on Today (~8:34 AM) we had a power outage.
Manual intervention was required, the dorms were back online around 09:03 AM.
Update: The outage also particularly affected a switch only relevant for the dorms in Pestalozzistraße 41 – since 4:10 PM this also is fixed, and everything should work again.
on On Friday, the working group, along with its new members, will visit our technology in the dorms in Hohenheim. We expect to arrive at Egilofstraße around 5 PM and from there, we will visit Welfenstraße and Schwerzstraße. Whether a short tour of the campus or a visit to our dorms at Chausseefeld is possible will be decided spontaneously.
If you would like to meet us, keep an eye out for a group of nerds – it’s safer to let us know in advance using the contact form (Join Us).
The reason for the tour is our new members from Tübingen and our first interested person from Hohenheim! Besides getting to know the locations, we hope to gain insights into the needs of the dorms, which we often view as “outlying areas.”
on Another move-in wave is over, and it’s time to share some statistics so the blog isn’t just about network outages.
All emails were answered by hand, and as quickly as possible.
on 
From August 29 to September 1, 2024, SNT 2024 took place in Chemnitz. Unfortunately, the Netz-AK was represented by only one person, but they were able to bring back new ideas for our work. Networks from all over Europe participated, including AG DSN, Selfnet, StuStaNet, and many others.
A big thank you to the organizers from Chemnitzer StudentenNetz (CSN) for this successful event!
on On July 6, 2024, the Tübingen Digital Freedom Day, organized by Chaostreff Tübingen, will take place. This event features workshops and talks on ethics, politics, creativity, data protection, sustainability, and artificial intelligence. Its goal is to promote self-determination and digital literacy. The event is open to everyone and will be held at the Westspitze in Tübingen. For more information and participation details, visit the event website.
on 
Imagine you’re living in a student dorm that has had fiber optic since 1974. And then, in 2024, you suddenly get an advertisement for the “soon arrival of fiber optic” in your mailbox.
Great!
If everything goes well, by this year, every room will be equipped with a synchronous gigabit connection, meaning 1,000 megabits of both upload and download.
That’s at least our goal for the 20th anniversary of our Network Work-group
on In rare cases, we must temporarily block certain connections to protect our network. This is done because of what are called abuse reports, which indicate that abusive activities might be happening from a connection. We receive this report from the BelWü-CSIRT (Computer Security Incident Response Team), and our task is to stop the abuse with appropriate actions, which we do by turning off the connection of the room.
In short, an abuse report is triggered when suspicious or unusual activities are observed coming from an internet connection. This could be, for example, sending spam emails or unauthorized attempts to access other computers. Often, you may not be aware of this behavior because it is usually caused by viruses or other malicious software that has secretly installed itself on one of the devices in the network.
We want to emphasize that such a blocking is in no way meant as a blame towards the affected users. In most cases, you are victims of malicious software acting without your knowledge. Our priority is to quickly identify and solve the problem to prevent further damage.
The fastest and most effective way to inform you about a possible security issue is by temporarily turning off the connection. This measure immediately attracts attention and prompts most users to contact us right away. This way, we can address the problem together as quickly as possible.
Please note that we are also available on weekends and outside regular working hours. If your internet connection unexpectedly stops working, do not hesitate to contact us. We are ready to analyze the problem and offer you steps to solve it. Together, we can ensure that your connection is quickly safe and fully functional again.
The security and reliability of our network are very important to us. Through proactive measures like these, we want not only to ward off potential threats but also to raise awareness of the importance of network security. We thank you for your understanding and cooperation in keeping our shared digital environment safe.
If you have any questions or concerns, we are always here for you.
on 
In Geislingen, Sigmaringen, and Albstadt, we have installed Gigabit switches for quite some time. It was more of a coincidence that these places were equipped with Gigabit internet before Tübingen and Hohenheim.
We have just checked how many residents of the dormitories actually use the offered Gigabit internet.
The results are somewhat sobering: In Albstadt, 53% of the residents use the Gigabit internet, in Sigmaringen it’s 33%, and in Geislingen only 25%.
This raises the question of whether we have not informed well enough that Gigabit can be used with the right router, or whether the residents simply do not need such high internet speed.
on Since we have some time, we would like to provide a brief review of the admissions wave for the winter semester of 2023/2024.
The wave of admissions can also be clearly seen in the volume of emails.
All emails were answered manually and in the shortest possible time.
I will write a separate article about the most notable routers of this admissions wave.
on Next Saturday and Sunday, we finally have the long-awaited network restructuring happening.
These changes are necessary to improve the performance and reliability of our network.
To minimise the impact on you, we’ve planned to carry out the restructuring early in the day. During these times, there are usually fewer users online, which should reduce any inconvenience.
The scheduled offline periods will each last about an hour. We understand that this may be a bit inconvenient temporarily, but we are confident that the long-term benefits will outweigh any short-term inconveniences.
We appreciate your understanding in advance.
Yesterday, Malte worked until 11:30 PM, and Lucas until 1:00 AM, preparing and configuring.
The implementation of network changes started this morning at 10:00 AM and resulted in a longer network interruption across the entire network (student housing and dormitories) at 10:30 AM.
The interruption lasted from 11:30 AM to 2:00 PM and then from 2:30 PM to 3:30 PM. The work was completed by 3:30 PM, and the last device came back online at 4:00 PM.
During the cleanup following the work, no further outages are expected.
Whether work will be needed again on Sunday depends on whether disruptions are reported to us or if we discover issues that are not functioning as desired.