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What Free Cable?
suckass writes: "Apparently if you've got a cable broadband connection from AT&T you can get free basic cable just by splitting the line that goes into your cable modem. News.com has a story about it here."
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One way to kill a freebie: post it on /.
-- http://frobnosticate.com
RoadRunner (provided by Time Warner in Austin, TX) requires you to purchase basic cable in addition to your cable Internet service. I'm sure AT&T will soon follow suit.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
I mean, this is the normal behavior of cable. RTFM. There is a splitter to separate TV from Internet. Why is this crap a news story.
This is probably why they wouldn't offer me a cable internet subscription without at least basic cable.
-- Adam
This is easy for the cable companies to catch.
First, they normally install a filter on such lines that blocks the analog signals, so in many cases, it won't work.
Second, they can detect the signal leakage and see that you're receiving the signal. Considering that it's simply a matter of pointing an antena at your house from a van, and they have a list of who are Internet-only subscribers, it's not hard for them to check.
Using unauthorized cable signals simply isn't worth the risk.
I don't know about everyone else, but I get basic over my broadband cable. I get charged an extra $6 if I don't subscribe to basic, and if I do I get charged a little over 5 for basic and 45 for broadband.
Yeah, this is old news. Glad I'm not this guy: http://www.geocities.com/flutocracy/cablemodem.htm
I was told that any split in the line running to my modem would cause connection and interferrence problems (the installation guy ran a whole new drop from the pole outside my house). Wonder if that's really true?
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
I have ATT cablemodem at my house. Here's how they get their money back.
If you're not ordering cable, and only the cablemodem they charge you an extra 10 dollars.
So... my total comes out to about $55 a month for cablemmodem. Plus tax...
So... Total: $60+ a month for cablemodem
the att guy put a filter on my line in the box
Same with Time Warner, same with probably every single cable company.
:)
If you don't need a cable box to descramble it, then since the cable is hooked up into your place of residence, you get cable in its full unscrabled glory.
Time Warner even gives you the splitter.
Though it seems Time Warner in NYC has different "basic" packages. In Queens many many channels come in scramble free (though in messed up ordering), while in NYC one basically only gets over the air, tnt, tbs and cable access (though in a somewhat normal ordering)
I read a copy of the article posted on MSNBC. This doesn't just affect AT&T broadband: Cox Communications and Comcast Cable also get mentions. The reason you haven't heard about it through the news before, though, is that cable providers are only now figuring out how to circumvent this sort of "freebie."
That said, I can't bring myself to feel sorry for all the people who will now have to pay for their cable TV service. In a word, wahh.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Apparently I'm the only one without cable that wanted cable Internet. The price for IP over cable is $10 more if you don't have basic cable. The cost of basic cable, here in S.E. New England, is $9.50. Voila!
Has nobody else ever actually looked at the bill? The real trick is to not only plug your coax cable into your tuner card, but to remove the little inline filter which they describe to you as "the thing that keeps you from getting all the extended cable channels" when they screw it into your cable line.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Basically, if the cable operators want to stop this, it's pretty easy, but the way they're organized makes it more difficult. The frequencies used for cable modem downstreams are typically interspersed with the digital video channels, in the 550-860Mhz range. Cable modem upstream (along with telephony upstream and digital set top box return path, is almost always in the 5-42Mhz range (US values here, int'l mileage can and will vary). To provide cable modem, but no video, all they need to do is place a filter that will block 42-550Mhz. Not hard, but it requires the tech to be aware of both the video and data services the customer is getting. In reality, however, the field techs who handle video, and the ones focused on data, are two different orgs, with different trouble ticketing systems, etc, so the right hand often doesn't know what the left is doing, so getting the right filters in place can be a real pain.
Works for quite a few cable ISPs, actually. Um, not that I'd know... I'd never try anything like this!
;-)
Corbets
There is no way that the cable companies didnt know about this since cable BBand was first implemented. They probably dont have a way to control it yet...
I take that back.. They haven't seen the need to spend the money to contol it.. Untill Now...
:)(smile)
I get "free" cable through my apartment. Every apartment in the building does -- cable comes out of the wire and we don't pay anything for it.
Now, who's willing to bet that Time Warner is going to take a look at my building, see people with cable internet but not paying for basic cable TV, and start raising red flags? I wouldn't put it past them.
Isn't much of a surprise.
Put on your "think like a cable company" hat for a moment... as a straight up cable TV network without broadband, it only makes sense to install line equipment to filter premium channels. Regardless of whatever cable package the customer orders, its always going to contain basic channels as a minimum. Hence, cable companies don't normally have filters installed for basic channels.
Ok, so lets throw in broadband. With the advent of internet access via cable, people who were previously without cable lines are now ordering cable for broadband only. Ok well, the internet access is running over a pre-existing cable network which probably wasn't designed with broadband in mind. Cable lines are coming installed, but carry basic channels at the very minimum because those signals aren't filtered.
Some cable companies play 'hush-hush' about it, and others don't. The good companies will "throw in basic cable" at no extra charge... which isn't really of much value beyond a marketing gimmick, because they probably can't NOT deliver basic cable anyway.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
Since the Cable Modem access basically runs off of a couple of unused channels (usually in the 70's somewhere) The only way to prevent the user from getting free basic cable is by filtering out the other channels (this actually would frequently be done at the house not always at the box).
When we moved into my old house we just told the installer that the cable modem people where able to get there first and that the regular cable TV installers were showing up "on wednesday" (actually true it was quicker to get the modem hooked up than the TV) So they didn't install the filter on the line. We got free HBO and Showtime as well though I'm not sure why.
"Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to m
And you can get a free newspaper by holding the door open after someone else buys one.
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
I pay for digital cable and I still don't get Comedy Central, why should others get it for free?
Shouldn't there be a patent for this "innovation"? I mean, this wasn't completely obvious.
jason
This is technically interesting, mildly. I know, however, that my local cable ISP charges non–cable-TV customers an extra $10/mo for Internet access.
I'd imagine my DSL provider would do the same if they weren't my local phone company. But I guess not having a phone line is even less likely than not having cable TV. Not that I use the phone much more than I would use a TV...
In any case, I hope no one takes advantage of this. It'll just give hackers a bad name, and we've lost all the face we can stand since being blamed for 9/11.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
With Cox, you can get cable internet service without cable but it is $10 more. Basic cable is only $6. Why pay $4 more to get "Free" cable?
Working for a Cable provider I know that they charge about $10 a month if you don't have TV service from them. But they will charge anywhere from 16 - 25 dollars for the same service if you get it legally.
I think that looking at how the Cable TV/Internet company's have been ripping off the people that have been paying for the service legally when it has been available to the public at $10.
But then again I am just another disgruntal employee.
I don't own a TV. I can not purchase cable modem only service from road runner, they "generously" package it with basic cable.
... to save them a trip next time.
When installing the cable, they even insisted on putting a splitter between the modem and the wall
Perhaps this is only true in Hawaii. Perhaps they are too lazy to separate the two. Perhaps I am a freak for not owning a TV. Perhaps this is true for many people who don't know it.
=brian
Cable companies just have to install a trap on the pole which fitlers out the TV channels. But many times they don't bother to. In fact didn't Slashdot post a story about this earlier where a man inadvertently got sued by his cable provider because they forgot to install the filter?
...atleast it was when I had Comcast At Home a few years ago.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Cable modem installations tripled in the past 2 weeks as customers clamored for broadband internet access. Al Gore was reported as having claimed credit for the upsurge in demand.
Cable companies, however, have seen an inverse reaction regarding their cable TV lines, as most customers have called up and cancelled their service, often in the same phone call where they are ordering broadband.
Movie studios, as well as television networks, have claimed the online availability of filtered news, predictable sitcoms, and poorly-written movies have made it difficult for them to cover their initial costs. CEOs cried as customers rejoiced, after which the customers were promptly sued.
once they notice 1) this article or 2) the increase of people ordering JUST cable modems ... they'll fix it.
it doesn't take a master hacker to figure that one out.
From page 5 of the Motorola/General Instruments SB3100D cable modem manual:
"If you have a TV set attached to the cable outlet, you may need a 5-900 MHz splitter to use both the TV and the SB3100D."
Thats about as plain and simple as it gets.
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=6, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=12. (not mine)
After being a cable modem customer for six months, I got a letter from ATT saying that the free cable (TV) was simply part the offer. I called to confirm that I was not being charged for the cable TV and that it was free to use. They said yes, and I've been happily using ATT for cable modem access and cable TV signals for $45/month ever since.
I assumed that this was by design. Maybe this "free cable TV" that they gave me was simply an artifact of getting the interenet access and, rather than discourage people from using it, ATT might have decided to be proactive an make the cable TV a free offer to their appreciated customers.
-Derek
AT&T really wants me to get Digital Cable, but the problem is I don't have a lot of time to watch it. I rely on a home-brew PVR to catch the shows I want to watch. Until I can do this on Digital Cable, I can't put the money into it because I can't watch it.
However, this may provide an opportunity to have both digital and analog cable. As long as I can still capture the stuff off the analog cable, Digital Cable may become something worth experimenting with. Heck, I may even find a way to wire a remote up to my computer to use it.
Anybody think I'll have luck with having both analog and digital cable?
*thinks it'd be heaps easier if AT&T would just have a PVR built to use the Digital Signal.*
"Derp de derp."
I had AT&T digital cable and this method still works.
:-p
It seems that they are transmitting analog cable along with the digital signal.
I paid for the "Pay" TV services as well (HBO, Skin^H^H^H^HCinemax, etc, and rented two digital converter boxes, but I spliced the line from the cable modem into a TV tuner card and had analog basic cable on my computer.
Now if they just made a tuner card that AT&T supported so you could get the pay channels on your computer (paying for them of course). The digital music channels weren't too bad. Hmm, wonder if you could rip those into MP3?
--
I've known this for a long time now, didn't know it was hush-hush. If you live in Western Canada you can get the first Tier basic cable package by splitting off the cable line. Shaw doesn't have any remedies for this at all in the foreseeable future due to technical regions. So, once again, if you live in Western Canada with Shaw broadband access (80% of us) you can get free cable as well.
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
Except the 4th amendment prevents your cable co. driving around in a van pointing antennas at your house, this is an illegal search under the 4th amendment.
Any bets that within the next month AT&T will remedy this now that it's been published here?
My cableco charges a "cable overhead" fee and filters out the cable channels at the node if you don't subscribe to their TV service along with the data service.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Who cares, basic cable sux.
Now if there was a way to get the cable modem to route porn directly to my brain I'd be all for it.
Linux is dead.
LU
They put filters on the line if they catch you doing it.
I was getting free cable for 6 months, I didn't splice the line but I had an old cable installation in.
I have Comcast cable internet, and they throw in free extremely-basic cable tv service with it. I guess they do this in hopes that you will upgrade your cable tv service, which could turn into a nice $100+ Comcast bill for them. I'll stick with my directv, thank you.
You can expanded basic for "free" if you only sign up for the internet sevices. Be sure to get a high quality splitter and cables though. You will drop packets and get a fuzzy picture with cheaper splitters. You pay 10 bucks extra for not having bundled service so they still make money off of you, but at least you pay a more reasonable rate for your services.
...or so Im told.
We have the best government that money can buy.
This is why they install video traps on cable modem-only customers' lines. Sounds like somebody got lazy.
DNA just wants to be free...
