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Toledo Uncappers Getting Shafted
Jacob writes "Broadband Reports has a well written article detailing the plight of those Ohio cable modem users who found themselves facing gun wielding FBI agents for uncapping their cable modems. Buckeye Cable has clearly crossed a line and the tech community and consumer groups should be all over them like a wet, angry rag. Kudos to Broadband Reports for not letting this thing die." Granted, those who were indicted were violating their service contracts, but having their posessions siezed by FBI agents is overkill.
Just curious, can this be done on DSL too?
...like I did. Only thing you have to worry about here is US$300 for going one GB over the monthly limit. Connection's fast as hell which allows one to reach that limit in minutes.
Since when do armed agents of the law sieze private property without the owner having been convicted of any crime?
What a sad state of affairs.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
Computer crimes like this simply astound me...Its not the physical crime that shocks me its the punishment. What did they do that was so dead wrong? They in essence gained access to some extra bandwidth in which they were allowed to use. Consequences should immediate termination of the account end of story. WTF is wrong with society today. I don't know maybe I sound juvenile but punishment for a virtual crime such as this seems like a total overkill...
.[[erax0r]].
I think we can add the Founding Fathers to that as well.
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
The only Toledo cable company is owned by a family of lunatic bastards (Block Communications) who also own the only Toledo newspaper. They will never see a dime of my money for broadband! I use a local wireless provider and get about 5Mbit up and down for the same price as Buckeye's broadband. I understand that Time/Warner is coming into the area. Good for them! They will put a stop to the Block monopoly.
Since a similar article like this was posted to /. before and I brought up the same point I'll bring it up again. Where in the article did they state that the FBI agents came in with guns? It's just sensationalism and it does not belong. Now I know someone is going to claim that it's SOP for agents to bust in with guns however it is not. Instead of just rewriting my whole rant here... I'll just add a link to my previous /. comment...
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=44074&cid=4590 690
-Cardoe
You seriously couldn't see that coming?!?
r u mad??? The freakin' FBI in your house coz you uncapped your modem?? Sheesh! :|
While I can well imagine that being woken up by the FBI knocking down your door can throw your whole day off, I don't really have any sympathy for them. They were breaking the law, probably in more ways than one. From the fact that we know they were stealing bandwidth, we can assume that a) they were all pretty computer-savvy and b) they were transferring large amounts of data. Sounds to me like they were pirates and hackers, trading in illicit files, virii, mp3s, and hacking tools like BackOffice and PacketSniffer. Hopefully they've learned their lesson and this will serve as a warning to other criminals. The Internet is better off without them.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
"Man, I can't believe office [insert local cop name here] stopped by for going 8 over the speed limit"
And I'm sure he called for lots of backup and confiscated your car, too, right? The problem is not that the law was broken; the problem is that the tactics used were those akin to what would be used against a terrorist, when in reality the suspect was nothing more that a petty thief.
And the masses cried out, "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!"
Were they really? I'd be curious to know if the service contract mentions anything about modifying your system to increase bandwidth. If it doesn't, can they be prosecuted for anything? My first instinct is "they were taking away bandwidth from the rest of the community and should be punished." But is that even accurate? I have Optimum Online cable, and I understand that they don't cap their modems (I've even hit download speeds of 700kbps/sec). If a competitor's standard is not capping, it's gotta be hard for the ISP to prove damages.
Of course, that the FBI got involved at all is an embarassment. No wonder that DC sniper took so long to find: the FBI is too busy holding the dicks of mega-corporations while they pee on the little guy.
c-hack.com |
they are making examples of these folks. Try modding your x-box, downloading mp3s, violating TOS, cable theft,etc. and maybe you will be the next example.
Certain entities don't like it when you break their rules. In one sense you are not paying for their service, in another sense you are not stopping them from selling it to the neighbors. But, I don't think they would have been caught if they weren't causing some problems by using excessive bandwidth.
Karma: Censored (mostly affected by decency laws)
No. But it's arguable that Gore would have been just as bad in a different direction.
Dog is my co-pilot.
It will be very interesting to see how long it is before Bucksnort..er, I mean, Buckeye loses the remaining client base it has. I am sure everyone is in agreement that sending in armed FBI agents over a breach of service contract is overkill. I doubt the intent was to scare away any other customers they have (and potentially could have had, because they overreact. But that's exactly what's going to happen.
What do they do if your bill is two days late? That would be on my mind, even though I tend to pay a hair early just to be on the safe side.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
OK to all the sladhotters stating "They deserve what they got, they are thieves! plain and simple" TAKE A LOOK AT YOURSELF. I be nearly 90% maybe more of you have "stolen" something regarding computers multiple times. You've downloaded mp3's for sure...for example. How bout when the fbi comes knocking at your door for that mp3 you just downloaded? GET REAL.
.[[erax0r]].
Does anyone else find this just a little strange? I doubt anyone achieved anywhere near 2.5MBps, and even if they had, I don't think $11,000 is the price to pay for it! And really, 16 hours times 2.5 MBps, thats... 144 GB. What's he transferring anyways? No home user can use that much bandwidth.
This guy got screwed by a litigation-happy company. I hope he wins.
Welcome to America, the land where the poor and the weak are punished, the powerful and rich rewarded.
Oh, and apparently, if you don't like that, you're supposed to go to Canada or something.
---
Open Source Shirts
These people were stealing a VERY valuable commodity.. bandwidth. For those of you who don't work near the ISP industry, bandwidth is --VERY EXPENSIVE--. $200 per megabit per month is an absolute STEAL (to get that rate, you need to be buying it on the DS3 level). $400 per meg is more realistic on lower levels.
Cable companies simply cannot afford to let people steal this stuff. Quite literally, someone who is uncapping a cable modem and mooching 10 megabits of bandwidth could easily be costing them several thousand dollars a month.
I'm sorry, but I have no sympathy for these people. What they did not only violated their agreement, but it cost someone else a LOT of money. Stealing is stealing, folks. And unlike the arguments that may apply to software piracy, this really does directly affect someone else's pocketbook.
-- People who hate Windows use Linux. People who love UNIX use BSD.
I think companies are going to take advantage of people until the people wake up. We are due for a revolution but not to break away from the government. We need a "corporate revolution". One where the world, not just America, stands up to Big Business and tell the to go to hell. They might buy government support but if __WE__ are not giving them the money they will not be spending it.
I miss small "Mom and Pop" shops they are disappearing at a alarming rate. I think we need to be more aware of this and support your local "Mom and Pop" shop even though CVS might have a better deal.
I always support the little guy in my town. I will go to the local butcher shop before I go to "corporate grocery" store.
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
Let the flaming begin... (ducks in terror).
Ah well, so much for the right not to be "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."
Seriously...
I am curious if they had used their own cable modem instead of a leased modem. Then, that would have killed any hacking charge and since this is not CATV service, there is no law against upcapping.
Another thing to think about is that the VCR and other computers and data were taken where they had no involvement in the crime. Generally under the forfeture laws, they may take items that are used in the crime or purchased with the proceeds of the crime.
This is just done to intimidate and scare others.
Fight Spammers!
