University sacking their wi-fi Internet

The University of NSW has warned students that illegal downloads will result in the termination of the free wireless Internet on campus.

The University of NSW has been forced to threaten students with no Internet after their free wireless broadband service was swapped by people downloading illegally.

Downloads of pirated games and music puts UNSW at risk of copyright infringement, despite a policy in place that fines students up to $1000 and terminates their access for a period of time.

Of UNSW’s 17,000 students, seven students were fined in the past few months, including one who downloaded 7GB in a day.

While filters are installed, Michael Kirby-Lewis, IT director at UNSW, admits that they often return false positives. Their nature also poses an alternative problem: filtering content.

“This comes back to the concept of trying to control internet material – it’s very difficult to do that in an open university environment,” said Kirby-Lewis.

Source: SMH