I am a user of AT&T They started adding filters to the main ditribution point in the house to prevent this. But for $20 cash the guy accidently left it off
I recently moved, and had to get my cable modem activated at the new place. What they do now, is put on a filter to block "tv" access. It's this cigar looking filter that sits on the poll. So it looks like it's slowly getting phased out.
One bad thing about this filter is that it really degrades your signal strength, and can cause your cable modem to desync sometimes. Hell, they even unfilter it if you are having alot of problems.
I remember reading somewhere long while back that the reason many communities can get free cable when subscribing to cable modem service is that the cable companies can't afford to upgrade their infrastructure to block out cable tv when you subscribe to just cable modem. It requires a major upgrade to their service centers in order to block out the cable tv. So maybe AT&T may start requiring people to sign up for cable TV as well when signing up for net access like people have already mentioned, but I don't think those that already have service will wake up one morning to find that their cable tv has been cut off.
I pay $35 + taxes/fees for the the cable modem service. Like the post above, also came unfiltered analog cable PLUS the big 3 premium channels. (Hey, I didn't ask for it)
I bought the modem second hand but the tech who installed the service couldn't use it because the MAC was still regestered to the last owner. He installed a new cable modem and told me they would come get it as soon as they transfered the MAC to the new account... about 8 months ago.
So, my question is... why doesn't everyone just shut up about it and let me have my free cable!?!?!
no shit
...at least for Cox subscribers; basically, basic cable costs $10-month. 'net costs $40-month. BUT if you subscribe to basic cable, they give you a $10 discount, so 'net costs $30 + $10 for basic TV = $40.
In this case, you would gain nothing by splitting the cable and canceling the TV contract, because you would just pay the difference for the 'net connection. I now understand why they chose this price arrangement in the first place. Now, with a descrambler box, things change...
I subscribed to whatever Time Warner offers that's just above basic and then cancelled my service. Now I can't get any cable, even though my modem still works... bummer :-(
When I was using a cable modem, they specifically said "You will get basic service with this whether you want it or not." I thought that is how everybody probably did it. I didn't realize some places tried to hide it from you...
Posted from the wireless couch.
AT&T's previous increase (about 1 year ago) from ~$30 to ~$38 basically said "Now, for this price increase you get basic cable".
I think they realised this after seeing that they couldn't put a video trap on the same line as your cable modem. This happened to me when I discontinued their free-digital TV trial back in Jan 2000. I had to have them come out and remove the trap to get my internet to work again.
So, I have cable going to both my cable modem and my TV-tuner card, and haven't felt like it was "free" at all, especially since I've been paying for it.
i'm on a cable provider in georgia. we've been doing this for almost a year, ever since we got the cable modem. i thought it was pretty much common knowledge.
My otherwise useless cable modem provider, Charter, pointed this out to me when I signed up, so apparently they don't have a problem with my "stealing" cable.
Unfortunately, my wife never watched TV before I hooked it up to the cable, and now she's totally obsessed by Animal Planet.
I thought that the parent post made an interesting point. Now that it's extremely public how to do this, the cable companies will be forced to crack down on it.
Thanks a lot to news.com for posting this story. Give AT&T more reason to tighten their grips!
"Derp de derp."
Everyone I know gets charged about $40/month for basic cable (except in CT, where it's a reasonable $10). Why is it so high? Are they still recouping costs from laying the actual cables? I dunno, they've been around for years, sometimes decades. And don't they make enough money from advertisers? Anyone else remember when cable first came out, they said your monthly fee was so you didn't have to watch commercials? So much for that. I wouldn't mind forking over $40/month if they gave me a good reason why it needed to be that high. Unfortunately, it seems like they're overcharging just because they can, and that's one of the best ways to promote piracy.
c-hack.com |
cost of basic cable, here in S.E. New England, is $9.50
I live in connecticut and the provider is comcast. Before I ditched comcast for directv around 2 years ago, I remember the cheepest analog package available was around 20$
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=6, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=12. (not mine)
I've had data since it was available and even with the traps (which seem to get changed every time they come out to do anything) you can get most, usually not all of the channels. I was getting a half dozen or so badly for most of the time, now I get a different half dozen, still marginal. Since I only record broadcast TV (Letterman, some PBS), it's better with a simple antenna. At one point lightning knocked out the splitter, and the tech who came out replaced it with a beefy cableco style, I told him exactly what the setup was, and shrugged. This is the first I've heard that they wouldn't like it.
In fact, the signal hits everyone - anyone with data coming down channel 78 is getting the station signals unless trapped. And anyone with cable is getting the data, it's just not provisioned so it's not usable.
As for this sort of passive problem, does anyone at the cable companies really think that new tenants are going to call and complain that they're getting a signal, or that data subscribers are getting analog signals, please come and make it so? Of course not. But not once in all of the time I've known the company have they said "if your're getting analog channels, please call us and we'll set things straight:. Instead, they have the attitude that we're supposed to watch for their screwups and help them out?
Hmmmm... could it be all that karma they spent in all the years they've been so warm and fuzzy to all of us?
Payback's a bitch, guys.
Here in Quebec they've found a way to avoid charging for basic cable directly when you sign up for high-speed cable internet.
Basically, if you are not a cable television subscriber but want cable internet service, they charge you an additional 10$ (well they claim that you get 10$ off if you are a cable subscriber) and thus they basically offset the cost of also providing basic cable television service to those who will splice the line and route it to their tvs as well. They've been doing this for years.
Those of us getting this service and similar service from other companies would appreciote your silence on this matter. Sheesh. It only takes one knucklehead to ruin the whole gig. In my town, it free EXTENDED basic. Boo yeah.
-mattzog http://www.micromatic.org/
Basic cable is prevented from being stolen by a device called a "trap". Trapping basically blocks the RF on the line to prevent it from traveling to a house. Most cable these days are based on addressable or digital services but the FCC still requires the basic channels (NBC,CBS,FOX,etc) to be trapped and analog. In order for the modem to work in needs RF in the range of -15db to +15db on the forward signal and reverse signals of 35db to 55db with a signal to noise of 30db or more. If you trap off a house then your not going to get cable service period (unless you know how to safely remove it from the drop). Now what prevents you from just purchasing a cable modem and hooking it up and having it work is a method of authentication known as provisioning which enables the modem or cabledevice with that Mac id to work on the system in which case the modem is delivered a CM file that governs the modem to work at a specific speed. If you can fool the modem to downloading the CM file from some other source then you can change the speed it runs at. But don't be stupid and do this as bandwidth graphs are well monitored and you can bet that when someone is pulling 30mbit your cable network engineer is gonna notice the nice huge spike compared to everyone else on the node. But to make this short and sweet, its pretty hard to find out and prevent someone from stealing basic cable, which is why most cable companies charge a cable access fee around $10.00 if you don't have any cable service besides a modem.
He saves roughly $40 a month on cable
AT&T basic cable is $8/month.
They install a filter on the line to block the analog otherwise. Mine burned out and they ripped it out after having 3 days without access. The cable guy told me that without it, I could get cable for free. I didn't care until my rabbit-ear antenna started showing Enterprise in B&W. The day before the "install", I tried the splitter and got nothing. I'm guessing they had come by later and put in a new filter.
told me that if I were to split the signal and hook it to my tuner I would get basic cable. Right out of the AT&T Cable modem installers mouth... He also put a tag on my cable modem line that says "Data, Do Not Filter". Take it for what it is worth.
"The drops are not designed to be split, The Internet product needs a dedicated feed so that it runs as efficiently as it's supposed to."
Here in the UK I have cable TV (digital although analogue signals come down the same line) and my cable modem runs off the same line from a slitter. I'm with NTL and I'm pretty sure Telewest (the other major UK cable provider) do the same thing. Can anyone confirm that US cable providers use seperate lines for the cable modem and the TV? Why?It really depends on how close you are to their node. The closer you are the stronger the signal the more likely that the split won't effect either service.
Sean.OutaHere()
This might've been true a few years ago, but the necessary filters for blocking cable and allowing data through are quite prevaliant. Before I had my cable modem installed a year ago, there was cable (looked like extended basic) active in my apartment, probably left over from the previous tenants. When they were done installing the cable modem, analog cable was completely gone, thanks to a big fat filter sitting in the cable box outside my house. My roommate watched the guy install it.
I didn't think they could filter it out either, but it turns out they can, so I end up paying around $100 a month for cable modem + extended basic.
Maybe in some areas the cable companies don't use these filters (I imagine they are quite expensive, as they have to be very precise not to mess with the data connection). That's their problem though.
In some parts of the country the cablemodem service is NOT available UNLESS you already have basic cable. (with three you get eggroll?) Similar idea to DSL, you can't get just the dsl, you have to have a line with dialtone first. Of course I once had IDSL without any dialtone service on the IDSN line, but then again ISDN is another ballgame.
Okay, let's figure this one out.
First off, what's the difference in equipment necessary to "steal" basic cable from a cable modem connection? A splitter and some extra coax. Who pays for these? The consumer. What's the cost to the cable company? Zero.
Second, who's losing out when someone "steals" basic cable? Is it the cable company? I suppose, if a significant percentage of people hooking into that service would otherwise choose to pay for basic cable. I personally feel that wouldn't be a large number; when you've got broadband, TV is less entertaining, at least to me.
Are the networks losing money when people do this? A little, maybe. These people aren't being counted in ratings shares, so it means less ad revenue. These companies might be getting a small share of the revenue from the cable company if those connections were legitimate, but I believe they mostly get their money from the advertising.
So what's the solution? How 'bout requiring people with cable modems to buy basic cable service, but at a price they won't object to? Say, an extra $10-15 per month? That's enough for the cable company to pay off any rebroadcast royalties, with no additional investment in equipment needed for them. Even people with satellite dishes might find the cable TV useful, as it would carry local channels their dishes wouldn't supply.
With Cogeco in Ontario.
I got a cable modem, no cable. Then I split the cable into my television.
I really don't watch TV, though, and hardly watched it at all.
When I moved from my apartment to a house, I changed from cable model to ADSL. I didn't get cable, or anything.
I don't watch TV. It's a waste of time, and the sparse TV content that is good isn't worth the cost.
When I got ADSL, I tried to get it without a phone, since I have a cell phone, but they wouldn't let me.
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
Now this guy was contracted by AT&T and not an actual employee of it.
I'm in Austin, and a few years ago it was true that you had to have BOTH. I just moved however, and found out you can now order ONLY cable modem without having to get cable tv. Something interesting though, when I moved in, they had a filter installed to block out cable tv, but it wasnt working correctly and was blocking EVERYTHING, so they removed the filter entirely. If I want free digital cable now, I just need to find a suitable replacement converter.
Does the reverse then apply? If I am an AT&T basic cable customer, if I were to splice into my cable modem, would I be able to receive free access?
Please don't get into the technical parts about assign the user an IP, and try to see the ironic humor. Or am I asking too much?
I hate all sigs, even this one.
I have had to deal with AT&T Broadband in Plano Texas for 2 years now. Twice they have done this bait and switch on me, and this time I figured it out.
When I first moved here, I got the cable modem, and when I hooked my TV up to the outlet... it worked. I have extended basic channels. About a month after they put in my cable modem, a door-to-door guy came and offered a 30-day trial of the premium basic (as many channels as you can get without going digital). We tried the cable for about 20 days, and then I called them to cut it off (cause I'm a cheep ass). They can't and turned it ALL off. It took to weeks to get my cable modem back on, but they never turned back on the basic cable. I called to argue with them, because I thought that basic cable was included. They said that it wasn't included with the modem, and that I was lucky they didn't seek for me to pay them for the months that I was "stealing" cable.
