Battalion
BRADLEY ATCHISON’
rick (right), ajuniornutritio
ins off a necklace Tuesca
Aggielife
Page 3 • Wednesday, October 27, 1999
fttfiare
•tioneer. He was great
ved and added a
making jokes a
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a great auction this yea
Shanghai
Despite illegality, computer theft on the rise
f and a sophomore
engineering major,si
;es Hall Bonfire lei
present at the event.
John Skelton, a
eral studies major, said
mg over the Fish Pot is
Hall tradition and
classmen attempting to
pot away from their atti
said that there were
ly 40 people divide
teams in the contest
was smashed after being
over by the students.
3EAU & BRF
BY SUSAN OVERCASH
The Battalion
ast August, Jeffrey Levy, a 22-year-old stu
dent at the University of Oregon, pleaded
guilty and was convicted of a crime that
lay carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison
da maximum fine of $250,000. Levy’s crime
not cheating, hazing, or even committing
iolent crime; instead Levy was convicted of
gaily posting pirated software, digital movies
music on a personal web page for the pub-
to download.
According to the Software and Information
idustry Association (S11A) the principal trade
sociation for the the software code and tech-
cal information industry, the percentage of
dergraduate college students who obtained
ftware by “borrowing” it from family and
lends increased by 17 percent last year. This
cans 47 percent of Aggies and their peers not
inly condone software piracy, an illegal action,
ut actively participate in it.
One student who declined to have his name
jublished, said companies would not be mak-
Youmaybe I money off software he copied. -
“The last time I bought software was three
ears ago,” the student said. "Some people say
impanies can lose millions of dollars because
eople copy software, but 1 wouldn’t have
ought it or used it if I couldn’t have copied it. ”
Ryan Allain, a senior mechanical engineer-
)g major, said that most students do not have
le means to buy expensive software packages.
“If they wouldn’t charge so much for the
bftware — when students have to eat off-
rand macaroni and cheese because they had
)buy expensive software for a class, it makes
that much easier to call up a friend and say,
ley, let me borrow this,”’ Allain said.
The anonymous student said there are many
aysfor students to obtain pirated software, in-
Res Net, the network connecting dorm
ti Mnputers, as well as through other students
’through the Internet.
“Instead of transferring 600 megabytes, the
size of most files,” the student said, “there’s rip
ping, where all the unnecessary stuff — sounds
and all — are taken out of the software. The file
is compressed down to about 200 megabytes
and zipped, and that’s what you normally see
in people’s folders on ResNet.”
The anonymous student said, students
may also share serial numbers that allow
them to use shareware packages and copy
righted software.
“There used to be a database on ResNet
with a list of names and keys or serials that peo
ple can use to access software,” he said. “That’s
mostly for shareware, though.”
Such postings are against University regula
tion and state and federal law.
Jeff McCabe, associate director of comput
ing information services (CIS), said CIS acts as
technical support for ResNet and University
computing resources.
“We provide the wiring and connections
and just try to make sure its a good, quality ser
vice,” McCabe said. “The networks group, a
sub-group of CIS, structures the firewalls and
wires the dorms.”
However, McCabe said if a complaint of il
legal activity is filed, CIS may act as an investi
gator in the situation.
“We don’t go out and look for viola
tions,” McCabe said. “We process com
plaints, and if we find anything, we’ll turn
it over to [Student Judicial Services of Con
flict Resolution Services].”
If networking options are not available, stu
dents on campus obtain pirated software using
CD burners and similar equipment, and some
times make a living out of it.
Allain said when he lived on campus his
freshman year, he knew students whose in
come came from selling burned CDs and pirat
ed software.
“One student would buy a CD burner,” Al
lain said, “and everybody else would pay to
have them burn the CD’s — that’s how they
would make their money.”
Using CD burners these days, however, may
be a dying trade. The anonymous student said
companies are now adding bad “sectors” to the
CD to prevent copying.
“You can still read the CD,” the student said,
“but when you try to burn it, the burner can’t
copy the bad sectors and won’t let you copy it.”
Instead of burning a CD, students can use
an official copy of the software as long as they 1
have a key, which is a code that the software
deciphers to allow a specific user access to the
program.
The anonymous student said, programmers
have created “crackz,” or programs that work
around keys, bad sectors, serials and other se
curity measures.
“Crackz can decipher the algorithm in the
software that codes the key,” the anonymous
student said. “People distribute crackz on tir
Internet, and then students can download
those to get a key for an official CD.”
According to SIIA, because of crackz an
other pirating efforts, the American piracy rate'
was 25 percent in the United $tates in 1998,
which is more than $2.8 billion dollars in pira
cy losses, in an industry where business per
sonal computer application software account
ed for worldwide revenues of $17.8 billion.
Much of this loss is due to pirated software
being distributed over the Internet. The anony
mous student said, the most prevalent place to
get pirated software, or “warez,” is Internet Re
lay Chat (IRC).
“IRC is a network that over 25,000 people
connect to,” the anonymous student said. “You
can get anything — MP3’s, downloads, all
kinds of stuff — from people.”
Students, like Levy, who are caught pirating
or using pirated software on college campuses
are subject to harsh penalties. McCabe said that
students in violation of University regulations
with respect to software piracy are subject to
legal actions.
“Companies can come in and take student
to court,” McCabe said. “They are subject to
the full weight of the law.”
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