Today i received a letter from my ISP...

Today someone came to my door, just a dude from the isp delivering a letter, he was kind of freaked out so i thought it was something bad, he said "please read this letter and let me know what do you think about it", and he was about to go but i opened the letter and read it there so he waited, then i asked about that and he said he really didn't knew but that i should do as the letter says , the letter is from the isp, and obviously he works there, at the end he says please sign this and here's my email and phone number, and it turns out he is something like one of the owners of the isp, i look out on the street and see a cool fancy new car outside so i guess this guy is loaded, so, what is he doing delivering letters in person instead of sending some worker bee?

And the letter said something about Sony Pictures Entertainment [SPE] contacting them because i supposedly was distributing non authorized content of "Terminator Salvation" by using a peer to peer service.

In the letter they ask for immediate termination of the distribution of the non-authorized content or they will terminate my connection.

Also, the letter says, SPE reserves the right to sue me if they so wish or something on that line.

So, wth? i come inside and after the guy saying there's no problem at all and this is just a warning and you just stop doing that and nothing will happen, but seriously wth, so i come inside and start thinking about how this is happening, then i remember, i brought home my brother's computer two days ago for repairs, so i go and check what's going on with that pc and there it is, a bit torrent client running on the systray, cool! i remove all the shared stuff and close the client, there were a few more things there, i wonder if i will get other letters later on?

So now i'm screwed? or maybe not, but that line about they reserving the right to sue is not really to my liking.

Also, are they really monitoring every net connection so they know what we are up to? they know everything we do online with help from the isp, at least that's obvious to me now, but is this legal? if this is going on, then i guess they also know i am on this site right now, and maybe they also can spy on my email and everything i do while online?

At least from this i get, i don't have any privacy while i am online, at least not with this isp, by the way, i am located in Mexico right now, and the letter of course came in spanish, but i am guessing its the same as in the US or other countries, i will have to go and talk to my lawyer about this.

Yeah i know this is their lines and i am just buying access to them, but do they really have the right to spy on everything i do online? i mean, how do i know they are not also spying on my email, my online chats, web sites i visit, clients i talk to, business i do, online bank transactions? i can't trust this anymore.

Time to go look for another isp...

Huh? Isp owners hand delivers cease and desist letters? You should have took his picture, got his name and identification, are you sure you were just served a subpoena by a court employee? Maybe you can block out your personal info and scan us the letter, btw what ISP is this?

reply to post by Kaifan


Try encrypting your torrent traffic

[SNIP]



Mod Edit: Removed illegal link.

[edit on 10-6-2009 by Gemwolf]

Yhea that sucks... Remember if things start getting rocky you can always vote with your feet and change ISP, but you may of been tagged for life pal!

It wont help you so fat as bit torrents go, well because you can't use a lot of bandwidth - but have a read about Tor (anonymity network)... It's onion routing and should provide a good level of anonymity while using the internet... No sharing films though! It's maintained by volunteers sharing their own bandwidth and it's very interesting.

Slapped wrists for film sharing! - the old T 1000 units have been reformed into anti piracy killing squads

They are monitoring Bit torrent like this.

When you run it, it auto uploads as you download because that's how it works.

The sucky part is that bit torrent shoes everyone IP address. So all they have to do is download it off bit torrent and check all the IP addresses uploading it then send out emails to ISP providers and apparently paperwork now to get the info of who owns the IP address.

The way it has been going in court you pretty much would be considered guilty however if they can't find it on your machine assuming they confiscate it, it becomes a real mess. Usually the uneducated judge just rules in favor of the plaintiff with the RIAA cases.

However the movie downloads are going after the ISP providers as they said they would in the past not individual users. So chances are your in the clear as of now. If it was me I wouldn't have signed anything especially if it said they could sue me in the future.

However if you have a wireless router attached to your system you could have a very solid defense as long as there was 0 trace of the movie on the hard drive after they examine it.

Edit: I should add that deleting the file and even wiping the file still leaves traces of it on the computer. Delete does because the file is still there delete just erases the file name so the computer knows it's OK to write new information over the deleted file. Wiping it is suppose to take care of that but depending on temp and cache files/folders there still may be traces in those locations.

[edit on 9-6-2009 by Darthorious]

reply to post by Darthorious


zero trace of the movie on the harddrive....

makes me laugh because technology is beyond that now.