I ended up paying them to turn basic cable back on (which is what they want).
I ended up moving to another apartment, and to do so I basically had to set up new service. Then again, they put the cable modem in and Boom! I had extended basic again. Like clockwork, a month after they put in the cable modem, they sent a door-to-door guy around to offer extended basic. To test my theory (I knew I wasn't going to be there long anyway) I signed up for the 30-day trial. The rest went as expected. 20 days later I called to have the free trial turned off. Off went the cable modem and the TV. Again I paid to have basic service turned back on.
Once again, I moved to yet another apartment. Once again, the cable modem was installed, and magically, the extended basic was as well. 30 days later, I told the door-to-door day 'No Thanks', and I've had extended cable to this day.
Word to the wise... the cable company wants you to get used to the cable, and then rip you for it later.
The ONLY way to stop this is to install a filter between the Trunk, actually, the spigot(sp) (that's what your cable line plugs into) and the point of entry to your home...
Doing this to ALL cable modem subscribers would be a pretty big task... I think you have time...
Either way though... who want's "Basic" cable... I don't know about the U.S., but here in Canada, it is often reffered to as Trailer Vision... 22 channels... Yuck!
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
Did anyone else notice that link to the story on how AT)
About 13 million Americans get a free ride as a result, compared with the more than 64.5 million paying cable subscribers, according to research firm The Carmel Group.
You have to really wonder how did they come up with this number. Seriously. 13 million people are getting free cable? wtf....
Having had a roommate who worked for AT&T BB there is one thing to point out with this, Most TV's will generate interference on the Cable that can mess with your Modem, normaly they install filters on the TV lines when you order both CableTV and the Modem, How ever if you just have the Modem there is no filters this means if your TV is hooked up your liable to take out your cable modem and anyone else's on your block
---"Some where in the heavens they are waiting.."
Back home (central CA), if you had basic cable, you could just go buy a cable modem and hook it up, and bam, you had internet access. I don't know how or why they didnt have some kind of access control, but they didnt, and I took full advantage. :)
(Recently, they figured it out, and now you do in fact have to pay for cable modem access.)
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
When I'm pinging 300ms to my GATEWAY on their internet service, I somehow don't feel bad for AT&T. If and when they start providing quality braodband, I'll care that people are stealing their TV service. After all, the internet people are paying them $50/mo for near-56k-like pings and constant speed problems in many areas.
"I drank what?" -Socrates
I counted that article using the word pirate or piracy 11 times. I think calling this piracy is really stretching the definition. The so called pirates aren't asking for free cable TV. Yet, the cable company insists on delivering cable televison into their homes anyway. These people are really supposed to not watch it just because the cable company is to lazy/inept to provide them with only the specifice service they are requesting? The article has the tone like a $4.95 coax splitter is some kind of illegal underground L337 H@CK0RZ technical wizardry type gadget. Come on. I'd venture to guess most anybody who orders a cable modem without cable TV would at some point plug the cable into their TV just to see what they get. And when they find they get cable TV, there's not going to be many people so as dumb as not to know/figure out that all they need is a $4.95 splitter to watch it.
I hope all this coverage doesn't lead to AT&T preventing this in the future. Of course, I get much more than basic cable because the cable guy was nice enough to leave the line unfiltered.
Now if I could just get free internet access with my AT)
Drawing on old-school methods to splice cable TV lines for unauthorized use
What are the "new school" methods of doing this? This is the same way the cable monkeys from $CABLE_MONKEY_CENTRAL (Comcast for me) do it. Is there a new, better way to do this instead of getting a coax splitter, and connecting it to the cable?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
If you really want to steal:
Most cable companies don't do much for MAC address authentication. Usually, they just run a DHCP that hands out addresses to anyone who asks. You can plug in a cable modem and start it up yourself, assuming that they haven't detached the coax cable to your house.
And all the rumors about being able to detect stolen cable are crap. My cable installer told me so, while he showed me how they connect the coax cable at the pole.
Maybe if you don't start by assuming people are criminals they won't act like it. Then again, maybe not.
Science may someday discover what faith has always known.
I liked this line from the article:
"The drops are not designed to be split," she said. "The Internet product needs a dedicated feed so that it runs as efficiently as it's supposed to."
That's a little funny. The technician (then ATT@Home) who installed by cable modem did exactly that - put a splitter on the line going to the TV for the cable modem.
I think the big cable companies should ask themselves why pirating is such a big business and spend more time addressing why their customers are so unhappy rather than tring to convice the world that cable theft destroyes the community, warms the environment, adds to the problems in the middle east, and threatens to destroy the world....
(That's not to say that pirating cable is right either...)
cox adds an analog filter on to your pedestal as theyt call it...so if you had internet only, all the anolog signals are blocked, you still would be able to get digital cable tho, but those boxes i'm sure are harder to come by
In my area (Dallas), cable has two lines, A and B. At least in my house, the data comes in on the A line, which has all the basic services, as well as the local channels. So no, you won't get free HBO just by splicing your cable internet line into your Hauppage WinTV. And who wants to watch broadcast TV anyway?
And as other people have said, lots of places have filters that block TV access anyway. Believe me, if there was an easy way to get free cable, I would know it; my uncle is a service tech for AT&T broadband.
...Do this the other way? If they use DHCP to assign IP addresses and the like, could you steal^H^H^H^H^Huse brodband? Although this should not be as easy, is it possible? Anybody wanna try it?
Orange
I just tried it - wired it into my vcr (and switched it from antenna to cable mode) - I get a few scrambled channels around channel 72 - on channel 86 I get this nice spectrum analyzer display.
But other then that no free tv. And I pay the extra 10$ for the cable modem.
It's scary to look at the reactions cable companies have to folks who are even SUSPECTED of stealing service in the manner the above article suggests.
Slashdot Story: Get a Cable Modem...Go to Jail
Google cached link to subject's web page
Same story, different folks...
Because now that more people know, more people will try it.
Anyone know what happened to that woman?
BTW Amazon has Cable Modems from $49.99!
Work for Change & GET PAID!
I've been doing this for years. Just make sure your neighbors don't rat you out on http://www.cabletheft.com. With a $5.00 T-splitter you can do amazing things.
I had a cable modem via AT&T@Home two years ago, but had DirecTV for NHL Center Ice. The need for free cable didn't dawn on me until one day I wanted to install a tuner card for local channels. I found out after installing the video card that the line had a filter on it, and there was no audio on my cable feed.
This has been an industry practice for quite some time. Many companies don't install a filter. And frankly, when they do, I know people that just go out to the neighborhood junction box and take them off. They are installed consistantly enough for the local cable company to ever know, if they come back to do additional work. Hell, when cable modems first came out around here, the cable company ran out of filers, so most cable-modem only users got a full cable feed, if they thought enough to try a TV on the line.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
All they need to do is put a filter that supresses signals at the frequencies of basic cable, but lets cable modem frequencies through outside your house.
you can just hook up a cable modem and be high speed access. At least till they track down the MAC address of your nic.
I had cable and cable modem at the same time. As soon as I cancelled cable TV the channels stopped appearing. They are heavily covered in snow and barely audible. I see a little round "thing" that has been inserted inline with the cable on the side of my house. They filtered it.
it's no different than stealing cable by splitting
your neighbor's cable feed. it's theft of service
I have Cox cable and the interesting thing is that Basic cable runs $9.99 and internet access is $39.99 but if you get the two together you get a $10.00 discount on the total bill making the cable access free with a network connection.
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
free ingredients for blood sausages.
You can break the law, and do all kinds of stupid things that seem fun for a second. But then you realize, or someone else makes you realize, that there was a reason why it is not wanted behaviour. Stealing is stealing, even if you steal bytes or a free porn channel.
...Maybe he's an idiot for being so honest in the opinions of many, but I say props to the man. One of my coworkers has been trying to tell the cable company for forever that they are not charging him for cable. When he got his cable modem two years ago, he noticed that they quit sending cable bills. He contacted them repeatedly to try to correct the problem. Finally, about six months ago, he gave up. After numerous phone calls and complaints, he decided to send a letter to them stating "This is the last communication regarding this problem that I am going to submit. I cannot be held responsible for any late fees, as I have made more than a reasonable effort to correct the problem." He then went on to cite every confirmation number and communication date on file.
He is still getting free cable. Those people at Insight are either idiots, or they have some serious bugs in their billing software. Now if only they could manage to screw up like that for me... I could steal it, but I won't. But if I'm trying to pay for it, that's different.
Liora
I don't know about everywhere else, but here it is common knowledge about the free cable with internet. I have cable and cable tv service in my house, and extra outlets cost extra per month, and also, I only pay for 2 of 3 variety packs. I split the internet cable to a tv, and this tv gets all channels without bumping up to digital cable.
Canadian Cynic, canadian politics is less boring than you
That article contains at least two major factual inaccuracies. The first of which is a standard "scare tactic" of the cable industry, the second of which is a boast.
The statement made by an AT&T spokesperson that "AT&T Broadband tries to stop piracy by going from neighborhood to neighborhood and performing a tap audit, which allows it to detect all manner of cable theft. The tap audit lets the operator evaluate services piped into the home to see if any are not being paid for"
This is simply one of the standard cable industries scare tactics and is a total falsehood. I personally know the cable loss-prevention people in my area, they have no such system in place. As far as I know, there is no technology capable of monitoring analog cable use external to the home. The cable companies have apparently tried a few technologies designed to permit this level of audit, but all have proven incapable of accurately determining violations.
The other major inaccuracy of this article is the statement by an anonymous cable hacker named "Doug". Doug claims to have purchased an $80 device to unlock 400 channel digital cable services. As yet, there is no general hack for digital cable services. I'm fairly certain Dave is just "having one off" on their reviewer. My personal feeling is that digital cable hasn't been hacked only because Direct TV satellite is so easily hacked. If Direct TV ever get a handle on their immense piracy problem (a big if), then perhaps digital cable may be better targeted by the hacking community.
Yea, no shit. Like we all found out in college. Lets post to Slashdot about what else we found out in college!!!
Man, I've been stealing cable from AT&T for about 2.5 years now. I've transfered my account to different locations twice (you move a lot when you're in college) and I've never had a problem.
A piece of advice from an EE major friend of mine. Don't use more than an extra 50cm (about 1.5' for you americans) of extra cable to do this (meaning you should put your modem near the tv). If you do it can be detected by the change in the capacitance on the line. I've never wanted to test this but better safe than sorry I guess.
The double standards on Slashdot are amazing. What's next? An article on how easy it is to shoplift at convenience stores while they take deliveries?
This is not news. I always assumed that I'd be able to steal basic cable from my provider (Cox Communications) by simply hooking into the splitter on my outside wall. But I don't pay for basic cable so I did not do it.
To people in the software industry who are stealing cable: don't get mad if you find out that the cable guy is pirating the software that your company sells.
Much to my surprise, I found the same thing when I started cable internet service w/ AT&T. The funny thing is that one time, when an AT&T service tech was over checking out some problem, I mentioned to him that I was getting free cable TV service. He looked up at me, smiled, and shrugged his shoulders...I expected him to say something about me "stealing" service, but nope!
