Arkansas Blog

It would appear from this state Education Department memo that folks have been gumming up the Arkansas Public School Computer Network by a bunch of illegal music and video file sharing using so-called P2P applications. That is going to come to a stop July 1.

These applications are simple to download from the Internet and simple to use. It is not difficult for anyone to get started downloading an entire library of music. Once the user has downloaded files to the local PC it is then, by default, a server that shares the files with other users worldwide. These P2P servers become attractive targets for downloading files because of the considerable amount of Internet bandwidth APSCN has provided to the school. DIS has fielded many customer complaints regarding slow access to Pentamation that have resulted in the discovery of P2P traffic consuming all available bandwidth to the site.

Beginning July 1, 2007, the state will deny all APSCN P2P traffic at the State Network’s Internet edge. This will not affect in-state network traffic but will solve the majority of problems relating to P2P traffic. Overall state network performance should be improved and state resources spent troubleshooting P2P related problems will be conserved.