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FBI Raids Homes and Seizes Bandwidth Pirates' PCs
Saturated Subnet writes "Recently in Toledo, OH FBI agents and a local police task force raided 13 residence and seized 23 computers. Some users of the local cable broadband provider had uncapped their cable modems." It appears to be a smaller ISP, and the
article says these 23 people cost them a quarter of a million bucks. Who
has time to look at $10,800 worth of pr0n?
What happend to just cancelling their service?
Who's going to use buckeye cable after it is known they have their customers arrested? Who's to say they didn't make the mistake? Someone complains of high ping, tech tampers with modem, and a few months later, the customer goes to jail? There's service with a smile. Thanks, but if I heard that, I'd certainly be looking at my DSL providers.
If you drove down the highway at 300 km/h (180 mph) and thought it was perfectly alright because it's your car and you can tinker with it if you want, should you get caught?
No, the roads are governmentally (and thus publicly) owned.
"It's against the law. It's a crime we are going to enforce," the detective said.
ANd the article says that no arrests were made..... sounds like some enforcing to me.
Great Linux Site
I almost want to sue the cable company for wasting the time of the FBI. Next time, cut off their service (A pair of wire cutters will do just fine) and take the losers to court and sue them. I couldn't believe the FBI showed up and didn't arrest anyone! Just took the guys computers.
The only real question is did any of their "non-stealing" customers notice that their net connections were slower because of these "bandwidth theives"?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
How about something simpler? I suggest the following:
Dear customer,
We have detected that you have uncapped your cable modem, and are using more bandwidth than specified in your contract. You have 3 days to revert the changes you made to your cable modem, or your service will pernamently be canceled and you will be billed for the excess bandwidth you have used at a rate of $XX.XX per megabyte.
Any reason why this wouldn't work? Sending the FBI to investigate is a waste of time and resources for our govt IMHO.
Keep in mind that the quarter million dollar figure may have nothing to do with the actual actual damages incurred. Companies often make up figures like this in order to get the FBI's attention, since nothing under $5000 worth of damage is worth investigating. It also makes for better headlines, especially with a politically ambitious prosecutor.
Sure, this would be lying to Federal agents, which is a felony; but several companies got away with it in the Mitnick case, too.
Finding God in a Dog
Who has time to look at $10,800 worth of pr0n?
How many replies will this story get from people saying "I could"?
How many replies will say something say something referenceing the simpsons
Marge: "Who would need all that porn?"
Homer: "Hmmm, A million times faster"
and then the general cliche "Hmmm, pr0n"...this could reach 1000 comments filled with thouse jokes alone.
Who has time to look at $10,800 worth of pr0n?
Taco, some things in life you make time for.
Some people may be wondering why the FBI was involved with this. The answer is simple. This constitutes fraud.
If you were to wire up a box on your phone to enable you to get free calls then you'd find your self in the same situation. And its escentialy the same crime as uncaping your cable modem/dsl router. As stealing phone calls detriments the ability of the whole network from ordinary users, so does stealing bandwidth.
I find myself stressing this again, Bandwidth Is Not Free. Bandwidth is not an artificialy restricted resource. It is a true limited resource, there is only so much you can put over a cable, and you need to ofset the costs of maintenece on that cable and the initial cost of laying it in the first place.
Doing it is illegal. Its also easy to trace. So they called the people who have jurisdiction for wire frauds and computer crime. its as simple as that. ISPs regularly warn users not to do this, and when they do, its justifyable to take it up with the authorities.
Wether its rational to do search and seazure of equipment is another matter, that may put the FBI in the wrong.
"The use of excessive bandwidth is something that Buckeye does not condone or will not stand. The clear distinction between this type of theft and the theft of cable services is that there is a finite amount of resource. The more the customer uses, the less there is to go around for other customers. These customers were impacting the performance of all our other customers," Mr. Shryock said.
Which strikes me as funny, as AT&T Cable did have people arrested earlier this year/late last year on charges of stealing cable (TV) service. In one case local to me, it was demonstrated in court that some of the arrested individuals not only did not have AT&T service, but the AT&T techs later showed that there was no physical way for the person to have tapped into the service.
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
because dude, you're getting a Dell.
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
As for wire fraud, wouldn't communications have to cross state lines for the FBI to get involved?
Of course, there's probably some federal law regarding computer crime (interfering with a computer system strikes me as covering unauthorized use of bandwidth), but I'd still like to see the specifics that justify this kind of federal criminal action, espescially when they were so selective about it (i.e. those who weren't home weren't served..? Huh? What happened to neutral application of the law?)
You could've hired me.
You're anology has this huge gaping hole in it...
1. Speeding is a crime...
2. Breaking TOS is a breach of contract
One of these subjects you statuatory court, the other subjects you to civil court.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
...that sometimes they will get caught and will have to pay the consequences for their actions?
I am very comfortable knowing that the cable companies are being proactive about nailing those who are stealing service. I pay for my all my services. Why should someone else get a free ride?
I have nothing against classical hacking, but when it comes to service theft, it's what it is: theft.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
...it is breach of contract, nothing more. And, since it is a breach of contract, as numerous others have pointed out, a pair of wire cutters (or a flip of a switch) would have more than sufficed to put an end to this behavior.
... you are merely in debt for the difference still owed. No theft committed. None.
If you agree to drive 10 truck on the expressway for a certain, flat tax, and instead drive 500, you haven't stolen anything. Not even the taxes you should have paid. The road is still there, the taxes you did pay are still there
You've violated your contract (and failed to pay taxes that are due), but once again, that is not theft. The same is true in this situation.
Your other point is very good: wonders how many Al Q'aida sleeper cells are going to go undetected here in the U.S. because of American companies like this one who feel it somehow appropriate to appropriate the FBI's services as an enforcement arm of their End User License Agreements and service contracts.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Perhaps they siezed the computers because they believed somthing bigger was going on? Perhaps they were hoping to catch some hacking or warez distrubution? I don't know, it just seems unnecesary, all they needed to do was grab the modems to prove they were modified and get the use logs from the ISP to prove breach of contract and see how much bandwidth was illegally used. Either that or I've been hanging around here with the conspiricy theorists too long.
Science may someday discover what faith has always known.
According to their statement, Buckeye should stand the bandwidth usage, or condone it - "The use of excessive bandwidth is something that Buckeye does not condone or will not stand."
Since they called in the FBI, they clearly aren't standing for that kind of thing. So I guess what they're really trying to say is that they condone cable modem uncapping?
Mod me down, and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Bart Beavers, a member of the task force based out of the FBI office in Toledo, said search warrants obtained for six other residences were not served because the occupants were not home or for various other reasons.
;-))
... it's ... just not the same anymore *tears flow* ;-)))))
Ohhh....this is just beautiful...I can see some (six?) seriously scared script kiddies in front of me trying to get their modem to work normally again *g*
...or just getting rid of everything which looks like a modem / computer
Imagine their parents: No...no mommy, I'm not into computers anymore...you can really throw them away...yes I know that I spend all my time in front of it for the last 10 years...but you know...it's
Call me crazy, but I have to beleive that there was somthing going on here that we don't know about. I'm not talking about anything sinister on the FBI's part, I just think that they had a more important reason to investigate that they arn't saying to the public, and this violation was a good excuse to infiltrate. Imagine if the Feds suspected one of those 23 people of a more serious crime like writing viruses, child porn, financial idenity fraud, etc. They have been watching them for some time, and still don't have enough evidence to get a warrent to search the house, but they say to themselfs "if we could take a peek at thier computer". They decide to check with the ISP and see who in the neiborhood was violating the law, and one thing leads to the other. Suddenly they have access to the computer they were looking for, and they didn't alert anyone else involved in the REAL crime that they were aware of what was going on. This sounds much more plausable to me.