*cough cough* third party *cough cough*
:)
I hated gore more than bush but that doesn't say much (didn't vote last time). If anything Gore vs Bush proved that America is fucked either way. Worried about throwing away your vote? Hah, jokes on you - either party is going to corn-hole you good, it's just a matter of what position.
Something to consider next election: PLEASE vote for who you think would actually make a good president. If you can't find a good third party candidate, vote for Wile E. Coyote. Voting for a bad candidate because the other guy is worse is NOT helping America. Something to think about.
okay, I'll get of my soapbox now
This is simply a case of corporate greed. These guys uncapped their modems and the company sends in the FBI. The article stated that at least $250,000 in damages have to be incurred before they FBI can be invoked in local affairs. I don't see how a handful of people can possibly cause that much damage in such a little time. The article states that the one man only uncapped his modem to 2.5 mbps. That is a reasonable speed for a cable modem. If someone simply utilizes a service that they are given to a greater potential, I don't see how this is a "crime" worthy of FBI agents arresting you as well as confiscating your computers. As far as damages incurred, that is total BS. The ISP has a certain amount of bandwidth availiable no matter if 100 people share it or one person hogs it. It may be wrong to use it all for youself, but it doesn't cause any monitary damages to the company. If you are using up something that would be accounted for under normal conditions, you shouldn't be arrested by the FBI. Perhaps disconnected, but not arrested. This is a simple case of the ISP showing their greed as well as their corporate muscle to use the political system as they see fit. Corporate control of our government is, IMO, what plauges our political system the most. This is America...we are better than this.
SIGFAULT
Yes.. well...
Dont'forget that, in some cases, this is a matter of
a) No contractual speed limit
b) Speed limit is set by a setting in the modem the person OWNS
c) Nobody said NOT to do it.
So although you might think it's 'obvious" that the cable company wont'like it... that is grounds for terminating service, not having the FBI show up.
Do you live in Florida? (I'm ashamed to admit I do.) And the
bozos in the election dept still don't have a clue. You were worried about the 'greens'. Considering that the green party siphoned off enough votes from Gore to give Bush the election guess you were right.
cable modem users who found themselves facing gun wielding FBI agents
Hate to break it to ya, but FBI agents usually wear their sidearms even when off duty, and having them out when raiding a residence is standard (and smart, too - don't want agents being shot while they scramble for a weapon.
The gun wielding thing was added to the original article for sensationalism - the linked article in the original writeup didn't make a single mention of guns.
Sheesh... the outrage here over SOP (on behalf of people clearly guilty of theft of services). Bandwidth costs $$$ and I hope they get in a nice amount of trouble for what they did.
Exactly. Just like if I stole some twinkies from my local store so the police create a dragnet and shut down 12 city blocks.
Its called Excessive Force.
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
Cable companies have been accused of time after time advertising speeds that inactuallity you never meet! Do they get jailed and fined for this? Hell no! But when someone gains a little extra speed on their connection...you get the point. End of story.
.[[erax0r]].
Later tonight, I'm gonna "uncap" my cable box, my electrical meter, and the odometer in my car.
Thank goodness Slashdot will be here to cry out on my behalf when those evil nazi stormtrooper "law enforcement agents" show up at my house.
You obviously don't care about item one, but if item two doesn't bother you, you suck. You just wait until you commit a crime (er, I mean, are accused of committing a crime) and see if you get my sympathy.
Since you're one of the few responses to my post that didn't post as anonymous, I'll repsond to you... I agree that the FBI raiding houses if far too much for the crime but it's still a crime. I mean, where do you draw the line? Why is it ok to violate a contract with your ISP but not break copyright laws? Don't wanna start a flame war or a fight. Just my point of view :)
Here is Dallas Attbi.com craps out every time it's windy or raining. The fools have no way of figuring out the cable leg is dead other than schedule a service call then wait for a barage of service calls to alert the local people that something is wrong.
They are stealing my time. Get another supplier? Tough they have a monopoly given them when they testified at the FCC hearing that thy would not increase rates if the requirements for having a second provider got eliminated.
Guess what happened within a year. Did these guys go to jail for perjury, Think not.
Help fight continental drift.
In the eyes of the law, no crime has yet been committed. These people are innocent until proven guilty.
True, but from what I know of the law, law enforcement agencies are allowed to collect evidence. Without the hacked modem, no evidence. Was it excessive for the crime? Sure.. But it is a crime.
Most DSL ISPs that I'm familiar with cap data rates in their Redback routers rather than in the modem, which puts it safely (for them) beyond the customer's reach.
utter rubbish
Impounding your car for speeding? For the Americans out there, vote libertarian and support the ACLU. I'm afraid for my children.
Fear is the mind killer.
Techinically, it is legal for the FBI to do what it did. It might have made better PR to have called, or had a friendly "chat", instead of going in. Sure, the cops can give you a ticket for jaywalking, but in doing that they could be ignoring the maniac speeding 100 in a 40 zone. The FBI surely has better things to do, doesn't it?
I have a question for any Toledo Buckeye subscribers, do you actually own the modem? If you do, can you get charged for hacking your own equipment?
Sure, stealing bandwidth is theft, so ya, slap the perps with that crime...
And I'd like to know how they figured out $250,000 in "extra" bandwidth used.
Julie Moult is an idiot.
"No officer, I didn't uncap my modem speed, it must have been that virus that has been going around..."
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
So then, the FBI should be called in for ALL contractual disputes? Uhh.. big negative there ol' buddy. Breaking a contract is NOT a criminal offense unless proven in a "Court of Law" (sound familiar?) that the breaking of said contract is a deliberate and intentional act to defraud. Don't believe me? Call the police next time someone breaks a contract with you. "Sorry Mr. Spewchoke but there's nothing we can do. It's for the courts to decide."
Once again, we see an example of people doing something that is relatively harmless and given an unusually strict punishment simply because it is labelled as "cyber crime." The people who create some laws seem to have little understanding of the technologies that we use and their lack of knowledge is leading to some sort of irrational fear of any individual who commits any sort of crime using technology that they don't seem to understand. However, what makes this so disturbing is that modem capping was not said to be illegal in the article. It was referred to as "not legal." So has there been any legislation against this? Anytime? Anywhere?
And of course, even if there were then we should be disturbed. Was this "crime" any reason to confiscate so much of the offender's equpiment? Even a VCR was taken, but strangely, an XBox gaming console was left behind. I'm not sure what exactly it is that's motivating these steps in the wrong direction. Is it some sort of irrational fear that leads to those that commit computer crimes being put in the same category as terrorists (which they have been, BTW) even if their crime is simply that of "stealing" bandwidth? Ignorance may be bliss for those at Buckeye Cablesystems and other corporations and the governments that make laws protecting them, but it certainly isn't for the rest of us.
This is bad news, people. It seems that if you're committing anything that can be labelled "cybercrime" you can be given absurdly strict punishments just because your crime has that label.
I'm glad the FBI puts so much effort into stopping people from uncapping their cable modems, instead of ohh, say preventing aircraft from flying into buildings.