I have an ATTBI cable modem, and got DirecTV, so I cancelled my cable TV. They installed the little blocker that disabled regular TV over the cable (and sadly also their FM feed, which I had forgotten about). The little blocked was labled 2-83, which I assume means it blocks channels 2 thru 83 (genius ain't I?). Nothing rocket science going on here.
I remember when I got my cable modem installed by AT&T techs, the cable TV had a bizzare selection of channels scattered through the dial, but not even basic.
Later, when I ordered digital phone (via cable) a 3rd-party cable technician came out for the install. When he was done he told me he was supposed to install a filter to prevent me watching tv, but said he wouldn't even bother doing such.
I don't really mind double posts on
All those sneaky broadband users are a bunch of content theives! Someone should really put a stop to this.
RoadRunner (provided by Time Warner in Austin, TX) requires you to purchase basic cable in addition to your cable Internet service.
Windows (provided by Microsoft in Redmond, WA) requires you to purchase a basic media player in addition to your operating system.
I wonder why nobody has yet investigated local cable monopolies for illegal tying under the antitrust laws, especially in areas where the telephone monopoly does not offer DSL. Zathrus agrees with me.
Will I retire or break 10K?
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I was going to post something really witty about cable piracy costing the brodband industry billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs a year, but I realized that there's a serious language phenomenon happening today centered on the word "piracy."
I don't have a problem with the word itself, but the word has been raised recently to the lofty status of "buzzword." I'm waiting for the day when politicians start saying things like, "We MUST pass the CBDTPA or the pirates will have won," or "If we don't buy 50 more B-2 bombers than the pirates will have won."
It is interesting to note two additional things: (1) The term "pirate" has not been used much. Mostly it's "consumers engaged in piracy" or "hackers." (2) The bad-guy noun being thrown around constantly is "terrorists."
The coincidence of imagery is undeniable: technically, hijacking an airplane is an act of piracy. Pirates have the image coincident with that of a terrorist--marauding, violent, destructive, counter-culture and counter-establishment, lurking out there somewhere and vaguely unidentifiable until it's too late.
Is this one of the reasons that "piracy" of digital music, video, and software has seemed to capture the imagination of mass media (and held it hostage, I might add)? It's just a word, but a word with imagery associated that plays conveniently to the current fears of the uneducated masses, who look to The Government for guidance and security.
I predict that more and more mostly harmless activities that go against someone's agenda will be marked with the term "piracy." I can't wait until the day when Critical Mass is referred to as being engaged in "traffic piracy," or environmental groups are refferred to as being engaged in "land piracy" by (for example) forcing certain areas not to be drilled for oil.
Of course, this term can cut both ways. Senator Hollings is engaged in "freedom piracy" and Aschroft and the FBI are engaged in "privacy piracy" (say that three times fast). Wondrous will be the day when we can label large campaign contributors as "vote pirates" engaged in "election piracy."
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington."
Whats the big deal, He plugged a cable TV connection into a cable box and got TV!!!!
Hardly news, been happing since the dawn of cable TV..... box just changed from analog to digital.
So what is the point in publishing this story now? I can't believe that the media just found out. It's something most of us have known about for years. We need to figure out what their purpose is in letting more people know about this. Is it just another attempt to point out how many people are stealing? Is it to encourage more people to do it and pull one over on At&T since they're raising prices? Was it a slow news day and they were grasping for content? There's got to be a reason this story was published now. Any ideas?
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Piracy or not... In your agreement for cable, you signed... you said you will not do this.
IT'S ILLEGAL.
I have a cable modem from Comcast and use a dish for tv. Comcast specifically told me that I would get basic cable with my cable modem for free. (Basic meaning the local stations and pbs not all the cable stations) They were very up front about that fact and told me to use it if I wanted. Also they do indeed charge an extra $10 a month since I have no cable tv service which I believe is reasonable considering that with normal cable tv they factor in the cost of maintenance to their tv lines and repair services at your home which do not increase with cable modems so therefor that cost doesn't have to be charged twice to those with cable service. Althogh I do believe that $5 a month is more reasonable.
My brother did this from when he first moved into his apartment. They were getting the cable modem set up and they asked the person from @home who was setting up the modem how it would work if you get both cable and internet. The guy told him that all they do is split the line right there, he went out and bought what he needed and enjoyed free basic cable for the rest of the time he lived there.
:)
I guess @home had some verry helpfull people working for them in the day
-- Any comments seen here are not mine, but a mixture of alchohol and lack of sleep.
I'll bet Basic Cable isn't really 60 channels in Mississippi. I'll bet that is Expanded Basic. Some time ago, congress passes that law to lower the price of Basic Cable, so the cable operators responded by making Basic Cable consist of the local network channels plus public access and the other bare minimums, while moving the rest of the stuff you want to watch into a new Expanded Basic line up.
But to respond to the parent post, I am considering cutting back to the minimum Basic Cable when we move to a new house, at $18/mo. instead of Expanded Basic at $36/mo. or Digital at $54/mo. The West Wing is the only show I actually care to watch, and the reception for that channel is crappy over the air, so basic cable gets me good reception.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
I wonder how the local last-mile monopolies (the phone company and the cable company) get away with such tying. (Read my other comment.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
I'm a Time Warner customer in Austin. For about two years I had digital cable and recently I switched to just RoadRunner. The guy that installed the cable modem was even nice enough to leave me a splitter. Thanks :-)
They sometimes install filters on cable modem only installations, especially it seems if you cancel cable, but keep your cable modem.
So don't go cancelling cable if you can't live without it. I did this and the filter they installed ended up blocking half the channels (especially the ones I was interested in).
I have Charter Cable as my provider. I switched from Dish Network to them for one reason, cable modems became available in my town. If anyone would bother reading the fine print, which apparently nobody on the East Coast does, you would see that a minimmum subscription to basic cable is required for cable modem service. Here they come right out and tell you this. It shows up as a seperate line item on your bill. Out there they are just rolling it into the cost of your modem fee every month. It is all about how your statements are broken down. If you have a cable modem that is costing you more than $35 a month be assured you are paying for the cable as well. How this made news I will never know it is like "News Flash Toys Come in Happy Meals...More at Ten!".
As some other posters already noted for their cable companies ...
It seems to be typical to offer cable modem service at a discount ($10) for existing cable customers. It also is common for a 'basic' cable service to be around $10 to $14 (It's a regulated requirement around here that a 'basic' service be available for minimal cost). In the final analysis it costs about $4 for me to have basic cable and a cable modem. For some other providers it's *cheaper* to get basic cable w/cable modem that cable modem alone. YMMV.
Me and my roommates did this last summer in Boston. We got the cable modem, grabbed some wire and ran a connection from the modem to the tv. It's how I was able to watch the RedSox all summer. Otherwise I woulda missed all the espn/nesn games, but the bunny ears worked fine for local fox station.
Do you see the sig? Do you have it in your sights? Why yes, Miss Moneypenny...
I gave them a fake address, but they nailed my parents anyway...
"Derp de derp."
The following link:
Get a cable modem, go to jail
details what can happen when you do something like this.
This is a GeoCities site, and looks like it is already being hammered, so you may not be able to get to it directly, so go here
for the Google cache.
Basically, this poor schmoe got a cable modem, without cable TV. Due to a snafu of military proportions, the cable company didn't block his TV, and the cable TV company brought charges against him.
www.eFax.com are spammers
For the bloody cost of broadband, they should throw in basic cable for free.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources - A. E.
Here in Reno, NV, we have Charter has our cable company (part of AT&T too? No idea). Anyway, I called to get a cable modem, and they quoted me various rates. I chose the 1.2mbit line for $60/mo, and they said that I'd get charged 5/mo for the cable modem, and 5/mo for not having cable. It was called a "digital access fee". $70/mo total.
A few days later a punk kid comes by to remove filters or what ever they do on the outside. I was watching TV (broadcast) and they kid said "I hope I didn't interupt your cable TV." Confused, I responded, "But I don't have cable...". He gave me a funny look and then left.
A few days later I bought a splitter to see if I got cable, and lo and behold, I had extended basic. (sweet, too bad I only watch FOX and UPN)
This "free cable" ploy can't be accidental guys.
Turn on life!
This is not really news (at least not new news). It has been like this for years. Sometimes they will go out to the box and put some sort of filter on the line so you cannot get free cable TV. All you have to do is go out and remove it and Boom, free cable.
Ignoring for the moment that you entirely missed the point of my post...
Are you sure it's illegal? I'm pretty sure you can't go to jail for it, and I'm not even convinced it's breach of contract.
Consider this hypothetical situation: I pay for daily newspaper delivery to my house. My neighbor pays for the newspaper and a banana to be delivered every day to his house. The delivery people give me the newspaper and the banana too, even though I'm not paying for the banana.
If I eat the banana, is that illegal? I am simply using what was delivered to me unrequested.
Now, it is possible that the newspaper agreement I signed specifically said I did not want any bananas to be delivered. But if they're going to deliver them even when I specifically decline the service, then I am going to keep and eat them as I see fit.
I don't see the difference with delivery of a signal--I may have declined the service, but if they're delivering it to my home in the cables already, then they are delivering an unrequested service for free.
PS: Just for the record, I pay for all my signals from a single provider.
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington."
people actually believed the fat cats that said that competition and deregulation would drop the price of cable and high speed access?
....
What dupes
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
When I first got my cable a few years back, we were idly talking to the techs during a repair job (our cable was under the carpet, and accidentally was on the tack strip) and mentioned this. They said it was possible.
We bought a Y splitter soon afterwards and have had free cable ever since.
Here in Northern Indiana our local company, Insight Comm., offers Internet access for only $35/month, if you already subscribe to them for Cable TV. If you just want Internet access, it's $45/month.
:)
Can you guess what Basic Cable costs per month? Yup, about $10/month
What perturbs me about this article comes later, when they talk about the notion of converting so that you need a digital cable box to watch anything. Digital cable is truly loathesome:
Yup, you got it....cable companies can install filters on the pole that feeds your house to block out any channels they want....and yes, they can block all but the channel that your data rides on if you aren't paying for basic cable.
Oh well, another freebee bites the dust.
-ted
About a month ago, a rep from Comcast showed up at my door, offering free, basic cable, no strings attached, to go with my cable modem. She removed the trap in the wiring closet, programmed my TV, and left. There was no contract to sign, just a little paper to sign saying that she had been there and hooked it up. All this happened on a Sunday afternoon, so I was already at home and didn't have to miss work for the install.
I feel sorry for Cox/AT&T customers, because all I ever hear about your cable systems is negative. Ever since Comcast went solo (No @home BS) my cablemodem experience continues to improve, with not a single bad experience.
...doing it the old fashioned way? Just slip the cable modem guy $80 like I did, and voila! All the cable channels available right there on my tv. Local stations, tons of movie channels, everything they offer in my area.
When my roommate moved out (the internet service was in his name), we lost the cable tv. But I'm clever. The kid who came out to install the new service seemed pissy, so I asked him if he would make the run to a different room on the other side of the house, figuring he wouldn't really want to. He started to give me reasons why he couldn't, but then I said hey - leave it where it is and just turn my cable tv back on. In 10 minutes, everything was back to normal and I haven't had a minute of downtime since, and that was over 2 years ago.
I have found there are just two ways to go.
It all comes down to livin' fast or dyin' slow. -REK, Jr.
Unless at&t has severely different policies for every state, what you say is pure bullshit. I pay 45.95/mo for cable modem, and I do not have cable television. They do not charge you an extra 10 dollras a month to not buy cable.