Sigs are out of style, so I'm not going to use one...oh wait..
Bad guys uncap modems: $0 (they're h4x0rs after all)
FBI arrests bandwidth stealers: $4,000
Bad guys sue FBI for violating their ( choose one, civil rights, first amendment rights, blah blah) and win settlement: $25,000,000
So let's recap:
Uncle Sam: Out $25,004,000
Cable Company: Same as before
Bad Guys: You can buy a hell of a lot of bandwidth with $25,004,000
Another wonderful example of our legal system at "work".
It took some digging but I found the link to their TOS (PDF) click here
Ideally the government wouldn't have been involved at all, but instead have the parties settle it among themselves. However, I guess after having to deal with so many people trying this more drastic, newsworthy measures need be taken to let users know they mean business and not to try this for kicks. If the only punishment is a cancellation of service, a lot of people will try and get permanently banned, a fate which results ultimately in the ISP not getting money from that user who might have behaved himself if he thought he had more to lose than his account.
All this said, I'm not sure why this is FBI jurisdiction rather than local law enforcement agency. I suppose the main body of the ISP is proabably not in the same state, but you would think they would operate through their local presence. Of course, the FBI is more newsworthy than local police.
At this stage they say they have not charged anyone with anything, but confiscated systems for evidence. My bet is that the systems will be returned and charges never filed. This is more of a scare tactic. Really scare the perpetrators, and spread more awareness of the seriousness of the issue among the people. In the end they will let them off, making the company look better while acheiving the wider scare they wanted. They really have nothing to gain by punishing those individuals except bad publicity.
This whole scenario just goes to demonstrate that cable providers as a whole went into the ISP business unprepared with a lack of understanding of the problems an ISP faces. Routers should cap this stuff, not endstations, and their network infrastructure has proved in many cases to crumble under the stress, kind of like what happened when AOL first offered unlimited time plans. Now cable companies are more and more going to charge for extra bandwidth because they have been unable to figure out how to regulate network usage from a technical perspective without losing their peak rates. The Telco companies with DSL were not able to match the peak rate of cable modem, but now with the improvement of DSL technology and the saturation of both types of networks, DSL has proven to frequently provide more consistant, reliable service, even if peak DSL throughput is not equal to cable, the realistic throughput is on average better than Cable.
Now to see if cable companies can mature as ISPs, or if DSL will come to dominate in the coming years.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Umm, they didn't steal love, they stole tangible resources. Electricity, data bits, coax bandwidth.. These are all tangible objects. And they cost money. You can't toss one in the back of your truck and drive away with it, but you can certainly steal it.
If I hacked a system and wire-transferred $10,000 from your bank account to mine, would you say you didn't mind because I didn't steal anything physical? After all, I didn't take a fat sack of cash from you and run off with it, I just changed some data in a computer.
No arrests, no charges? Whatever happened to due process? Did they take that part out of the Constitution while we weren't looking? How are the cops going to justify taking the computers and other equipment without charges having been filed? This is annoying and frightening.
The law suits should be fun to watch.
slashdot broke my sig
Where I do have a problem is with what actually happened and the lack of due process associated. Look at the sequence of events:
- The ISP notices the uncapped modem (I gather they use SNMP to ask the modem what its set to: nothing sophisticated).
- The ISP calls the FBI and alleges that this crime has cost it over $10,000. Hmmm. Where did that number come from? I'm on a 512kbit service for £25/month. Suppose I uncapped my modem to get the theoretical maximum of 64Mbits (the full channel bandwidth that is shared between all users on a spur). That is in theory a 128-fold increase in service, so I should be paying £3,200 per month, or around $5,000. So that may be two months service at 64Mbits. Maybe not too unreasonable, although I don't know how they estimated the time.
- The FBI get a search warrant based on the ISP's complaint and seize computers. This is perfectly legal: the authorities are permitted to seize the "instrumentality of the crime". If a PC was used to uncap the modem then it is an instrumentality of the crime. Also, if the case came to court then the defence could ask what evidence the prosecution had that the supposed perpetrators were actually responsible. Maybe it was a prankster thinking to do a "favour". Any prosecution is going to need smoking-gun scripts found on the suspect's PCs.
-
No charges are filed. Despite what I said just now, the whole thing is never tested in court. Confiscation of the computers (and any private data thereon) is considered enough of a punishment, and doesn't require the expense of a trial.
All of this is perfectly reasonable and legal, but it is never the less an end-run around the due-process principle. Based on a complaint and a search warrant your property can be effectively confiscated, and you have almost no come-back. Of course in theory you can sue for the return of your property, but all the police have to do is claim an "ongoing investigation" to make the suit fail.Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
I tend to think more on a moral level than a legal level. Morality is important as the law is the bare minimum of common conduct. We wouldn't have all the corporate fraud stories in the news right now if we had executives that not only followed the law but a moral course.You can still cause pain and suffering following the law. Granted several are just plain rat bastards that didn't even care about the law that make Capitalism look real ugly.
Morals do not have to be religious based. Doing no harm to others is perfecting acceptable moral course that doesn't involve God, Xenu, Vishnu or Buddha.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Point A:
Shoplifting *IS* a crime, which will land you in CRIMINAL COURT.
Breaking a TOS is a Breach of Contract, which will land you in CIVIL court.
Point B: (Any reason this wouldn't work?)
If a cable company's user breaks thier terms of service, it's very easy to disconnect thier service and bar them from causing futher loss. Recovering losses is as easy as small claims court.
Of course it won't work for a grocery store as they have few reliable options to prevent people from coming back into thier store to steal.(That's if you're not arresting them)
So, yes it wouldn't work very well with the grocery store, but it would plently fine with the ISP.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
"Most of the broadband providers are really just beginning to learn how the networks perform, what the possibilities are, and how they deal with theft," he said.
My sides hurt from laughing at this. How many years do they need to be in the business before they figure out how their networks perform? Even better question... How can they feel justified to sell us a service they don't understand? How do they know $225000 or whatever amount of money was stolen if they can't explain a simple thing like networking??
Just a thought
Now for those of you who plan to point it out, excessive speeding is usually charged as reckless endangerment which is a crime, and hence will go on your criminal record, and will likely get you jail time.
That's fine as long as the ISP wants to negotiate a CIR with me. Otherwise they are stealing from me! When they say broadband it should have to be enforceable in a contract and none of this best effort shit.
"It's against the law. It's a crime we are going to enforce," the detective said."
You heard it here: Corporate profits are the law.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Did anyone else that read that article get the feeling it was a hoax? It all just sounds so campy and hoaky. Like some sort of cheesy propoganda.
I can almost hear they counselor from South Park now, "Stealing bandwith is bad...MKay... Hacking cablemodems is bad...MKay..."
You know what I mean?
Casca
Why is the capping done on the modem level and not at the router level ?
Because remember: ultimately, cable is a shared medium, pretty much like ethernet - and just as with ethernet, we need a MAC that all parties can agree to.
Ethernet works because all NICs respect the rules and play nice. If you wanted to, you could create a hacked ethernet card that did things like immediately retransmit after a collision without waiting - thus stealing more than its fair share of the bandwidth.
Now, other users of the ethernet couldn't stop you from doing this in any reasonable way, but if they were looking for it, they could find it, track it down to you, and complain.
