Join devRant
Do all the things like
++ or -- rants, post your own rants, comment on others' rants and build your customized dev avatar
Sign Up
Pipeless API
From the creators of devRant, Pipeless lets you power real-time personalized recommendations and activity feeds using a simple API
Learn More
-
I got a similar call around 2009.
My mom was a professor at the city university, and got me a room in the dorms after my flat burned down around Christmas in '08.
I quickly discovered that the ethernet plug in my room gave me unregulated synchronous gigabit internet. In '09, this was mind-blowing, and 20 year old me proceeded to download (and seed...) as much pirated anime as I could find.
I came home from work one day to find that my internet no longer worked, and a letter in my mailbox from the university highlighting my recent Internet traffic.
After a call to the IT department ("look, dude, we can't prove exactly what it is you're doing, but come on man... Just stop it, ok?") I was granted access again, but I managed to snag about 500GB of anime in those few days, and I still haven't watched all of it... -
@mortimer Hah hah I love that story!
Universities are awesome. While I was working there (about 8 years) a lot of weird shit happened, but only two people got into serious trouble. One guy from our institute thought it might be a good idea to use the universitiy's cluster for this new thing called "bitcoin mining" in 2012 or 2013 or so. When university learned what he was doing and that he was using university equipment to generate a second income they activated the legal team and this is a bunch you don't ever want to come in contact with. They threatened him with immediate job loss and legal consequences, and I faintly remember he even had to give them the bitcoin he had mined.
Another guy from a different institute also got some serious network traffic one day. University IT investigated what was going on and found that the dumbass hosted a forum for some really appalling fetish porn on his office PC. This is the only guy I ever heard about being fired on spot. -
@DirtEffect well lol.
I want those bitcoins.
how i spend so long on this as a child i dont know, but i wouldn't change it for the world, damn this brings b...
Not myself but friend of mine. Early 2000s working at a large university. Top notch office PCs for the time, best internet connection in the country.
He discovers this "Bittorrent" program. Meh, just another file sharing thing... but who cares, it's 2003-ish so everyone downloads shit from the internet.
Installs it on his office PC, because its university so no one cares.
Friday afternoon, he starts download of his favourite music album (some hard to get live version or something), then goes off into the weekend, computer is left running as always.
Download is finished after an hour or so, then his Bittorrent client starts seeding. Lots of people want this album. Bittorrent adapts to bandwith and when your connection is good you get upvoted in the network and everyone is connecting to you.
Monday comes, my friend arrives back at his desk, bit late because he slept in and its university so no one cares.
Suddenly realises many missed calls on his desk phone. Calls back, it's from the IT department.
Friend: "You have called me? What can I do for you?"
IT Guy (screaming): "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING??? YOUR PC IS CAUSING 50% OF THE UNIVERSITY'S INTERNET TRAFFIC.!!!!"
Friend: "Whops."
IT Guy (hysterical): "WHATEVER YOU ARE RUNNING STOP IT NOW!!!!"
Friend: *stops Bittorrend client, enjoys his favourite album*
Lucky him, it's a university, so in the end no one cared.
rant
good times
wk258