My university is likewise blocking port 4444.

A lot, if not almost all ISPs block port 4444, because the Blaster worm (one of the most prolific ever) uses port 4444 exclusively, so it's an easy way to protect people (not sure if that's from infection, or protecting infected people from having Blaster phone home, but either way).

One example of this being mentioned is http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/krbdev/2003-October/002014.html
"We figure nothing is really going to be using port 4444 anymore since
W32.BLASTER.WORM basically took it over"