FLR
I think you underestimate american engineers. It would be almost impossible for environmental legislation supported by almost any politician (even many of the extreme environmentalists) to do much damage to the auto industry. Every time the government makes a new environmental, safety, or reliability regulation, the industry bitches and moans about how complying is impossible, impractical, or way to expensive. But when the laws get passed, the automakers do some research, find out a way to cost effectively comply, and do so. As a result, we now have safer, cleaner, more efficient, and more reliable cars than ever before, and without a huge cost premium.
I have no reason to think that the auto industry cannot acheive nearly any goal we put in front of them. I used this example because you mentioned it, but I think the same applies to many others.
This isn't to say that we should go nuts with absurd goals or short deadlines, but we should consider both certain and potential injury to the environment, and look for the most effective ways to reduce our risks. And one of the best ways to do it is to use the tool of capitalism, by forcing (through taxation or other measures) companies to bear the expected cost of their actions, while allowing them to decide the technological avenues to explore in order to acheive the desired outcome.
if they were estimated to have stolen $11k each I think that they should have gotten what they did.
There is no way they could have stollen 11 thousand dollars worth of bandwidth in such a short time. A T1 is around $600-1000 a month so the uncappers would have to uncap for at least a whole year in order to steal that much bandwidth. Wirtz said that he uncapped for about 16 hours, which is wrong in the first place but FAR from 11 thousand dollars.
They deserve punishment but this is too excessive.
...that makes me never ever want to move to the US.
"HACKING is illegal and punishable"
Hacking is not illegal and punishable...Hacking is simply completing a skill taks quickly in an area of expertise(usually the computer field). Cracking is what you are thinking of...don't get them confused.
SIGFAULT
When I first saw this case, I thought that it seemed odd that the defendants would be charged with theft of service seeing as they were paying for the service in the first place. Now, someone may point out that they were paying for the capped service, and that may or may not be the case, but the fact remains that they were paying for cable modem service. That being said, it would seem that these people were simply trying to get the most out of their service, not steal it. Of course, that only holds true if they signed up knowing that their bandwidth was going to be capped. However, if the company didn't tell them they were going to be capped, then those modifications could a worst be a policy violation (if such things are covered by their policy) which should be dealt with by terminating the service.
that the breaking of said contract is a deliberate and intentional act to defraud
defraud
v : deprive of by deceit; "He swindled me out of my inheritance"
"Why yes Mr. ISPtech, I'll agree that I won't uncap my cable modem and I'll prove it by signing your terms of service."
we draw the line everyday. Thats why there is a judicial system, thats why we have judges and juries. If killing somebody was always a crime we wouldnt need that. If killing somebody always deserved the same amount of punishment, our judicial system would be useless.
christ, I cant believe there are people walking around who think like you. Im sorry but there is a HUGE difference between uncapping a cablemodem and stealing tvs from bestbuy and selling them.
Its not okay to violate a contract with your ISP or break copyright laws.
I think the only argument is whether or not the punishment was reasonable and if it wasn't, how can a corporation bring to bear such wanton grief on these few individuals?
1;
So how come I've never heard any stories about
FBI agents busting down the doors of Spammers?
Surely spammers with a 28.8 modem waste more resources than people that tweak a cable modem.
btw: FYI I CANT SPELL =)
.[[erax0r]].
For the record, I have never downloaded a mp3 (or any other music file) off of the internet which the copyright holder did not make available for download.
OK, there is exactly one exception. I once downloaded an mp3 of the extended danse mix of "Say it Again" by The Danse Society; then again, this particular song has never been placed on CD and is long out of print.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
christ, I cant believe there are people walking around who think like you.
Sorry I shattered your perfect world
Im sorry but there is a HUGE difference between uncapping a cablemodem and stealing tvs from bestbuy and selling them.
How do you figure? ISPs sell a product, that product is bandwidth. Bestbuy sells products, one of those is TVs. If we go by what your saying, then stealing from one company is ok but stealing from other companies is bad and should be punished? I realize that we draw the line on things like self defense in murder trials but in this situation you seem to agree with me that the cable modem uncappers are in fact stealing! Stealing = Stealing. You want more bandwith, pay for it.
Here we got 2mbit/640kbit, no monthly limit, for about $55 pr. month. Anybody better?
Dear World,
Terrorism?...Based on how the word terrorism is thrown around by the media and the Bush crew, taking more than one's share of the bandwidth is pure terrorism. Terrorism seems to have become a buzzword, and everyone is using it.
I am not even on his node, and I am in fear of losing the online experience I have come to know!
Later,
Slashdot Junky
.
Landfill Mining Co.
Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
Believe it or not we have civil forfeiture laws in this country. Even though in this case the stuff was probably used for evidence, the police can actually come in and take your stuff if they think it was used in a crime and never give it back even if you are found not guilty.
These are routinely used against drug offenders (who haven't been found guilty). I understand they have also been used prosecute suspected drag racers and DUIs in NYC (they take their cars and sell them at auction - guilty or not).
The reason they can do this is that if you are found not guilty in criminal court it doesn't mean you aren't guilty of the civil crime. The problem is that they can sell your stuff without so much as a trial. Its ridiculous.
that the makers of Cable modems would make it so you couldn't uncap it (or at least make it very difficult)....I'm also wondering why they can't control max up/down speeds from the provider...seems to me as if they were wasting raw bandwidth (I could be wrong)
"Some fight for law. Some fight for justice. What will you fight for? One day, you will see."
Uncapping refers to increasing the speed between your network device and your ISP's network device because this is generally the bottleneck. At any given time, your ISP generally has extra internet backbone bandwidth to spare, and unless your computer is _REALLY_ old, it's usually just sitting around waiting for data.
With DSL, there is a direct physical line from the subscriber to the ISP. By capping the maximum speed their network device will exchange data on that line, the ISP can effectively control your net access speed.
With cable, it's different. There is a single wire (a loop actually) that runs through the neighborhood and each user taps into that line. A certain frequency block on that wire is set aside for cable, and the bandwidth provided by that frequency block is shared among all the cable modems connected to it. When you hear DSL ads bashing cable companies for delivering shared net access that slows down when too many people in your neighborhood sign on, this is what they're talking about.
Up until a bit ago, this was very valid criticism. Typically, one node could provide 30Mbps to a neighborhood, and a single cable modem could snatch up a max of 10Mbps of that for its own use. It was a lot like being plugged into a hub. When usage spiked, you were in collision city. However, cable providers have started sending out configuration files to cable modems telling them to only snag a certain amount of bandwidth. This allows them to provide tiered service on a shared medium. What the people mentioned in the article did was send their modems an alternate configuration file saying "Hey! I know I (the cable company) previously told you that you could only use 128kbps of bandwidth, but now you can take as much as you want up to 2.5Mbps!" Since the cable company victims only did this when they "wanted to transfer large amounts of data quickly," they generated usage spikes way beyond normal, especially considering how much bandwidth they allocated to themselves.
So why crack down so hard on someone whose actions didn't cause any real and lasting damage to the company? The simple answer is that broadband ISPs are in the business of charging as much as they can get away with, and trying to get you to use as little as possible. Their business models depend upon subscribers buying "high speed internet access" and not using it. Simply put, if you're really a "power user" and want to do any of the things you see on "lightning fast internet access" commercials such as downloading digital video or transferring large files, broadband ISPs don't want you on their network. You're belong to a class of customers that uses what it pays for, and not the vast majority who just chat online and check their email twice a day. The fact that they could scare others into lower usage levels by bringing in intimidating government forces was just a plus.