Joseph?
Because, well I wouldn't have bought one anyway so they didn't lose money...
and the door could've jammed open! The machine wouldn't take my *won*.
I've been doing this with Cox for the last 3 years. Talk about old news :-).
What about those of us that don't own a TV, nor have a desire for a tv. We should be forced to buy something we don't want. Pay for a service we won't use??
Moronic
For one thing, anyone I ever knew who stole cable would never have bought it in the first place, usually because they couldn't afford it. So calling this a "loss" is bullshit.
Second, if there really are 13 million cable thieves in this country, that's 13 million extra pairs of eyeballs adding value to the cable company's advertising/infomercial bundles. And that's *really* what drives the cable business, especially now that it's all owned by the big media conglomerates.
I have mediacom cable, and the installer actually had the wrong filter; as such I get channels 2-25 or so. Not really very useful.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
being running a splitter from the jack in the wall for over a year.
...doesn't mean it isn't stealing. Reading Slashdot is starting to make me sympathize with Michael Eisner.
I can't speak for other areas in the USA, but here in the West Michigan area, cable building has never stopped and there are *still* areas that are cable-free. Cable building is not cheap, nor is the equipment that has to be installed to manage and run the whole operation.
Is there some price gouging? That's hard to tell. Logic would state that since most major cable companies are publically traded, with shareholders, they'll try to get as much revenue as possible -- but I think the truth is a lot more down to earth. A lot of cable companies, like many huge corporations are in debt due to buy outs, growth, and such.
And, please, don't forget the trickle down of it all; our upstream providers charge us, networks charge us, and it takes money to run a business, and after a while, it adds up.
I speak of my own opinions and thoughts, and this is in no way representing my employer.
.ST.
That's what I had to do, even though I *don't* watch tv, and didn't want cable, before switching to DSL.
Did you know that you can get free satellite TV too!?!? Those satellites they use for TV actually beam their signals at every house! No lie! All you need is a little dish (steal someone's--people actually leave those things outside at night!) and a computer!!!
Got friends?
People do unwittingly broadcast cable TV, by hooking up thier rooftop antenna to the same coax system in some way.
In 1981 we got our first VCR and a camera (dad's business needed a major writeoff). Since I was in 8th grade, I was in charge of hooking it up. According to the documentation, you were absolutely not to hook up the RF Out of the VCR to your rooftop antenna -- it'd make you into your own TV station and the FCC would take away your bike, your baseball glove and make you eat unsweetened cereal for the rest of your life.
Naturally the idea of a video camera and the chance to be our own TV station was too tempting. However, it didn't really work. We had the highest house in our neighborhood and a big antenna on the roof, but we couldn't get our home TV channel (playing lip-sync videos and slow-motion Lego crashes) to come in on any of the neighborhood TVs, all of which were broadcast based since we didn't have cable in Minneapolis.
I guess its a good thing that I didn't know about amplifiers then...
My philosophy, which is probaly legally wrong, is that if they give me cable, I am going to hook it up. This happened at the last place I lived: I ordered cable modem but not cable, and they gave me both. I just hooked up my TV and it worked. When I moved, they remembered to install the filter on my incomming line, and even though I could remove it in about 5 minutes, I am going to leave it there. I ordered a satelite system instead -- it is much cheaper and I get the sci-fi channel.
You're ruinning it for us ;)
And the "free cable" described here isn't really piracy, as other posters have pointed out. The broadband customers are paying a bit more than those who just want basic cable, and the "free" cable is part of the deal. In fact, this is another reason why the basic bill is so much: The company wants the incremental cost of extra services (Net access, premium channels, etc.) to be so low compared to the $40 you're already paying that you will choose to buy them.
AT&T does the filter thing in Toronto, and Videotron does so here in Montreal. Of course if you're lucky enough to have a 1999 highspeed installation, you probably don't have the filter. But if you moved since, there's no way around it.
I'm surprised AT&T USA didn't pick that up. And I'm especially surprised it took so much time for you guys to notice.
Or... wait a minute, maybe this isn't really news?
I can't believe anyone didn't already know this.
... and if they put a trap on your line, all you need do is complain constantly about slow speeds or intermittent lost connectivity. Sooner or later they'll remove it. They won't tell you, but they'll remove it.
Traps are imprecise enough that the cable companies know that one could easily cause a problem.
Actually, in California [and many other states] the public utilities commission mandates that if you live in an area where TV antennas are prohibited (apartments, newer home communities, etc.) and your local cable company has bullied cable into your home, then you are entitled to "economy basic" cable service (usually 40 channels).
:)
This is most often the "free paid cable" apartment complexes boast to make you think your $1000+ (in California) rent is not too high!
As in an earlier post, someone mentioned that the frequencies used for data over cable are pretty much on both ends of the "string", so it would be hard to cut out the middle of the string without affecting the two ends.
Don't be ridiculous. This is like producing one CD for all of your products, shipping it off whenever one of your customers buys an application you made, and not even saying "You're not supposed to use any of the others, just the one you bought". Anyone who did that would (rightly, IMO) be "stolen" or "pirated" from, 'cause the customers would be just say "ooh, freebies" and use it all. Heck, if you read the article, you'd see that even the techs installing the hookup said "yeah, you'll get the premium channels for a while".
Whatever else this is, it has nothing to do with the morality of the people who asked and paid for only their broadband connection.
Technically they work just fine, but in a lot of buildings they have to put the trap really close to your window, since the feader is inaccessible or very accesible (like on your roof in an apartment building.) This means you can take it off and get antenna cable.
Of course I don't think they care much, when I had RoadRunner, antenna cable cost maybe $10, RoadRunner without cable cost $50, or $40 if you got basic cable ($40) or better. It looked to me like they already factored it in. Of course cable is just horrible when you are sitting less than a mile from the transmitter with direct line of sight, just gives you ghosting when you plug in the cable.
Time Warner simply has it that you pay as much for basic cable and the broadband as you do for just broadband alone.
on the contrary, hope that everyone sees the failure that you are so it will give you the courage you finally need to go ahead and kill yourself.
This is why you have to pay a bunch more if you order Cable internet access and don't already have basic cable. They basically have to give it away.
___ alwaysBETA.com - Hey, you've got nothing better to do.
the addition of shit-eating would enhance this post greatly.
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So, you have a cable modem hooked up to your cable. This doesn't mean that you are allowed to splice that cable and run it to another device.
Don't be ridiculous. This is like producing one CD for all of your products etc etc
This just in: analogies make shitty arguments. You can write analogies until the cows come and it doesn't make you any more correct. I wish slashbots would learn this...
OK, since you asked, I used to work overseas and we shared a building with the cable folks. I got to know the techs. There is three very popular ways to detect theft of service. The most common is when checking the system for integrety, they find leakage of the signal. Some cable channels share the commercial airline communications frequencies. Picking up cable channels here is interference in violation of FCC rules (USA). Cable companies usualy use 100% shielded RG-6 cable drops to the house. A pirate drop added to a cable system is typicaly done with braided RG-59 which is only 95% shielded. The leakage usualy isn't enought to get a picture outside the home. The cable company does not even try to receive a picture. They use a sensitive narrow band receiver with a yagi antenna and look for leakage of the video, sound or cable FM radio carrier. Video carriers in the aircraft band is the most common leakage detection as they are picked up as part of FCC compliance checks. Midband cable channels A-I are typicaly channels 14-22 and are just above the FM radio band in the aircraft band. 121.5 MHZ is the aircraft emergency frequency. Leakage on that frequency is a big no-no.
The second method used are using a TDR and measuring the distance to the end of the cable. A splitter tries to keep the impedance to the source to 75 ohm, but it isn't perfect and show up well on a TDR (Time Domain Reflectometry a type of in cable radar checking distance to splitters connections, ends, breaks etc.) A teltale sign of theft of service is the presence of a splitter in the TDR return and two or more diffrent distances to the terminations (6ft to cable modem and 35 foot to TV for instance).
The Third method used is the least reliable. At the head end they run one of the channels through a time base corrector with a set drift (slightly off spec horizontal frequency). During a popular program (superbowl, HBO) the van sniffs for TV's exactly matching this offset sweep speed. The catch here a TV with a noisy sweep circuit from a subscriber can swamp a bootleg reciever's signature as it gets buried in the background noise level. Getting a match in sweep frequency from a TV in a house not subscribing to ESPN or HBO in suburbia can result in enough evedince for a search warrant for the illegal decoder. This is very hard to do in apartments, but not too difficult in surburban areas. They only catch those who happen to be tuned in at the time of the sweep. Those who time shift tape are not detected. The head end stuff is very expensive for this so this is a tool of larger cable companies and cable companies that hire the survey from a 3rd party.
Leakage tests are the most common theft detection when done in conjunction with tap sweeps. TDR's are used in apartments because the temptation to run a wire to the next apartment is high. With the high density, the time to do a TDR audit has high payback results. Changes in cable response can be tied to duration of a tenant stay to make good cases of theft. The arguement of that was the way it was when I moved in doesn't work if they get two recorded TDR records that show the change after you moved in.
As you can see, two of the 3 common detection methods do use an antenna on a van pointed at your house. They look for leakage of the raw cable signal and check the sweep frequency of your TV. TDR sweeps require a tempory outage of the signal and are not done with an antenna on a van.
I hope this helps explain it.
The truth shall set you free!
But there are plenty out there that are that way... But I'm talking about the people who would have been doing it in the first place except they couldn't catch the clue train until now.
Windows (provided by Microsoft in Redmond, WA) requires you to purchase a basic media player in addition to your operating system.
If they require this, they require it of a very few. I've always gotten "Media Flayer" for free, as has everyone else I know. They give it away, very different from requiring someone to buy it.
Make sure you keep the letter in case they decide to give you a hard time about it later... You can always send them a photocopy of your letter to get them off your back later.
"The drops are not designed to be split," she said. "The Internet product needs a dedicated feed so that it runs as efficiently as it's supposed to."
I've seen it installed by Comcast this way SEVERAL time for people with Cable Modems and analog or digital cable.
A Comcast Cable representative said Comcast also performs tap audits to identify customers using unauthorized video hookups.
Right....the tech checking if some moron terminated an extra connection with a screw-on F from RadioShack while he's setting up a neighbor's connection in the same box is not what I'd call an "audit."
The tap audit lets the operator evaluate services piped into the home to see if any are not being paid for.
I'd really like to know how many people actually believe that there is some magic box they can hook up to a cable line and know what you're stealing/what kind of box you have on youe TV/how many splitters you have/etc.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
Oh my, this is sooo bad, I sometimes just can't believe my eyes when I read Slashdot.. There's almost always a story on where people are violating the legitimate interests of businesses, governments or other important organizations. I wonder what's wrong with these people in the first place. Who in their right mind would even think of hooking up their cable modem line to a TV set? I just don't get it.
I am a responsible and law-abiding citizen. I take copyright and intellectual property rights issues seriously. Last time I was at Jack Valenti's house, I told Jack to please turn off the TV (it was tuned to HBO, and I don't have a subscription). Jack told me, it was alright for me to watch, but I wasn't so sure about that, so I just sat there, closed my eyes and covered my ears and shouted "Lalalalala...!" until he turned the TV off.
I have comcast cable, and my next-door neighbor doesnt have "cable", but the cable internet. He can get the channels.... just not all of them... say... not 20-65.
well... you get what you pay for...
