use to access their infrastructure. Keep your other stuff on a system you don't bring up using their infrastructure. Simple. If you don't want your browsing habits known (which I don't believe for a second they give a fart about), then go to a cyber cafe or something when you want to do things you don't want known.
Their network = their rules.
And for those that want to pick holes in their policies/make fun of how incompentent they are:
1. Not everytime do I tell my management team better ways to do what they want to do. Sometimes I think management is full of it. Now, if they ASK me, I have to tell them. But I don't have to open my big fat yap - and I don't, when I think they are being silly.
2. Not every "bone headed move" is all that bone headed. You need to be in the room to see why some direction was chosen. Sometimes it's stupidity, sometimes it a comprimise between time, money, resources, and what you really need to do. The old web blocking software wasn't very good at blocking http proxies. We simply didn't have the money or time to cobble up something better. All the people that knew this thought we were incompentent because it was so easy to get around the blocking software. The new software is very good at blocking that and a lot of other tricks. Our network = our rules. You're free to visit sites we don't like - on your own time, on your own network infrastructure, using your own computer. (Not that I agree with the policy, but it IS their network funded with tax dollars and subject to state law which requires web blocking software. Grow up and deal with it, change state law, or use your own stuff to do what they don't like.)
3. Get used to someone looking over your shoulder vis-a-vi computing. Employers are increasingly doing it, public institutions are required to do it, and others do it simply because they can. Failing to learn how to keep your stuff private is an invatation to these jerks to invade your privacy - so learn to make it difficult for them to do so. The first step in this process is to know that when you use someone else's network, computers, or infrastructure, they have a say in how that gets used. When you're on your own network, own computer, and own internet connection, THEN you can expect some privacy... if you're smart and use care.
Gotta love Slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)
But, if you walk into my office bitching about our "draconian network policices," I'm going to get annoyed with you, but I'll kindly explain why they're in place (and how I'm not the one that made them). If you grab a PS3 and declare that "You can't install your Nazi CSA program on this!" I'm going to ask you to leave, and contact my boss. If you work with the IT people, and are nice to them, it's easy to maintain your decent level of freedom and privacy (except for piracy, sorry) while at your university. If you make every attempt to side step it, abuse the network, and generally come across as a jerk, it's a fast way to get your internet usage permanently rescinded.
Inadequate disclosure (Score:5, Interesting)
The real problem with this is that the University is asking the student to download and run software without properly identifying what it does. That's called "badware" by StopBadware [stopbadware.org], run by the Harvard Law School, Consumers Union, etc. Phrases like "exceeds authorized access" apply. And remember, this is a state school; they face the legal constraints on state actors. For example, the rule that "Most political advocacy is unacceptable" [cmich.edu] is a blatant First Amendment violation as applied to students. Report that to EULA Watch and the ACLU. The ACLU is already dealing with some other suppression of free speech by the CMU administration [aclu.org], so this probably won't surprise them.
It's not even clear whose Client Security Agent [cmich.edu] they're talking about. There's one from Cisco, one from Bradford, and one from Microsoft. The description mentions that it turns on Microsoft's automated updating. That means all the latest Microsoft security holes (like the one that makes Firefox execute Microsoft .NET content) are opened up.
Someone compared this to working for a company. It's not. As a student, you're the customer, not an employee. Also, in a corporate setting, if Central IT messes up your desktop machine, Central IT has to fix your desktop machine.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
from the URL, It looks like Bradford Campus Manager. [bradfordnetworks.com]
It's what we use for remediation at the college where I work, and that URL, Particulary the Remediation part, is the same area that Bradford puts their CSA.
I can only say how we use the system, so I can't vouch for cmich or other school networks, but we pretty much use BCM for these purposes.
1) Check for patches on a system.
2) Check for the university supplied Virus scanner and how up to date it is.
3) Send messages to users. Specificially as part of our em
Another solution that hasn't been suggested yet (Score:4, Informative)
Okay, so it's not ideal, but here's what you can do that doesn't require running a virtual machine on your primary PC, or a dual-boot-into-Windows to run the scanner/authenticator software every once in a while scenario:
Get yourself a cheap-ass PC. Throw two ethernet NICs in it. Install a new copy of Windows XP, and any software that your campus IT staff require to be installed on there. Then run Windows XP Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) on the unused ethernet adapter. (ICS is a small DHCP server + NAT engine built into Windows.) Plug that into a switch along with your main computer or computers, and use the XP box running ICS as your router.
Then from the university's perspective, you have a single Windows XP box hooked up which is clean and conforms to their standards for network access. Unless the software that you need to install prohibits ICS from functioning, and there is no way around the artificial restriction, they won't know about the PC or PCs you have running behind the ICS machine.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Except that the link in TFA for the CSA clearly says "Remove Network Bridging" which would include Internet Connection Sharing.
So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
You are all getting your knickers in a twist over nothing.
The client (assuming it's similar to the Cisco Clean Access Client I'm familiar with) simply checks that Windows machines are patched and running up-to-date antivirus. Remember Blaster? That thing ate college networks. Since then network policies have gotten a bit stricter. If you read them, they are trying to protect you, and cover their own ass.
