RAGE. ANGER.
- April 8, 2008 - 5:02am
There was a letter in the mail recently informing us that someone had illegally downloaded SOCOM for the PS2 using our internet connection, and now everything we do is being monitored. This means all four desktop computers. Urgh.
Upon reading over the information about the download, I see that it occurred in February (it doesn't give a time frame) via BitTorrent and it gives an IP address of the "offending computer." We are to remove the "offending material" and cease all downloading unless authorized (legal websites/internet games/etc) and to do the routine of checking out the wireless router in use.
All of this is well and good except:
A) That IP address belongs to no computer in this house.
B) As this is the case, the game is not here for us to remove.
C) If they could trace the IP address of the offending computer, why didn't they look and see that it wasn't one of the computers here?
D) Why should we be in trouble for something someone else did?
E) How do they expect a poor, unemployed college chick to cover costs for something like this? I don't have anyone to borrow stuff like that from, especially not for something I didn't even bloody do.
The letter pretty much states that we are to be held accountable for this, even if we know no one here did it because the account belongs to us.
Isn't America (and the Sony Corp/whomever else is complaining) wonderful?
(And yes, since this...I have taken the measures to protect everything, but Blah. I'm still annoyed as hell. - I should also mention I figured my brother and father had everything set up properly before this and never really thought about it. :> They "supposedly" knew what they were doing, and I've never had a reason to believe otherwise til now. )
Comments
ɤHoobatsch
Aggro Monkey
a/
If there's more than one machine at your property youre more than likely running nat of some description. Go to www.whatismyip.com and check it out. If its still not your ip, have you rebooted your router since feb. Most ISP's dont issue static mappings to home users. so it still could be you. The closest you can get to findint out in my opinion is using www.samspade.org to check out who the offending ip belongs to. If its your isp, it could have been you. If youre runnning wireless in your house, it still could have been you. by someone wallhacking your network (ridiculously easy to do.)
b/ if a then good. if !a then oh dear. Its possible it was downloaded and burned to disc. Raid bedrooms. Or just dont bother.
c/ as explained in a/ if youre running nat they'll trace it to your network ingress. which will be your router. thats as far as they can go.
d/ You shouldnt. And if you feel aggrieved and youre in a state of a/ then feel free to spam your ISP's abuse email and or report them to your local RIR. (ARIN or APNIC in your case I should think, unless youre british like me in which case its RIPE) Not that they'll do anything, but what the hell, its a laugh and rattles cages at times.
e/ F*ck it. Dont bother doing it. In all honesty, such companies aren't generally out to bust the small man (which is why so many hookie copies of windoze exist in the world) theyre after corporate licencing errors because thats where the money is. Unless they want to make an example, at which point they'll carve you a new one. but youd have a much sterner letter in solicitor ink possibly containing packets of DEATH AND PAIN. or something like that.
In all honesty there's very little reason to get all upset about a threatening letter. as long as youve made sure theres nothing around and you dont batter your bandwidth (No more filthy voip calls to nirach for you missy!) they'll leave you alone. There's no law against halo. and if there was we'd rise up! RISE UP I SAY!
ps. Men think they know lots about anything technical. Often we don't we just fake it to look manly. its a male thing.
/helpful
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ʊchalkley3
I go where I please, and I please where I go
I wouldn't worry, they certainly can't be bothered monitoring your Internet for months, do you know how many of these letters they send out at a time? Thousands.
And as Hoobatsch points out, an email to your ISP is hardly a legal document, so unless they resend it written in blood, who cares.
So yeah, secure your wireless and berate your roommates, but other than that, there isn't a lot you can to do.
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ӝNirach
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Until you get one that's written by a somebody, who cares?
A legal firm in Norway did something similar, and even the Norwegian Consumer Council told the general public to ignore the letters, and suggested that ISP's shitcan them rather than send them to their customers.
If you are running a wireless network, though, get some better security on it, even if it won't stop people hijacking it (No wireless signal is that secure), but it does demonstrate due diligence, since the ignorance plea doesn't tend to work :B
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