You're just only now figuring this out? And a public news media outlet had to to tell you about it? Sheesh . . . .
Whatever happened to the ethic that *every* new wire or device that came into the house/office/car got scoped out to see what it was/wasn't doing/capable of doing? You guys aren't geeks at all - you're just pretend geeks.
Stoptional
I recently moved from Dublin, CA to Fremont, CA (using ATT Broadband Internet in both cases). It worked fine in Dublin, but for some reason I could't get a TV signal off the cable modem. I had to sign up for it and now I pay $40 for TV in addition to the $45 for internet access.
-My Two Cents
Some cable providers (like portuguese NetCabo) solve the problem in a simple way: they will only provide internet service if you also subscibe cable TV...
I had assumed, all along, that this requirement remained. But now that I think about it, that was TCI back then, and of course now it's AT&T.
The notion that I'd have to pay for basic cable whether I used it or not, had contributed to my decision not to buy DirecTV. But honestly, I also am reluctant to order DirecTV since nobody can assure me that I will actually be able to get a signal at my location due to trees, and I'm not interested in paying a professional installer several hundred dollars just to confirm that I can't get DirecTV.
(I'm one of those folks who believes it's wrong to steal, even from an incompetent, unethical corporation, so the question isn't whether I'd do so, it's simply whether I can have AT&T Broadband Cable Modem service while getting my TV signal somewhere else -- and an antenna isn't an option, all I can get with an antenna is one TV station.)
-- http://www.MarkWelch.com/ Pleasanton California
Wish this worked with comcast. They put a 2-72 channel blocker on the pole if you only have internet service and no cable. :-( oh well....
Well, somehow AT&T has managed to shut off my cable TV, but left my cable modem (mostly) up. So I try to call their customer service line and it's busy.
That's right, I'm getting a busy signal from AT&T, one of the largest telcos in the world. This is progress!
What? are you serious? hahahahah well... it's not going to last anymore
the only fear is fear itself
However, AT&T (and Warner and anybody else pushing cable), along with the state of Texas would beg to differ with you. If you read your service agreement, it probably explicitly says no cable, and if you've got a free feed, some installer screwed up and didn't install the appropriate traps. This latter fact isn't a defense.
In Texas, this could get you a fine or an extended vacation at the state's expense. If you're dumb enough to let someone pay you to do it, it becomes 2K + 2 years minimum.
Don't do it
uh, hello? You all must be kids to find this NEW news, with very little real world experience. Gee I find it amazing how little people use their brains today.
Can you say Broadband? Do people even know what that means? I would sure hope you did if you call yourselves an admin what-so-ever. (for those of you that are). If you are an admin, and already didn't know this, then you are paper admins and should go back to working for mcdonalds.
this is incorrect. i recently moved, and i checked to see if the cable was already activated; it was (basic channels). when the service tech came out a couple of days later to activate my cable modem, i told him i didn't want cable tv. he put a filter on the line that blocked the basic cable tv, but allowed my modem to function. you only get free cable if your tech is lazy, and neglects to add that filter. is it so unbelievable that they can easily filter out the tv signal? come on guys...
eleven plus two / twelve plus one
I don't know if it's still the case now, but Time Warner's Roadrunner services were subject to the same thing....we scored free cable off a splice from our cable modem, basic cable anyway. This was around two years ago, (I moved out of the area) so it may or may not still be that way.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
In Arlington MA, just outside of Cambridge, I've subscribed to digital cable with a Motorola cable box. I has parental controls, more chanels(up to 999), digital music, HDTV, show listings and guides... basically things I could get with satellite, DVD player or VCR. Probably a waste of money, but I'm sure AT&T would like to transition everyone into this service. So far, I haven't seen any descramblers for Digital Cable, and perhaps it would be too expensive to do so.
Don't be ridiculous.
I'm being perfectly logical. If you did not pay for cable television and you installed additional cable and/or hardware to get it to your TV, it's theft.
ATT is slowly changing to "digital cable" with extra services. They will make ordinary cable obsolete, so they probably just don't care to go through the expense anyways.
My philosophy, which is probaly legally wrong, is that if they give me cable, I am going to hook it up.
It is illegal. Sorry.
But I think that you'll like satellite better. I could add basic cable to my broadband connection for $3 more. I am not going to waste $36 per year for substandard picture, sound, and reliability.
Some of my college buddies were doing this years ago... Man I can't believe someplace as 1337 as Slashdot didn't know about this.
I mean, when I ordered AT&T, the guy installed it and then asked if I wanted the basic cable too. I said "It comes with it?" "yes" "I don't have to pay anything extra?" "no" "alrighty then". I mean, i don't even get any channels of worth (no ESPN, USA, etc) I just get the networks and stuff like WB and MTV2.
Heh, and this is a "hack" rofl.
I may or may not have done the same thing on RCN. Either way word on the street is it works.
didn't everyone know that? you can get full cable too if they don't put a filter on...
Shaw and Rogers Cable (two cable co's here in Canada, which have actually merged, I think) won't give you internet service on cable unless you've subscribed to their minimum cable TV package. For most people that's fine, because they generally have cable TV or digital TV through Shaw/Rogers anyway.
So, if you subscribe to their minimum TV package, all channles, except those in that package and the internet, are filtered out. But you can't get your own modem and steal internet service because your modem has to be programmed by Shaw/Rogers for your location before it will work.
-kidlinux.
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THERE IS NO COPMETITION. Baton Rouge granted Cox an exclusive franchise years ago. BellSouth, far from being punished for not living up to it's mandated DSL requirements, was granted the ability to put long distance competitors out of business as well. If that joker Lieberman wants to promot broadband he can start by enforcing the law and it's intent.
Additionally, the folks thinking they can squeeze $40/month out of all those "thieves" are out of their minds. People who plug a wire in their house to the back of their TV are NOT THIEVES. Most of them, like me, would never, ever, pay an additional $40 a month for better reception of public broadcasts. Yet that's what they estimate they are "losing" every month. Do the math and see what I mean. They think they can get you hooked to that shit. Nope, it's just not worth it. $40/month goes a long way at the video store and, gasp, the movie theater itself.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
This is what the cable providers will try to tell you.
My father had a cable modem installed from a Canadian cable provider (Shaw or Rogers) a couple of years ago. When he ordered a cable modem, he was informed that he would also have to subscribe to a basic cable package. Needless to say, my dad's not a big TV fan and he didn't want to pay for something he never uses. (Who does.) He is also a persistant man, and finally convinced the company to give him the cable modem only.
Upon having the modem installed, we did a check (temporary, of course) to see what kind of channels were available TV-wise. We did get channels 2-13 with great reception but no more as there was probably a filter on the line. I hooked it up again temporarily last summer when I went back to visit. This time only channels 2 through 5 or 6 were available. It seems that the cable company doesn't trust anybody and had put an even more restrictive filter on the line.
Now I'm not one to get Dad into hot water, so I left well enough alone. But there are people with easy access to the cable box feeding the house. The only thing keeping you from getting tons of channels of crap is going out and removing said filter.
...And remember to wear gloves and do your neighbours', too.
If you don't believe me, ask that guy over there.
does this really deserve a /. story? Its been pretty obvious for the last few years to anyone with cable internet that its exactly the same cable you already had in your house with a cable modem attached to the end of it. Only prob with splitting it off is that it kills your bandwidth something fierce when you start watching tv while you are online
In parts of the Midwest, if you are a Comcast subscriber you have a similar opportunity. Basically, you get the cable modem service, order the barebones $12.95 cable service, and because of the modem, all channels below 301 (or thereabouts) are unblocked. This isn't the pr0n channels or the PPV, but it does encompass Sundance East and West and some of the better channels in the system...
"Goodness, how did you people live long enough to invent tools?" -Hobbes (the tiger, not the philosopher)
i dunno.. i think if its in your house you could probably justify doing whatever you want with it. Kinda like how you can splice your phone line and add extra wall plugs even tho the phone co would be happy to send a tech out to wire a simple plug for $50+
do you realize that microsoft actually does send out books of cds containing every single microsoft product, including betas, to technet plus subscribers. That's right, for less than $1000 they'll send you a bigass wallet of CDs or DVDs, and yes, it's illegal and immoral to use them in place of real media.
Kinda like how you can splice your phone line and add extra wall plugs even tho the phone co would be happy to send a tech out to wire a simple plug for $50+
But you aren't really gaining new services by doing this. An extra phone jack will allow you use a phone in another room, but it will not allow you to use phones in separate rooms for separate calls. Therefore, you aren't stealing from the phone company if you add a phone jack to your house.
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
Well in Seattle on ATT if you order only Cable Internet Access, they automatically put a frequency filter on your line when they come to install the service. I have many friends with ATT internet only and none of them get a decent signal for TV. Channels above 70, start coming in a bit better, but nothing below that works at all.
My connection, OTOH, was installed by a guy who was being "trained". Clearly he forgot to install the filter on the line, b/c as the truck drove away, I put my radio shack splitter on the line, sat down and felt my blood pressure rise as I happened upon Faux News Network. But THANKS TO *&#%ing SLASHDOT, today almost all of my channels are gone!
Thanks a lot.
Maybe it is just something in the neighborhood as I still get Seattle Community channel, comedy central and the NBC shopping network...WooHoo!
They think Slashdot discussed it in April 1999" and cached that too.
Apparently, Maryland's Cable TV Service Theft Laws are designed with guilty-until-proven-innocent built in, and "Comcast The TV Company" and "Comcast the Cable Modem Company" didn't talk to each other very well about who was buying what services, so the author got a Kafka-esque runaround because she wasn't a TV-watching couch potato.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
want to uncap your cable modem and get faster access for free? read this current issue of 2600 magazine, it has an article called Creative Cable Modem Configuration.
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But you aren't really gaining new services by doing this. An extra phone jack will allow you use a phone in another room, but it will not allow you to use phones in separate rooms for separate calls. Therefore, you aren't stealing from the phone company if you add a phone jack to your house.
splitting your cable also allows you to watch tv in different rooms, why should you only be able to watch tv in your living room? Adding extra phones allows multiple people in one house to join in on one conversation using multiple phones, by your reasoning, that would be bad as well. if they didn't want you to split the cable, they would make it so its not possible to split it. in my area its perfectly legal to split the cable once it enters your house, i doubt some many people would be willing to pay $40 a month if it wasn't, perhaps in some areas your sign a contract not allowing to split your cable, but here its just fine and its common practice, the cable installer will even split it for you if you want.
Found out tonight that the digital cable box my gf bought from a friend (who switched to satelite) works just fine when connected to cable, without ordering digital cable service...
These companies really should control their hardware better.
(I suspect when our friends canceled that filters were put on the line, but no deactivation was applied to the digital cable box.)
Heck, cable co's have been making public this knowledge for, err, lets see;
AGES now.
Before even cable modems existed you could run down to your local Radioshack and buy a splitter and get basic cable on any other cable ready TV just by running the split line to it from the main feed.
Yeesh.
Now repeat after me the advertising lines used for Cable Modems:
"Internet over the Cable TV lines you already have."
Say it again.
"Internet over the Cable TV lines you already have."
Hmm, same lines, same connection, err, DUH.
Yeesh.
Talk about the obvious.
Doesn't cost the cable companies a penny, and a few of them have even advertised it as a freebie (doesn't cost them jack, RF transmission is already sent, beh).