The short version of the policy: Don't do anything illegal. Run this stuff so we can make sure the network stays virus free. Don't be a jerk. If you break these, we can kick you off our network.
If you are seriously concerned about it you are paranoid. Paranoid people should grab a cheap netbook and use that on the school network, and keep your precious personal data on a different machine. Any of that Nat/VM/router shenanigans others have suggested is violating their policies, and risking problems on their network that those policies are crafted to avoid.
Internet Service Provider (Score:4, Insightful)
If there is no difference, then the university doesn't have a better case for control over theses personal systems than any ISP does. Yes, in order to fairly deliver the network service to its customers, the ISP or the university may control bandwidth or cap usage or perform other kinds of traffic shaping. Yes, it may monitor traffic for this purpose. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy when exposing such traffic on the network. There is also no reasonable expectation for these personal systems to be trusted. An appropriate policy would grant access to the network under these terms. Many universities do this, and treat this part of the network in every respect as an extension of the Internet. This is an effective policy.
If on the other hand these personal systems are being granted some degree of trust or privilege merely by virtue of their presence on the university network, then we clearly see a misdesigned network and a corresponding misapplication of policy. There are parts of any organizational network that people don't get to just plug random equipment into. So don't sell access to these networks to the student population. Duh. If a research group wants to attach its supercomputer cluster to the Teragrid infrastructure, for example, it should be subject to a restrictive usage policy. That's the kind of scenario that most universities, including mine, envisioned when we drafted our usage policy. The same for an outside consultant who needs connectivity to the administrative servers in order to perform software integration. But this sort of policy would be completely inappropriate for a student who is simply getting an Internet connection through university facilities.
So how about the following proposal for the university to consider? How about you don't give every student a bomb and you don't then require them to submit to random strip searches because of the increased security risk that you brought upon yourself? It's easy to avoid the whole problem in the first place.
Other solutions? (Score:3, Interesting)
Considering the many posts saying the CSA is a bad idea, it raises a question. The fact that students get their Windows machines infected with every virus, trojan, and rootkit imaginable, how else shouls IT departments handle it? In the corporate world, it seems easier. However, a network of user-controller machines sounds like an administrative nightmare. For those who think the CSA is a bad idea, what are your alternatives?
Sue the bastards; it's unconstitutional (Score:3, Insightful)
A private university might get away with this, but a public institution is constrained by the Constitution. I'd say that scanning your hard drive is an unconstitutional search, because there are less invasive means of keeping their network safe.
I can't write your brief for you, but talk to the ACLU and the EFF.
Run your real system in a NATed VM (Score:3, Interesting)
It'd be nice to just run the agent in a VM and isolate your real system that way, but it wouldn't work because they'll almost certainly be filtering by MAC address.
What you _CAN_ do is run the agent on the physical host with a minimal OS install, and then put everything else in a VM. Have the VM connect through the real host using NAT, so it has the same MAC address as the real host. The network won't know the difference.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Can't tether there. (Score:3, Informative)
Get a cellphone plan. Ensure that your phone supports "Tethering".
From the summary: "There are no wireless broadband providers available in the area, I already checked." Therefore, we can assume that none of the available phones support tethering.
Re:Can't tether there. (Score:5, Funny)
You mean Central Michigan University? It's in Southern Beijing, as the fucking name implies.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How do you know what the app does? Do they provide source code? Can you compile it yourself and run it? If not, you do not know.
His concern that this application may read local files, sniff network traffic, or log keystrokes is completely valid.
What is wrong with Internet Connection Sharing? Maybe he has two computers and wants one to act as a firewall for the other. Or maybe he is developing clustered applications and wants to use his own high-speed switch behind one computer acting as a router.
I would go
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In the real world, if you want freedom to do as you please you have to pay for it yourself.
In a manner of speaking, the OP is.
But it's a mite different here.
I'd say the lesson is that "nobody cares about your problem unless you can make it theirs as well". If they set up policies which you disagree with, that's your problem.
If you can get a significant proportion of the media to investigate this and publish it, suddenly it's their problem as well.
Re:Don't use their network? (Score:5, Informative)
When I was in the dorms at my school, a guy maintained an InstallVise installer, which contained the proper registry keys to change window's MTU, and
a greasemoney script which spoofed firefox's user agent and platform, so windows machines looked to be running linux.
After seeing someone with a similar solution get kicked out of another school, being published on slashdot, and knowledge that my school's IT dept was searching
for the maintainer, he stopped.
Clean Access now uses a java jar, for the linux platform. If your school's client has something similar in place for linux users, I suggest that you find a Computer Science student,
and ask them to decompile the jar, using the DJ Java Decompiler, and create a greasemoney script that uses a similar method of generating a session key. You'd also probably need
the special registry keys, which can be found in the source code for sec_cloak.c, which you should be able to find on google.
Hope I could help.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me get this straight--you trusted some random guy to install crap on your computer over the university?
I find that pretty interesting.