Traffic among the computers on the networks of the different Harvard schools would not be placed under the firewall.

UC President Paul A. Gusmorino '01, who attended yesterday's meeting, said that he was on the whole pleased with the propsed changes to the network.

"A no-questions-asked exemption policy seems like the best way to handle network congestion without infringing on students intellectual freedom and exploration," he said.

Students present at yesterday's meeting questioned both the fairness and the effectiveness of the propsed firewall system. One frequently voiced concern was that HASCS should increase network bandwidth, or the size of the pipe through which all network information travels.

Ouchark said that increasing bandwidth is a possibility but that it does not provide a long-range solution, as traffic is bound to increase more and more every year.

And the current traffic shaping policy, which limits outbound network traffic to 10 percent of bandwidth, is similarly not a permanent solution because of the difficulties involved in setting a specific amount of traffic that can flow in the outbound direction. A fixed limit does not account for changes in the total traffic.

HASCS is currently testing the firewall strategy on the computers of several student volunteers.