The only difference between this and the (RI|MP)AA sueing their fans or the BSA sending out "You have ten days to buy our software or we'll audit you and possibly take legal action," letters is that cable companies are prosecuting based on the contents misguided contracts and the (RI|MP)AA and BSA are prosecuting based on the contents of misguided US law.
My ISP fucked up on a friend's CM and gave him a file called nolimits.cm. He got approximately 4megabits down and 3 megabits up because of that. He had it until his power went out, and lost that conf, and went back to like 1.5megabits down adn 1 megabit up. I think it's perfectly ethical (and possibly legal) for him to have saved that file and reloaded via tftp (since afterall, he did buy the modem).
And you think..?
*5 minutes later, feds storm my house*
Fed: Conspiracy charges. You're under arrest.
Me: Freedom of speech?
Fed: No such thing.
Me: Miranda rights?
Fed: No such thing.
Me: god damnit.
if they were estimated to have stolen $11k each I think that they should have gotten what they did.
I estimate your post just cased $250,000 in emotional distress to the people you're talking about. What? Estimates can be wrong?
I very much agree that sending in the FBI (that in itself shocks....local P.D. couldn't have handled this?), weapons drawn, was abuse of authority. There should be some ramifications for the people that authorized this resopnse.
HOWEVER.....I don't want this to be just another situation where someone knowingly breaks the law, steals (it's bandwidth, but it DOES cost money), and then Slashdot readers start screaming "Free them! Fight the Power! Stand up to the man!". These guys knew what they were doing. Their ISP should not only drop them, but they should face legal sanction of SOME kind. Not prison, obviously, but a hefty fine and some community service time at least.
The way they were busted was indeed extreme. Don't go to the other end of the scale and insist there should be no punishement at all. By calling it a "virtual crime", you seem to mock the idea that it was a crime at all. It was, and proper punishement is still deserved. Only the scale of the reaction and the level of punishement should be called into question here.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Say hello to a whole new set of rules.
The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades
IANAL but...
Could you make a case for entrapment? This sounds very similar to putting a kid in a candy store and telling him to to take any, then leaving, only to go watch the room on a survailance camera with a cop in the next room.
Who the hell came up with the idea to put the bandwidth controls on the users end of the conection, in fact in hardware the user may own? It sounds like asking for trouble to me...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
So, if one were to manipulate a bank so that they had a million dollars now, since that is "virtual" it shouldn't be illegal?
By that measure, most of what Enron did was "virtual". Insider Trading and stock price manipulation is "virtual".
Pointing a gun at someone when the pointer has no intention of firing is a "virtual" crime. There's no assault or endangerment, it's "virtual".
Okay, these guys 'stole' something. So charge them with some petty crime and send them on their way. It's not like they stole all the extra bandwidth, setup their own free DVD web site and pirated Harry Potter 2 24/7 for months on end.
IMHO, they should have just had their service cut off. It shouldn't take long to figure out some joker is sucking down way more bandwidth than they've been allocated. Oh wait, there I go again expecting people to be competent at what they do.
Capitalism is a system of economics, it shouldn't be a way of life.
so one of them uncapped to 100/100. The bandwith of a T1 is 1.554mbs. The most a cable modem will probably get is 10/10. That's a DS3. That's more than $600/mo.
Common error. But, (big surprise), the people who really caused Bush to win were probably the 50% or so who *didn't vote!*
I realise this is crazy talk, but people who vote for a third party aren't "siphoning votes" from anyone. Many of them would have just stayed home otherwise. Besides, are you implying that people shouldn't vote for whom they believe in? Thoughts like that have caused the current situation with a choice of two evils. This frankly violates the ideals of democracy!
If Bush (or Gore, for that matter) received about 50% of the vote, and about 50% of those eleigible to vote turned out to vote, that means that either one got 25% of the vote. Now, if the remaining 50% of voters went and voted for Green, or Libertarian, or (heck!) Communist, Americans would not be picking their poisons and maintaining the status quo, rather voting for who they *believed in* and getting *results.* Doesn't work if you can only choose one candidate? Try approval voting, or an Australian style Borda Count.
It's about getting back to democracy. It's about the will of the people.
(Dismounts from the soapbox).
Quid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Anything said in Latin, sounds profound.
Violating a service agreement is not the same thing as committing a crime. Any contract has provisions in it for the recourse of a party if the other broke the agreement, I'm sure the FBI was not mentioned.
There are two things that make it easy for the stealing to happen. The first is that there is no restriction on the amount of data a customer can transfer. The second is that the bandwidth capping is done in the modem.
The first can be fixed by capping the amount of data a customer can transfer in a given period. This happens in places like Australia and New Zealand. If you go over your cap then you pay extra. The charges in the USA are based on the fact that most customers will only do so much data transfer in a month, however there is no control to make sure they do. You are not actually paying for the ability to saturate the connection non-stop.
I am not sure of the details of how cable modem access works. If bandwidth capping can't be control at the ISP's end, then maybe there should be a way the ISP can control the configuration of the modem from their network.
Both of these would make it hard for stealing to happen.
Nope, 'excessive force' is when they smash your face in the process of arresting you for stealing the twinkies. If the police want to shut down 12 city blocks to apprehend you it might be poor judgement, but it ain't excessive force.
A while back near here (central NC) some poor turkey was pulled over by the local sherr'f depptiy because he was driving a truck with a stolen lawn mower or some such in the back. Said master criminal ran into the woods to get away. Unfortunately for him a van full of SWAT team types on their way to a training class saw the flashing lights & pulled over. Called their buddies in another van and a K9 unit that was also headed to the training class. Borrowed a helicopter from the highway patrol that just happened to be completing repairs at an airport nearby. Finally the couple dozen cops, deputy dawg, and bear in the sky flushed a very scared petty thief out of the woods. If I were him I'd have been peeing in my pants too, wondering if they had mistaken me for an escaped child murderer or CEO or some other completely vile creature to be spending this many resources on hauling my butt out of the woods. Moral of the story - it wasn't excessive force, just excessive zeal on the part of a bunch of cops who decided they'd rather chase a bad guy than go to some ol' training class.
For a 10M down, 1M up with no traffic limit or other restrictions (other than those imposed by the Great China Firewall), I pay 150 Chinese yuan (US$18) per month in Beijing. No install fees.
A dream is good. A plan is better.
When I did a network install of my gateway last year I used a static IP address since dhcp didn't work for whatever reason. I then forgot to change it afterwards.
...
Living in a share household bills sometimes went unpaid and Optus@Home 'disconnected' our service, meaning they disabled the dhcp account. We continued to get internet access for the next 6 months until someone finally tweaked that we hadn't got any bills for a while and called Optus. Boy were they mad, but at least we only got billed for the 6 months (honesty is not always the best policy kiddies).
All this crap, same with uncapping modems, could easily be prevented by the ISPs. If it's such a huge problem for them, why don't they take steps to prevent it happening? Insurance companies wont pay up if you forget to lock your car and it gets stolen
:wq
... if the IT dept. at Buckeye wasn't a bunch of inept mouthbreathers, it wouldn't have been possible on their service either.
