ICARUS

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bodomd ICARUS, the Integrated Control Application for Restricting User Services, is "P2P and file-sharing mitigation" software developed at the University of Florida. ICARUS was commercialized to start-up company RedLambda and is marked as cGrid.

Contents

[edit] In the news

A quick search of Google yields hundreds of articles, editorials, emails, and blog postings that refer to ICARUS. I have attempted to link to those which contain unique information about how ICARUS operates, how it was employed, and how it might be challenged. This is not meant to be comprehensive in any way. This list will be edited down as each page is more closely evaluated. -- Gavin 22:41, 5 Jan 2005 (EST)

[edit] Articles

[edit] Foreign Language Coverage

[edit] Opinions

  • Darts & Laurels editorial, Alligator, 3 July 2003
    • "In an attempt to shield themselves from the litigious threats of the music industry, UF has established an invasive and annoying system that further deters students from living in dorms."
  • Expensive music prompts sharing letter to the editor, 8 July 2003
    • "I don’t think many students are going to be comfortable having the watchful eye of ICARUS looking through their files."
  • Is downloading copyrighted music immoral? poll, Alligator, 8 July 2003
    • 18% yes
    • 82% no
  • Should UF get rid of the ICARUS program? poll, Alligator, 12 Nov 2003
    • 69% yes
    • 31% no
  • No sense in network monitoring Cavalier Daily (UVa student newspaper), 25 Nov 2003
    • "Ultimately, restricting internet activity based on the content is dangerous, and starts colleges and universities on a slippery slope toward limiting access to material. This sort of internet regulation based on content goes completely contrary to the values and goals of an institution of higher education."
  • Don’t fear MediaDefender Washington Square News (NYU student newspaper), 9 Oct 2003
    • "However, most colleges are not surrendering to the RIAA so readily: Kudos to NYU for not falling prey to this false panacea."
  • SG party platforms need new goals column, Alligator, 12 Jan 2005
    • "Someone in (Student Government) needs to have the spine to stand up against the Department of Housing’s ICARUS anti-filesharing system, which blocks access to legitimate programs."
    • written by Gavin, president of Florida Free Culture
  • Court case could decide the future of file-sharing editorial, Alligator, 27 Jan 2005
    • "In fact, you’re probably within reach of someone who has been denied access to an online computer game because of ICARUS’ overenthusiastic hunt for file sharers."
  • Should file-sharing services be liable for their customers' actions? poll, Alligator, 28 Jan 2005
    • 29% yes
    • 71% no

[edit] Other Opinions

  • In a 21 Aug 2004 post to an email list, Thomas A. Beckett, an attorney, writes that if ICARUS "impose(s) a blanket ban on communication through p2p software ... then the University is definitely violating the First Amendment."
  • One Florida student has already started a petition to make ICARUS allow BitTorrent (4 Nov 2004).
  • Universities Should Resist Network Monitoring Demands (PDF) white paper, Electronic Frontier Foundation (2003)
    • Not specifically about ICARUS, but an overview of the EFF's thoughts on why not to monitor campus networks.

[edit] Forum Posts

[edit] Official Info

[edit] Policies and Information

[edit] Housing Specific Policies

[edit] General UF Policies

  • Acceptable Use Policy Office of Information Technology, 23 Oct 2003
  • IT Security Policy Office of Information Technology, 15 July 2003
    • mainly focused at administrators of networks on campus, but has some useful information on campus security policies
    • an updated version is about to be published

[edit] Overview

In general, the guiding document for most users of the campus network and walk-up ports is currently the Acceptable Use Policy.

On the issues of monitoring and blocking on those networks, the campus Intrusion Detection System (IDS) monitors traffic on those networks, but only for security-related incidents. Users who are infected with viruses or other backdoor programs will likely receive email notification from the UF secirty team (to verify they are legit as opposed to fake virus warnings, look for a UF phone number and call it if in doubt) and potentially be blocked from accessing those networks until they can get their computers cleaned. If excessive bandwidth limits access to other users, or causes network problems, closer examination of the traffic may occur to discover and limit the source, but that is currently a reactive mechanism rather than proactive.

No p2p is explicitly disallowed on the walkup-ports, however, any legitimate DMCA complaints from copyright owners are processed as required by law. Also, all private IP on campus (for the most part, an IP address that starts with 10.) is one-way only and does not allow remote addresses on the internet to initiate inbound connections to those IPs. This limits some p2p programs (and some IM and chat programs), however, any programs that can handle this--and many do--are still usable. - Jordan Wiens, UF Network Security Engineer

[edit] Open source?

Just to nip the conspiracy theories in the bud, ICARUS doesn’t use any GPL-licensed code. Everything in use that was not written internally is LGPL or similarly licensed. Basically, the code isn’t open source and doesn’t have to be.

I’d like to add that the article did make one factual error (that matters). We have had one request for academic P2P use, and that was granted. The process took three minutes. The requestor also switched to another mechanism in a few weeks because he could not adequately secure his files. -"Rob" (probably Rob Bird, co-creator of ICARUS)

While the brains ICARUS itself isn't FOSS, some related components are. In fact, the housing staff released their VMPSD which interacts with the switches to dynamically change port vlan assignments.

[edit] Email List

An email list, ICARUS-UPDATES-L@LISTS.UFL.EDU, is maintained to inform subscribers of updates to the ICARUS program.

There is another email list, icarus-dev-l@lists.ufl.edu, that requires approval to join and does not have an online archive.

[edit] Elected Officials

  • After a hearing on online pornography before the House Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) mistakenly writes "ICARUS has successfully harnessed technology to restrict illegal file sharing while preserving P2P for legitimate academic and social activity over the University's networks" (6 May 2004). In fact, ICARUS does not preserve p2p in any way, shutting it down entirely, regardless of use or intent.
    • In a press release on the same day, a brief description of the system is provided:
      "Mr. Norbert Dunkel, Director of Housing and Residence Education at the University of Florida, described how ICARUS works: 'ICARUS pulls information from commercial open-source tools used to monitor the network and spots traffic patterns that look like P2P transfers. ICARUS then tracks down the user's IP address, flashes a pop-up warning and limits it access to the internal campus network. An e-mail alert is sent to the student, who must agree to suspend use of the offending P2P desktop software to regain full Internet access.'"

[edit] Correspondence

  • Fred von Lohmann, Senior Intellectual Property Attorney, EFF (5 Dec 2004)
    • "I believe [ICARUS] was developed at U of FL and is an open source project. So someone should be able to get the source code and explain exactly what it does and how it works."
    • "As I understand it, the software is a combination port scanner and port blocker."
  • Ren Bucholz, Activism Coordinator, EFF (5 Dec 2004)
    • "We've got a forthcoming white paper on the technologies that campuses are using against P2P. I don't believe that we've written anything else about Icarus. Once the paper is done, it might be useful for you to send it to your administration."
  • Kevin Bankston, Attorney, EFF (8 Dec 2004)
    • suggestion: gather all of Florida's network policies and terms of use for students
    • "How can it detect p2p programs on your computer that you're not running?"
    • "Does the school require installation of monitoring software on the student's computer?"
      • As far as I know, no. I don't remember installing anything in order to connect to the campus network. -- Gavin 18:29, 5 Jan 2005 (EST)

[edit] Links

Retrieved from "http://uf.freeculture.org/wiki/ICARUS"
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