The QC, Vol. 87, No. 16 • February 15, 2001

              ■ Modest Proposals
As the spring semester begins,
students offer their humble
suggestions to the new COR
adrriinistration.
■ Resident Advisors With
Peace Signs and Flowers
in Their Hair
Flamboyant dresses,large afros, cheers
and spirit—Res Life went retro.
■ Unconditional
Surrender of the Arts
We visit the re-enactment of the
Battle of Shiloh, Tennessee held
in—where else?—Orange
County.    '
■ Men's Lacrosse
With their eyes set on a playoff
prize, the men's lacrosse
team,which went 9-4 last season,
will begin their season Sunday,
Feb. 18 against U.C. Berkeley.
WHITTIER ♦ COLLEGE
John Qreinkaf
Quaker
February 15,2001
The Voice Of The Campus Since 1914
US
http://www.wfiittiep.edii/qc
Internet Failure Due to User Overload, Maintenance
Provider Automatically Cuts Service When College Exceeds Maximum Bandwidth Amount
■ COMPUTER
CENTER
by Rebecca Wolf
QC Managing Editor
Service to the Internet was
once again inaccessible from
campus Wednesday, Feb. 14 from
2 a.m. to 6 a.m. as the Internet
Service Provider (I.S.P.) Earthlink was upgraded, according to
Earthlink Technical Support Representative Phil Jones. Service
was shutdown due to an overload
of users attempting to access the
Internet on Tuesday, Feb. 13.
The I.S.P. Point of Presence
(POP) located in Long Beach,
also failed on campus Tuesday,
Feb. 6 through Friday, Feb. 9
because of equipment failure at
Earthlink, according to Computer Center Network Manager
George Harvey.
At the time of publication,
service was down for what Earthlink Customer Service described
as "scheduled maintenance."
The school operates on a Tl
m~     0.0,k
18    16    14    12    19    8
■-   "     ill I     "
I    :    ::   M    :    j    =    :    i ■''■    :
■    :    ?s *-■   2   ■    •    : ''■■■•    •   ■':■   ■
0    22   20    18    16    14    12
Whittier College's net usage over a 36-hour period Tuesday, Feb. 13 through Wednesday,
Feb. 14. The gray area represents incoming traffic while the black line represents outgoing
traffic. The Internet was inaccessable twice Wednesday during the periods when net usage
was at zero. The service was disconnected for an upgrade between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. Shortly
before 5 p.m. service was again interupted when the bandwidth connection become
overloaded.
bandwidth which allows 1.55
Megabytes (MB) of operation at
one time. If, at peak usage, the
school exceeds that amount, the
I.S.P. automatically cuts service to
the College for a minimum of one
hour. If service is not automatically restored in an hour, it must be
manually reset, taking more time
to restore" service. Whittier often
experiences peak usage during the
lunch hour and after 4 p.m. when
most students are out of class.
Harvey said that the Tl connection is enough to satisfy the
College's needs and that at peak
usage approximately 95% of the
bandwidth is used according to
monitoring equipment at the college. However, Harvey said that
Earthlink's equipment has measured the school's usage above
1.55 MB. "When they say we max
out our bandwidth, they automat
ically drop us," Harvey said.
According to Jones the POP
connection to Whittier College had
been reset three times within the
last two days because of high usage. "Napster or video transfers
will suck up the bandwidth fast,"
Jones said. "Because Internet use
fluctuates so often, you rarely can
predict shutdowns." Napster has
been blocked from the campus
since January.
According to Harvey, the failure at the beginning ofthe semester, Tuesday, Feb. 6 through Friday, Feb. 9, was caused by Earthlink's air conditioner going out,
causing the equipment to overheat and fail. It was also due to
someone at Earthlink accidentally pulling out telcom wiring which
connects the College to the network. Four other companies were
also disconnected but.their names
were not released by Earthlink.
The College is currently reviewing the service and is considering adding another Tl connection separating student service
from administrative.
"We are working hard at keeping the Internet connection working. We are presently looking at
other I.S.P.s," Harvey said.
Currently the POP in Long
Beach is using a company named
I.C.G., but they are in the process
of switching to Global Crossing
in order to improve service.
There is no estimated time in
which the switch will be complete.
Napster Blockage a National Trend Storm Mishaps
ONLINE MUSIC
by Amy Stice
QC News Editor
The Whittier College Computer Center's recent management of on-campus students' usage of Napster and similar Inter-
netmusic-sharing services is consistent with numerous other colleges and universities in the United States. The College has decided to limit use of such services on
campus because ofthe amount of
bandwidth (a measurement of
data transferred through an eth-
emet connection) they require,
and in order to ensure the speed
of other Internet activities.
Most of these institutions report the blockage or limitation of
access to such sites to prevent
excessive bandwidth usage, but
some schools have shut down
Napster access entirely or seriously limited it because of legal
fears.
The rock band Metallica filed
suit against Napster and three universities—the University of Southern California (U.S.C.), Yale University and Indiana University—
in April 2000, alleging that allowing students to access Napster from
campus encouraged a violation of
copyright and that the universities
"Could easily block this insidious
and on-going thievery scheme."
"They're facilitators and en-
ablers, and from a legal standpoint,
that makes them copyright infringers because they're aiding and assisting in an ongojng series of copyright infringements," Metallica
lawyer Howard King said.
All three universities immediately banned or restricted the use
of Napster from on-campus computers, and the suit was dropped by
Metallica. However, the band has
also threatened to sue individuals
for their usage of Napster. Any
person who has a Metallica song
saved on their hard drive could
possibly be sued.
U.S.C. had previously tried to
restrict Napster use because of
bandwidth problems, but student
opposition and dissatisfaction
from the University's General
Counsel's office made the decision not to follow through with
the ban. Instead of singling out a
particular service, their Information Services Division shuts off
the ethernet connections of students who use more than their
allotted bandwidth for more than
two hours. However, students reportedly drastically cut back on
their Internet usage once the ban
was proposed.
According to U.S.C.'s Daily
Trojan, the university had considered restricting such music services because of copyright rules,
but had decided against such a
plan because it did not want to
single out a particular music site.
Many large universities have
reportedly received requests from
the Recording Industry Association of America (R.I.A.A.) for the
schools to cut off online music
services. According to Director of
Computing and Telecommunica-
See MUSIC, page 4
On the morning of Tuesday, Feb, 13 two trees were felled
by the previous night's rains. According to the Maintenance Department, the trees fell overnight and were
found early that morning. One tree was in front of Ball
Residence Hail (shown) and the other was in front of
Garret House. It was unclear whether the trees were
blown over by winds or because Monday's rains had
weakened the soil. Maintenance spent Tuesday clearing
the trees.
ISSUE 16 • VOLUME 87