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P2P at College

C

Cowboy22

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 17, 2008
30
0
Hey I am not sure if this is in the right forum so please move if necessary.

I am going to college in the fall and they have a strict no P2P policy. I was thinking I could get around this by installing LogMeIn on my Mac at school and download torrents from there. Then I would log into my computer at home, which is on Verizon FiOS and has no limitations/bans. Would this work and if not are there any other ideas? I have an iPhone 3G so I could tether if worst comes to worst.
Thanks
 
miles01110 said:
Your college has bans on P2P for a reason. In some places, breaking this policy is grounds for expulsion. Don't risk your education for something stupid.
Click to expand...

Why don't you remotely access you're own mac using the iPhone?

I wouldn't have a clue how you'd do this but there must but some kind of secure remote access app available where you'd simply view you're mac's screen and control the mouse and keyboard from your phone.
 
barkmonster said:
Why don't you remotely access you're own mac using the iPhone?

I wouldn't have a clue how you'd do this but there must but some kind of secure remote access app available where you'd simply view you're mac's screen and control the mouse and keyboard from your phone.
Click to expand...

I don't have a Mac at home, it's a Vista box. I guess I could use the internet connection from the iPhone to "power" my Macs connection but transfers would be pretty slow. Is there any way that they could see what I am doing (connection wise) if I am on LogMeIn?
 
If you're using Vista the just use uTorrent and configure the webUI and you'll be able to access it from school.

I used to do it all the time when I was running Vista as a virtual machine.
Worked amazingly and by the time I got home most torrents were already done.
 
hatehereyes said:
If you're using Vista the just use uTorrent and configure the webUI and you'll be able to access it from school.

I used to do it all the time when I was running Vista as a virtual machine.
Worked amazingly and by the time I got home most torrents were already done.
Click to expand...

uTorrent has made a version for Mac but its in beta so I'm not sure if it has webUI. What is that and how do you set it up?
 
The WebUI allows you to control uTorrent from anywhere in the world, as long as you have an internet connection. You just start uTorrent on your comp at home and then you can add/remove/tweak torrents from another computer without having to install uTorrent.

Im pretty sure the mac version of utorrent doesnt have the webui feature. Its still far behind the windows version in terms of functionality.
You can, however, run uTorrent on windows at home and use the webui from your mac at school.

Setting it up doesnt sound too bad, just make you you understand everything you are doing before you start going crazy:

http://lifehacker.com/software/hack...your-torrents-with-utorrents-webui-260393.php
 
Ok so then what would be the best way to get the completed files off of my home computer and onto my Mac at school?
 
NoSmokingBandit said:
you could try OpenSSH for windows, but idk how well that will work.

You could try running uTorrent in Ubuntu via Wine and using the native ssh. Still a bit of a mess.
Click to expand...

Ya that all sounds like too much trouble. Copying files from another computer isn't illegal. So I think I will use LogMeIn for that (unless that sites blocked). The downloading of certain files is what could get me into trouble ;)
 
I was looking at an FAQ for my school and this was posted:
Does the university filter web sites?
The university not block access to any web sites.

So is LogMeIn my best bet? Or can they still see if I have copyrighted content on my home PC?
 
your best bet is finding out what you can get access to ON your school network.


I graduated college this year, but back 4 years ago when I was a freshman at the U of Minnesota I was delighted to find that a p2p network existed within the network and just used dc++ to download to my heart's content. luckily people shared a lot though and it was absurd how much stuff I could get at 100mbps.

Another suggestion would be possibly the more direct connection of DCC via an IRC client or something of the like. You have to be careful though, because I more than once had to call in to the school's tech people and have them unblock my access because they thought from their end and from what ports I was using that I had become an IRC bot.

Alternatively, you can get a job and occasionally buy your music.


by the way, your school won't be able to see what kind of files you have, just notice patterns about your internet traffic (tons of connections for torrents, for example) and will react based on what they ASSUME you are doing, instead of what they KNOW you are doing.
 
Get an apartment off campus. They can't touch you there. In the dorms my roommate kept getting his internet revoked because he was using Xbox Live.
 
You can setup your PC as a web server, ftp server, remote desktop server or VPN server. You can use other services such as others have mentioned. You can also sign up for a VPN service which may allow you to bypass your college's P2P policy because you will effectively be using your own private tunnel through their firewall. Of course if their firewall blocks the VPN I think you are out of luck, but there are some services offer a free trial.
 
just use rapidshare, megaupload or any of the other http downloading sites. you can find pretty much the same stuff as torrent sites.
 
Cowboy22 said:
Copying files from another computer isn't illegal.
Click to expand...

Copying illegally obtained files from another computer is illegal though. Most schools closely monitor individual network traffic, so the safest way is just to do it infrequently enough that you don't raise any red flags, but even that is iffy. Network administrators at universities have no reservations about coming after you if they think you could be sharing copyrighted material, and if you're caught with any you are SOL. I remember my freshman year, 10 guys in my dorm got caught, and they had to settle for $1000 each, though they weren't expelled.

Best solutions: make lots of friends so you can just share/trade physical media and software and rip them directly or just live off campus.
 
barkmonster said:
Why don't you remotely access you're own mac using the iPhone?

I wouldn't have a clue how you'd do this but there must but some kind of secure remote access app available where you'd simply view you're mac's screen and control the mouse and keyboard from your phone.
Click to expand...

There is an app on the app store called Jaadu VNC. You just install a host program on your mac or pc and you can remotely see your desktop and control your computer from there. It costs 25 dollars though so be ready to pay.
 
There is also Jaadu Remote Desktop. I believe this is only for pc's but Vista home and XP home are not supported for some reason. If you have vista ultimate then it would be good because it also streams audio/video I believe.
 
Cowboy22 said:
Ok so then what would be the best way to get the completed files off of my home computer and onto my Mac at school?
Click to expand...

Install teamviewer on both and set a password and write down the number it gives you for your home computer and then do a file transfer from there. It's not the quickest method but it will get the job done. It's free for personal use.
 
ok stop and listen

all you people who are telling this kid to buy software are WRONG.


its built into ALL microsoft systems, especially XP

a little thing called "Remote Desktop Connection"

configure it on your xp or vista box, set your router to forward the TCP/UDP port 3389 to the computer you want to access.

write down your ip address.

log on to it from anywhere else.

done.



see how you don't have to spend money that way?

If you need to access the windows box from a mac, Microsoft makes a program to do it. (its called, wait for it, "Remote Desktop Connection")
 
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