Advanced Shaping 

We use a highly sophisticated, centralized network platform to manage traffic according to protocol.  By protocol, we do not mean by "port". Port classification is helpful, but not entirely meaningful, especially in the off campus community where BitTorrent applications thrive. Our system is not only able to classify the traffic by recognizing the actual "protocol", but it also shapes and/or blocks it according to our needs.

The data stream (encrypted or not) is recognized and classified as such in real-time, so changing the port with which you use to host or receive files is pointless, as there is no way to work around this except to write a new protocol. Our system updates its protocol signature database from a global provider. The "protocol signatures" are sent from ISP's (like us) , and from every continent in the world on a constant basis. Since an "unknown protocol" is unusual, we also rate limit that and classify it the same way as a "BitTorrent" application/protocol. In this way, we can help stop the spread of worms, trojans, downloaders and other such unwanted (virus stuff) traffic.

 Did you know that when a networking engineer looks at an outbound "traffic pattern" generated by a "W32/worm", it is almost indistinguishable from a poorly written peer-to-peer client being given full access to a network connection?

This same network platform is used to show you the fanciful "My Usage" graphs. It also is used to comply with the CALEA act mandated by the FCC . In short, it is a true digital wiretap. This allows us to click a button and "record" data being sent and/or received from a subscriber via the Internet (encrypted or not). All ISP's are mandated to have this in place by May 14, 2007. While we only do this when we receive a formal request from a law enforcement agency, it does allow us to look back statistically when we receive a complaint from a firm alleging copyright infringement by a subscriber.