Introduction

       Recently, Stanford, along with over a hundred other schools across the country, began using packet-monitoring software to limit the amount of network bandwidth available to certain online applications. Napster and Gnutella, peer-to-peer file-sharing programs, are two such applications, and together their use has overwhelmed campus networks and hindered student access to academic-related sites. To remedy the problem, packet-monitoring software allows system administrators to identify the sources of heavy network usage and enforce different bandwidth limits based on set priorities, which can free up needed bandwidth for educational and government sites. Online games, mp3 music files, and streaming video/audio can be assigned lower priorities, and the network can be used more efficiently.

       However, the benefits come at a price. Packet-monitoring software gives the administration access to a large amount of user-specific information. Individual users' network access patterns ö websites they frequently visit, time they spend on Napster downloading mp3s, or how often they watch the daily headlines via streaming video at nakednews.com ö are only a couple clicks away, which could pose significant risk to user privacy and anonymity. Packeteer Inc. created the software Stanford is using, PacketShaper, and its corporate website describes the following scenario:

A system administrator notices that 80 percent of the network bandwidth is used by the two most-visited websites. He finds out that these sites detail the weekend's sporting events. He then clicks a few buttons and a screen appears, listing what users are the most enthusiastic sports fans.

Taken further, administrators would be able to create lists of users that frequent sites containing pornography or other controversial content.

       In this project, we will be investigating software such as PacketShaper and exploring the privacy issues resulting from its use. We intend to explore the balance between anonymity and network efficiency, and the morality of packet-monitoring solutions.