Does the policy about separate connections really apply when it’s my own personal laptop? It’s not as if I’m trying to connect UCT-owned machines directly to the Net, nor am I trying to use UCT telephone lines for dialup or DSL. In fact, by using (and paying for) my own wireless broadband I’m removing traffic that would otherwise be travelling on the UCT network.

Or is it a virus/malware concern? In that case, well, I’m running Linux so it shouldn’t be a problem.

Anyway, as you say, the rule is quite unenforceable. So, for the record, this whole post is purely hypothetical and any resemblance to real life is accidental.

192.48.253.0/24 is one of two IPv4 blocks that used to belong to UCT but have been transferred to TENET. The reason why the AfriNIC database still shows the block belonging to UCT is because TENET hasn’t updated it (they don’t seem interested in doing it either – chances are they still have a year-or-so-old open ticket for this in their RT).

UCT has 3 remaining IPv4 blocks, of which two are routed on the Internet: 137.158.0.0/16 and 196.24.192.0/18.

I can suggest a simpler solution for the second problem with your script: Change it to check if your Ethernet interface has a UCT IP address configured before it mangles your routes, and then move it into /etc/ppp/ip-up.d

Finally, note that connecting any host on the UCT LAN to the Internet directly (like, say, via an ADSL line) is not permitted by university policies. Of course, the problem of enforcing this policy with wireless broadband modems has no general solution (known to me).

Regards,
Simeon