Be Aware You’re Uploading -

BAYU

Be Aware You’re Uploading -

BAYUAlok Vimawala

Sr. Network AdministratorUniversity Housing

University of Michigan

avimawal@umich.edu - 734-217-4595

Alok VimawalaSr. Network Administrator

University HousingUniversity of Michigan

avimawal@umich.edu - 734-217-4595

What is BAYU?

• BAYU is a new program started by the University of Michigan

• It emails students, that live in residence halls, when they are detected engaging in peer-to-peer (p2p) uploading

When did BAYU start?

• BAYU was introduced on October 30, 2007

• University officials were discussing putting something in place to make students more aware of their online activities for some time

Who is affected by BAYU?

• BAYU is targeted towards students living in on-campus housing

• 15 residence halls and 1 apartment community

• The program covers approximately 10,000 individual that live on campus

How does BAYU work?

How does BAYU work?

1.Student uploads data using a p2p protocol (bittorrent, gnutella, etc.)

2.The upload is detected by the PacketShaper®

3.Every 10 minutes, a computer program connects to the PacketShaper® and retrieves data about uploads detected by the PacketShaper®

How does BAYU work?

4.The computer program determines the user responsible for the upload by checking with network registration systems in place at the University of Michigan

5.The program notifies the responsible user via email

What technologies are used by BAYU?

• Linux

• Perl

• Oracle

Do I really need all of them?

The technologies BAYU depends on are not set in stone. It just needs the following:

• A way to detect p2p uploads

• A way to relate uploaders to users

• A way to notify users that they were seen uploading

How often are users emailed?

• Notifications are limited to once every 24 hours

• If a user was detected and emailed 5 hours ago, he will not be emailed now

• The 24 hour window is customizable per user and can be as small as 10 minutes long (every time the program is executed)

What does the email say?

Help! I received a BAYU notification

• What avenues do students have for support?

- Web based support

- Email support

- Phone support

- In-person support

BAYU home pagehttp://bayu.umich.edu

BAYU help pagehttp://bayu.umich.edu/email.php

What if I don’t want to receive these emails?

• Users can opt-out of receiving the emails via a website

• Users can opt-out only if they have received a BAYU notification to ensure that users don’t “preemptively” opt-out

• The user will not be notified for the remainder of the term

BAYU opt-out pagehttps://bayu-optout.umich.edu/

Email support

• Students can reply to the BAYU notification email and the reply goes to real people

• Another avenue for contact

• It seemed “natural” for students to want to reply directly to the address that sent the email instead of visiting a link in the email

Phone support

• Two different help-desks answer BAYU related calls

• Help-desks provide a basic level of support

• Common questions or complaints are addressed by the help-desks

Common questions

• Turning off notifications

• I am not sure what these notifications mean

• Please stop emailing me!

• What triggered the notification- IP Address

- Protocol

Common solutions

• False positive- World of Warcraft

- Electric sheep screen saver

• Command-control traffic

• Inadvertently registered someone else

- Rogue wireless access point

- Registered a friend’s machine

In-person support

• One (soon to be two) walk-up computer support center for students residing on-campus

• Disabling p2p uploading

• Uninstallation of p2p applications

Privacy concerns

• How much does BAYU know?

• How long does BAYU keep that information?

What does BAYU know?

• Whether the user was emailed within the past 24 hours

• How often to email the user

• Whether the user has opted-out of receiving emails

How much information does BAYU store?

• One week worth of notification and detection data

• One term worth of opt-out information

• One term worth of information about detected users

• Aggregate data about the program

How much information does BAYU store?

• Every time the program is executes it also stores the following aggregate data:

- Number of users detected

- Number of messages sent

- Number of messages not sent due to users opting-out and also due to notification frequency

- Total number of users detected to date

- Total number of users that opted-out to date

Does BAYU work?

• How does one measure the effectiveness of the program?

- Decrease in number of uploads detected?

- Decrease in number of copyright take-down notices?

- Criteria still evolving

Student response

Student response

Outside response

Outside response

Future work

• Better detection of protocols

• Increasing the number of protocols that trigger a notification

• Widening the scope of the service to possibly cover wireless users

• Better tools for administrators of the program

Questions?Comments?Questions?Comments?