Malia Van Sant wants everyone to keep in mind that she's a "first-time offender."

Van Sant was not busted for drinking or drug use or any criminal act that might involve the campus police. Instead, she's being punished for having over 10GB of Internet activity in one month. As punishment, the Department of Computing & Communications has slowed her connection down to almost dial-up speed.

"It's worse than my connection at home," she said.

At the moment, Van Sant is number 13 on what the DC&C calls its "Toptalker List." The list displays which departments, services, and dorm residents are using the most network bandwidth. When unauthorized individuals on this list transfer more than 10GB in a month, they are usually placed into what DC&C calls a "shape pool," which limits the amount of bandwidth the user can use at any given moment.

Tim Larrabee, the manager of user services at DC&C, explained that the list is broken down into two different categories that are displayed in different colors, red and white. White users are allowed to use excessive amounts of bandwidth because of the specific demands of those departments or services like KSUA and the Aurora server.

Red accounts, though, are comprised mostly of students living in the dorms, such as Van Sant. Larrabee said that although some of the students are exceeding their amounts due to research projects and games, the majority are users of Kazaa, the popular file sharing program used by many for downloading music and movies.

Some students have been known for taking advantage of the university's free Ethernet services for file-sharing. As a freshman Gabe Ramuglia, now a junior, managed to transfer over 1.3 Terabytes, which is 1,300GB, of what he said was "mostly random stuff" during September 2001.

Ramuglia said that he and university officials then had a "nice little meeting" about what he had done.

"It was like in the Matrix where you aren't given a phone call," he said.

Ramuglia said that the cost of his over usage had amounted to over $250,000.

The entertainment industry was not in the habit of pressing charges yet, but he still received punishment by losing his Internet connection for several months.

Larrabee said today this scenario would be "impossible" because of the shape pools. Using a shape pool to reprimand over usage was implemented less than two year ago and was in response to past excessive network use.

Kazaa and similar programs pose more than a financial problem for UAF, as the Recording Industry Association of America and Motion Picture Association of America have increasingly focused complaints about copyright infringement toward universities Both industries often send complaints to campuses like UAF when they match an IP address with a particular song or movie.

Systems and network security officer Jim Williams said that last spring he saw a total of 35 complaints from the Motion Picture Association of America. This fall there were only 10 complaints, which Williams speculated may be because of increased industry litigation.

When UA receives a complaint from the entertainment industry, they first send it to information technology services. The department sends a letter about the complaint to the appropriate UA campus, whose administration then determines whether the charge is true.

Although Williams cannot give examples of complaints due to privacy laws, he did note that they generally consist of the user's IP address, what dorm the accused downloader is in, and recommended courses of action. These include removing Internet access, expulsion, or other "appropriate action."

Williams says that if the complaint is against a faculty member, the department will ask the individual about it and then do a search of the university-owned computer for the files. If it is a student, though, the department is not allowed to search the computer because the university does not own it. Instead, the Dean of Students will send a letter to the accused and then discuss options with him or her.

Despite the problematic Kazaa and other peer-to-peer program use, Williams said the department likes to respect students' privacy.

"We're going to let you do what you're going to do," he said.

Larrabee thinks  that students should not feel short-changed due to the restrictions on bandwidth.

"The university pays a great deal of money for Internet access," he said, "10GB is still more than I get at home."

On the Net: UAF Toptalker site: http://www.uaf.edu/toptalker/

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