Question about data available to network management

Hello this isn’t strictly ‘selfhosted’ material but there seems to be a lot of networking knowledge in this group.

I’m thinking of leveraging my universities network to assist in downloading “Linux ISO’s” via torrent. I thought a cool little project would be and old rasberry pi with a battery pack, wifi radio and an external hdd in a box would be cool.

Considering I have to use a university supplied email and password, unique to me, to connect to the wifi (only once then it connects like normal). How obvious will it be that I am downloading “Linux ISO’s”? I’d definitely be running a VPN as a base level of privacy.

Also if there is a better community for this please point me in the right direction. Reddit’s adds were annoying but it was definitely easier to stumble onto relevant subreddits.

GregoryTheGreat,

Are you living on campus? If not then you being connected to some random network at all hours of the day could raise a flag.

You can VPN your traffic somewhere else but you run the risk of leaking traffic if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Before you post up some battery powered nonsense that is tied to you directly I would read the schools policy to see what it violates.

ErwinLottemann,

the amount of traffic going through the vpn may also look suspicious

GregoryTheGreat,

“I’m backing up my computer to another location. “

ErwinLottemann,

sure. winkwink

NewDataEngineer,

Don’t torrent. You’ll get caught. Learn to use IRC.

tuff_wizard,

IRC as in Internet relay chat? I haven’t used it but how would it help me get around my loe data cap? I’m trying Robinhood some data not find obscure downloads. Even if someone provided me with some direct download links I still need to spend the data getting it onto my system.

NewDataEngineer,

Well you said torrenting is basically prohibited and the unanimous consensus here is that you’ll get caught. There’s probably no way to get around the data cap, but IRC will be indistinguishable from regular downloads and you’ll be safe there.

TimLovesTech,
@TimLovesTech@badatbeing.social avatar

You would be much better off getting a seedbox and then grabbing your ISOs of it when complete.

tuff_wizard,

Yeah that is true but we’ve grandfathered into a plan that is faster than it should be for the money but is limited to 500gb a month. I could get unlimited but it’d cost an extra $20 a month. This has never been a problem until I started building a plex library rather than just streaming. I managed to blow though that in two weeks just messing around.

kungen,

Does your university allow you to use VPNs? Do they have any acceptable use policy? It’s unlikely they’ll care if you download a few cars, but they’ll probably get mad if you’re just trying to maximize bandwidth used for fun and wonder why you’re using so much.

tuff_wizard,

Yeah I just looked up the policy and they specifically list downloading cars as something you shouldn’t do. I feel like they’re big enough that even if I downloaded 50gb a week it would be a drop in the ocean in their network. I’ve only got a 500gb limit at home right now so any amount helps. I just suppose it depends if they have alerts on for excess data usage by individuals… which they probably do.

SheeEttin,

Torrents and VPNs will be detected, and your access will be suspended until you sign something saying you’re very sorry and won’t do it again.

d_ohlin,

VPN sure, but if he’s using a VPN then all visible torrent activity should be terminated at the VPN server correct? Assuming they aren’t installing management software on whatever endpoint device OP is using, how would they be able to view the specific traffic between him and whatever VPN server he is using?

In any case, I would agree with another poster that Linux ISO’s and cars to a seedbox and then transfer via SFTP would be the best route.

SheeEttin,

They don’t need to see the traffic inside the VPN. They only need to see that there’s a VPN at all.

d_ohlin,

I get that - I was just confused at your “torrents would be detected” comment. I understand using a VPN would be visible and may be against whatever TOS they have.

SheeEttin,

Yeah, torrents without a VPN will be detected. Torrents inside a VPN won’t be detected, but the VPN itself will.

lemming007,

What if VPN traffic is on a non-standard port?

SheeEttin,

It’s still VPN traffic and will be detected as such.

lemming007,

Not really, if it’s on TCP 443 it will look no different than a typical HTTPS traffic.

SheeEttin,

That’s where you’re wrong, bucko. A true tunnel over HTTPS, yes, but if you use IPSec on 443 it will still look like IPSec.

And if the org requires a CA cert or agent installation as part of their AUP, they can decrypt the HTTPS tunnel and see it as a VPN.

Morgikan,

Typically schools and universities have acceptable use policies for student VPNs. It is not very difficult to detect VPN setup on a network and universities almost always have at least some form of network monitoring happening.

That said, VPNs are often times blocked and so is SFTP. Most universities I’ve done work with have a requirement that the traffic will be blocked unless you can make a case to IT as to why you need that access.

There are few legitimate use cases for student VPNs and IT staff are usually not idiots and understand what you are up to.

d_ohlin,

I get that part, and it all makes total sense. I was only confused on the “torrents will be detected” part of the original comment.

housepanther,

I wouldn’t do this if I were you because any of your activity can be traced back to you via your credentials.

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