Residents of Atherton Hall became some of the first Penn State students to experience the university's new firewall when it was activated in their building at 8 a.m. yesterday.

Intended to protect Penn State's network from malicious codes like worms, viruses and Trojan horses, the firewall will also block peer-to-peer file-sharing programs like Kazaa and prevent students from running servers out of residence hall computers, said Joel Weidner, associate director of information systems for Housing and Food Services.

However, the decision to block Kazaa and similar programs "was intentional," he said, because it will help fulfill Penn State President Graham Spanier's initiative to curb the illegal trading of copyrighted materials.

The firewall will not affect Penn State's Napster program, Weidner added.

Furthermore, according to the university's recently revised policy AD-20 on network security, students are no longer allowed to run servers in residence halls, he said.

"The firewall is intended to stop that from happening," he said.

Firewalls were also activated yesterday in McElwain, McKean and Packer Halls, he said.

The Office of Housing warned students of the firewall's activation via e-mail Wednesday afternoon, said Atherton resident Michael Young (senior-computer science).

Many students, particularly those studying computer-related fields, say the firewall will be an inconvenience to them.

In the past, Young, a Linux user, said he used a server called a Secure Shell Host to upload files to his Web space. This allowed him to work on large files for classes in a computer lab and then access them from his personal computer, and vice versa.

"Now I won't be able to do that" because of the firewall, he said.

Weidner said there are alternatives for running servers and sharing files. The U:/ drive, 100 megabytes of network space on which students can store data, is one possibility, but Young said it takes more time and effort.

"It is so cumbersome and inefficient," he said. "It's another hassle, another level of hindrance."

Other Secure Shell Host users say they will face the same problems.

"I see a big problem with getting my work done," Linux Users Group President William Enck (senior-computer engineering) said. "I'm going to have to walk all the way across campus to get files on my computer. Then if I need to work on them in the
computer lab, I'll have to walk all the way back."

Many students in computer-related majors work in labs in the new Information Sciences and Technology Building, which will be especially inconvenient for residents of Atherton Hall who need to make that kind of round trip to work on projects, he added.

"I see more problems it's going to create than it will solve," he said.

Even more frustrating is the fact that firewalls can be programmed selectively to block potentially hazardous activities, like spam e-mail messages and viruses, while allowing safe ones, Young said.

"Instead of just stopping known issues, they are blocking every port," he said. "It's like using a sledgehammer instead of a flyswatter."

Weidner said the university could have decided to selectively block ports, but chose to block them all because of policy.

The new firewall will have a lot of implications, Linux Users Group member Tom Keiser (junior-computer
science and electrical engineering) said.

"We will lose a lot of productivity and flexibility in how we use our computing resources," he said. "Then what's the point of having a residence hall server at all?"

Some students are already looking for ways to circumvent the firewall, such as using AOL Instant Messenger to transfer files, he said.

"There is already a backlash against it," he said.