After deciding to limit access to online pornography through the university, UAF has seen a drastic drop in internet use.

Michael Scott, chief of UAF's Division of Computing and Communications, wrote in an email to Chancellor Steve Jones on Thursday that the university's recently imposed "porn allowance" has worked remarkably well. Bandwidth use has stabilized below a point that will save UAF several hundred thousand dollars a month, Scott said.

The DCC's porn allowance, sometimes referred to in department documents as the "Zipper Initiative," began last November to combat rampant bandwidth usage on campus.

In a November interview with DCC center manager Fred Appilang, Appilang said that the need for widespread restrictions was immediate.

"Trying to individually police thousands of students everyday is absolutely a losing battle," said Appilang in November. "We need to attack the most egregious internet use first and foremost."

In early attempts by the DCC, technicians placed restrictions on movie and music downloads.

"While that cut down on some of the bandwidth use, it wasn't even close to enough. We were still paying nearly $80,000 in excess-use charges every time we would even go slightly over the university limit, which was often," said Appilang.

The idea to create an allowance on pornographic downloads came in late October, entirely by accident, when bandwidth suddenly dipped in Moore Hall after a virus installed NetNanny on hundreds of campus computers. The software blocked all pornography web sites, thus causing bandwidth use to plummet.

Said Appilang, "At first, we thought it was a glitch, but then the Computer Help Desk got flooded with calls about the disturbance. I remember people were really impatient and worked up. When employees pressed callers for the exact nature of the problem, they would often begin to pant heavily and stammer before disconnecting. It was fairly clear after that."

While Chancellor Jones was initially reluctant to the idea, stating a conflict of interest, test trials commenced shortly before Halloween.

Since the enforcement of the 200-megabyte per day porn allowance for all campus computers bandwidth usage has remained dramatically low for the entire university.

Some officials claim the initiative has even farther-reaching positive impact.

Dani Franz, organizer for several campus events including the Masquerade Ball and Case Day, has seen much higher university participation directly following the limits placed on porn access.

"I honesty didn't even know we had this many students on campus," said Franz. "I even saw some kids at the Christmas Dance who I thought, for sure, had been dead for a while."

Douglas Roushkoff, a sophomore living in Nerland, sees much more personal benefits.

"I tried for weeks to bypass the university's system, and I'm a smart dude on a computer, but it was a no go."

"I had no other choice," Roushkoff said. "I had to get a girlfriend."

The DCC stated in a late February report that the success of this system already stands as a precedent for other colleges, many of which are copying the model.

"I hate to say it, but it's true, we cracked the code," said Appilang. "When you take away porn, the computer just becomes a glorified typewriter. And I think we're all better off with that knowledge."