This post is a follow-up to a previous one: Stellenbosch University makes bad judgement call.

First of all, I have to say that as a full-time student at Stellenbosch since 2005 (now studying for my Master’s in Electronic Engineering), I am striked by the backwards trend that the Stellenbosch IT department has exhibited over the last 4 years regarding network policy. During 2005, in my first year, and I think also a part of 2006, it was possible for me to log in to my linux box in my residence room on campus from the lab I was in, and do all my programming assignments via VNC on my own PC. In 2006, the First Great Divide came, where the campus segment of the network was split from the rest of the network (labs/offices/classrooms). I don’t remember whether any official communication regarding the divide was given, but presumably it was to prevent illegal filesharing. Well, this excuse was acceptable enough, so everybody just tried to accept it and go on with their work.

In 2008, the Second Great Divide happened due to a series of unfortunate events, which, ironically, could have been prevented if the IT department had just communicated with its (full-time, paying) network users. According to the student newspaper, the IT department was contacted by SAFACT and accused of profiteering from illegal filesharing on their network. IT responded by swiftly disconnecting 12 users from their network without warning, for running centralized hub servers to which approximately 1400 local network users connected every day, not only for filesharing but some only for chatting with their friends. This is the single, most heavily critisized action, that set off a domino effect of events that would soon result in severe network restrictions to be put in place. The disconnections caused mass paranoia and resulted in a couple of students writing custom decentralized hub software, named “Rooihub”. Soon after, network stability issues arose, and the first (and only) e-mail from IT to network users accused “Rooihub” of causing network instability.  A few days later, all communication between residences were severed. Not only was it never proved that “Rooihub” was the culprit, but I have to speculate that the issue could still have been resolved at this point if the issue was discussed with the Rooihub creators, who could roll-out forced upgrades to their rooihub software.

In 2009, network users are faced with an updated Electronic Communications Policy on campus which states that any form of data transmission between residences is forbidden, as well as the hosting of any server or playing of games on the network. This means that it is against the University’s policy to chat with your friend in another residence directly, ie if the message is not first passed through a University approved relay server.

Yes, we’re only students. Yes, we’re each only on campus for a short while (If you call 6 years short, maybe more for the PhD’s). But does this mean we are not worthy to be kept up to date on, and involved in network policy? All this could have been prevented if the IT administration had held a meeting with students in the first place to determine a solution to the issue of filesharing on the network, and that is why they deserve all the blame and critique that come their way. Ultimately, I have to question the judgement of an IT administration that would rather cripple its own network than work with its users on a solution.