OIT Help Desk
File Sharing
In reference to the University Handbook policy
"File Sharing Programs University Owned Computers"
(revised copy August 2003) Section V, page V-12, the following list of P2P file-sharing programs are not
to be installed on any ISU owned computer:
eDonkey, Overnet,
Shareaza, WinMX, BitTorrent, Limewire, Morpheus,eMule,
Ares, BearShare, Kazaa, iMesh, FastTrack, Ares Galaxy, Gnutella, ANts P2P,
Azureus, BitComet, BitTornado, BitTorrent 5, BitTorrent 6, Cabos, DC++,
ExoSee, eDonkey2000, Freenet, KCeasy, FrostWire, giFT, µTorrent,
MUTE,
MLDonkey,
Gnucleus,
Kazaa Lite,
gtk-gnutella,
Warez P2P, Winny, AresWarez, Blubster.
You may not be aware the file sharing applications cause the following problems:
- They waste your bandwidth: Not only will these programs share your downloaded songs and videos, but they can significantly slow performance of your own computer and impact network performance for the University as a whole.
- They come bundled with adware or spyware: Many file-sharing applications come bundled with adware or spyware which automatically installed on your computer along with the file-sharing application. This software can monitor your activity, sending information to third-party vendors and advertisers on such things as what Web pages you browse or what searches you perform. Apart from privacy, concerns, these add-ons use your computer's system resources to operate and will affect performance. Depending on how much spyware and/or adware you have installed, this may be significant.
- You could be sued: If you share files that you are not the copyright owner of, you are likely in violation of University policy and potentially subject to lawsuit by the copyright holder under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. You are responsible for understanding what constitutes legal use of music, movies, software, images, and other copyright works that you own or use. BY using these resources you agree to abide by the policies and guidelines set forth by Indiana State.
If a file-sharing program causes problems for the Indiana State network or such use results in allegations of violation of copyright, OIT is authorized to disconnect your computer from the network if you are in violation of University policy.
Indiana State recognizes there are legitimate needs for file sharing activity and therefore does not block the legal use of this type of application. However, Indiana State does not permit illegal file-sharing and actually works to detect and block illegal downloads.
To learn how to share files at ISU, check out our Self Study Software Tutorial page on ISecure, a reliable and safe peer to peer file sharing program.