Or if they'd sprung a few bux for a "subscriber management" box. Think "router/firewall with per-user filters, traffic control, and rapid configuration from the terminals in front of the NOC phone operators".
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Well, If it was MY x-box... I would think I could do anything to it I wanted to... Like mod it so I can play Divx movies on it if I wanted to or anything else... Because I bought the damn thing. I payed money for it that I earned. I am not renting it from Microsoft at all. However I do agree that they should not have uncapped their cable modems There was no need for the FBI to be involved.. Local police would have made it clear, and The guns being drawn. That was way over acceptable. These aren't your every day serial killers. They were stealing bandwidth. As far as downloading MP3s.. I really dont see what is wrong with that. Its advertisment for the artists. Granted the majority of people who download the MP3s probably never go out and buy the actual CD. However I do. If I like it I buy it. Now if only everyone else could do the same. But again back on the X-box thing. I do not see what is wrong with people modding them to play games they bought from japan or so on. Or what ever else the do with it. Same thing with the PS2 and PS one. What is so wrong with that? They bought the thing.
Well thats just my 2cents..
-br0ken
This post was generated by a Team of Elite Monkeys for br0ken2o0o (569914).
I tore the label off my mattress in protest, so that should help.
Seriously though...they were screwed, Steve Jackson screwed...that's just wrong.
I knew a guy who had roadrunner (TimeWarner) and he uncappeded his modem, I think he actually flashed the chip directly. Anyway, he was literally getting 10 megs a second for about a month, when he burned out his modem. When the cable company found out, they canceled his account and banned him from their service for life. Now he has DSL.
That seems like a reasonable punishment. He knew what he was doing was wrong, and the punishment made it so he couldn't do it again.
Yes the FBI got involved but BUSH and ashcroft's policies had nothing to do with this. absolutely nothing. No more than Clinton and Janet Reno were responsible for the beating of Rodney King. Get a life. Loser.
Uncap your modem, get convicted, go to jail. Okay, I can live with that. Bummer... don't do that.
Be accused of uncapping your modem, get aquitted, and not get your stuff back... now that's just wrong.
Over the last twenty years, the power of law enforcement to seize assets and declare them forfeit WITHOUT A CONVICTION has increased dramatically. In case you're wondering, the vast majority of people who have lost assets to civil forfieture and later been aquitted have NOT had their assets returned.
Mostly, this expansion is due to the drug war; it was introduced as a way to get at "ill-gotten gains". The value of the goods forfeited is often out of all proportion to the value gained through the crime. That in itself may violate the eighth amendment... what chaps my hide is the presumption of guilt inherent to the use of civil forfieture by law enforcement.
Law enforcement makes mistakes, just like everyone else. Given that they are not infalliable, it seems absurd that there is no guaranteed recovery of incorrectly seized assets.
This isn't simply a matter of "your rights online" or a problem with the cable company. It doesn't have anything to do with technology, or even the drug war. This is a matter of your constitutional rights being trampled by government. Learn about it, and vote!
A good resource: Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
wow, if some people stole my computers and my PS2 because I was running some "illegal" program. I'd go ballistic. I'd prolly sell the rest of the stuff I own, and buy weaponry and explosives.
Then I'd go around seeking revenge on everyone who did me wrong until I get taken down in a rain of gun fire.
God spoke to me
On average, each uncapper allegedly stole bandwidth equaling $11K. If the allegations are true (big IF), that's not petty thievery.
Is on its way to your house now. Please stand still while your possessions are stolen by charter cable. Have a nice day, and remember that your hard disks may be seized for quality assurance purposes.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
It sounds like this guy is the victim of abuse by a local government official. When that happens, it's a job for the FBI. He's in pain now, but if the FBI investigates and determines that local officials have overstepped their bounds by destroying the guy's business for having commited an offense that should probably result in a small monetary fine, then the local goverment official could actually be prosecuted. Following conviction (or even following acquital, as in the OJ case) there could be civil penalties. The wheels of justice grind slowly, but they do grind.
I can't help but be reminded of Boss Hogg from the Dukes of Hazzard. In real life, the Dukes could have the FBI take him out.
The same thing has happened in real life with a lot of cases, most noteably civil rights abuses in the South where local governments committed crimes against Blacks.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
In case no one here noticed (and it appears no one has), the Lame [Duck] Congress just passed the Homeland Security Act. It was originally 35 pages when it was reviewed by committee. While the Congress was away for the election break, someone added another 453 pages of pure pork.
"An evil exists that threatens every man, woman and child of this great nation," the leader of another country once wrote. "We must take steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland."
That was Adoph Hitler, writing about creation of the Gestapo in Nazi Germany.
Hey, fuckwit, the FBI is supposed to be dealing with serious crime -- serial killers, serial rapists, rapists, killers, terrorists, child molesters, etc. Not busting some schmuck for uncapping a cable modem. Fucking moron. The state should not waste valuable resources enforcing contracts. That money should be spent stopping real crime. Enforcing contracts should be the last priority. And when we do use the state to enforce them, there's no need for the FBI to get involved. Since when has violating a contract been a criminal offense? Sorry, but if you put a device in my home and I pay for it, I'm going to take the liberty to do whatever the fuck I want with it; if that violates some contract, its hardly a criminal matters. If you don't like it, you can cancel the contract.
Rather than simply cancelling these guys service, this ISP had to make a mountain out of a molehill and waste our taxpayer dollars arresting people for something which isn't even as bad as speeding (when you speed 60mph down a local street, someone can get killed; who exactly can get killed by uncapping a cable modem?).
Copyright, patent, trademark, trade-secret, and defamation laws are just tools for the rich and powerful to use against the poor and powerless; they've been corrupted from their original intent, in which they were to be of sparse scope and duration and used only to promote progress, to some idiotic theory that people have the right to own information. All current IP laws are unconstitutional, as are the retroactive extensions of copyright. These laws should be rewritten to drastically scale back both their scope and duration. 90% of the things which are patented today, for example, shouldn't be because they are trivial non-sense. Organisms shouldn't be patentable, nor should genes, nor anything having to do with life. Business methods or models shouldn't patentable. And many "inventions" simply shouldn't get a patent because they're useless or because they're trivial modifications of existing technology.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
The article correctly stated that the cable company's claim of 100/100 was complete bullshit, as that's theoretically impossible.
Stealing $50 != Stealing $5000
Trees everywhere, and not a forest in sight.
Search and siezure is used to collect evidence. What the hell do you expect the FBI to do, call up the suspect and ask him to please bring his computer to FBI headquarters to help in an investigation? Are you going to say that they shouldn't have conviscated Malvo's .223 rifle either? He's innocent until proven guilty too.
Vote for Pedro
This is theft, pure and simple. I don't know why the FBI is involved, but arrests by armed officers and confiscation of evidence seems entirely reasonable to me.
A service contract isn't a law though, and i don't see why the police are getting involved in this.
The loses could not be anywhere near what they are claiming.. Here's the way I see it..
