WTF? Since when does...

Ok so today i came home after a long day at work and i check my mail, i see a letter from my ISP and open it to read that apparently i have been pirating movies and they are threatening to take legal action and bla bla bla.... but long story short they have been notified by warner bros that they are suing me or something and that i can go to jail, pay a fine, or both. I asked my roommate and he says he hasn't downloaded any movies, and we only download music but last i check i dont think warner bros own any cool music i listen too. SO my question is since when do ISP give a shit about what i do online? can they report me for being on this site too or some shit like this? Shit im freaking out right now, i need to and the fuck out, but anyone ever have anything like this?

your ISP is getting shit from the music companies and I imagine they sent letters to everyone that has crossed a certain bandwidth threshold. Call your ISP and ask to see your lease agreement or whatever you had to sign to get internet. They will back down very fast if your "lawyer" calls asking whats going on, get someone that has a lot of common sense to go against the operator, they arent that smart anyways.

when your using their bandwidth to download stuff illegally they can sue you. but most places give a warning first and wont pursue past that if you stop. As for going on this site nope, this is purely entertainment purposes

ya but i mean we use downloads.nl to get our music. That site uses other sites that are free, and we did that like 6 months ago. Plus it says to write a letter back admitting guilt or someshit XD i am going to wipe my ass with it and send it to them. Just worried that they might come into my crib and see my herb

A got an email years ago along those lines. I wouldn't worry about it. If shit does goes down backup and delete anything you took and just blame it on wireless hacking. I would look into using a proxy or encryption or both and or whatnot in the future.

neosapien said:

A got an email years ago along those lines. I wouldn't worry about it. If shit does goes down backup and delete anything you took and just blame it on wireless hacking. I would look into using a proxy or encryption or both and or whatnot in the future.

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my my roomate uses utorrent or something like that the torrents. How do you proxy those cause we tried and cant do it?

I used to work for Time Warner. Those music, movie whatever companies have investigators that log IP addresses of people uploading and downloading files. Those people notify the ISP who are legally required to notify the person who is doing uploading downloading. Sometimes the companies will sue but usually after the downloading uploading continues after the first notification. I am guessing that you have a wireless router with no security and one of the neighborhood kids is stealing your internet to download and upload with. DAMN THAT SUCKS WHEN THAT HAPPENS. So anyways put security on your wireless and let the courts know that some random kid was stealing you internet and all should be ok. especially since you have FIXED the unsecured wireless problem ......

Dr.Drunken said:

I used to work for Time Warner. Those music, movie whatever companies have investigators that log IP addresses of people uploading and downloading files. Those people notify the ISP who are legally required to notify the person who is doing uploading downloading. Sometimes the companies will sue but usually after the downloading uploading continues after the first notification. I am guessing that you have a wireless router with no security and one of the neighborhood kids is stealing your internet to download and upload with. DAMN THAT SUCKS WHEN THAT HAPPENS. So anyways put security on your wireless and let the courts know that some random kid was stealing you internet and all should be ok. especially since you have FIXED the unsecured wireless problem ......

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Well our router does have a password, but sometimes it blinks when were not using it? idk if someone can hack it if they dont have the password, but when he downloads movies or something like that he used like peerblock or something... ya lol nerd words idk if anyone will make sense of this. But that was like 6 months ago like i said, why all of a sudden now?

Yes, it happened to me. They shut off my internet and I had to call the ISP to get it turned back on. I find the cable companies are harder to deal with than the phone companies. Anyway, I had cable at the time, I beleive it was Adelphia, I don't even know if they still exist but long story short, I called up and pretneded I was sharing my internet with people & said that I was sorry and wouldn't allow it to happen again. This was a few years ago, before it was a problem. They turned my internet back on. I haven't been caught again.

There's tutorial all over the web. Look up TOR and privoxy.

RollMeOne420 said:

Well our router does have a password, but sometimes it blinks when were not using it? idk if someone can hack it if they dont have the password, but when he downloads movies or something like that he used like peerblock or something... ya lol nerd words idk if anyone will make sense of this. But that was like 6 months ago like i said, why all of a sudden now?

