<p>Can colleges check my internet history if I use a personal computer? As in checking it without touching my computer since I will be connected to their network.</p>
<p>ummm i know that at the U of MN (Twin Cities) the can monitor your activity…if they wanted…lol.</p>
<p>Yes, they absolutely can. Whether they actually do or not depends on the institution. Check your student catalogue and see if there’s any policy on network usage at your school. </p>
<p>Unless you’re using your computer to commit a crime, why worry about it?</p>
<p>They are probably able to tell the IP address you’re connecting to, and the mode of transfer, but other than that, no. For instance, they might be able to see you’re connecting to College confidential, but not what threads you’re viewing, any of the content, or anything like that.</p>
<p>However, I don’t see any reason why a college would do that.</p>
<p>Don’t worry, you can watch porn just fine. 
</p>
<p>I would assume they could, especially since you’re using their network. If you know enough about all that tech jazz, you can do just about anything.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure they can. I know when I stayed at Brown for the summer they would know if we downloaded music illegally and told us this at the beginning of the summer.</p>
<p>^ Yeah my cousin totally got busted for that at Princeton XD.</p>
<p>“I’m pretty sure they can. I know when I stayed at Brown for the summer they would know if we downloaded music illegally and told us this at the beginning of the summer.”</p>
<p>No way, they’re lying. They may be able to see the protocol used and know that it’s typically associated with file sharing, but they have no way to know what is being downloaded.</p>
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Without touching your computer, all they can see is your current internet traffic and any traffic they might have recorded on their end. They would need access to your computer to check the history of your off-campus internet use. And, as QwertyKey said, they can’t tell what you’re downloading through a P2P network.</p>
<p>If they do have access to your computer (not that they would), then you could always boot into Linux on a flash drive if you want to save your work but still eliminate every trace of what you’ve been doing.</p>
<p>I got busted for “pirating” a game on my school’s internet, so yeah, they can monitor your activity. (I later had the warning taken off my account by proving i’d paid 60 bucks for mw2, and that it was available for online download. It’s great that they aren’t intelligent enough to use the technology they have available.)</p>
<p>watching porn is natural… don’t worry about it :)</p>
<p>
This was probably based on the size of the file you downloaded, ie your bandwith usage.</p>
<p>They won’t be able to see what you’re downloading, or what web sites you’ve visited, etc. without doing a substantial amount of digging. In other words, you don’t have to worry about them knowing your browsing history and internet activity such.</p>
<p>Thanks for the assurance, DCHurricane. I was worried I wasn’t gonna get any action these next 4 years at Berkland.</p>
<p>“I got busted for “pirating” a game on my school’s internet, so yeah, they can monitor your activity.”</p>
<p>Not possible. Either you downloaded from some monitored public torrent without blocking bad IPs and a complaint of copyright infringement was made against you by the publisher, or someone you know complained to the school, they checked your traffic, and saw some large transfer in some popular file sharing protocol, and accused you of it, and you admitted. The latter is more likely. </p>
<p>There is no way for them to see what you are downloading.</p>
<p>Not only are they able to, but it’s extremely easy to. In fact, some internet activities like torrenting will show up immediately on their radar without even needing to check your history.</p>
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<p>They can’t know for sure, but they can get a pretty reasonable guess. Torrenting uses up a lot of bandwidth, moreso than almost any internet activity I can think of. I’m pretty sure most universities are on the lookout for torrents, and it’s not hard to look through your history, see what sites you’ve been do, and extrapolate from there what you’re downloading (if, for example, one recent site you went to was the DL page of a torrent tracker on The Pirate Bay for GTA IV cracked, you’re probably downloading GTA IV cracked).</p>
<p>As long as you’re not doing P2P or downloading anything illegal, you should be fine.</p>
<p>“They can’t know for sure, but they can get a pretty reasonable guess. Torrenting uses up a lot of bandwidth, moreso than almost any internet activity I can think of. I’m pretty sure most universities are on the lookout for torrents, and it’s not hard to look through your history, see what sites you’ve been do, and extrapolate from there what you’re downloading (if, for example, one recent site you went to was the DL page of a torrent tracker on The Pirate Bay for GTA IV cracked, you’re probably downloading GTA IV cracked).”</p>
<p>They can’t tell what page you’re going onto, just what IP address (for instance, they might see know Pirate Bay, but not what pages). Even so, they could never prove that you downloaded whatever they claim you downloaded without either having your computer or a complaint against you. Sure they can make a guess, but it’s just a guess. If they accuse you of something and you deny it (whether it’s true or not) that’s it, it’s done. </p>
<p>For those whose colleges have rules against P2P or against BitTorrent protocol, you can get a VPN (probably find something for $70-100 a year) to tunnel traffic through. That way they won’t be able to tell the IP or protocol. They might have rules about the amount of traffic which you can’t get around anyway that I know of, but other than that there’s nothing they can do. </p>
<p>The colleges feed off of fear, they figure they can accuse people of things without proof and that people will be scared and admit to it.</p>
<p>The client computer doesn’t send any traffic to the torrent tracker when the pieces of the file are being downloaded, right? I think you could just download the torrent file through Tor (it would only take a few extra seconds) and then be completely safe even from any guesses as to where your files come from.</p>
<p>Dude, lay off on the porn</p>