does your college require you to have specific 'anti-virus' software on your computer to connect to their internet?

does your college allow you to use wireless routers/hubs/any kind of routers whatsoever?


i am looking at my college computer stuff, and it says they require you to have this stupid ass anti-virus software to connect to the internet, and they don't allow any routers.

i am very angry right now about that. i am curious how they 'enforce' students to have antivirus software on their computer. i am repelling to install it because i think that it's laced with some kind of university spying program that records everything you do. i don't want that. also, i have a router for security reasons.

what are some ways around this nonsense?

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If you stare at a white pixel long enough, you notice the throbbing red, green, and blue elements that create it.

If you stare at a fuzzy blanket long enough with your eye so close it goes out of focus, just look at the sparkles; you can see it on the cellular level.

I have no idea what my school is like in regards to software requirements

i am a bit of a computer guru.. i was awestruck when i heard saw that on the website. there must be a way around the software bull.

i am going to use my router anyways, to hook my computer up to my printer and server. i built a server out of an old compaq presario case. it's got a 2.6 ghz processor and three 40 gigabyte hard drives it's running ubuntu feisty... but i may switch to freebsd. i really don't use my server much for anything other than data backup and file storage. i probably won't connect it to the internet. hell i won't even hook up a keyboard or mouse or monitor up to it! i will just vnc into it... we'll see what those IT assholes have to say about that!

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If you stare at a white pixel long enough, you notice the throbbing red, green, and blue elements that create it.

If you stare at a fuzzy blanket long enough with your eye so close it goes out of focus, just look at the sparkles; you can see it on the cellular level.

Nope

Don't know, but they offer wifi for most of the compass.


Uh lilwing, instead of getting piss, you should ask your college's IT department why they have such rules for their network.

Lets see, you can always not obey the rules, but if they find out you can run into trouble. Or you can hack your way thru it, but most college networks on well known colleges, tend to have good security measures in place.

lilwing I have no idea why your pissed off about this. If you know anything about computer security, you would know colleges, tend to run on older equipment and do not upgrade it alot and so a lot of times newer tech can mess up their network or cause problems for the end user, being you the student using the network. They also want to keep virus and what have you off the network, and the best way to do that is require anti-virus programs. Ya you can say you avoid getting such things, but someone with less computer knowledge may not.

no thanks to that. i had remote access to my high school's network (and administrator priveleges) through some hacking, and they server admin caught my ip address when i vnc'd into the server while he was working on it. i got caught, it is all a secret, but no serious punishments. i am guessing it is a bit more extreme in college, i.e: they expel you? not that i would need to do any of that anyways... i can configure the router to make it look like it is my computer and not distributing ip addresses (which i think is how they'd find out)

i do not like being *forced* to install software to my computer. i should not have to install it to my computer because we have to pay for the internet service. i specifically do not antivirus software on my computer because i see it as ineffective. being that it is not only symantic, but a customized version (by the university) i do not trust it and believe there are trojans and things that they can use to log my computer activity. i am not so pissed at the router thing, because i understand why they want to have full control over ip distribution.

at orientation we were on the computers several times throughout the day. they have newer equipment (running a windows server, all windows xp computers, not to vista yet) i did a little bit of background research while they were giving lectures and stuff. i know what kind of security software their using and everything.


anyhow, thanks, i think i will contact them to ask about all that. perhaps they will even allow me to use a router to connect all my shit.

__________________
If you stare at a white pixel long enough, you notice the throbbing red, green, and blue elements that create it.

If you stare at a fuzzy blanket long enough with your eye so close it goes out of focus, just look at the sparkles; you can see it on the cellular level.

A college can do a lot more than just kick you out, they can get you thrown in jail. And with the laws the US has for hacking, you can spend a lot of time in jail for it. Secondly, you would need to do a lot more than "hide" your IP from the network. If you want to get by the rules, you would need to make your router completely stealth. Meaning you need to hide your MAC address, as well as make your connection thru various servers and routers on compass before you connect to the net.



You are paying access to their network, which means you agreed to a set of rules and regulations. So therefore the college has the complete right to force you to install the anti-virus program. And how do you know if the program is worse than Norton? You don't. Heck you have not even tested the program to see what info it sends to the server(s), let alone test it for any trojan like abilities. Just because it comes from the college does not mean its crappy.

And I bet if they have a good setup, they also know their security was looked at as well and know which computer it was done from. Its not really smart to check such things from a computer placed in such location like that. You are much better connecting a laptop to a network port and going from there.


Don't be surprise if they say no. And don't be an idiot and try and get around their rules, even if they don't have that great of a security setup (my guess is that they do have a reasonable to good setup). Because if you get caught getting kicked out of school will be the last thing you will worry about.

Could they find out if I modified the program on my computer after installation to not send information to their servers? I have no idea how they would enforce people to install this symantic thing. I wonder how the people using Linux and unix-based systems feel. There isn't a version of that stupid software available for them. Heh, I should try to connect with Ubuntu just to see how that works P:

Well yea, but I haven't done any hacking. Not only that, but they didn't require a login, the computers were already logged in, and everything. I didn't type anything personal or specific, figuring the mess is keylogged Sure, people looking at their security makes them uncomfortable, but they have no way of finding it was me, particularly on that day. Thanks for the pointer though!

True that. Thanks for kicking me into the right gear. I just sent my email to them, with all questions regarding computers. I'll be sure to let you know how their response goes.

__________________
If you stare at a white pixel long enough, you notice the throbbing red, green, and blue elements that create it.

If you stare at a fuzzy blanket long enough with your eye so close it goes out of focus, just look at the sparkles; you can see it on the cellular level.

They can enforce it by doing a check at the "gate", before you connect the net. Basically you have to go thru a server or router before you get the net and at that last setup they can have the router or server check for it, and if it is not found they can kill your connection. But you can try connecting with Linux and see if that works, as I doubt they would consider that many computers with linux, unless your at a place like MIT.

Uh lilwing I thin you should read some hacking articles, because its clear you do not know that much about computer security. I highly doubt they will have a keylogger on the computer. I do know your hacking (yes you where hacking when you where snooping around), was logged by the server with the ip of the computer and most probably other things, like the time where you went, etc. So they can track you down.

I really don't want to dig into the technicalities. Anyway, yes they can track all that stuff, but random people were sitting at random computers, completely unassigned. We didn't login to anything, I didn't do personal things when I was on the computer. They can sift through all the 'what happened' they want, but they would be unable to determine the 'who did what'. There is clearly no way of them finding out it was me unless they found a hair in the keyboard and decided to do a DNA analysis or something. Now had I done any kind of login, or I was doing it from my computer, there is a risk of leaving a trace.

__________________
If you stare at a white pixel long enough, you notice the throbbing red, green, and blue elements that create it.

If you stare at a fuzzy blanket long enough with your eye so close it goes out of focus, just look at the sparkles; you can see it on the cellular level.

lilwing, like I said before I think it is best for you to read up on some general hacking/security articles.

pm me with some good reads, i'm up for some articles. anyhow, i am sure that what i did exactly can't be traced back to me as a person.

__________________
If you stare at a white pixel long enough, you notice the throbbing red, green, and blue elements that create it.

If you stare at a fuzzy blanket long enough with your eye so close it goes out of focus, just look at the sparkles; you can see it on the cellular level.