Felix and Bob:

Thanks for posting this. I've helped several small public libraries with
wireless access and offer a one-day workshop where we go through some of the
issues related to public wireless access and actually configure an
inexpensive wireless router configured with third-party firmware (DD-WRT in
this case) to provide better functionality. Although I've imagined several
doom-and-gloom scenarios and tried to answer them technically, I've never
thought of this one (although now it looks like a rather obvious one!).

DD-WRT and other such firmware is capable of blocking most peer-to-peer
networks (and gaming servers) either as a group or by service type
(including BitTorrent specifically). Another solution would be to whitelist
application ports--in other words block all ports except the ones you
explicitly want to support? Obviously, common mail, ftp, http/s, vpn, and a
few others (sip?) would be necessary. This would require a gateway
server--there are some open source firewalling products (capable of running
on an older, but functional, regular desktop computer) that would be fairly
easy to configure for that type of service demarcation. The cost (other than
a bit of learning time) is not significant. Would there be a problem in your
libraries (policy issues, etc.) with this type of "filtering"? Wouldn't seem
like it--peer-to-peer networks of any kind seem to go beyond the spirit of
the public service the library is adequate to provide--but I realize the
perspective on such issues is different in different communities.

IANAL, but doing nothing seems like a really bad idea. I'd recommend
implementing at least one of these inexpensive solutions and doing a quick
check with a legal rep about how to answer the letter.

HTH.

--Robert

*********************************
Robert L. Williams
Technology Consultant
South Texas Library System
805 Comanche
Corpus Christi, TX 78401
361-826-7060



-----Original Message-----
From: Library NT [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bob Ambroso
Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 11:00 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [LIBNT-L] Wireless users and copyright infringement...

We have been hit with the same letters and we are currently weighing our
options though I doubt even with hardware you can stop them. The truly
committed that it is. Many clients can encrypt traffic and port hops so
identifying this traffic could be difficult. I suppose you could QOS traffic
and limit each user to 256K of upload and download and make it so painful to
do anything that they themselves would cease... Don't we have better things
to do? :-)


Bob Ambroso
Whittier Public Library

-----Original Message-----
From: Library NT [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Felix Hotard
Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 8:20 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [LIBNT-L] Wireless users and copyright infringement...

Hello,

Recently, our library received a Notice of Claimed Infringement letter from
MediaSentry, a company who scours the web looking for pirated materials on
behalf of their clients; in this instance,  Worldwide Sony Pictures
Entertainment Acquisitions Inc.

It seems a patron connected to our wireless network and made available for
download, via BitTorrent, some pirated material on his/her laptop. This is
not the first notice of this nature we've received. Are any other libraries
having this problem? What are you doing about it?

The way I see it, we have three options:
- Do nothing, and reply to each notice with a statement that we are a public
library offering free and unrestricted wireless Internet access for our
patrons to use with their own computers.
- Discontinue offering the wireless connections to our patrons. Because of
the heavy use at all of our locations, that wouldn't be well received.
- Spend several thousand dollars on a hardware/software solution that would
prevent this type of activity. Attempting to manually block all the possible
ports and IP ranges at the firewall would be ineffective because of the
file-sharing programs' ability to use nearly any available port.

I'd like to know how other libraries are handling this.
Thanks for any guidance offered!

Felix Hotard
West Florida Public Library