In the case of a cable company, you're paying for a certain amount of bandwidth, and then you're using *more* than you paid for. The fact that you can do this is analagous to the fact that you can modify your electric meter so that it silently forgets every fourth kWh: sure, maybe you can, but the net effect is to steal service from the provider. And if they find out, the cops are going to come take the meter and anything else germane to an investigation.
I'm glad these folks got raided. If someone down my block were doing this, I'd want a stop put to it, before everybody had to uncap their modem to get a fair share and the neighborhood suffered catastrophic collapse from all the collisions and retransmissions.
Am I the only one that zoomed into that picture to try and see what hardware was in those computers?
:)
They looked like some pretty sweet systems. I wonder what thier specs were.
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
Cable Theft is a crime because it was legislated as a crime.
This isn't Cable Theft, this is breach of contract.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Sorry I wasn't able to post sooner regarding this story, but I got home from school, and all my computer shit was confiscated! I had to go next door just to check my e-mail!
This blows, and shit -- is my friends cable internet connection really this slow?
dmarien
The Toledo Blade article lists the ISP as "Buckeye Express" which appears to be a Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) company. According to thier Corporate Information/Company Overview page they also own Madison Square Garden (and related teams), The WIZ, Radio City Music Hall, and Clearview Cinemas. Think carefully about with whom you do business.
Cable theft is a crime because it's been legislated as a crime.
This is a breach of contract with an ISP who just happens to be a cable company.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
So he contacts the FBI about it. They ask him some questions, like how much money they cost him (basically only a few hours of admin time because he interceeded before any damage took place (the cracked had installed a script to rm -rf / ))
The FBI declines to do ANYTHING about it because it wasn't high-dollar enough to warrent investigation.
We hear all this talk about cyber-crime and the potential threat to our national infastructure, but the FBI won't prosecute unless the case is high-profile enough to get them headlines. I don't think this is the message we ought to be sending, that it's OK to root someone's box and nothing will happen to you if the dammage doesn't exceed a certain dollar amount.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
I live in Sylvania, Ohio, a suburb of Toledo and use that same ISP. According to the article they served 6 search warrents in Sylvania.
Geez, I sure am glad *I* decided not to uncap my modem. Wow.
Oh, and on a completely seperate note I noticed yesterday that I was downloading a file at 125 kb/s. I've never gotten above 110 kb/s before on that ISP...
I guess those few bandwidth hogs really do affect other users.
Due to these actions, cable internet service providers around the world quake in fear of the tens of thousands of people who have just found out that uncapping your cable modem is possible.
::.. check out some Cell Phone Reviews
Great. Somewhere in America there is a guy strapping C4 to his Hyundai and speeding towards a daycare center. But as we are all becoming corporate "profit property," the Feds are more interested in stopping high end internet access to people who abuse a cable system.
America is safe tonight. Too bad the cable company could have just turned off the service, and never, ever called the police, much less the feds. After all we are talking about abusing a private contract between two parties. The cable company should have terminated the contract.
You know, I have have been screwed unnecessarily on employment contracts before... did the feds come out? Hell no! Nor why should they? Apparently I should have called, and call them the next time someone steals pens from the office supply cabinet.
In the wake of all of the things that the US has to deal with, we really need to get a defined role for these guys.
Way to spend all of that extra terrorism money that the president gave you. Real proud of this one, guys. As a newsman I hang around the FBI all the time. They just look bored. After all, America is a pretty sane place compared to many other places across the world. This raid however was way beneath them.
Those aren't pirates.
These are pirates.
Free registration required, except of course for pirates. Yarr!
Calling these land lubbers pirates gives the real pirates a serious reputation problem.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Here's your chance to talk to Jack and tell him what you think in person. He is coming on the Diane Rehm show on NPR *now* in Wash. DC. Phone: 800-443-8850
I don't understand why people have any sympathy for these people at all. This is a crime with a clear victim. The ISP is paying for the bandwidth and so if you pay for a certain amount and then take considerably more then you have cost them money. In many cases, the word theft is wrong (such as copyright theft) but here these people are deliberatly taking a resource for which they have not paid and is exactly the same as any other kind of theft.
Sig is taking a break!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
from the article - "Investigators believe cable modems that connect Buckeye Express customers to the Internet
were altered, allowing computer users unauthorized access to excessive amounts of bandwidth"[emphasis mine]
also from the article - "It's against the law. It's a crime we are going to enforce," the detective
said. Mr. Shryock said changing the modem to use more bandwidth is a violation
of the customer service agreement. [...again emphasis mine]
(very simplified)Example:
Max bandwidth that Buckeye has = 1Gb/s (with customer cap at 100Mb/s)
4customers online -
1st (with cap) downloading at 100Mb/s
2nd (with cap) downloding at 100Mb/s
3rd (no cap) downloading at 400Mb/s
4th (no cap) downloading at 400Mb/s
---
When customer 5 comes online it's not like his cable modem is going to go
"sorry all the bandwidth is being used, try again later".
And you can correct me if i'm wrong but what should happen is something
about like this:
1st (with cap) adjusted to ~ 95Mb/s
2nd (with cap) adjusted to ~ 95Mb/s
3rd (no cap ) adjusted to ~360Mb/s
4th (no cap) adjusted to ~ 360Mb/s
5th (with cap) downloading at ~ 90Mb/s
the uncapped customers speeds dropping rapidly to matched the capped customers
speeds.
--- diplomacy - 'the art of saying "nice doggie" 'til you can find a big enough stick'
From the article: (Bold added by me)
In all, they seized 23 computers, including three laptops; three hard drives, and 13 cable modems.
No charges were filed and no arrests were made.
Really? The government was used to sieze property, not owned by the provider, and not one charge was filed.
I don't believe this was a legal action, at most the cable modem was something that that could have been taken, not computers, at least not without charges.
It's so nice to live in Amerika.
Most likely, the were trying to serve some kind of website through the ISP...just a speculation...maybe it had to do with some other illegal activity on the site...or maybe it was pr0n or something. There may have been a conspiracy against the cable provider too...several people working together to host one or several pr0n sites. It was definately more than just casual (or even heavy) Kazaa usage.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Technically, these guys may be charged with Cable theft as the definition is vague enough.
It's right here... I'm looking for something in the wording, which may exclude our friends, but I can't find it...
No person shall intercept or receive or assist in intercepting or receiving any communications service offered over a cable system, unless specifically authorized to do so by a cable operator or as may otherwise be specifically authorized by law.
Sounds like the Cable companies have it made.
1. Don't have to provide open access
2. TOS is enforced by federal law, subjecting violaters to criminal charges.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
I think this is a little different than speeding... Speeding is illegal because doing it is potentially dangerous, not because the driver of the car may be going so fast that there is no road left over for other. And if someone is downloading something at high rates, its not like an exceptionally fast packet is going to swerve out of controll and injur someone
A rabbit in the hand is worth 4 in the cage
Thanks for the info...
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Does cable theft laws apply to cable modems???
Apparently so...
No person shall intercept or receive or assist in intercepting or receiving any communications service offered over a cable system, unless specifically authorized to do so by a cable operator or as may otherwise be specifically authorized by law.
Sounds like the Cable companies have it made.
1. Not require to provide open access to infrastructure.
2. TOS contract enforcable by federal law, subjecting violaters to criminal charges.
Talk about having an ISP with special government privledges...
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
where do they come up with the value for this ? Bandwidth is NOT a comodity, it has NO FUTURES, you have a certain amount, it is used or it goes by, no saving it for later. This is like the value that the RIAA puts on music pirating, pulled totally out of someones ass, just to involve the FBI because of value.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
In the article: Detective Beavers said the users under investigation are a mix of high school students and adults. Some of the users communicated with each other and shared their knowledge on how to hack the system to enhance their personal computer use, he said.