I myself watch TV on my computer thanks to a $20 TV in card (you people paying in the hundreds are getting horribly ripped off. Once again, repeat after me "Generic BT chipset, Generic BT chipset." ) and a cheapo line splitter I found in one of the multitudes of drawers around the house.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Knology in Alabama requires that you subscribe to extended baxic cable (which is amounts to all of the analog channels) before they will sell you cable modem access. Is this the go old "can't have Windows whithout IE" maybe but anyway it's probably smart on thier part. If you do decide to split off the cable modem to a TV then make sure you put a High Pass filter on the TV side. Otherwise the Cable Man In Black (good o'l boys in the south) will find you.h
Zoid.com
I've been paying the standard $45 a month for cable internet, split it throughout my house and get 60 channels as a bonus. I've been doing that since I got cable in 1999 or so.
Depending on your cable provider, you'll get all sorts of nutty cable channels, including hte "Windows 95 desktop" channel, the "insert the AMiga Kickstart disk" channel,and a classic chnanel from the '80s, the "Commodore 64 screen spitting out random numbers" channel, a personal favorite.
Anoyne remember those cheesy "childeren's stories" channels that were basically computer-rendered screens with text and graphics for various tales? I was addicted to it as a kid. I also remmeber the computer-screen AP news plus channel. Every 3 months or so,all the graphics came up scrambled, as if it were done in Logo and a wrong turn on the vectors were made. Hilarious to watch when you're 10.
What about me? I pay almost $100 a month (was ~$200 but cut some stuff back), I feel perfectly justified splitting the line and getting another expanded basic line feed.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
My brother's had free cable for years - he just splits his neighbor's service. What's so hard about that?
Shoplifting actually decreases the value of a store's inventory. Splicing cable costs the cable company nothing. The reports claiming that the industry loses $6.2 billion per year assume that every single casual pirate would've been a full, $500-per-year customer had he not stumbled across the free signal coming into his house. Fat chance.
I see no double standard here: Slashdot unabashedly publishes ways to copy music, software, and video signals -- all of which can also be copied without actually costing the creator anything. I haven't seen Slashdot condoning any form of theft that involves harming the owner/creator of the product being stolen.
(Posted anonymously because, well, the law doesn't really back me up on this one...)
Who would want cable anyhow once they have high speed Internet access. There is a lot more and better content available through high-speed streaming video.
I've had AT&T cable modem service for years and never had owned T.V.
Big deal. We put a filter up at the pole that blocks the bandwidth between channel 2 and 78, and voila, you get no more free cable, be-atch. Besides, if you run a tv without a high-pass filter (blocking 5 MHz to 42 Mhz) to block low frequency noise output from your tv, you start raising the noise floor of the shared-medium and you and your neighbors get packet loss, and that means slow speeds and lost packets, jerky. You might be able to steal, but if you don't do it right, you screw things up for everyone else.
Um,why does this have to be posted on slashdot? Are there actually people who have never tried to split off their cable modem connection to their tv? This is common knowledge. Hey guess what, it works with roadrunner too! I tried that a long time ago but I never thought it was important enough to post on slashdot.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
The run regular TDRs down cable segments which lets them know when something has changed (like you removed/added filters to get a service you didn't pay for)
They also have sniffers on their cable trucks - but not for the reason you think - they use frequencies on the cable that are used by other people in broadcast - if they radiate too much the FCC comes a knocking - a few years back they tried to shut down a TX cable plant that was interfering with air traffic control
The last set of stats that I have (out of date, from 1990) said 98% of all American households have a TV.
That number is most likely about 99 - 99.9% right now.
Sorry to say it, but they are never going to make special breaks for the few thousand scattered Americans without a TV.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Way back in the dark ages, cable TV providers demanded that you pay a separate charge for *each* TV or VCR hooked to the cable (frex, via a splitter). Some providers claimed they could tell if you had more than on TV hooked up by the feedback they got from their signal (dunno if that was for real or just a scare tactic).
30-some years ago there was a lawsuit (it affected Montana, tho I don't know if it had any impact in other states) that established that the cable company had no right to dictate how you could use the signal they provided -- if they sent a TV signal into your house, you could split it to however many TVs/VCRs you cared to. (However, you still could not steal the signal by hooking directly to the box on the pole, or splicing into your neighbour's cable, or using a decoder to view scrambled channels you hadn't paid for, etc.) In short, the court said you'd paid for the *signal*, not a fixed number of hookups.
ISTM that per this ancient lawsuit, if the cable brings signal into your house, and you merely split it after it's in your house (past all the various control devices) then they've already lost the right to control your use of said signal, and what devices you hook it to is your business.
I don't know how this would be perceived in the current legal climate, tho. Probably as theft, even tho no overtly illegal activity (descrambling etc.) takes place.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Three weeks ago AT&T here in Denver found a way to cut us off.
They didn't do anything to the cable box. Instead they put "something" on up on the poll. When they were done our free ride was over.
Just a forewarning for all those people who think the freeride will last forever.
We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
furthermore, what about creating a home network? im getting the same product i am paying for, but not paying for it the second time. or what about having two TVs hooked up to cable in a house?
does apply as well? (just for clarity, i did insert those and paraphrased your comment.)
------
[insert funny
I did this for perhaps 3 months before they caught on and shut down the TV signal.
So it ain't happening everywhere.
The net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. -- John Gilmore
This is as easy as it might seem. Or it wasn't for me at least. I got one of those gold plated splitters from Radio Crack and plugged it in only to find that my modem wouldn't sync up. The problem was that most splitters you buy come with resistors on both ends that get split. I had to crack open the splitter and solder on a piece of wire that circumvented the resistor for the cable modem, but the TV still wanted a resistor. Your splitter should end up looking like this, R is for resistor. This worked for me.
|-----> Modem
AT+T =====
|--R--> TV
-- Smutt
The Information Revolution will be fought on the command line.
In my area ATT is already placing filters somehow to separate the two
Ask about Liited Basic on Comcast (and likely all US, Smells like Gubmint regulation)
This looks to me like a classic case of C|Net violating the DMCA in providing a way to get around content delivery controls, and pirate cable service.
nahhh. let them do it....
they'll get nailed by a sniffer truck, their service shut off, dragged into court for theft of service and fined heavily and get a criminal record.
I love it when idiots steal cable, as you WILL get caught quite quickly. the technology on the sniffer trucks is really advanced now, and the cable companies are making huge profits from nailing the cable thieves..
I've seen an offer that they wont drag you through court if you pay for every option ($150.00 a month) for a year's time (you dont get anything, you're paying for the previous year.) but then that was 3 years ago when the guy that lived below an Ex-girlfriend of mine got nabbed for splitting off her cable TV.
the sniffer trucks can detect from the street the number of sets and devices attached, as well as location (every TV,VCR,etc leaks a bit of rf energy)
please let them steal cable... they need to get nailed.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It has always be like that with cable companies, you have to pay a little more for your internet connection if you're not getting their cable-tv deal
We had RoadRunner in central New York back in 1999. I had a splitter lying around, so we plugged it in to my video capture card, and lo and behold, basic cable. My roommate even found some special drivers for his ATi All-in-Wonder to unbefunge some of the less-heavily "encrypted" pay channels.
:P
We paid the price for it, though... they ran a James Bond marathon during exam week. Bastards...
Where I live you can in theory do this...
:).
basic cable 31.99/month
basic cable with broadband 71.99
broadband with no cable 79.00.
I bet there are no subscribers that chose the broadband with no cable option. This from adelphia's business office
I've used a cable modem for years, in several different apartments. In one setup, I needed both cable tv and modem service in the same room--what did the tech do? He installed a splitter!
Remember, though, that just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. Stealing cable is wrong! I'd go on, but I am too busy downloading copyrighted material from news servers and P2P networks.
Thank you for observing all safety precautions.
Timewarner cable told me that it was fine to do this as long as I knew that I could never call for service of cable. Which doesn't matter because if Road Runner is out then Cable TV is out as well.
Amen, mod this up. Someday (soon, probably), there will be 'sniffer trucks' for people illegally sharing files using P2P ... the ones that'll get nailed will be the candles burning most brightly (e.g. you're nabbing 100's of megs of MP3s a night). Finally, the people actually *stealing* the files will get dragged to court and held responsible, instead of shackling the hands of developers trying to push the envelope of technology (not that I entirely agree with the purported "legitimate uses" of any of the current P2P systems ..)
...saying that I would not splice the cable. If I had basic cable, I could split it to as many TV's as I wanted.
How is this different?
The way cable internet/TV works, the basic cable is brought into your house on the same coax as the internet, it's just that your cable modem cannot recieve TV signals, so you never notice.
It's not stealing, you have it already. Now if you hook up a converter box, that would be stealing cable; but for basic cable, you are already getting that since the two share the same infrastructure.
When I first got my cable modem, during a free month trial, we got a splitter and were able to get almost all the channels. It was only when we started to pay for cable TV that they came and restricted the channels on both TV and Computer lines.
Personally, I think it's totally ridiculous that we have special laws about cable theft. It's moronic. If you send signal at me, it's my option to do something with that signal (note: this doesn't mean physically splicing into someone elses line. Thats a different can of worms). Canda has a much more enlightened approach, at least about satellite which is the same concept. The cable companies, like everyone, like to soak you for as much as they can (I have a cable tuner in my TV. It doesn't work, so I need to rent a cable box (remote is seperate) from Cablevision. Every little bit adds up, you know? Like the phone companies of old, they want total control over the line, the content, and the devices. They want you to pay an extra fee for extra TVs in the same house. Why? It doesn't cost them anything more. There's no extra work involved. It's just me splitting a signal that they feed me. But they like money. And since there's practically no competition, they can do whatever they like.
People don't want to hear about how they are morally or ethically wrong about something. As far as they are concerned, that's your opinion and not based on fact or reality.
I made a similar point regarding Napster yesterday. Someone went as far as comparing music theft on Napster to the life of Jesus Christ.
Knocking...my...head...into...the...wall...
Yesterday taught me one thing. If people can find a way in their brain to justify an act, they will change their perception from it being "wrong" to "well, why shouldn't I? Who am I REALLY hurting?"
What about me? I pay almost $100 a month (was ~$200 but cut some stuff back), I feel perfectly justified splitting the line and getting another expanded basic line feed.
I didn't say that you would not feel justified in doing it. I simply said it was illegal.
I might feel justified pirating Windows XP because the copy of Windows 95 I purchased did not perform as advertised, but my feeling justified would not make it legal.
Granted, I didn't work for AT&T, but if they aren't intalling service-level filters, they're losing money.
Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
The article was about paying for cable modem service and splitting off basic cable television service that you never paid for.
Speaking of cable horror stories...m odem.htm
2 27.shtm l
I know this was WAAY back in '99... but may still be relevant... many here might have forgotten this poor chaps issue:
http://www.geocities.com/flutocracy/cable
Or how about the resulting story on Slashdot "Get a cable modem, go to jail"
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/04/26/1229
--
Time is on my side
If you did not pay for cable television and you installed additional cable and/or hardware to get it to your TV, it's theft.
This is true. Also, if you watch a tv show and don't watch the ads, it's theft.
that was sarcasm.
-dbc
No kidding I've known this for about two years. The AT&T contractors told me.
To people in the software industry who are stealing cable: don't get mad if you find out that the cable guy is pirating the software that your company sells.
;-)
You forget - everyone on slashdot does Open Source, and gives their software away for free. Seems like this is just enforcing the GPCableLicense!