.0875kbytes/sec slowdown per violator (assuming they were all using it at the same time and maxxed out their own cable lines). You also have to assume that the CM companys outgoing pipes are already saturated, if they were not, the loss to everyone else is nothing. Again, this is bandwidth the company is already paying for regardless.
The cable provider has a certain amount of bandwidth they provide their customers to the outside world. This is what they pay for. They pay that amount regardless of WHO is using it and when. The only loses the cable company should be able to claim is from the customers who cancelled their services because they were not getting expected rates and it can be proved these rates were lower because of a direct result of what these 11 people were doing. That is a very hard thing to prove. Compare the cancels/month directly related to bandwidth concerns before, during, and after these offenders were uncapping. If they are no different, there is no loses.
Even if they were originally capped at 1.5/128. The most you could really get out of a CM is what? 5mbit/500kbit maybe? The have the potential to get roughly just over 3 times what they were paying for. Divide this extra 3.5mbits among say 5000 subscribers and you get a potential loss of 700bit/sec per customer or roughly
Okay its late for me and my math may be off so please be easy if I made a dumb mistake and fell free reply with a recalc with your estimates if I am grossly underestimating something.
I am not saying what they did was justified, but the damage estimates are WAY off..
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
That said, if guns were involved (and I see no convincing statements that any were), the FBI would be at fault for creating a dangerous situation. As a responsible gun owner, I can say that this wouldn't be a problem if they came for me, but it would be bound to get SOME people killed over a simple breach of contract that could be solved with a simple cease & desist notice. Again, I'm not convinced guns were actually involved so I'm speaking hypothetically.
Furthermore, Slashdot only soils itself when they post things with the slant "(Thieves) get shafted!" Many other good examples can be found in articles regarding P2P "sharing." I'd love to see Slashdot work harder to shed it's reputation as an editorial site run by people who think everything should be free. Maybe everything should be free, but there are better ways to achieve that than justifying lawlessness.
This is probably the best AC troll I've seen all year.
Congratulations.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
After articles like this I would think more people would get rid of their hard drive and run off a RAM drive. 2GB RAM is enough for most of my computing needs, and all my personal files could be burnt to CD and stored in a secure location. No forensic evidence other than network traffic... Talk about sticking it to the RIAA.
bash-2.04$
bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
I'm afraid of Americans
I'm afraid of the world
I'm afraid I can't help you
I'm afraid I can't.....
Okkk... In the same respect murdering 1 person != murdering 10 people. Still murder isn't it?
Sheesh... the outrage here over SOP (on behalf of people clearly guilty of theft of services). Bandwidth costs $$$ and I hope they get in a nice amount of trouble for what they did.
So how would you feel about FBI agents storming into your house, arresting you, and taking all your clothes for jaywalking across a street? I'd have had no complaints if the users had just been disconnected, or even if the ISP had billed them for damages, but this kind of action is so out of proportion to the offense it's absurd (and frightening).
yeah right...but then they seized your car for going 8 MPH over the limit, and then went to your home and seized your wife's car, and your kid's bikes. "Same old, same old" in your neck of the woods, maybe. Not in mine. And it shouldn't be in yours.
What the *FSCK* does a VCR have to do with broadband theft? Evidence? Evidence of what?
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
So what happens when somebody uses, say, the recent Microsoft IE hole to create a web button that (while also doing something plausable) silently snifs whether the user is on a cable modem and uncaps it if so?
You could easily find the bulk of the subscribers on the cable company's line with uncapped modems through no fault of their own.
Of course the FBI could go after the owner(s) of the sites(s) with the link. (But suppose their sites had it because it had been installed by a nimda variant, so it wasn't THEIR fault, either?)
Or suppose somebody constructs and launches an email virus that, as its payload, uncaps cable modems? (Probably disguised as an add for faster internet access, ha ha.) Similar story, but no web sites to chase. (HOW MANY new viruses per day? HOW MANY authors actually caught?)
Whack-a-mole will only work for a little while.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
yes and no,
Although people are presumed innocent until proven guilty, there is often need to collect the evidence to verify the facts of the case. If you go out and shoot someone, and it gets caught on video tape, they're going to find all your guns, round them up and send them off to some balistics lab for testing. You woun't see me argue with that. It makes sense and part of me sleeps a little better at night knowing that this is the way it is.
A lot of federal laws cover severe things that need elevated levels of attention.
The same would go for someone hacking into a bank. If they catch traffic from your computer hacking into a bank and stealing money, wether or not you're doing it, they need to take your computer. It needs to be analyzed and the people responsibe tried.
The true travisty here is accusing these uncappers of a Federal crime, this is realistically at most a misdemeanor. What the users did was blantantly wrong, I'm sure there's some 'no tamper' clause in one of the service contracts.
I think it would have been far more appropriate to black-list these people from local broadband, maybe the local Cable co work together with the local dsl providers, make it so these people can't get back online. That should be a deterrant enough.
There was absolutely no need to drag the feds in for this, it's little more than publicity stunt and a huge waste of our money.
What laws need more than anything else they can never have, true common sense, if they had that ninety-nine percent of the court systems would be pointless.
Yeah but wasn't JFK president then? I don't think the W is going to be interested in civil rights cases so much as coporate rights cases. Different perspective.
Can't you do what you want with your own things, especially if they are on your property? Who is this ISP that they can break and enter into your computer system(s) and put some configuration file in there? This has always confused me. What if the cable modem that was being used wasn't able to accept a reprogramming packet from the cable company? Would it still be theft, even if the user had never done anything?
I think this whole thing is way out of line, and I also think that it is our right to uncap or modify our own equipment anyway we want to. Who is anyone else to say what we can and can't do with our equipment? There is a reason that no other service lets the customer have control over the metering equipment. Water, power, gas, they all own their meters. Why does the cable company think they can charge you for a meter(modem) and yet not let you have control over it? Just imagine what would happen if you could supply your own water meter.
I think until cable company's can limit bandwidth based on the connection and IP, then they just need to suck it up. Because no one is gona tell me what I can and can't do with my own cable modem.
In fact this is a great idea. I'll be heading over to Costco this weekend to pickup a cable modem (I rent now from the great and mighty at&t) figure out how to do this hax0r thingy and then i'll call my laywer.
You know if you hacked a parking meter to get more time you go to jail.. if you hack your lectric metere so you can get more juice without paying you go to jail. If you hack any number of things to get more without paying you go to jail. Well chuckle heads bandwidth is anouther. Its stealing and yes even s small stealing can get you in big trouble if your in bad enough luck to do it was the police do a big roundup. Just as with small time drug dealers, small time shop lifters, small time credit card defrauders. If you pick the wrong time your hosed. And now is the wrong time. Did you expect otherwise with the bussiness going south for so many and them trying to cull the less... profitable users from thier systsms? I had this same trype come up over cable tv and pay phones and credit cards.... each time people learned not to screw around because yes it costs big bucks and yes you can and will go to jail if your unlucky. Oh my its sooo unfair its soo uncalled for its soo nasty all you were doing was stealing hundreds of friggen dollars worth of bandwidth per month! Nitwits. I swear some times its a white trash country.
I'm sorry, did you read the story?
In conjunction with the FBI, 17 Buckeye cable users were served warrants, seven of whom had their possessions taken, face fifth-degree felony charges...
