Charter Communications

[Danical]

I just got a snail mail from Charter saying that a copywrite owner has informed Charter that my internet accout has been involved in the exchange of unauthorized copies of copyrighted material.

My area (San Luis Obispo) has been chosen to be monitored by Charter but I've already signed the agreement not to be tracked.

Has this happened to anyone else?

What are my options to get around this?

How are they getting this information?

I deleted the infringing files but . . . wtf?

[Back]

Looks like phishing to me.

Ignore it.

[Ashliana]

These are pretty common. It doesn't have anything to do with monitoring or agreements..

If a content provider or representative thereof hops on a torrent, sees your IP attempting to send them bits of the infringing material-they do an IP whois lookup, send a note to the ISP saying "IP address X.X.X.X. was downloading our material. Cease and desist," part of the mechanism the Digital Millenium Copyright Act created.

They don't know your identity/etc. Generally ISPs will disable your access temporarily (at least, Cox/Comcast do) until you either claim you have deleted the files (they do not know) or sign a counter-statement saying "I have not violated copyright."

If you sign the counter-statement, I'm pretty sure they hand it back over to the company filing the C&D order and they get your personal info/etc, and they can choose whether or not to pursue the matter in court.

However, note that most ISPs will simply disable your account if an account gets too many of these requests--legitimate or not. It's a growing issue.

[Bobmuhthol]

<<Looks like phishing to me.

Ignore it.>>

This is the stupidest idea ever.

It's pretty much the owner of the software using torrents and picking up IP addresses. It sucks, and it has happened to people I know.

[Back]

<<Looks like phishing to me.

Ignore it.>>

This is the stupidest idea ever.

It's pretty much the owner of the software using torrents and picking up IP addresses. It sucks, and it has happened to people I know.

It may not be a phisher, but you should never give phishers your info.

[Bobmuhthol]

There's no info being given, it's his cable provider telling him to knock it off.

[Makkah]

I say keep doing it to your fullest capacity. Then again, I hope you get thrown in prison and get ass-raped.

[Renian]

Encrypt your shit.

[Stanley Burrell]

http://diggin88nine.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/291106riaa.jpg

Threaten your cable provider with a countersuit for invasion of privacy.

............

Also, never admit guilt, in any incriminating form; not here, not anywhere. Just incase you are that important/decide to get made an example of.

[Ashliana]

It's not an invasion of privacy. The cable company didn't monitor his files; all that happened is that a content-owner (or someone claiming to be) claims that he downloaded their works, and ask for it to be removed.

All the cable company did in this case was lookup his IP address in their files, saw it matched Vulvamancer, and forwarded their request to stop infringing.

Programs like "PeerGuardian" can help protect you against known IPs of monitoring agencies.. but they're obviously not fool-proof. There's another possibility--fully anonymous torrenting, but as I understand it, the network capable of this can't support torrents just yet. More info on this after I get home from work.

[Stanley Burrell]

It's not an invasion of privacy.

Crap, thanks.

[Ashliana]

Well, I'm just saying that the cable company isn't invading your privacy. They don't examine anything themselves--all they do is forward the allegation to holder of the IP address.

[Stanley Burrell]

I was just being a facetious sunnuvabitch.

[Drew]

I use PeerGuardian2. It's a pretty unsophisticated way of doing things, but torrenting is a crapshoot anyway. For what it's worth I've never gotten a take down notice or anything like that. I've also been mocked for this but I only DL at night, obviously computers can log you 24/7 but I figure my odds are better, with this many fish in the pond they can catch more than enough when they are at work.

Encrypting your files won't do anything to stop this, maybe if you actually got taken to court it could help, but that's an unlikely situation.

[Drew]

Also you could use an overseas proxy, but good luck finding one that would love to host some random torrent downloader.

[Back]

There's no info being given, it's his cable provider telling him to knock it off.

Now that you mention it... I’d say Bob is correct and I was wrong.

What I have learned from this is think before you post.