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How To Secure My HDD From School

Fazzl

Fazzl

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 13, 2007
580
4
So apparently my college IT department can look onto student's computers to see their music and if it is illegal or not. Once a student gets caught downloading they must delete the music but they can still check whether or not it was actually deleted. Is this true? How must one secure his hdd from being accessed via network?

Thanks
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A93 Safari/419.3)

well it seems not true but you should use filevault then and turn off the file sharing features if you don't need them

Edit: maybe they check your network usage?
 
no. i got an email stating the specific file name downloaded.
 
Fazzl said:
no. i got an email stating the specific file name downloaded.
Click to expand...

They are not looking into your hard drive, they only acquired the information through their network, packet sniffing I guess. Unless you have your download folder shared. And if they did look into your hard drive without your authorization! sue their *** off.

Go in to System Preferences, Sharing, and make sure NOTHING is checked. If you want more control get this program Little Snitch a firewall program that offers more controls for incoming and outgoing traffic.

My advice? Now that you know they are sniffing then you better not download anything stupid on the school network and give them a reason to search your hard drive.:cool:
 
What they do at my school is keep track of everyone's MAC address, and then if they suspect illegal activity they fire off an email to you. They also may have assigned you a static IP address. You can spoof your MAC address, lots of freeware is available to do it. I'm not sure how to tackle the IP address, unless you steal someone else's (therefore possibly getting them in trouble), that really depends on their setup. You may also want to change your computer's name to something random, like "Sparky" rather than "Your Name."

Also Don't Share Anything. That is how the RIAA screws people over. They catch people uploading.
 
wk127001 said:
What they do at my school is keep track of everyone's MAC address, and then if they suspect illegal activity they fire off an email to you. They also may have assigned you a static IP address. You can spoof your MAC address, lots of freeware is available to do it. I'm not sure how to tackle the IP address, unless you steal someone else's (therefore possibly getting them in trouble), that really depends on their setup. You may also want to change your computer's name to something random, like "Sparky" rather than "Your Name."

Also Don't Share Anything. That is how the RIAA screws people over. They catch people uploading.
Click to expand...

Dude.. that's really big brother-y.
 
yeah..they're not looking at your HD unless they had you install some special software to give them access...which i doubt.

more than likely they're looking at your internet usage and watching you dl the file..or just looking ot see who is downloading a lot and labeling them for suspicious activity.
 
Yea, they're looking at your mac address, and filtering network usage on certain ports and they can see all the traffic going through. I would stop downloading, when RIAA comes to university the IT department will gladly hand over your information right away.
 
Can downloading files from rapidshare, megaupload etc be tracked? What is the best way to stay safe.
 
Fazzl said:
Can downloading files from rapidshare, megaupload etc be tracked? What is the best way to stay safe.
Click to expand...

RS and MU = regular HTTP traffic for downloads. Of course this could be tracked (provided you are coming from your school's network).

Best way to be safe is to not download anything illegal. :p
 
cobbe1 said:
They are not looking into your hard drive, they only acquired the information through their network, packet sniffing I guess.
Click to expand...

It might not be the school at all. The RIAA tracks what IP is downloading what files; however it does not know who the downloader is. So with that information, they shoot a letter/email to the university (or ISP, for that matter). The university (or ISP) will check its DHCP logs to see who the individual is and relay that information. So your university might just be the messenger.
 
I DOUBT your school can access your computer and check for stuff. That's invasion of privacy and a lawsuit waiting to happen. What they can do is watching internet trafficking, but they have no right to sniff through your computer HDD
 
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