Even if they took a PC and examined it, they would find no evidence of movies being on the machine because the data can be automatically stored on external media as it is downloaded.

So let's say you have a laptop and you download a movie. In your torrent config you set it to save files to a remote/external storage device. When it's done downloading just make sure to set the storage location to default. Now no trace?

I am way dumb about this uploading and downloading. I do go to many of the free sites and watch movies, but so far have been afraid to download any of them. I am also really confused about what a torrent is. I have gone to a few sites to view movies but it looks like you must download the thing and I am hesitant to download that stuff.

We don't have anything but the illusion of privacy anymore.

Originally posted by warrenb
reply to post by Darthorious

 

zero trace of the movie on the harddrive....

makes me laugh because technology is beyond that now.

Even if they took a PC and examined it, they would find no evidence of movies being on the machine because the data can be automatically stored on external media as it is downloaded.

So let's say you have a laptop and you download a movie. In your torrent config you set it to save files to a remote/external storage device. When it's done downloading just make sure to set the storage location to default. Now no trace?

No you still have temp and cache files to deal with all of those would have to be wiped. It is stored on a temp file on the computer itself depending on the setup and transfers the temp file to the external in chunks unless something changed I'm unaware of.

Originally posted by worldwatcher
Huh? Isp owners hand delivers cease and desist letters? You should have took his picture, got his name and identification, are you sure you were just served a subpoena by a court employee? Maybe you can block out your personal info and scan us the letter, btw what ISP is this?

Yeah, the letter has the isp logo and it is signed by this guy who seems to be a general manager or something like that, the letter specifies that i have to terminate the distribution of the movie or they will end my isp contract, but this is just from them, Sony may or may not sue me, that's up to them, this came just from the isp so i guess they are trying to move out of the way before anything else happens?

Since i am in Mexico, the letter came in Spanish so i am not sure if is any good to scan it and post it here, but if you understand Spanish i can do it if you like.

This is a Mexican ISP named TVRey, i don't know if they are part of a bigger isp or if they work on their own, will try to do some searches about that, but right now i don't feel trust with this connection, i guess they really are monitoring all my online activity and the same goes for the rest of their clients?


warrenb:

I don't use peer to peer clients anymore, the last thing i would do with them is to download movies, i like to go to the theater and see the movie there, i am not into peer to peer stuff but i use to download anime and other stuff i could not find anywhere else, never had a problem until i came here to this city

I am traveling around since 9 months ago and have been here for about two months now, and this is just incredible, i may get sued because i connected someone else's pc to my network and it had a bit torrent client!

I am a fan of Megaupload, Rapidshare, and more recently Megashares.

Freaky that guy showed up at your house, and driving a nice car is even more suspicious to me.

I wonder if it was some sort of intimidation tactic, or if he just needed something to do.

If I was you I would just burn the hard disk, you can never be to careful, especially if it is an old IDE cheapo.

reply to post by Kaifan


As long as it was someone else there shouldn't be a problem in the end because you will have no trace on it on your computer.

My sister-in-law got a similar letter for downloading/uploading music by her ISP said about the same thing and nothing ever came of it so I doubt you have anything to worry about so long as you tell them what happened if you did go to court.

Hey I have a really great idea that should fix your problem. Don't steal things and then pass STOLEN material around. It's called pirating, not file sharing. That's just a term you pirates use to justify what you are doing.

I don't know what you do for a living but imagine there was a way someone could obtaining it without paying for it? So how do you get paid? You don't. And I'm not talking about the artists or actors not getting paid. It's the the distribution companies who don't get paid.

If you want it, pay for it. Stealing is wrong. Stealing by any other name is still stealing.

Before you ask, YES I have original copies of every music, movie or software disc I own.

reply to post by Kaifan


I think you should appreciate somoene from your isp coming and giving you the news directly. The isp has to follow through with these matters if the courts give them direction to do so. It is not their fault all of this happened.

Yeah same thing happened to me too. Except my letters came in the mail. Not personally delivered! I can't belive that.

I got nailed for downloading...(I can't even remember now) but they were movies that were still in the theatres at the time.

The letter was from some company based in California I think, saying that if I don't delete the ill-gotten material...blah...blah...blah...will take legal action...bleh...I'm in Canada by the way. What are they gonna do? Have me extradited?