This was the FBI, not the local police. That's why this is overkill.
toledoblade.com story
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.
they need to update their uncapping how-to and add at the very end :
if guys in suits show up at your residence, do NOT answer the door.
I knew the Block twins in middle school. They would tell their classmates about how they liked to put their pet mice in toy rockets and send them up. Of course, they didn't land too well. So if they had a hand in bring the FBI in on this, it wouldn't be their first sadistic act. There was a funny article a couple years back in the New York Observer about how one of the twins (think it was Paul - who I've heard is in charge of the Internet operation while Alan runs the Tolede Blade newspaper) has spent years commuting back and forth between Toledo and New York because he believes he has a better chance of finding a woman to love him here. The angle of the article was that despite being worth northwards of $100 million, he hadn't found one as of date of publication. If he's as awkward and unlikeable as an adult as he was as a kid, that's no surprise.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
The same here. You are punished appropriately for what the crime was and what was involved.
You aren't given the death penalty for stealing 5000 dollars. The same as you aren't fined for murdering someone.
Its the *appropriate* punishment for what you did that counts.
1;
It seems to me there are two important facts in this case:
First, that a powerful family is able to call in favors from the FBI and others in local law enforcement. Particularly stunning are the details of the unequal treatment of offenders (i.e. George Runner).
In a free, democratic society, those in government would have someone to answer to if among tens of thousands of people who committed the same crime, many were given wildly different responses depending on their background (i.e. ethnicity, religion, relationship to wealthy families).
Second, and this is something I hear a lot about lately, that the FBI is apparently empowered to s ieze property practically at random (his Windows CD's?) and hang on to it indefinitely (i.e. Wirtz's possessions "may never be returned"?).
In a free and democratic society, there is oversight regarding what law enforcement officers can take away from you - they have to have a legitimate reason for every article taken, and they absolutely have to return it promptly after their need is concluded.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
Personally, I'd rather have stupid car destroying environmental regulations which will quickly be reversed when the other guy wins next time.
Over a police state which the other guy who wins next time will only increase.
But I don't vote in American elections (though my wife could, I guess...). I do however live in a state whose premiere said the other day:
If you've got a website with a photo of Osama bin Laden you ought to be subject to surveillance. - Bob Carr, Premiere of NSW, Australia
So I have some experience with this police state business...
The article makes this point:
"The Block family is the Rupert Murdoch of Toledo, Ohio. The company controls several major area newspapers (including The Toledo Blade), one of the area's television stations (TV5 Toledo), a dial up provider, Buckeye Cable, and much more. As such, their control over the political system in the area is considerable, a fact that may under-ride the horrifying journey several individuals are taking through the area's legal gauntlet because they uncapped their cable modems."
I quote at length as this is very important. To be described as the "Murdoch" of anything means, to me, that you are a despot. A despot rules without any regard of their subjects.
The quotation mentions that because the Block family has it's fingers in various media pies that it is active politically. That may be stating the obvious but look deeper.
Media control increasingly means people control in the USA. Don't even bother to argue against that point.
The Block family may have sat down at their Thanksgiving dinner a few years back and looked at a strategy for gaining more control in Ohio. One of them, probably the brightest one, decided that the family should look at the "new media" or the "information highway" as a means to directly pipe their influence into homes of the people.
They spend a rake of money setting up their venture... and along come the criminals to thwart their carefully laid plans. It does not matter what the criminals did... they went against the Block agenda.
A few favours were called in, the word "hacker" (and even maybe "cyber-terrorist") was used and the local FBI Director agreed with the family... in went the Armed Agents...
The Block family are going to get away with this. Maybe a comparison could be drawn with the railway baron "families" and oil baron "families" of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Now we have the "bandwidth barons"...
Just in case you think I'm sqawking conspiracy theories here take a read of the last paragraph in the article:
"When the Block family first came to Toledo, Paul Block was rumored to have said he was going to "rip down Toledo and rebuild it in his image"."
Citizane Kane anyone?
cheers
front
Amen.
Brandon Wirtz, who operates more than one business out of his home, was on the verge of releasing a Smartcard based DRM solution for Windows Media Player to several different companies before his life was turned upside-down.
Not saying I agree with the whole DRM thing..but it sounds like a good alibi to me..especially in the eyes of his ISP..
maybe the goverment feels that any wrong doing thats related to the internet has the potential to be "cyber-terrorism".. thats the only thing i can think of. pretty soon you wont be able to wipe your own ass w/o having big brother watching you (im sure they probably already know what brand of wipe you use, and the color of jockeys..)
This is what is referred to as "curing a headache via decapitation."
The problem I've got with it is that if this is a "cyber crime" (per the CSEA and other nasty legislation of recent years) does that put any petty crime dealing with any type of "wired" equipment and put it in Federal hands punishable by the maximum extent of federal law?
Meaning if I forget to pay my ISP bill, being peripherally linked to things "cyber" (whatever the fuck that means) is it suddenly a felony?
What if I enter a false email address when signing up for some sort of service to avoid spam?
I'm dumbfounded by the fact that corporations can call in jack booted thugs to do their dirty work -- LEGALLY -- in our present climate.
I'm also dumbfounded by the fact that I know several people in a particular part of my city who are incapable of achieving over 2k per second, up or down, from their cable modems.
AT&T Broadband has claimed that it's an "engineering problem"
However, one of my friends in that area temporarily uncapped his modem and -- presto! -- he had enough bandwidth to play SOCOM on his shiny new PS2 network adapter. On the service that he's been paying $45 per month for and hasn't had proper usage of until then.
This strangely parallels one of the stories in the article. Except the Feds haven't come for my friend. Yet.
So the FBI only gets involved if there's 250k lost. The ISP "estimated" just about exactly that for 23 people. The FBI turns up and finds nothing at 6 of the places, and they don't get indictments of 10 more. So the ISP seems to have actually lost at most 77k, and they fraudulently claimed be a substantial margin to have lost enough to warrant FBI help.
Claiming that you've lost a lot of money when you've in fact failed to be paid a lot of money for services you accidentally provided beyond your contract is inherently somewhat suspect, and you should be in serious danger of legal action against you if you turn out not to have been due as much as you claimed.
All of this fuss would have been prevented if the cable company rate limited their customers on a router 1 or 2 hops downstream. They might be able to uncap their modem still, but the distribution layer router would limit things before they passed on to the core router.
These people violated the contact they agreed to. I support every action taken against them. Perhaps if we'd hold more people accountable for their actions this world would be a much better place to live in today.
-BrentOn average, each uncapper allegedly stole bandwidth equaling $11K.
Well, that's really the crux of it, isn't it.
1. Come up with some value of the theft ($250,000 is claimed)
2. Distribute that amount equally amoung all guilty parties (who were NOT working as a team and probably had no knowledge each other)
3. Then get the FBI involved to dragnet them all at once.
So therefore, person who stole $250 worth of bandwidth was to be raided just as like the person who stole $50,000 worth.
If the ISP went to FBI for each one individually, the FBI would not have looked at this at all -- Too petty for their interest.