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Just tell them it was unsecured and then make sure you dont dl stuff anymore. Look up Proxy on Google and you will find one

At the bottom of the letter they sent you it says to send them an email about how you fixed the problem



DO NOT REPLY TO THAT EMAIL


sending an email means you admit to criminally taking private data......DO NOT REPLY

ISPs before being sued are asked to 'act' against you, when threatened. This is usually a warning to cease and desist your activity e.g. stop (I have been in ISP biz for decades).

There are a few steps you can take, first what has the ISP said specifically? (Ask to see the email complaint against you..for clarification).
Like in a car accident always act surprised and never accept responsibility for the act only agree to stop doing it (once you know what they want).
Once you have received the complaint you can send a letter like this ...

Dear ISP,
I am in possession of the copyright complaint against me. As you can tell I have never been notified of this sort of activity before.
I am told that as my wifi connection is not password protected, this may have lead to someone else using something called an IP address ??
I will work to address that, in case that was the culprit

..... this also gives you a get out clause if busted again...

However, on researching this, I note that downloading from some sites for movies and tv shows are legal and supported by the industry (e.g. UK Nova).
How are consumers and of course ISPs supposed to know the difference? I will of course comply as always with all terms and conditions

This may work on a few fronts but there is no guarantee, I am not a lawyer but dealt in stuff like this for decades (and got busted recently myself) someone must have been using my open wifi port (damn thought I fixed that).

Again always keep the tone friendly, to the ISP they are trying to stop being sued themselves, if early enough in the procedure, you should be ok.. Once you send the email to the ISP per above, do not be surprised if they do not respond, as they have done their job by threatening you.

Remember in order of strictness, music, then movies, then software, then tv are the order of aggressiveness in chasing downloaders.
If you do it regularly consider a global VPN (changes your IP address) or just stop.

Hope that helps..

Mrinternet has good points.

But if you claim open router & end up getting sued they will check your computer.


You need to change your DNS and port on your router or else it will be enough evidence for a conviction

ok so how do i go about doing this. And plz dont tell me google cause all there is, is a bunch of BS and loops. I want to know EXACTLY what to do

well

1.) did you set up a port of faster download speeds/ know what port forwarding is?

2) did you change your dns?

no i dont know any of that, i only plug in my computer from my router to pc and then surf the web. and how/what is port forwarding. And how do i change my DNS and for what?

RollMeOne420 said:

no i dont know any of that, i only plug in my computer from my router to pc and then surf the web. and how/what is port forwarding. And how do i change my DNS and for what?

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If you never changed it then it randomly creates one for you so no worries.


well first thing is calm down people get these letters a lot. they do try to sue people but they cant get everyone. 99% chance you will never hear from this again. If you follow a few steps.


1.) delete any program/file with the name of the violated object

2.) uninstall your P2P (limewire, frostwire, utorrent,bittourrent, ect)

3.) lay low and do not download music for a while & especially do not download software & movies


and thats about it. & if you router has no password then you can claim a pirate was using your internet.

Dont be dumb Read reviews on torrents you are considering . a lot of people will tell you if it is being watched VIA they got a letter too from it..

the movie industry send out sleeper agents that let you download them and once you upload it it send all your computers information to a company that files a complaint against your ISP. your ISP is then forced to send you that letter so they dont get sued and the blame falls on you. This is how you got a letter sent to you. someone was using your IP and the sleeper agent recorded it.

Play ignorant and you will get slapped on the wrist.

First off tor is not suitable for use with BT. It compromises your anonymity and hurts the network overall. I2P comes with a bittorrent client (there is also a better bt client for it called Robert) that works over the i2p network. This allows you do download and share files with a reasonable guareentee of anonymity from the other peers and your isp.