I still download all kinds of stuff and nothings ever happened. I guess that's why the MAFIAA is after us evil pirating Canucks!

Filed those letters under G.

Originally posted by ratcals
Hey I have a really great idea that should fix your problem. Don't steal things and then pass STOLEN material around. It's called pirating, not file sharing. That's just a term you pirates use to justify what you are doing.

I don't know what you do for a living but imagine there was a way someone could obtaining it without paying for it? So how do you get paid? You don't. And I'm not talking about the artists or actors not getting paid. It's the the distribution companies who don't get paid.

If you want it, pay for it. Stealing is wrong. Stealing by any other name is still stealing.

Before you ask, YES I have original copies of every music, movie or software disc I own.

Just in case you haven't read my posts, i don't do p2p stuff, i don't have any use for it, and from the way you talk, it seems you are full of hate, why?

That's just a term you pirates use to justify what you are doing

From the way you think, i am guilty and must be punished even if i didn't do it, it doesn't matter, you are quick to judge and plain wrong, also, is people like you who always end up being the ones who actually do the wrong stuff, i can see that by the way you have criticized me here

I like to see movies on the theater, i don't buy dvds or watch movies on TV, i don't even own a TV right now.

And yes, i also like to buy music cds or from itunes when i don't need the entire cd.

I work as a software developer and i would not like my work to be pirated so i understand that and i like to buy the stuff i use, if i can't get enough money to buy something i want, i save some more until i can buy it, that's how i like things.

I connected someone else's pc to my network and it had a p2p client installed, i didn't check which software was installed or running on that computer, but from their point of view, this is my home and connection so it came from me, not who ever owns that pc.

And yeah, i think the ISP guy came here on its own just to prevent things going worst, but they also are spying on their users and that's not good, there are tons of ways someone may hijack your pc and use it for illegal stuff and then you won't be able to say a thing because if the isp is spying on you and they see this and report it, you are to blame, not someone else and you won't be able to prove otherwise.

And as someone else pointed out, is almost 100% certain that any non-educated judge will fall on the side of the big company not the small guy.

Originally posted by grapesofraft
reply to post by Kaifan

 

I think you should appreciate somoene from your isp coming and giving you the news directly. The isp has to follow through with these matters if the courts give them direction to do so. It is not their fault all of this happened.

Yeah, that dude was actually kind of nice and educated, i am not saying its their fault, but what i am getting at is, we are being watched and they are collaborating. I have friends who own big movie collections all downloaded with p2p clients, their ISPs have never complained about that and i guess it is because they are not monitoring what their users do, and for this to happen in two/three days at max makes me wonder.

One thing is, i should have made sure nothing was wrong with the pcs on my network and this would have never happened.

Another thing is, even if i don't do anything wrong, they are watching whatever i am doing? this may not be entirely true since their scope may just be p2p stuff, but i don't know that.

Anything sent via computer is considered public domain, if you don't want to share it with the public then don't put it into your computer and send it somewhere...

reply to post by ratcals


You're right. I repent all my evil pirating ways.

If people don't stop file sharing P.Diddy and Jay-Z can't drink $1000 bottles of champagne and stuff $100 bills down stippers thongs!

God forbid!

[edit on 9-6-2009 by kommunist]

Originally posted by Kaifan

Just in case you haven't read my posts, i don't do p2p stuff, i don't have any use for it, and from the way you talk, it seems you are full of hate, why?

Okay so my reply was misdirected at you when it should have been to your brother.

Originally posted by Kaifan
From the way you think, i am guilty and must be punished even if i didn't do it, it doesn't matter, you are quick to judge and plain wrong, also, is people like you who always end up being the ones who actually do the wrong stuff, i can see that by the way you have criticized me here

That is a completely unfounded statement. How can my criticizing possibly imply my guilt?

Originally posted by Kaifan
I work as a software developer and i would not like my work to be pirated so i understand that and i like to buy the stuff i use, if i can't get enough money to buy something i want, i save some more until i can buy it, that's how i like things.

I connected someone else's pc to my network and it had a p2p client installed, i didn't check which software was installed or running on that computer, but from their point of view, this is my home and connection so it came from me, not who ever owns that pc.

I'd be kicking my brother's @ss.

reply to post by kommunist


The artists are paid long before the material is released. Stealing their music has no affect on their salary.