HASCS Limits Napster Outbound Traffic

Harvard Arts and Sciences Computer Services (HASCS) restricted Napster access for the first time yesterday, limiting outbound network traffic for the music-sharing service.

HASCS will not restrict Napster downloads.

Kevin S. Davis '96, the coordinator for residential computing at HASCS, said the restriction was prompted by large volumes of outbound Napster traffic that were slowing down the Harvard network.

He said it probably would not affect Harvard students' ability to use the service. Instead, Napster users beyond Harvard will have a harder time downloading songs off of Harvard computers.

Davis said that Harvard's high-speed Internet connection meant songs on its network were particularly attractive to Napster users worldwide, who could acquire songs faster from computers at Harvard than from other servers.

"Because we have such a fast connection, Harvard computers were showing up very high in non-Harvard Napster searches," he said.

As a result, outbound Napster traffic was taking up 10 megabits per second of Harvard's network connection--20 percent of the traffic on the network, Davis said.

Davis said HASCS has tentatively limited outbound Napster traffic to one half of a megabit per second, although he stressed that number was not final.

"We will continue to evaluate traffic, and that number will be refined to find a good balance," he said.

Davis would not say how HASCS was limiting network traffic, but a message from FAS Network Operations to the HASCS newsgroup yesterday said HASCS had placed restrictions "limiting the bandwidth of packets matching the signature of the Napster application."

The move came four days after Harvard officially announced that it would not block access to Napster in response to a request by a lawyer representing Dr. Dre and the rock group Metallica.