University Data Safety: Blocking BitTorrent

Universities are increasingly becoming targets for criminals who want to steal personally identifiable information. This allows them to access all sorts of things about people such as: SSN, bank information, loan information, vehicle tags, and even that information and more about relatives and friends about the person. Harding University takes its custodian role of your data very seriously.

Additionally, media outlets and law firms are aggressively pursuing people who are illegally downloading their copyrighted material. Harding receives 2 or 3 notices about Digital Millennial Rights Copyright Act (DMCA) breaches every day. These notices come with some hefty fines.

Taking this and other factors into account, Harding has decided to disable the BitTorrent service (and other similar services) on Harding's campus during the Thanksgiving break. Why? One of the most prolific channels for illegal downloading and other security concerns is through BitTorrent. Harding's IS&T department has researched this for some time and have looked into how other universities have dealt with these issues. It seems that Harding will be joining many other universities who have found no other way to stop these illegal and dangerous activities other than by blocking BitTorrent.

Harding is aware that BitTorrent can be used for legitimate purposes; however, we have reached a time where the non-legitimate uses far outweigh the legitimate uses. If you have been using BitTorrent for legitimate uses and are finding it difficult to find alternative ways to getting the material you are after, please contact our Help Desk at 501-279-4545 for help with this.

If you believe that you have a virus by using one of these services like BitTorrent, please bring your laptop or any other personal electronic device to our Help Desk and we would be happy to remove those for you. Thank you for your patience and we hope that this decision makes using Harding's network much safer for us all.