This video should explain why tor+bt is a bad idea.
http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=videos/cipherspaces-darknets-an-overview-of-attack-strategies

Second, my advice to pirates is to switch to either filehosts or usenet. With bittorrent anyone can get a handy list of ip addresses by simply contacting the tracker. This evidence can't really be expected to stand up in court, however it is enough to scare ISPs and get people to fork over a couple hundred to avoid a lawsuit. With filehosts or usenet providers they would have to compromise that provider to get IPs and the IPs of early uploaders would be a higher priority then downloaders. VPNs and proxies are a good ideas but remember that they know your ip and can log everything. With tor or i2p then end nodes can see and log everything but they can't see your ip. Nothing is bulletproof but you are going to have to do worse then pirate to get tor/i2p breaking attention. If you are careful you can usually get accounts with the filehosts and usenet providers without comprimising you identity through billing information. Combine with tor or i2p and you should be golden.

https://www.torproject.org/
https://www.i2p2.de/

There are also bittorrent clients that are trying to provide anonymity to downloaders. They are still in the testing phases so don't expect high anonymity with them.

http://www.oneswarm.org/
https://gnunet.org/

The concerns about trojans is just standard security. However I would ask RyanTheRhino provide an example of the movie industry using malware to collect IPs instead of more traditional methods like contacting the tracker for a list of IPs or connecting to the BT network and actually downloading from peers to verify they are sharing the file. I find it highly questionable that such extreme and legally questionable measure would be taken in place of more traditional means of profiling bt users. Infecting video files with executable code is also a non-trivial task IMO. Everything I have seen suggest that cruder methods are still employed to extort quick cash. I also don't see going after individual downloaders as being profitable. These "lawsuits" are quickly becoming a dying problem.

http://www.michaelpiatek.com/papers/piatek_hotsec08.pdf

DMCA Enforcement: At present, DMCA takedown
notices are the principle mechanism used for enforcing
copyright on the Internet in the United States. DMCA
notices are sent to ISPs when monitoring agencies detect
alleged infringement. Separate and less frequently
used mechanisms are actual legal prosecutions and “presettlement”
letters that inform users of plans for prosecution
if a settlement payment is not made. To date, we
have not received any pre-settlement letters as a result of
our experiments.
Takedown notices generally include the date and time
of an observation, metadata for the infringing file, and
the IP address of the infringing host. Network operators
then respond to the complaint, often forwarding it (if possible)
to the user identified by the network information.
A key question for understanding the enforcement process
is: how are infringing users identified? We consider
two options for detection in BitTorrent:
• Indirect detection of infringing users relies on the set
of peers returned by the coordinating tracker only,
treating this list as authoritative as to whether or not
IPs are actually exchanging data within the swarm.
• Direct detection involves connecting to a peer reported
by the tracker and then exchanging data with that peer.
Direct detection has relatively high resource requirements,
a topic we revisit in Section 6.
While direct detection is more conclusive and is the
stated approach for monitoring the Gnutella P2P network
by at least one content enforcement agency [11], we find
that many enforcement agencies instead use indirect detection
when monitoring BitTorrent.

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https://torrentfreak.com/copyright-trolls-unite-to-prevent-downfall-of-bittorrent-lawsuits-111019/

Perhaps the most significant rulings came from Virginia, where District Court Judge John Gibney threw out all but one defendant in various cases filed by lawyer Wayne O’Bryan. The Judge suggested these cases are only setup to extract as much cash from defendants as possible, and that several procedures are broken in the process.

Gibney even went as far as calling the scheme a “shakedown.”

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https://torrentfreak.com/98-of-bittorrent-users-in-copyright-shakedown-filed-in-wrong-jurisdiction-110926/

The suit, at one time the biggest ever of its type, was crippled when District Court Judge Robert Wilkins decided that Nu Image could only go after those individuals who were reasonably likely to be living in the District of Columbia, the district where the suit was filed. In that case, 99% of the IP addresses filed were out of jurisdiction.

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https://torrentfreak.com/the-economics-of-killing-mass-bittorrent-lawsuits-110918/

Why do so many of these lawsuits aggregate thousands of John Does into a single suit? The first answer is often, “More potential victims means more settlements, which means bigger profits.” That is true, but there is an equally important reason for bringing a mass lawsuit. Filing fees. The filing fee in most US District Courts, and indeed the courts where 90% of these cases have been filed, is $350. Every separate case filed costs $350.
...
When judges refuse to allow many BitTorrent users to be joined in a single lawsuit, these cases become much more cost intensive. That is exactly what is happening.

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