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February 22, 2005
Calling all Law Students - A Quick Survey
I'm just curious (I'm having issues with my school's computing support). How many of your schools offer:
1. Wired network access in the classroom?
2. Wireless network access?
3. If they offer wireless network access, how do you authenticate? (If you know.)
Thanks!
Posted by Dave!
11 Comments
My school has wireless everywhere in the building. They're currently looking at extending the access to some patio areas, as well. By default, the school allows everyone access to all websites that are *.lawschool.edu as soon as you connect (no WEP or anything). When you try to access an outside website, it redirects you to an authentication web page. You log in there, then you have unlimited access. It redirects to the original page that you requested. None of the Mac users have any problems at all.
We've got wired ethernet ports for every seat in every classroom and in every spot in the library.
Our wireless works in the entire building and outside -- I use a Mac and it works great. Windows kids have to use login software, but for OSX we just have to set up the passkey once and that's it.
We've got wireless in the library and a separate study annex. The library wireless just barely reaches out into the plaza.
Our large lecture halls have wired and power at every seat.
We've just gotten wireless in some of the previously non-wired classrooms.
The only rule regarding support is that they say they won't support you unless you've got at least some sort of virus protection. They're willing to work to get your systems going, but I assume that they don't know much Linux. They probably know a lot of Netware, though.
Anyway, they use static WEP for encryption, no authentication. In theory they are authenticating our registered MAC addresses, but I've had no problem getting online with other cards and computers.
Georgetown: wired ports at most seats. Wireless everywhere, with a WEP key on a web page requiring login.
At Ohio State, we've got building-wide wireless access that extends a decent range outside of the building. They support pretty much anything, as long as you keep current on Windows updates and virus software. Also, you have to fill out a form to register your MAC address, and then they enter you into the system. You can't access it if you're not registered.
Maryland Law doesn't have it, but my friends there tell me it's because, since it's in the middle of downtown Baltimore, people could easily 'steal' the school's wireless from the various buildings surrounding it's small campus, and no one wants to deal with that.
GW has wireless access pretty much schoolwide, but they have created "zones" that can be turned on or off so professors can decide whether to allow wireless acess in their classrooms. (Some people seem to be able to defeat this and can still get online in "dark" classrooms but I don't know how they do it and I've never cared enough to figure it out.) There are still a few wired (ethernet) access points in the basement of the library, but that's about it.
GW uses "leap" authentication to connect to the network, Vernier Secured Login screen to access the web. They used to use a stupid java applet (watchguard) that never worked, but this new verneir thing seems much better.
The Vernier thing doesn't work automatically w/Safari on the mac, but it works fine w/Explorer and I think Firefox. It's one of those things where, once you're connected to the network, you try to visit any webpage and you get redirected to the login page. For some reason, the redirect doesn't work in Safari so you just get a "can't access that address" error. This happens all the time (i.e. in airports) -- something screwy w/Safari, I guess. The solution is to load a page in Explorer (or Firefox, but these things seem to be designed specifically w/Explorer in mind -- shock!) then copy the redirect URL from the address bar. Paste that into Safari, make it a bookmark, and you're set. Next time you want to access the web, you just hit that bookmark in your browser and you'll go straight to the login page.
I give you all this detail b/c if you're using a mac on your school's network and it's like ours (or like that you find at many airports and coffee shops), the problem is not that it doesn't work w/the mac, only that you have to find a bit of a workaround.
GW has an official "windows-only" policy, which means the school refuses to provide any technical support whatsoever if you're running anything other than windows. Last I checked (last year) they used the Pharos print server system to allow people to print to network printers but they had it set up so that you couldn't access the printers via a mac.
So what's the situation there? How can you make a wireless network windows-only? Or is the problem something else?
1. Wired and power at every seat in the large and medium classrooms.
2. Wireless in almost the entire building.
3. Dunno. I had to take my laptop to our tech support people, they took about 1 min to setup an icon on which I click and enter my password to have access to the wireless - is that what you mean?
I love this technology and am so glad I am in law school now instead of 3 years ago or longer - we are in a brand new building and it's awesome.
BU has wireless service across most of the campus, and throughout most of the law school. We authenticate with a Cisco VPN client. Macs get to authenticate too - I imagine they use the same client although I don't know for certain.
Wireless access in law school? Ethernet ports at every desk? What's that? If you are a U of New Mexico law student, you have no idea those things exist.
at Northeastern, we just got wireless this winter. it's in the student lounge and the library. they specifically designed it so we wouldn't have it in classrooms, although a few are close enough to the lounge that they leech it from there.
as far as i know, there is no authentication. that's dumb of them, but it wouldn't be the first dumb thing the school's IT people did.