sitting in caldwell lounge and just connected to the ncsu wireless network here and not a second after i connect do i get intrusion warnings from my norton internet security program. i mean i know the network is infested with viruses and worms from people who are too dumb to know how to avoid them or use firewall/antivirus, but i have to wonder if other schools have similar problems and if they are any better or worse than us. anyone have any ideas? also, does anyone know what is done on a daily basis to rid the network of this shit?

2/23/2006 11:01:39 AM

why would a nationwide user apathy/stupidity/lack of being taught problem be specific to ncsu?

2/23/2006 11:07:01 AM

well it's not, i was just wondering if other campuses are as bad, if not worse off than us.

2/23/2006 11:08:23 AM

To resnet/the IT people's credit, although our network is infested with worms and viruses because people are lazy, the network very rarely goes down because of it. I think we have maybe 2 outages a year due to various things (pretty sure it's almost never actually because of a virus either), is that right? They usually only last a few hours, though I think over break one lasted a day or two.

Anyways, alot of smaller schools can't claim that. I know guilford's network used to go down because of the increased traffic caused by worms and DOS attacks going off network from local machines. Just be thankful our network is well maintained and well built even though our users aren't.

2/23/2006 11:13:06 AM

This isn't a network problem, this is a user problem. I work on a lot of university networks, and NCSU's is one of the best designed, maintained and provisioned networks that I've supported.

And yes, every other school has this problem. Most schools only mitigate worms, viruses, etc. at the network level if it's the type of worm that will directly impact network stability (i.e. MS Blaster).

2/23/2006 11:15:10 AM

A lot of other campuses require you to register your MAC addresses before you can connect it to their network. It's a good system once its in place but a nightmare to effectively setup.

And talk to your legislature about getting the university more $$$. You dig deep enough, you'll probably find this has been on the back burner for awhile due to lack of resources to apprpopriately handle.

2/23/2006 11:15:34 AM

^ there actually is a new registration system in place. at least in wolf village, it requires a login the first time you use a machine and I'm pretty sure it matches your unity id to your mac adress, physical location, and ip adress.

2/23/2006 11:17:30 AM

I'd wager that NCSU is one of the BEST networked campuses in America...I actually think it was recognized for this very thing about a month ago.

First, get rid of your Virus software. It's a memory hog that does a task any human can do: don't use AIM, don't click phishing links, and don't open emails you aren't familiar with.

2/23/2006 11:19:41 AM

you'll be hard pressed to find an infastructure anywhere near as elaborate as ncsu's that has been implemented as long as ncsu's. just because there are stupid ass end users, doesn't mean the network is shitty. stupid end users make up every public network in america, and probably the world.

2/23/2006 11:29:19 AM

^^ u happen to know where that was from, that reference? i'd like to read it for myself if u can find it.

2/23/2006 11:33:51 AM

I don't know I always thought they made up for the problems on the network by just throwing more bandwidth at it.

At University Towers they had to invest heavily into extra bandwidth for the # of infected computers and/or people running huge p2p pipes.

2/23/2006 1:29:26 PM

I don't know who told you that, but whoever did lied to you.

2/23/2006 1:58:15 PM

^^

^

Yeah, I'll go with smoothcrim on that one. He'd be the one who knows what he's talking about in that regard.

2/23/2006 2:01:10 PM

why isn't there an effort (more of an active effort if one is already being made) to improve end-user awareness? If it's a bigass, widespread problem, why aren't we trying to educate people on proper usage WHILE they're in college? Shit, they'll never learn once they get out.

Seems like something everyone should know something about. At least a bare minimum.

2/23/2006 2:06:23 PM

^^ not to mention that UT's network has nothing to do with NCSU's network.

2/23/2006 2:15:30 PM

people don't want to listen for two seconds about how to not be foolish on a computer. they would just tune out anyway

2/23/2006 2:32:56 PM

Quote :

"^^ u happen to know where that was from, that reference? i'd like to read it for myself if u can find it."

Indeed. Both Princeton Review and Forbes.com have NCSU listed in their Top 25 nationwide.

http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/mostConnected.asp

http://www.forbes.com/connected

2/23/2006 2:42:26 PM

ResNet technicians used to pick a dorm every week and have a program on how to protect your computer and that kind of thing. The only time people would come was if there was free pizza.

2/23/2006 3:30:35 PM

Oh yea I know that UT's network was/is completely separate from NCSU's.

I am just saying that spyware/virus infected computers don't affect things as much if you have a lot of bandwidth.


Either that or at UT they couldn't subnet worth a crap. Shoot we didn't even have 10/100 switches until 2001 or so.

2/23/2006 4:00:03 PM

Quote :

"First, get rid of your Virus software. It's a memory hog that does a task any human can do: don't use AIM, don't click phishing links, and don't open emails you aren't familiar with."

Telling the general population to get rid of antivirus software is the *last* thing I'd want to do. You're expecting people to be smart about computing? Fat chance of that...

2/23/2006 4:09:34 PM

Quote :

"you'll be hard pressed to find an infastructure anywhere near as elaborate as ncsu's that has been implemented as long as ncsu's."

I can vouch that the Virginia Tech's network doesn't have 99.999% uptime ... stuff goes down all the time unplanned. Usually extremely brief, but still annoying when it does. Never had an uptime issue with NCSU. Virginia Tech does have its own unique advantages ... another thread, blah blah blah.

Quote :

"why isn't there an effort (more of an active effort if one is already being made) to improve end-user awareness?"

You apparently aren't the computer guy in your family. Go setup/continually fix 10 computers in your family and report back to us. Even if you do a good job setting it up correctly, there's always problems that need to be corrected or minor issues to address. Now imagine that scenario on a scale ... say 100 times larger.

Education only goes so far ... you teach me 100 words in a foreign language in a period of one hour, I might remember 20 of them. If I don't apply them by the end of the week, I'll forget 10 more. If I don't apply them by the end of the month, I may remember 1 thing, because I thought it was interesting at the time I learned about it.

[Edited on February 23, 2006 at 4:40 PM. Reason : .]

2/23/2006 4:36:24 PM