I live and work in the Toledo area. EVERYTHING is over the top here.
Ever since 9-11 every mayor in the nation has gotten some sort of death threat. Our current mayor, Jack Ford (lovingly called J-Fo by the local radio stations), now will now long do in-person interviews. Everything is done via phone. He also has a 24-7 bodyguard, paid for by the city of course.
A new mall was coming into the area so the city began a huge smear campaign against it because they're afraid of it will take jobs away from the 2 of the failing malls in the area.
The same situation arose from a pending arena complex.
It takes a minimum of 2 to 6 months to get a T1 put into your office in Toledo.
We recently lost a big Microsoft R&D contract for Toledo to a little town to the south of us simply because we would not return calls because no one locally knew who was in charge.
None of this surprises me, not even calling the FBI for a simple TOS violation.
What next, phoning Homeland Security when a women who has a towel on her leaves dog pop on your door step? For the love of Pete, its terry clothe, not a Middle East wrap.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
And I certainly don't see, even if this is theft of services, why the FBI comes into the picture. It certainly seems like a local or state crime, not a federal one. And there seems to be no valid reason at all to have taken the computers, it's the modems that were uncapped. Taking the computers is just abusive over exercise of questionable authority. (sure, they might find instructions on how to uncap a modem still on the computer, but that knowledge isn't illegal in itself, and they have the modem as proof. And if I bought my own capped modem I would expect it to include printed instructions in the manual on how to change the cap for my particular system, so what?) Looks like the FBI wants to appear to be doing something to counter all of the bad press they got recently; too bad they chose to abuse people outside of their rightful jurisdiction.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Here is their Editorial Forum ...
Yes, but nothing here has been taken.
You are so wrong it's obscene. When you signup with an ISP, what do you get? You get an internet connection, and X amount of bandwidth. You have BOUGHT that bandwidth, it's yours... If you take more than that it's stealing.
Your thinking is so muddy it's obscene. The Mississippi River is pristine in comparison.
Let me use another real world analogy that should clear this up:
If you are a shipping company using the limited capacity of, say, the Panama or Suez canal, and you have a contract that allows you to send 5 ships a day through the canal for a particular price, and you decide to slip 10 ships through instead, have you stolen the canal?
No.
Have you stolen money from the canal operators (assume for a moment there is no way for them to easilly charge you each time a ship passes through, ie. no toll booth on the canal itself)?
No.
Do you owe the canal operators money?
Yes.
Are you in violation of your contract?
Yes.
Are you absuing the services of the canal by taking up more of its capacity than your contract allows?
Yes.
Are you "stealing" capacity?
No, because capacity is a numerical measure, not an object that can be stolen. You are misusing the canal's limited resources, but you are not taking them anywhere.
To make this even more crystal clear for those who are still unable to shed the mental shackles of the Newspeak definitino of theft that the media cartels have been feeding them for the last two decades, consider this.
If, instead of filling the canal with ships and using up its capacity in that fashion, are you engaging in theft if you blow the canal up and turn it into a dry river bed?
No, obviously not. You haven't engaged in theft at all, you've engaged in vandalism, sabatage, and perhaps terrorism, but you have not engaged in theft, even though you've reduced the canal's usable capacity down to zero.
How about if you build a damn to block the canal (but don't destroy it)?
Again, no, you aren't stealing anything, you are merely abusing the canal and making it useless to others, ie. are reducing its usable capacity to zero.
Using something in excess to what your contract allows, such as capacity, is not and can never be theft. Indeed the very nature of what we are talking about precludes the possibility of theft as such, without rewriting the definition of the word itself to mean something different than it does, which is exactly what you, and the software and entertainment monopolists you so transparently represent, are trying to do. Which is muddy thinking at its worst.
Allow me to reiterate for the remarkably dense: You haven't stolen anything, you haven't taken anything. Capacity is not an object that can be taken, no theft can be committed.
Your inability to think clearly is a direct result of your misuse of the English language, probably because of your inability to question the misuse of the same language software and entertainment monopolists have been feeding you for years.
BANDWIDTH isn't a thing, it is a measure of capacity, and just as your overuse of a canal's capacity doesn't entail theft of any kind, so to your overuse of a network's capacity doesn't entail theft of any kind.
It does, however, mean you are in violation of contract and very likely owe a serious debt to the providor whose equipment and network you have misused.
It is plain and simple misuse of the English language and common sense that truly results in muddy thinking, exactly like the kind you are displaying here.
Yes, bandwidth is limited. But it nevertheless cannot be taken, and cannot be stolen (without rewriting the defintion of those words), it can merely be misused or abused.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
If each contributed equally, that's $19230 each in bandwidth. $19k buys a lot of bandwitdh... much more than a single home could potentially use, even over many months. For example, this budgetary pricing for Verio (a backbone provider) shows that the monthly charge for a 155 Mbit/sec OC-3 line is somewhere around $44k per month.
For that 13 users to have consumed $250k of bandwidth over a period of one year, the "bandwidth cost" would have been equivilant to using one half of a 155 Mbps/sec OC-3 line. Even if all 13 contributed equally, I doubt each of them sustained a 5.7 Mbit/sec stream of data for a whole year! Cable service can rarely run at this speed, and many small groups of houses (like mine) are connected by a 1.2 Mbit/sec line (I saw the At&T tech when he was installing our neighborhood's hub a few months ago). If you consider the "theft" to have occured from February (when "cable officials" claim they first became aware of the situation) until today, that's just 5 months for a "loss" of $50,000 dollars worth of bandwidth each month... equivilant to just 13 users consuming the entire bandwitdh of an OC-3! Even to a someone who has no idea what kind of bandwitdh $250,000 dollars buys, it simply defies imagination that 13 home users would normally consume $50 to $100 per month, could somehow "steal" 1/4 million dollars. It's as rediculous as a claiming someone robbed a 7-11 store and stole 1/4 million dollars from the cash register.
I wonder if it ever occured to Christina Hall or Mark Reiter to ask Paul Shryock how Buckeye figured these 13 home users "stole" such a massive amount. Even if it's larger group of users, it's still an absurd claim. Saddly, they were probably fed a press release with lots of "sound bites", and they threw this scare-tactic story together without even the slighest questioning and investigatave journalism into such an absurd claim.
One thing is for certain... Buckeye CableSystem certainly didn't take a loss of $250,000. If they really were losing that much money, they certainly would have contacted the "others [that] were using a lot". No ISP these days (except perhaps AOL) can afford to take a $250,000 loss and just sit back for five months and wait for the cops to investigage and bust a dozen users.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
The worst thing you can do to them is force them to use dial up.
ender-iii
This is one of the stupidest comments I've seen in the past few minutes.
They weren't even arrested. They won't be tried, let alone tried as terrorists.
Get real.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
So-called metered bandwidth, e.g. fractional T1s or T3s, are still the responsibility of your upstream provider to limit your bandwidth. The only exception I've seen to this is when you are buying a fractional T1 with "free" 100GB transfer -if you take a deal like this, you've made the bed now sleep in it.
Bandwidth limiting is built into many routers and switches, and it's now part of BSD distributions (altqd). There is NO excuse for a cable ISP to not limit their own upstream bandwidth usage at the router, and limiting -or cutting off- customer bandwidth is also likewise trivial.
Finally, if they became aware of uncapped modems back in Feb, why didn't they just cut them off? Simplest thing!
