Interview With Samuel Scalise: How Sonoma State Stopped Napster

In March, 2001, I interviewed Samuel Scalise about Sonoma State's system of blocking Napster. The following is a summary of what he told me. To view the questions I asked him, scroll to the end of the page.

Sam Scalise is the Chief Information Officer at Sonoma State University. This means that he manages all of the computer operations around campus. I interviewed him because his campus is taking action against Napster users, and I wanted to know how and why they are doing so.

Just a few months ago, Sonoma State University started seeing drastic increases in dorm bandwidth use. The jump was in fact so large that it was slowing down the entire network of well over seven thousand computers. As the networking group that Sam oversees investigated, they found that the reason for these usage increases was the popular new online music file sharing program, Napster.

Sam says that there have been multiple instances when his department has had to take a stand against illegal activity on the Sonoma State network. They shut down a few dozen FTP servers that were sharing pirated Hollywood movies, and they even had to turn in a few students to the police because what they were doing was so disgusting. Sam says, "If someone is driving down a road carrying illegal drugs, the owner of the road is not responsible. But if we discover illegal activity on our networks and it is feasible to act on it, we will do so."

The Napster system works by storing a database of users' filenames, and allowing users to search the filenames for what they want. When the user finds what they want, Napster links the two users together and allows them to transfer files between each other. The catch to this is that Napster also stores what internet connection each user has. Napster then uses that information to know which user's files to search first. Napster always searches the fastest connections first, because that makes the network run faster and more efficient.

Because each dorm at Sonoma State is equipped with a 10/100 individual internet connection (one of the fastest connections available), Napster always checked these dorms for music first, so more users downloaded from Sonoma State dorms than other places. These other users downloading from Sonoma State were the real problem, so it would seem logical to stop just them, right?

But according to Sam, stopping uploads altogether is harder than it sounds. "A Napster file transfer appears on our switchboxes and servers just like an e-mail. The only difference is the size," says Sam. This makes Napster use extremely hard to track. Blocking uploads to Napster would block all uploads, preventing normal services like e-mail from being used. But as Sam said, there is a size difference. A song on Napster is anywhere from 3 megabytes to 7 megabytes, while a large e-mail file is rarely over 1 megabyte.

With this knowledge, Sam's department decided to slow all uploads over 3 megabytes to about the speed of a standard modem, making it more frustrating for Napster users to upload songs. This will also prevent Napster servers from always putting Sonoma State users at the top of their search list, hopefully decreasing the number of uploads from dorms. "With this system, we do not completely block Napster use, we only make it harder for it to be used," said Sam.

The main advantage to this system, as I actually pointed out to Sam, is that he will not need to go through this process again when another file sharing system is released, because the slowdown system is generic. The system affects all uploads, so systems such as Gnutella, Hotline, and Freenet are also affected.

But slowing all uploads does have its disadvantages, as Sam admitted. For example, many students build web sites and host them on outside servers, so they need to upload many files onto that server. Their upload speeds will also be cut, along with other types of legal uploads. But considering its benefits, it is a good strategy overall, according to Sam.

Only a week after implementing the system, Sam said that network traffic returned to normal, indicating the success of the system. The dorm students were only mildly upset, because the slowdown only affected uploads, not downloads.

Despite the success of this system, Sam says that it is not right for most universities, because most university networks are not sufficiently organized to carefully slow all uploads of a certain size. Most networks, like UC Berkeley's, are huge and have many subdivisions and varying technologies. Sam was lucky because the Napster issue arose only a few months after Sonoma State rebuilt their entire network. This meant that the entire network was uniform, meaning that every part of the network was made from the same technology, and was 100% compatible with the rest of the network. Without this, the slowdown system would most likely not have worked.

Sam says that Sonoma State, for reasons he does not know, was in the minority when they decided to slow Napster use. Only three other state colleges in the UC system are even considering Napster a problem.

Sam also says that the main thing that is slowing the progression of online music into the mainstream is connection speeds. Sam lives in Santa Rosa, where he cannot currently get DSL or Cable for a faster connection speed. He is looking into satellite service, but that can be affected by bad weather. He does not use Napster or online music, but if he did, it would take him at least fifteen minutes to download a song from Napster. That means that an album would need three hours, if not more. Sam says that until the majority of home internet users have high speed connections, online audio and video will be a luxury; not a standard. I agree.

I live in Berkeley, a fairly large city, and I cannot get cable or DSL. It is almost like I can't get DSL, but if I moved two blocks I would be able to. With cable, I can get AT&T Digital Cable, but I can't subscribe to AT&T High Speed Internet Access, which involves a cable modem.

I also agree with Sonoma State's decision to slow upload speeds. Since downloading from Napster has not been ruled illegal, it would be wrong to block it altogether, because it does not violate any laws. But since uploads from other users outside campus are clogging servers, it makes sense to slow outside access. This way, students download speeds are not affected, and if students want, they can still upload at slower speeds. I think that more campuses should follow this model.

Questions:

1. How did you find out that Napster was becoming a problem for your campus?

2. What issues does Sonoma State have with students using Napster?

3.What is Sonoma State doing to block Napster use?

4. How is Napster different than other forms of file sharing?

5. What speed internet connection are your dorms equipped with?

6. What makes blocking Napster use hard? Easy?

7. What actions has your campus taken against other forms of illegal activity or piracy?

8. What are the advantages and disadvantages to your system of blocking Napster?

9. What is the main thing holding online music back from being in the mainstream?

10. What else do you think I should know about online music and Napster?

11. How has your attempt to block Napster affected the network?

12. Can you suggest any other sources-media, places to visit, activities to take part in, or people I could contact- to make me more informed about online music?