Mikey is finishing his illegal download of the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, at his college campus, when the campus police and Feds bust in, handcuffs out. "We have been watching your Internet activity for the past five months," one police officer says. "We know you have been streaming movies and downloading music illegally. You're under arrest."

This is of course, a hypothetical situation. While some college campuses may handle unruly Internet activity with great force, EvCC is more relaxed with their policies; but don't underestimate their power.

Illegal activity really only harms yourself. "We're all adults here on campus. Everyone knows what they can and cannot do. Illegal activity is a waste of the given bandwidth," Mike Klim, the director of information technology, said.

When bandwidth is sacrificed because a student or faculty member needs to stream some sort of media, the Internet and network response greatly slows down, which creates speed issues for everyone else on campus. The hope that EvCC has is that students and faculty members alike will realize that though there is no restraint on what can and cannot be accessed, students will realize that illegal activity is not tolerated and harms those around you.

"We have very fast Internet here. Peer-to-peer sharing is not allowed, though tempting," said Fred Gilbert, an instruction and classroom support technician.

No major problems concerning illegal activity on campus have been reported, though if it became an issue there is a disciplinary process that the student would go through.

"There would first be a verbal warning just asking the student not to do what is causing the Internet to slow down," Klim said. "If someone brought it to our attention that there was a problem with that same person, it would become an academic issue. The dean would be consulted at that point."

In order to find out what specific student or faculty member is conducting said illegal downloads, Instruction Technology (IT) personnel would then be forced to go into said persons history, if there is due cause. This can be done by tracing the unique IP address that all computers have. Though there is a check and balance system, if such actions are ever necessary, IT personnel can track when you were on a computer, how long, what sites you visited and in some cases, what you actually saw. EvCC only views this as a process done in severe cases that include activity that is specifically deemed illegal.

"I wouldn't want to be obstructionist or invade your personal privacy," Klim said.

No alarms go off when a person on campus downloads something illegal. IT personnel are not the Internet police. IT finds out about illegal use of campus computers by the reports or suspicions of others. When a possible issue is reported, IT will investigate by looking at graphs that track the bandwidth usage. If the use is tremendously spiked, then IT has the power to investigate the specific computer and user who is causing the network to slow down. Your privacy as a student or faculty member on campus is important to those who can view what you do on campus computers. Everything done on the Internet, however, is traceable.

"It's important to know that big brother isn't watching you, but big brother can watch you," Klim said.