I think the reason they didn't is, they wanted to scare the rest of their customers into behaving.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
"Detective Beavers said cable officials became aware of the situation in February. "
So they let them keep going for 4 months? When the company found out they should have killed the accounts. IANAL but I would argue that any extra cost incurred after the Cable Co. found out are less the responsibility of the users and more so that of the company itself. If someone was stealing from me I wouldn't let them keep doing it for four months so I could nail them for a bigger crime. Isn't that entrapment or something?
If they had used another 300 megs of bandwidth, they would have had to call in an F-16 and bomb all the houses. Bandwidth is serious stuff people, that's why the FBI is spending time going after bandwidth abusers instead of terrorists.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
If it's a crime to use more than the bandwidth allotted for your service, (TOC or not), then it should also be a crime if the allotted service is not provided.
only seems fair, doesn't it?
So when is the FBI going to bust in my door for violating my service agreement by running ssh and an FTP site with pictures of my baby girl? I'm going to renegotiate my contract with COX or cut my line before the fucking FBI comes and takes all of my computers for "evidence" of "excessive" and "illegal" bandwith use.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Sorry I don't have any modpoints, buddy!
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
First, test your modem to find out the up/down speed: http://dslreports.com/stest/
/
Next, if you're a Windows user, there are registry tweaks you can make:
http://www.cable-modems.org/articles/speed_tweaks
Mac and Windows tweaks:
http://www.dslreports.com/tweaks
Note, however, these are all legal -so far!
Uncapping a 3Com cable modem (what AT&T uses)--
http://online.securityfocus.com/news/353
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
another poster displayed this.
So I will just have to renegotiate of cut. I'm not going to pay $65/month for services I can't use.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Anyone else find it amusing that also in this latest issue of 2600 they have an article on how to uncap your cable modem bandwidth ?? ;-)
Is that not the funniest name ever. Is this guy on Porn detail for the FBI?
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
Of course, if you're using your system as a server or to feed a vast library of MP3 or video on a p2p network, the model changes. But from my experiences I would expect this would already be in violation of the ISP's "acceptable use agreement". If that the real issue then that's what should be targeted, not people who figure out that there is an artificial limitation that they can easily bypass.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Theft of service? I checked all the documents for residential service including their Terms of Service, Acceptable Use Policy, and Residential Agreement. I was unable to find any reference to bandwidth limits or excess use fees. In fact, the cable service is provided as a fixed price:
_ ht ml/bexpspecs.html
http://www.buckeyeexpress.com/bci_html/internet
In fact, the Acceptable Use policy does not mention anything about the modification of equipment on the client end, limits to total bandwidth, or limits on bandwidth rates. I hope somebody makes an archive copy of the edocuments before Buckeye goes in and changes them to suit the needs of the prosecution.
If the service does not specify limits, how can you be charged for overusage? It's theft of something you have already paid for. You may disagree with bandwidth hogs, but if there are no stated limits in the terms of use then that's Buckeye's fault. Imagine if you were arrested for using the new MCI or AT&T unlimited LD service to set up a 24/7 voice link to your buddy's apartment on the other coast. It may be a drain on the system, but it's not illegal.
Unless this is an excuse to get at the data on the machines, I foresee crippling civil litigation against Buckeye in the near future.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
... I thought my ping times in Quake were unusually good last night.
"Derp de derp."
Let me use another real world analogy that should clear this up:
If you are a shipping company using the limited capacity of, say, the Panama or Suez canal, and you have a contract that allows you to send 5 ships a day through the canal for a particular price, and you decide to slip 10 ships through instead, have you stolen the canal?
The problem with your examples are that they don't apply at all to the matter at hand. You make the connection that "oh, the internet is kinda like the panama canal, so ergo, bandwidth is a canal, and all laws which apply to a canal apply to bandwidth--the physical aspects make no difference irrelevant." And on a side note, you make an incredibly spurious jump from stealing capacity to "stealing the canal". If that's what I was claiming for cable modems I would have said that you are "stealing the cable wire" .. the physical aspect is irrelevant in this argument--no one is claiming that the cable modem abusers physically stole anything. And in your canal scenario, you would certaintly be robbing the canal owners (do you agree?). I also disagree with your fundamental assertion that capacity cannot be stolen.
Using simple wellfounded definition, stealing is "To take or appropriate dishonestly (anything belonging to another, whether material or immaterial)" (OED if you find fault with it..). When you uncap your cable modem you are taking..dishonestly..something immaterial, belong to someone else. When you uncap your modem, you're taking more bandwidth than you paid for--you are using more capacity than you agreed to, depriving others of their capacity, and using capacity that would otherwise be the cable companies to sell--this seems a clearcut case of theft to me.
Do you agree that using a cable descrambler to get extra channels is stealing? Because it's the exact same thing.
I would worry less about "newspeak" of corporations and focus more on logic.
Maybe I'm just way up in the technical clouds here, or not? The way I see it is that this might be a "theft of service". However, the modem is the evidence, not the seized computers. What did the FBI do exactly, the article is unclear: did the FBI seize all the computational devices in the home (aka calculators, computers), or where they loooking for modified cable modems? The way to uncap a cable modem is to upload a new rom-image via tftp. The cable modem is then at the control of the modems' owner. Clearly modifing ones own personal property is 'fair useage' of the equipment. It is the networkign equipment that should be confiscated, not the computers.
The seizure of PC's in this day and age is paramount to cutting off a criminals hand. Especially if the person is an 'at home worker', or telecommuter. Now I will say that a tele-commuter shouldn't be taking risks on their connection like that, unless they want to start driving to work.
The ISP's must be confused to think that the customers must be responsible to manage the network usage for their own. THis is an issues that shoudl be solved on the ISP side of things.... as in they should shape their own packets, and not relly on the public to shape their traffic. Honsetly, saying a person is breaking the law just because the IPS doesn't understand how this simply thing to do is done is not the fault of the end-user.
br.
Clearly this case(s) won't hold up in court. There is no serivce aggreement that can prevent a owner of property from doing as they wish with said property. And if the ISP is capable of monitoring the bandwidth, they are capable of shaping the bandwidth just liek any other firewall, or filter does. If a user exceeds their prescribed bandwidth usage for a give time slice, then increase their rates, like a long distance company, or simply prevent anymore forwarding of packets for the remaindure of the time-slice (normally one month).
It isn't a lie if you belive it.
Yes.
You have stolen a resource via your vandalism. You have taken that resource away.
Reducing its usable capacity to zero means you have stolen all of its capacity, no?
Detective Bart Beavers, working on behalf of Buckeye Express. Now that is funny, and I'm not afraid to admit it.
I think the government should start a federal agency called the Citizen Outrage Service. (The word Service would serve the same purpose in this case as it does in Internal Revenue Service.) The COS would send out teams of specialists to raid 100 random homes each day and jack whatever they see fit, citing federal authority under "The new privacy laws" or something. When citizens get outraged that their stuff is getting jacked, their only recourse is to fill out a "How are we doing?" form and file it in a government suggestion box. To arrive at this suggestion box, you would have to file a form COS177389B, providing personal information in 132 different fields, and sign the form in 92 places, giving the government permission to read the answers you're filing with them. Then, you'd mail this (certified mail, of course), and it would be processed within 90 days. Actually, it'll take more like a year or so for them to process it, because they'll be backlogged from day one, and the backlog will perpetually increase. Then, they'll send you another form to fill out, COS117348K, Application to Enter Queue for Citizen Outrage Service Suggestion Box. Then, you'd fill out this form, and within 90 days (or two years, whichever comes last), they'll contact you two hours in advance of your appointment to notify you that you must travel 1,000 miles to their nearest "convenient" office. Once there, you'll have to wait in line for about eight hours to arrive at a window where you produce paperwork to prove that you have official business to carry out at that office. Once you have proven your innocence, you'll be sent to some obscure location within the building, given crappy directions that have you wandering around endless bland government hallways and elevators, until you finally arrive at some over-crowded office. There, you wait in line to arrive at a ticket dispenser, where you pick a number and wait to be called. Once you're called, the impatient clerk who has no decision authority whatsoever asks you a couple of questions, and when he (or she) realizes that your problem is outside their realm of authority (as are all problems, as they have no authority), they explain why things can't be done, hand you a form COS177389B, and explain that you have to file that and wait to be called by the Citizen Outrage Service.
