Is Using a Live-CD Against College Computer Policies?

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Booting a Live-Linux CD, such as Knoppix, raises concerns regarding compliance with college computer use guidelines, particularly the prohibition against modifying system facilities or circumventing restrictions. The college reserves the right to monitor all network activity, which includes traffic from Live-CD booted machines. While using a Live-CD does not involve writing data to the hard drive and the CD itself is not college property, the institution may still impose restrictions based on its policies. The discussion highlights that Knoppix is primarily composed of open-source software under the GPL, which may mitigate concerns about software licensing. However, there is uncertainty about the college's monitoring practices, with some suggesting that unless a significant incident occurs, the likelihood of being scrutinized is low. Caution is advised against using encryption methods that could attract attention from monitoring systems.
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I've been wondering if booting a Live-Linux CD, i.e. "Knoppix" goes against my college's computer use guidelines.

"k. Users must not attempt to modify system facilities or subvert the restrictions associated with their computer resource."

Furthermore:

"While the *** does not routinely do so, the *** is able
and reserves the right to monitor and / or log all network activity of
users without notice, including all e-mail and Internet communications.
Users should have no reasonable expectation of privacy in the
use of these resources."

Technically, they still have the capability to monitor network traffic coming from a Live-CD booted machine.

I'm not writing data to the hard-drive, and the CD, itself, isn't part of the computer or college property. So *they* don't have the right to impose restrictions on the CD itself, unless the restrictions comply with the GPL.
(All software on Knoppix is under the GPL, or some nondistributable but open-source license).

The college is also *very* serious about software licensing. Since the specific Knoppix distribution I use is open-source and consists of mostly GPL'd software, they have doing to worry about.

It's a vague topic, looking for some input.
 
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I wouldn't worry too much. Unless there is a big incident they won't check their logs. There is just too much data to keep track off. If you try and get fancy by encrypting your internet traffic through a tunnel you'll might call more attention to yourself, if they have an intrusion dection system setup.
 
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