[ELECTRON] charges due to excess usage of Electron Club broadband

[Ben Dembroski]

This brings up another important point.

I don't remember who was responsible for setting up the broadband in the
first place, but I'm concerned that whoever it is might be stuck for any
shortfall in the overage fund.  What's the arrangement for the actual
bill paying and whatnot?

I agree with Martin that the most sensible thing to right now is make
sure the connection is secured, and the local machines aren't doing
anything silly.

Once things are stable, we can decide how to proceed.

Many thanks to all who are helping get this sorted.

Best,
Ben D.

On Sun, 2010-12-19 at 21:46 +0000, Martin McGrath wrote:
> I think the previous emails on the subject have suggested various
> potential causes for this bandwidth usage without blaming anyone,
> which you seem to believe is the case.
> 
> From a standpoint of my proposed actions for Tuesday, making sure the
> club computers are clean and fully patched and that the router is as
> secure as possible from a WIFI perspective are prudent in that if the
> systems have been compromised, part of a botnet, seeding something
> they shouldn't be, I can put a stop to that. As suggested changing the
> WIFI encryption to WPA2 and periodically changing the password is also
> wise.
> 
> In the short term, pending time spent on research and potentially
> changing broadband contracts (I'm not even sure if that's on the
> cards) asking the provider to cap the bandwidth is a sensible
> approach, so we don't get stung for another bill. At no point in the
> discussion has it been suggested that such a change would be
> permanent. 
> 
> If anything this has served as a lesson, albeit a costly one.
> 
> Relax
> 
> On 19 December 2010 21:14, Cap'n Smollet
> <smollet at piratepress.doesntexist.org> wrote:
>         Wait, what?
>         
>         We have a club broadband link and you're talking about capping
>         it?
>         People don't have to be technically astute or breaking the law
>         to be
>         bandwidth hungry. I'd wager that watching endless tripe on
>         youtube will
>         generate more traffic than someone technically astute seeding
>         a Linux
>         ISO.
>         
>         We've got users, and a network, do we really want to obsolete
>         the
>         network because everybody can sign in with a smartphone and
>         use some
>         bandwidth? Or do we want to upgrade it so we still have a
>         network to
>         use?
>         
>         I get that the overage charges are a bit pants, but why the
>         hell do we
>         have a contract with overage charges? Why has nobody gone to
>         samknows
>         and figured out which companies can fix the problem?
>         
>         I'm sorry, it sounds a bit like a BOFH blaming users for using
>         the
>         network. What else are they there for? If the network uplink
>         doesn't
>         have the capacity to support the amount of use it's getting,
>         how on
>         earth is that the fault of the users? I didn't get told "This
>         is the
>         Electron Club wireless network, FFS don't use it for anything
>         bandwidth
>         intensive!" Did any other users get told that? If the admin
>         and ops are
>         not telling the users not to click on the video links while
>         they're on
>         facebook over the electron club wifi, then they have no cause
>         to blame
>         the users for using the service.
>         
>         I can chuck a quid in for the overage too, but bloody hell,
>         someone has
>         to deal with the underlying problem so we aren't here again
>         when the
>         next bill comes in.
>         
>         I have mates that get good service from www.bethere.co.uk at a
>         nearby
>         exchange. Please don't make us pay for shit service.
>         
>         
>         
>         _______________________________________________
>         members mailing list
>         members at electronclub.org
>         http://lists.electronclub.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/members
>         
>         Instructions for changing your mailing list settings:
>         http://lists.electronclub.org/emailhowto.html
>         
> 
> _______________________________________________
> members mailing list
> members at electronclub.org
> http://lists.electronclub.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/members
> 
> Instructions for changing your mailing list settings:
> http://lists.electronclub.org/emailhowto.html