Now, you might think this is ridiculous, but if you remove the part about them raiding your house and stealing stuff, and change some of the names around a little bit, you end up with something that looks a lot like the Immigration and Naturalization (you guessed it) Service. Perhaps the FBI should raid their offices and jack a bunch of computers, to investigate why the INS is burning up tons of government funds, and then fails to do their job correctly.DISCLAIMER:THIS POST IS SATIRE, SARCASM and HUMOR, in no particular order. So if you got a problem with what I said, take it and shove it up your rear end. Oooooooooooooh well.
Let's see, steal billions, defraud 401K pension plans, no problem. Steal otherwise-unused bandwith, get arrested.
Yep, One Nation, Under God has sure served as a good moral compass these last 48 years.
Infuriate left and right
The FBI is not in the business of protecting citizens any more. They haven't been for years. Want proof? Look at what happened in Arizona last summer. An FBI agent there thought it was a bit strange that Arabs were paying cash to take 757/767 flying lessons but only were interested in learning to fly the plane once it was in the air. In other words, they didn't need to learn how to take off and land. His supervisors not only weren't interested, they moved him (and many other agents) to an arson case involving luxury homes on the outskirts of Phoenix. WHY was the FBI involved in what was clearly a local police matter? Because $$$ was involved. Same reason here. When you view a videotape of DVD there's always this "FBI warning" at the beginning warning of copyright infringement. Apparently the FBI has read too many of these as they truly believe that their only job now is to protect the money!
I get the feeling you are either being deliberately obtuse here, or the misapplication of the English language the content cartels have subjected you to all these years has truly made you incapable of applying the correct, dictionary definition of the words "theft" or "stealing."
Do you agree that using a cable descrambler to get extra channels is stealing? Because it's the exact same thing.
Of course not, because it isn't, regardless of how many times the Cable and Content industry misuse and redefine the word.
It isn't theft.
It is unauthorized access to privately owned information, and as such punishable under the law.
You are partially right, the two concepts are similiar (though not the same thing), but neither one is an example of theft.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Of course Ken Lay hasn't been charged with anything.
None of the Toledo bandwidth thieves are socialites with a history of making donations to political parties. Nor can they afford fantastic legal advice. If they could, they wouldn't need to steal bandwidth.
President Bush said something about how "95 percent of American business is run honestly and fairly, without incident." Too bad that other 5 percent is stealing MILLIONS OF DOLLARS from people who never had it to begin with.
That's so that you can't hire a lawyer.
Or possibly because the police department gets the proceeds from the sale.
Or maybe it's both.
This was one of the tactics used by the inquisition. It eventually so corrupted the legal system that the king of France lost his head over it. (At least that's one of the stories.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
[quote]You have stolen a resource via your vandalism. You have taken that resource away. [/quote]
Bullshit.
To steal something, you have to take it away and keep it for yourself. If you blow the canal up, nobody has it - not even you - so you haven't stolen anything. You've simply destroyed something.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
All of the computers have been taken.
On the face of it, this looks like overreaction, but that's assuming that things are all open and aboveboard. But now all of the evidence is in the hands of the prosecution.
Would you trust them to be honest? What if there weren't any evidence, would you expect them to admit it?
If I were on the jury, I'd be very sceptical about any case that was presented.
And if I were a customer, I'd dust off my 56K modem before I paid the DSL provider another cent.
These are supposedly teenagers. You don't get very far by trying to put the fear of the state into them, because the next lot will never have heard of it (and besides, teenagers never believe that it can happen to them). And throwing them in jail doesn't do any good for society. (True, slave labor helps some corporate bottom lines, but that doesn't count as a social good.)
So...
Well, if they are guilty (not proven, and possibly no longer provable) then they should be punished. A civil suit and a few nights in jail sounds about right. But what about the police? Were they acting legally, or just grabbing everything they could lay their hands on? They should also be subject to civil suits for any loss of property that occurred. And if they have lost or destroyed the records, then they should be criminally liable. Do you believe that they will be held to that standard? Why not?
This whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don't know the evidence, but too often in such a cases it seems the police end up looking more corrupt than those they are persecuting (they may prosecute, they are persecuting). And I certainly wouldn't want to do business with their service provider. A quarter of a million $ sounds like a lot, but these days houses go for that much all the time. And there are supposedly 23 people that this is divided up between. And I don't really trust the accounting that gave them the "quarter of a million" estimate.
A lot of this is just my immediate reaction, and proofs could be supplied that would radically change my opinions (e.g., proof that they were running a stock market simulation model sharing the computation across the net, and using the results to speculate on the market. That would make it look like a crime meriting the response.)
But until I see the evidence, I'll consider that in this case the ISP, the cops, and the feds acted as puffed up bullys. And corrupt ones, at that.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
That $45/month is what they charge their customers, and they cap you at 1Mbps.. fine.
That doesn't mean everyone uses 1Mbps 24/7.
1Mbps sustained for 1 Day is about 10.5 GB/day.
If they sustaied 10 Mbps instead... because they uncapped their modem...
105 GB/day
At , say, $5/GB, that's $500/day in bandwidth fees.
30 days in a month.
That's $15,000 a month.
Some cable modems are faster than 10Mbps.
Though we can all look at the pricing model and see howt he cable compnay will lose money.. they didn't SELL you "1Mbps of bandwidth". They most likely sold you a cable modem, and hooked it up to their cable network, and said "It's our internet package".
They probably never mentioned speed in the contract.
If they can show the agreement that shows how these people ripped them off, if they modified stuff on the cable company's end, then I agree with you.
If they modified a modem they bought and paid for, that does NOT belong to the cable company...
I get the feeling you are either being deliberately obtuse here, or the misapplication of the English language the content cartels have subjected you to all these years has truly made you incapable of applying the correct, dictionary definition of the words "theft" or "stealing."
..
It isn't theft.
It is unauthorized access to privately owned information
You can make bold statements like these all you want, and you can spout your anti-company rhetoric and how I've been brainwashed into not using the "dictionary definition" all you want--and yet I note you couldn't refute a single point in my argument INCLUDING my citation of the Oxford English Dictionary since you now seem to want to deal in the realm of facts and definitions.
And btw, I assume you're making this argument as purely hypothetical? Because from this occurrence's terminology and "cable theft" as a term, it's pretty clear what the actual legal system thinks of these issues.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
When are you freedom loving Americans going to just stop the play acting and admit you leave in a police state?
Anarchists never rule
Being from the ^&%$hole that is Toledo OH, I can state that there is nothing small about Buckeye Cablesystems, or their parent corp, buckeye telesystems. They run the cable TV, the internet, and the local newspaper is even under their indirect control.
Worst part is, they are bad for bussiness around here. All the smaller ISP's buy bandwidth and coloc from these guys, and there is network bottlenecks that could literally be solved by running a line from 1 rack, to another, 3 feet away. But Buckeye wants to charge "transfer fees", and so none of the small local isp's can solve a very easily solvable problem.
