Universities Adopt P2P Filtering Appliance

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 06/04/09

Twelve institutions have gone public with their use of the CopySense Appliance from Audible Magic to curb illegal use of peer-to-peer activity over their networks. Among the users are Bowling Green State University in Ohio; Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, TN; and South Texas College in McAllen, TX.

CopySense identifies media content based through an electronic fingerprinting process. The latest edition of the appliance offers several customizable and configurable features. A new multi-module feature meets the needs of networks with multiple gateways, enabling downloads to be tracked across those points. A Graduated Response System integrated with the appliance has been enhanced to improve its effectiveness across wireless networks. Universities can also customize the number and content of messages the appliance sends in response to illicit usage. This allows schools to create their own education campaigns and responses to illegal downloading and file sharing.

For South Texas College, an important enhancement to the CopySense Appliance was support of Microsoft's Active Directory software. This enables the college to identify usage by user login within its network providing an added level of security and accuracy for the school.

"Audible Magic truly understands the needs of its customers. Their flexibility in working with us enabled us to extend our 'educable' moments beyond the confines of a classroom to our students' everyday life," said Steve Bourdon, systems and operations manager. We employ the CopySense Appliance and Graduated Response System, which automatically responds to downloading infractions with an increasing level of severity of sanctions--from notification and education to suspension of network access. Audible Magic's ability to support Active Directory is what makes this all possible for us."

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

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