An alternative to traditional file-sharing applications that consume large amounts of Internet bandwidth has surfaced in dorm rooms across campus. Direct Connect Client, known as DC++, allows files to be transferred at the speed of the University's internal network without taking up any bandwidth.
The program uses a hub that allows only users on the UT network to connect to it, said William Earle, an electrical engineering junior, who knows about the program. Earle, who used to live in a UT dorm, said that many residents used the program. The hub filters out non-University IP addresses.
"The UT network is like a big LAN," Earle said. So "It doesn't take any bandwidth to transfer files." For dorm residents who have weekly bandwidth allocations, DC++ has become a popular file-sharing application. When using the program, a search returns a list of files, and then a direct connection is made from one user to the other, Earle said.
In addition to being connected on campus, each user is required to have 5 GB of information to share, said Kyle Chai, a biomedical engineering senior who has also seen dorm residents using the program.
"You download directly from other people at an average rate of about three seconds per song," Chai said.
With other file-transfer programs such as BitTorrent, a user is "simultaneously downloading and uploading [the same file] to multiple users," he said.
DC++ allows all types of files to be transferred, but users have control over which files they choose to share, said Chai. While he has not heard of any security breaches yet, the program does make a direct connection, and if they really wanted to, "people who know how to manipulate the system could get into your computer," Chai said.
Peer-to-peer and file-sharing applications that are not configured properly have been the cause of extreme but unintentional bandwidth use, said Dan Updegrove, UT vice president for Information Technology.
InformationTechnology Services does not have a problem with students using the UT network to transfer files and does not "police the network" on the downloaded content, Updegrove said.
"File-sharing is legal," he said. But, warned, "copyright infringement is not."
The University gets about 23 notifications per month regarding possible violations of copyrighted material. Most of these come from the Recording Industry Association of America or the Motion Picture Association of America, and most are the result of the use of file-sharing applications, said Randy Ebeling, associate vice president of Information Technology.
"All such Digital Millennium Copyright Act notifications are addressed and passed on to the proper potential offender," Ebeling said.
On the second offense, an interview is scheduled with Student Judicial Services who will decide the course of action and consequences, Updegrove said. "In the last 14 months, there have been only eight second offenses and no third offenses," he said.
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