I wonder if a TDR or leakage sweep would find the unburied and ripped cable feed in my garden after I roto-tilled this spring? As a non-cable subscriber I could care less if my cable works. But I would hate for them to come and try to sue me for the cost of fixing the cable. :-)
Splicing cable costs the cable company nothing. The reports claiming that the industry loses $6.2 billion per year assume that every single casual pirate would've been a full, $500-per-year customer had he not stumbled across the free signal coming into his house. Fat chance.
I agree that the numbers are grossly inflated, but to pretend that none of these people would have become customers is equally fallacious reasoning. Some people are stealing basic cable in lieu of paying for it. So it is costing the cable industry something. Is it costing them $6.2 billion per year in lost sales? Probably not. But neither is it costing them nothing.
The other thing that ticks me of is that I'm supposed to feel sorry for friggin' AT&T? Sorry, no sympathy available for giant monopolistic conglomerates. Rotten setup, rotten security, whose fault is that? My favorite quote from the article on the most common types of "cable piracy":
" Passive cable theft, such as when a family moves into a home where the cable line has not been disconnected."
Huh, funny, I call that passive cable donation, where a company fails to appropriately manage the supply of its product, effectively eliminating its right to charge for or bitch about it.
I'm usually critical of people who pirate software, steal cable, etc, but I'm less critical of this particular variety of "stealing" cable. And yes, I did this myself last night, so I'm not a disinterested observer.
I guess my take on it is that while I know they don't *want* me "stealing" cable, I see no reason to assume that it *is* stealing. I'm paying $50/month for a piece of co-ax that can send and recieve data to and from the outside world. It so happens that one type of data I recieve is basic cable. I see no principled reason why I'm allowed to make use of one type of data coming off that piece of co-ax, and not another.
If there were a contract of some sort promising that we would only use the services we paid for, or if they put at least some kind of scrambling or blocking on it, I would be reluctant to circumvent security measures to get cable. But when all I have to do is take the cable they gave me and plug it into the back of the TV, I find it quite a stretch to say that that counts as theft. If they don't want me using the service, they should make at least a token effort to prevent it.
Everybody I know displays disrespect for at least one or two laws (or did in the past) - speeding, cheating on taxes and smoking weed being probably the most common and I'll say this: I find it quite doubtful that "pirating" cable kills anyone, while there's absolutely no question whatsoever that speeding does. So lighten up, buddy
I'm not your "buddy" so don't tell me to "lighten up."
It wouldn't "kill" you if someone stole your car, but that doesn't mean that we should all just turn a blind eye to it. On the other hand, maybe we should...
Legally and ethically, you have no obligation to not hook up your tv if you subscribe only to cable modem service. (Note that none of this applies to digital services.)
If a con man sends me an unsolicited product i am not required to pay for it or give it back. This is the same thing.
You asked for cable modem service and got cable tv service delivered on top of it. The signal is already coming to your house, so it is essentially wasted if it does not go to your tv. If you are paying for everything you asked for and are not depriving anyone else of service, or quality of service, where's the ethical problem? (If they say your splitter affects others' service, then they're lying.)
If they weant the $2 (my local cost) that they charge for basic cable on top of modem service then they can block out the tv channel at the tap until you subscribe. If they choose not to, that's their problem.
IUTBACG (i used to be a cable guy) so believe me when i tell you that all the crap in the article about tap audits(1) and degrading your service through splitters(2) is crap.
(1) A tap audit looks at the place where your individual line is connected to the main feed and maybe at the place where the line enters the house. If some joker pried open the box or climbed the pole and spliced-in his own line, removed some channel-blocking traps, or added some black-market channel-adding traps they can tell. They cannot (legally) tell how many splitters you have in your basement, nor is it any of their business. After the signal is in your house, you can do whatever you want with it (copyright restriction, etc. taken into account) - hook it up to one and only one tv, split it a milion ways, or leave it dangling unconnected if you want to! That's been decided in court and that's why they can charge you for installing new outlets, but not for service to multiple TV sets.
Oh, and BTW tap audits are pretty rare unless they've previosuly caught you or one of your neighbors being naughty, but YMMV.
(2)If a two-way splitter would degrade your service to an unacceptable level then it was probably already intermittantly shitty. (But don't get me started on morons who want to have crystal-clear reception on 6 TVs with a $2 splitter from Radio Shack - there is a limit to how much you can split a signal. The cable company is not responsible for fixing your mess - just their own.)
It is unlikely that your modem would work fine before you put the splitter in and not work afterwards, but if that's the case then that's your problem. Still, there's no harm nor foul in testing it out.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
My cable recently got shutdown. I got a hilarious letter from AT&T Broadband "apologizing" for the "inconvenience" of having the cable TV signal as a side effect of the broadband service. The letter went on to explain that they have shut down my "free cable TV" for my "convenience"... and of course, it included an offer for basic/digital cable services. Made my laugh out loud... In the end, I called DirecTV/TiVo to restore my "inconvenient" TV service. I can only assume the rest of the Atlanta market (formerly MediaOne) enjoyed receiving this letter as well.
The article was about paying for cable modem service and splitting off basic cable television service that you never paid for.
If you didn't pay for it, they shouldn't give it to you for free. They can easily stop people from receiving the free channels by filtering it out.
I live in Canada and the cable company was charging me $10 extra because I didn't have cable. I was getting basic cable for this but only because they didn't install a trap.
Then, two years ago they said I had to sign up or they would disconnect the cable. Since then, Rogers and Shaw have swapped infrastructure and Shaw dropped the $10 surcharge. But they still haven't disconnected my cable.
If they disconnected my cable, I would probably switch to ADSL since it's five dollars cheaper. So, they would end up losing nearly five hundred dollars a year instead of gaining the two- to three- hundred dollars they would get from making me pay for cable.
The other point I would like to make is that the cable company doesn't generally own the programs they are broadcasting. Their costs are in the infrastructure, not the intellectual property. In other words, it costs them roughly the same to provide me with either the most basic service or the most comprehensive. The infrastructure is already paid for.
The local cable company here is expensive! They offer a $10/month discount package with broadband if you have DIGITAL ONLY TV. They used to allow a $10 discount for Internet + analog TV, but right when I was willing to have an installer come out, they told me the $10/month discount was only if you were subscribing to their digital package. Guess what? Their cheapest digital package is $52/month with required digital cable box, so total with discount with Internet($48 with tax) is $90/month and that is just basic TV.. not much selection in channels. I think it is stupid they do not offer the $10 discount to analog+internet subscribers. I would not mind increasing my cable bill $5/month to just have a handful of basic analog channels, but they will not sell it to me like that. If I wanted Internet + basic analog, it would cost me $62/month. You guys have much better cable deals than we do here. It is ridiculous how they changed the system so you'd have to get digital for any discount. It is much cheaper to steal analog. Problem is they remembered the cap on my line. I setup a satellite dish and pay $47/month for my TV and get WAY more DIGITAL channels than the cable company could offer me for the same price. My dish bill would be less if I did not pay for a few distant local networks, but right now I believe I have the best I could get without having to steal or pay through the roof for a crappy selection of digital channels on the local cable system. I just wanted a handful of analog channels for locals, but it is rigged to be more expensive to do it that way.
If you didn't pay for it, they shouldn't give it to you for free.
They didn't "give it to you for free." They may have underestimated your willingness to steal the signal, but they did not "give" you the signal. Did they run a cable to your TV? Did they say "feel free to hook up a cable and enjoy basic cable channels for free"? If not, they didn't give you anything.
They can easily stop people from receiving the free channels by filtering it out.
So now they are supposed to buy filters, pay someone to install them all over your service area, and reduce the overall system reliability by adding these filters and increasing the number of connections(all of which are potential failure points), and pass the costs on to all of their honest customers who are paying for the service. Otherwise, you're going to steal it.
Face facts: If you pay for cable modem service and start adding splitters and/or cables to run to your TV, you are stealing the service. You physically added something to their cable system so that you could get a service that you did not pay for. End of story.
Face facts: If you pay for cable modem service and start adding splitters and/or cables to run to your TV, you are stealing the service. You physically added something to their cable system so that you could get a service that you did not pay for.
By this logic, if I had cable and wanted to connect multiple TV's to it, I would be stealing service. Some cable companies actually believe this and charge you for every outlet. I just don't happen to buy into it.
Legally and ethically, you have no obligation to not hook up your tv if you subscribe only to cable modem service.
It's their cable system and you don't have a legal right to add splitters and cables to it so that you can get TV signals that you don't pay for.
If a con man sends me an unsolicited product i am not required to pay for it or give it back. This is the same thing.
No it is not. The cable company did not send you an unsolicited product. You tapped into their cable and stole it.
You asked for cable modem service and got cable tv service delivered on top of it.
When the cable guy left after installing your cable modem, did you magically have basic cable on your TV? No. You hooked up additional splitters and/or cables in order to steal the signal.
The signal is already coming to your house, so it is essentially wasted if it does not go to your tv. If you are paying for everything you asked for and are not depriving anyone else of service, or quality of service, where's the ethical problem?
Ethical and legal problems are different. Legally, it is theft. Ask any competent attorney and he'll verify that. Ethically, you have to ask yourself a question: If you could not get basic cable that way, would you:
a. pay for it.
b. pay for satellite.
c. buy an antenna.
If you answered yes to any of the above, your theft of the cable service is depriving someone of income. To me, that's an ethical problem.
It's their service. They get to decide how it is priced. If they decide on a per-TV price and you don't like it, get out the rabbit-ears or subscribe to satellite.
Let's change "cable TV" to "computer software" and see how your summary works:
So how is that analogy flawed?
I have ATTBI. When the tech showed up to install, he told me "I'll have to rerun the drop from the ped (I had no idea what a ped was at the time) but I think the wiring inside is OK." He reran the outside drop and carried some black box meters of some kind into the attic.
"Signal's good and strong now," he tells me, and slaps the modem on the wall jack that was already in the room. "I don't have to run a new jack that way" he explains. I don't know if installing a 400 filter is standard in this area, but if it is, he didn't. I have digital phone too, but I doubt that is the reason that he didn't install a filter.
I WILL be examining my bill for an extra $10 when I get home, though. I am certainly not the kind of scoundrel who would hook a TV up to the jacks, and I'm not going to take a hit just because the tech was too lazy to run a new jack and just kept all the splitters that were already up in the attic.
Besides, if you are only using the old RG-6 jumpers that the cable company themselves use to hook up the TVs, the leakage would be much harder to detect, wouldn't it? I wasn't the one who hooked up all the splitters in the attic that would show up on the line length scan, and I'm not worried about "degrading my modem's signal" -- I had 4.5 mb for about a week, and then the @home merger goes through, and I get capped at 1.5 for the same price.
Bastards.
That it took so long to catch on to this (It wasn't hard for me; I tried it within the first week of having cable), or that the /. crowd is being informed of this by CNet?
---------
Launch all sig
there is no competition because YOUR local government gladly handed the cable company a monoply in your town city. they made laws to make it ILLEGAL to be a cable company that is not the one that is currently giving kickbacks to the city (called a franchise fee... go look it up at the city.. you'll see that this is one shining beacon of the corruption that is in your city government)
you want competition? start a campain to oust the thieves in the city council and repeal ANY silly calbe laws or monopoly's. your localc cable company will complain and threaten to leave (yeah right, go ahead and rip up your headends and fiber optic plant... that's pure bullshit that they will leave)
it's YOU that can change these things... and only YOU.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.