Any money that these uncapper's cost John Block and his vast Northwest OH empire is all for the better. The economy here sucks, the job market is completely dry, and quite frankly, a big chunck of it is their fault, they deserve what they got. I hope someone finds other ways to cost them loads of money, cause they do not deserve it.
Sorry, I might call myself a little bitter....
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
Standard computer crime search warrants, which date back to the early 80s, use a sweeping language that targets computers, most anything attached to a computer, most anything used to operate a computer - most anything that remotely resembles a computer - plus most any and all written documents surrounding it. Computer crime investigators have strongly urged agents to seize the works.
Elsewhere it talks about the actual process of seizure. They do take photographs of the configuration before disturbing anything. However this is for their benefit, not yours. You are assumed to know how to reassemble your own kit.
(Aside: I recall a case in Guernsey where a new sports car was bought in to the island. The Customs disassembled it in a search for contraband and didn't find anything. Then they told the owner that he could take it away. Not only did he have to pay to have it put back together, but the warranty was now void. Neither of these two things was considered "damage" worthy of compensation).
On passwords, I'm not sure about the US. I suspect your Fifth Amendment protects you. In the UK the Regulation of Investigative Practices Act authorises the police to demand your passwords and encryption keys on pain of two years imprisonment for failure to comply, and if you tell anyone other than your lawyer about it then you can be put in prison for five years.
The Hacker Crackdown is probably the best book on computer cracking I've read, even though it was written over 10 years ago. It looks at the subject from the POV of the crackers, the cops and the civil libertarians. If you are interested in the subject then read it.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
Do you agree that using a cable descrambler to get extra channels is stealing? Because it's the exact same thing.
No, that is not the same thing, because if I use a descrambler, all other people can STILL watch their channels without qualityloss. In fact, they won't even notice. I don't say that it's right to do so, just that it is not stealing.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
Reducing its usable capacity to zero means you have stolen all of its capacity, no?
No, because he can't use it himself.
He has destroyed all of its capacity, not stolen it.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
There are two kinds of relationship in the ISP world: peering and transit.
In a transit relationship a larger ISP provides a smaller one with long-distance connectivity for a fee, in exactly the same way that you pay your ISP. So local-ISP pays, say, UUNET for a connection that gives it access to the rest of the Internet. Such connections have a maximum bandwidth and typically include a per-megabyte charge element as well.
Peering relationships are used between ISPs of similar size to reduce the costs of transit. Two ISPs will agree to exchange traffic, but only where the source and destination are within those two ISPs. A cannot send traffic to C via its peering arrangement with B.
However all of this is irrelevant. When service is stolen the cost of the service is taken as its retail cost, not its incremental cost to the provider. Otherwise people stealing cable TV could argue that they have done nothing wrong because they didn't increase anyone's incremental costs.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
It's a contract violation at best. The authorities have no business getting involved.
I would love to see this happen to some spammers I know though. :-)
You can make bold statements like these all you want, and you can spout your anti-company rhetoric and how I've been brainwashed into not using the "dictionary definition" all you want--and yet I note you couldn't refute a single point in my argument INCLUDING my citation of the Oxford English Dictionary since you now seem to want to deal in the realm of facts and definitions.
... you are violating a contract and misusing a service, and in so doing are in violation of the law, but you are not a thief.
... including a 5 year old dead tree edition Oxford English Dictionary a friend of mine owns (I cannot verify your defintion via the online version as I am unwilling to pay the subscriber fee, when there are several free alteranatives available onlie, including Merriam Webster quoted below).
/'stOl/; stolen /'stO-l&n/; stealing
This is inaccurate, as anyone reading this thread from start to finish will be able to see for themself, but I guess I'll repeat it one more time for those who have difficulty grasping it:
Bandwidth is a numerical measure, not an object (material or immaterial) that can be stolen.
If you dishonestly turn the heat down in the winter are you stealing temperature?
If you dishonestly set off the fire alarm in a school or building, are you stealing the school or building? Are you stealing 'time.'
Not by any reasonable, rational, non-self-serving definition, you're not. You are doing all kinds of reprehensible things, but none of them, not one, is theft.
So to with uncapping one's cable modem
As for definitions, I looked up the definition of 'stealing' and 'theft' in several dictionaries, and not one included the words 'material or immaterial'
Either the OED is reflecting a change in the language, which in turn reflects the very deliberate misuse of the word I have been discussing here, or it has made the change as part of its own corporate strategy (it is, after all, a publisher, and as such a member of one of the very copyright and media cartels engaged in the very campaign of newspeak-style redefinitions of the language I have mentioned in this thread).
Main Entry: theft
Pronunciation: 'theft
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English thiefthe, from Old English thIefth; akin to Old English thEof thief
Date: before 12th century
1 a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property
2 obsolete : something stolen
3 : a stolen base in baseball
Main Entry: 1steal
Pronunciation: 'stE(&)l
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): stole
Etymology: Middle English stelen, from Old English stelan; akin to Old High German stelan to steal
Date: before 12th century
intransitive senses
1 : to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as an habitual or regular practice
2 : to come or go secretly, unobtrusively, gradually, or unexpectedly
3 : to steal or attempt to steal a base
transitive senses
1 a : to take or appropriate without right or leave and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully b : to take away by force or unjust means c : to take surreptitiously or without permission d : to appropriate to oneself or beyond one's proper share : make oneself the focus of
2 a : to move, convey, or introduce secretly : SMUGGLE b : to accomplish in a concealed or unobserved manner
3 a : to seize, gain, or win by trickery, skill, or daring b of a base runner : to reach (a base) safely solely by running and usually catching the opposing team off guard
(Merriam-Webster)
None of these, not one, mentions 'immaterial' objects which, by their very nature, cannot be taken.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I said should be liable, not would be liable. I agree with your point. If I was unclear, then I regret it.
Your comment is unfortunately true. I despise that feature of the current legal system, but please remember: This system was created to keep powerful lords from revolting against the king. So the main interest was to make sure that powerful people didn't feel their interests were being neglected. I know that's not what the idealistic rhetoric claims, but if you follow the historical development, that's where it comes from.
In claiming that a historical process resulted in a particular feature, I am not endorsing that feature. In this case it is a continuing source of injustice. But it has acted to prevent civil wars in almost all cases since it was adopted. Think of it as an example of the legal codes not being debugged --- though really it's more a matter of the purposes of those in control not aligning with the purposes of those being controlled.
Do not trust centralized authorities in any system. Avoid designing systems with single points of failure. Include error checking even at the cost of some execution speed. Apply this to all code that you right. Now generalize this to non-programming practices. This isn't easy, but it is "best practice".
P.S.: The end user is also a point of failure. So design for recoverability.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Bandwidth is a numerical measure, not an object (material or immaterial) that can be stolen.
This is simply not true. When you uncap your modem you receieve more bandwidth. You are becoming more of a load on the cable company, depriving the company of the bandwidth that they bought, and depriving other users as well. Bandwidth is not simply a number, it is a resource that is bought and sold--as a commercial item, it can be stolen. When you take that extra bandwidth, other people can't--you're depriving them.
Just to recap, bandwidth is something that is bought and sold. When you take more than you buy, the person selling to you has less to sell--you are depriving them of additional income from either you (for buying more bandwidth) or from other users.
By your definition of stealing as strictly material, if someone hacks my bank account and transfers money, I've had nothing stolen--it was digital money.
If you dishonestly turn the heat down in the winter are you stealing temperature? If you dishonestly set off the fire alarm in a school or building, are you stealing the school or building? Are you stealing 'time.'
