Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!psuvax1!psuvm!barilvm!hank
From: HANK@BARILVM.BITNET (Hank Nussbacher)
Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy
Subject: Re: harassing mail
Message-ID: <91143.125005HANK@BARILVM.BITNET>
Date: 23 May 91 07:20:05 GMT
References: <1991May21.232534.17880@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
 <1991May22.004900.21797@athena.cs.uga.edu>
 <1991May22.042638.18885@casbah.acns.nwu.edu>
Organization: Bar-Ilan University Computing Center, Israel
Lines: 46

In article <1991May22.042638.18885@casbah.acns.nwu.edu>,
jasonrey@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Jason Phillips) says:
>Only one question: do students pay to attend your university?  If so, where
>does the 'free' part originate from?

Not all services provided by a university are open to the student body merely
because they pay tuition.  A freshman can't go in and use a $2 million
electron scanning microscope and a sophmore can't walk into the $100 million
particle accelerator and 'try it out'.  The problem with network is that
the true value is hidden from the user.  All one sees is a simple $1000
terminal so one says 'Heck, what damage am I doing here?'

But the cost of the fiber-optic backbones that run throughout the campus,
the Ethernet segments in the buildings, the bridges, repeaters, routers,
the phone lines are all unseen.  It is all underground in some hidden
place.  Each university has at least $2 million in network infrastructure
and many have well past that amount.

So the question then is 'Does paying tuition entitle a student to do whatever
he wants with university equipment since he has paid for it?'  If the answer
is yes, then we might as well pack up and let them play with the colliders.
If the answer is no, then the use of equipment is a privilege and not a
right.  If it is a privilege, then the university is entitled to make its
own set of rules by which the student body has to abide.  Not every
university creates the same set of rules (some don't allow students to use
the network at all) and I guess future students will have to factor in
network policy when selecting their university.  Previously, students have
selected universities by their academic standards, by the campus aura, by
how the dorms look, by how close it is to home or the bar.  Perhaps it is
time that high school students also examine university network policy
before deciding on which university to attend.  If you don't like the policy
of one university, then don't go there.

But please don't say that net-access is a right.  It is a privilege that
should not be abused.


>
>    --- jason
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------
>Jason Phillips  ----> jasonrey@casbah.acns.nwu.edu
>Northwestern University

Hank Nussbacher
Israel