Once again, just like your canal example, these are irrelevant and don't connect to the matter at hand. Here's another off topic argument: If I'm paying you by the hour to work for me, and you don't ever work but only browse webpages, are you stealing from me? Yes!
I would be more than glad to copy and paste the entire OED entry--it's rather large though in its entirety, but just ask and I will. Getting free OED access is one of the good things about going to a university with too much money for its own good :)
Incidentally since you didn't comment on it, I again assume that we're debating on a purely hypothetical level here? Because it is quite clear what the law says and has said about this issue (and not just in America). As another immaterial theft example that is quite well grounded in law _historically_ as well as today, try intellectual property theft (again, one of the examples in the OED using "steal" is "1824 SCOTT St. Ronan's xxvii, You not only steal my ideas,..but [etc.]..No man like you for stealing other men's inventions."..stealing of ideas is an old, and very legal concept)
One additional followup
... etc.
Since I'm unwilling to subscribe to OED's online service (as noted, there as many free alternatives available, none of which include the word immaterial int their definitions), I borrowed a colleagues dead-tree copy of the Oxford English Dictionary. It too lacks the words immaterial, and agrees with the other definitions presented here (and thereby disagrees with the definition you presented).
To wit:
steal v. & n. --v (past stole; past part. stolen)
1. tr (also absol.) a. take (another person's proterty) illegally. b. take (property) without right or permission, esp. in secret with the intention of not returning it. 2. tr. obtain surreptitiously or by surprise (stole a kiss). 3. tr. win or get possession of (a person's affections, etc.), esp. insidiously (stole her heart away). 4. intr (foll by in, out, away, up, etc.) move sep. silently or stealthily (stole out of the room). 5 (in various sports)
There isn't a shred of evidence I can find, in any dictionary, to support your claims, or the 'newspeak'-style definition of theft you have been advocating throughout this thread.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Absolutely no arrests were made, no charges filed, so it appears no criminal act was committed.
... in other words, the law does not recongnize the so-called "theft" of ideas, it instead recognizes the temporary restriction of their dissemination (or use, depending on which portion of IP law the idea is being hoarded under).
... it is merely newspeak rhetoric by concentrated intersts used for propoganda purposes to promote their own agendas, both in and out of the courtroom. It is not codified into law, or even recognized by any of the publicly available dictionaries quoted here.
The theft (using the correct defintion of the word, as presented by every publicly available, referenced dictionary in this thread) of these users computer equipment from the FBI is a 'feature' we've inherited from some of the very unconstitutional operating procedures given to us by the War on Drugs and the Reagan administration, and is basically an end run around the law (and the constitution) to punish the offendors even though no criminal charges are being filed.
Finally, as to the law, the law does not define theft the way you do (at least not here in the United States), courtroom antics and rhetoric aside. Copyright violation is not defined as theft under the law, it is defined as copyright violation, which is something different, and it is defined differently for a reason. The same is true of patent violation
The use of the word "theft" in all of these contexts has no legal foundation (at least in the United States)
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The theft (using the correct defintion of the word, as presented by every publicly available, referenced dictionary in this thread) of these users computer equipment from the FBI is a 'feature' we've inherited from some of the very unconstitutional operating procedures given to us by the War on Drugs and the Reagan administration, and is basically an end run around the law (and the constitution) to punish the offendors even though no criminal charges are being filed.
A good point, let's see how this runs out--it's possible that they believe the users acted in some kind of concerted effort, and are maybe to look for who started it, etc. Unfortunately, the government moves in mysterious ways, and we can't know what's going to happen yet.
Finally, as to the law, the law does not define theft the way you do (at least not here in the United States), courtroom antics and rhetoric aside. Copyright violation is not defined as theft under the law, it is defined as copyright violation, which is something different, and it is defined differently for a reason. The same is true of patent violation ... in other words, the law does not recongnize the so-called "theft" of ideas, it instead recognizes the temporary restriction of their dissemination (or use, depending on which portion of IP law the idea is being hoarded under).
... it is merely newspeak rhetoric by concentrated intersts used for propoganda purposes to promote their own agendas, both in and out of the courtroom. It is not codified into law, or even recognized by any of the publicly available dictionaries quoted here.
The use of the word "theft" in all of these contexts has no legal foundation (at least in the United States)
You are correct here--Copyright and patent piracy is generally not considered theft--another area of IP is though, and that is trade secrets. Trade secrets aren't tangible (just making sure we're on the same level). I'm sure the DOJ, probably Bar association, legal publishers, and any number of web sites discuss IP theft if you want me to back this up.
I again offer to quote the OED entry as it's more or less indisputable, but if you want to use another dictionary...from dictionary.com:
stealing: To take (the property of another) without right or permission
where property can is defined as "a. Something owned; a possession ..[snip].. c. Something tangible or intangible to which its owner has legal title: properties such as copyrights and trademarks."
Bandwidth is something bought, and therefore owned. It's intangible and fits the definition of property. So given these definitions of steal, and property, it seems clear that something intangible CAN be stolen. And taking more than the bandwidth you paid for is very clearly without right or permission.
Bandwidth is something bought, and therefore owned.
... this happened to a colleague of mine with his once 1.5 MBit/1.5Mbit SDSL line that was quietly switched to 768kbit/348kbit ADSL, and (b) if the contract wasn't 'rewritten' on the sly, using the very controversial, and likely unenforcable, clause stating something to the effect of 'we can change the terms of this contract on you any time we like and you agree to this.')
Here is I believe the core of our disagreement (and I suspect we are going to have to agree to disagree).
Bandwidth isn't a possession that can be possessed, or stolen (indeed, in any real sense it can't really be bought or sold as such, though, just like 7 days in the sun, it is perhaps being represented as being bought or sold when in fact you are purchasing, and selling, something quite different).
To clarify, you cannot buy or sell 7 days in the sun, but you can buy and sell a ticket for a flight to Bermuda, and 6 nights in a hotel, with the expectation that this will mean the purchaser will enjoy 7 days in the sun (but perhaps won't).
Bandwidth, like temperature, air pressure, or voltage, is a measure of capacity, and while you can sell (or rent) equipment, cabling, and so on, along with a contract that specifies how you will (and won't) use said equipment, you cannot sell the actual capacity in any meaningful sense of the word (though marketers often like to represent that differently).
The equipment was (perhaps) misused (though one wonders (a) if the sale wasn't made representing the full bandwidth, which was then reduced on the sly
Getting back to my point, bandwidth is not something that can be possessed, any more than time, sunlight, or air temperature, and those who represent its sale as such are really selling you something quite different (e.g. a contract agreeing to some form of behavior and payment, and perhaps some equipment).
What these people did may have been a breach of contract, but (if any of the suspicions voiced above are true) perhaps even is so doing they did nothing illegal. Certainly nothing whatsoever was ever stolen, except their equipment, by the F.B.I, at the behest of their ISP.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I guess we just will agree to disagree. Glad that it didn't fall into ad hominem attacks and the like, good luck.
Lets say there is a web site that talks about some of the registry settigns that you can do on windows to help speed up net access. Now lets assume that this same web site says if you have a cable modem, you can make the same change by loading a different config file. If that site then goes on to explain how to get the config file from the cable compaine (by tftp or asking them) but then provides a sample and that sample jsut happens no to trun on the cap, then it is reasonable to expect that this action could be done with out knowing its illegal or violates the terms of service. If pages to descibe optimizations (without mentioning the cap) exist on the web, the cable company could have a very hard time in court.
this is the same government agency that was too busy trying to shut down bonsaikitten.com to pay attention to terrorist threats to destroy multiple buildings just seven months later...
Denver Isuzu Suzuki