That is just ridiculous. If I owned a big department store, I might possibly have over $250,000 worth of shoplifting losses per year. However, if I went to the FBI and said, "A bunch of people stole from me this year, and cost me a quarter mil and I happen to know who they all are! Get them all!" How hard do you think they'd laugh at me?
You can't determine the severity of a crime by averaging it out with OTHER people's crimes.
The
I feel for the American public - the next time some terrorist attack happens, won't everyone feel wonderful that instead of working to prevent a real threat to the country, the FBI is hard at work persecuting people who have stolen bandwidth.
I don't blame the FBI, I rather suspect that once an official complaint is filed, their hands are tied and they must investigate no matter how mentally-challenged that complaint is.
It's a wonder the FBI isn't called out every time someone bypasses their power meter or water main too! Maybe it's time to call them if someone is watering their flowers during a drought.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
Maybe because it is technically a wire fraud which by definition is a federal offense. Hence by jurisdiction this is fbi's case.
Jeez. I guess I was lucky to get my police scanner back the night I was cuffed and stuffed for egging pedestrians on mischief night.
Intelligent Life on Earth
You are a total idiot or fucking broadband provider.
I am FORCED to use COX Communications for my service provider. I have NO OTHER OPTION unless I want to declare my home a business. Also, for Cable I am forced once again to use Cox.
They offer no other increases in bandwidth in my area. They even block channels I pay for during the UF Gator games so they can offer the Gator games on pay per view.
If I steal some bandwidth from them, it's not the jurisdiction of the god damn fucking FBI to enforce it.
Otherwise I should be able to call the FBI in to seize Cox' equipment when they block channels and sell them to me twice during the Gator games. Hrm. I think I'll just call the FBI right now... What is it again? 1-800-.. I forget.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
Your head in your ass is an act of sodomy and is probably a crime where you come from... go in a repent to the FBI.
That was Adoph Hitler, writing about creation of the Gestapo in Nazi Germany.
:)
Your point being?
I'm critical of invoking the Nazis as a metaphor for every excess of government, but in truth the immediate choice of the words "homeland security" made me squirm. It's much like his dad's "New World Order." I don't know if there's any awareness of the echoes of the past. Those who did not study the past are doomed to quote it?
There is nothing wrong with Germans, which is precisely why we need to take seriously their example of nationalism turned ugly. As in the McCarthy experience, we have seen these things get away from us before.
Many of those who voted for or supported the bill have good intentions. Hell is paved with these.
I did a search for this word and it didn't show up anywhere on the page, so I'm wondering if anyone has looked into this solution the the overprofiteering broadband problem? This is the way a free market is supposed to balance itself afterall.
The one cheap alternative I believe I saw mentioned here before was that of the Co-Op Broadband ISP. I don't know what the Slashdot community could do to promote these smaller, non-profit operations other than to look for them in your area, so I suggest we all do this.
I don't know if it's entirely possible to cut profits and beat the big company's service, but these are probably the only ones trying.
moron
Ineffective? Don't you think most people who hear about this will think twice about tweaking their modems? The provider and, more so, the FBI response is disproportionate, but it is wrongful to steal regardless of whether it is easy or hard to pull off. I don't understand why so many think it's a defense to a crime to blame the victim.
Many, may people think, for example, that if an ATM gives you an extra $20, it's OK to keep it. No, actually it is theft; you're not necessarily obligated to return the money, but you don't get to keep it either (or give it away). You can try to justify stealing, you can criticize the victim, but you can not trivialize away the crime no matter how stupid the victim is. The crook would never get a defense like this in court, regardless of whether it was theft, rape, or murder.
I suggest that what's really going on here is an attempt to rationalize a crime viewed as petty. But don't toss out the criminal law to do it.
Say what? I don't know what firewall they were using, but mine didn't come configured with a speed limit.
I was trying to figure out how much bandwidth would cost this much. I found a couple of good comments on a toledo newspaper site Bandwidth could not have cost $250,000 !! According to the article, 13 homes (23 machines) consumed so much bandwidth that it cost the ISP 1/4 million dollars. That's gotta be the biggest load of ******** I've heard in a long time. 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 [boardwatch.com] (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! I also found this if you actually used a oc-3 at full speed for 5 months you would be able to download approx. 193 tera bytes of data They were on this site - http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/news_mess age?Category=NEWS03&ThemeID=1&GroupID=30&InReplyTo =18964
spells THEFT!
How is bandwidth theft any less of a crime than say burglary or shoplifting?
But wait, nerds shouldn't go to prison should they, that's only for those mean old street people.
I want to know what they found when they tried to search the confiscated modem for evidence. Since the modems are configured by TFTP, I can't imagine that they store the configuration in non-volatile RAM during non-powered situations. As such, the instant they unplugged the modem, they should have lost all the evidence it had to offer. The real meat of the evidence will be in the TFTP server and modem config editor on the PC. Still no reason to confiscate the VCR, except to show just how unprepared the FBI is to handle computer crimes.
Intelligent Life on Earth
Breaking News: Area troll again overcompensating for small member.
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I don't know how it is in your country, but where I live, I can get all the electricity I want as long as I pay for it, and the system can handle it.
I didn't know that electric companies put cap on electricity. "Dude, you can only use 20W/H!"
J.
I called Buckeye (419-724-9800) and they said that the FCC has something to do with it, saying that uncapping cable modems causes signal leaks and could interfere with airplanes and other communication services, should I keep laughing or should I laugh harder?
Thats my 2 cents (enough loss from me to report it to the FBI)
The ISP is probably counting the costs incurred trying to trace the problem. Exmaples.. {not from the real case}
,at 40 hours to find it... thats 10k.
/email techs needed to handle calls related to slowdowns on that segment during that time. 2 at $10/hr for 6-10 months 30-60k
Example: If they had to hire an outside consultant to find the problem. {problem being that there is more bandwidth being used than the number of modems in the area can use if legally configured). If that consultant charges the average going rate of $250/hr
Equipment needed to insure QOS for other customers who were complaining? [example 2 headends at $30-50k a piece]
extra phone support
it can all add up very quickly.
--
Time is on my side
you aren't fined for murdering someone.
Oh yes you can. Ask O.J. Simpson.
So if I buy a goldstar 12" b/w tv at the local walmart and by some slight of hand, convert it into a 52" sony tivo, am i guilty of theft? Would walmart accuse me of theft because they sold me an underpriced tivo? If a clever individual uncapps a modem that he lawfully paid for and gains more value for himself, where's the problem? Kinda reminds me of all that flack over the Iopeners a while back where the company management didn't realize that it could do more than just be an internet appliance. It's simply shortsightedness and fast-buck greed of the corporations coupled with their impotence of fixing the actual problem of crappy service/product.
The TOS does not say what the system speeds are. Can't break rules that don't exist.
What I don't get is this: How is the monetary value placed on the lost bandwidth? I could understand if it there were multiple 'plan' levels, I guess, but two things stick out in my mind. 1. Bandwidth is rarely guaranteed (especially in cable systems) so if everyone else was running slower, so what? 2. Nobody else would have been denied service, so no lost revenue there either.
I just don't get it.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
It's a basic principle that contraband seized (illegal drugs, guns, etc.) are never returned. An extension is that the criminal may forfeit otherwise legal property used to facilitate the crime.
One of the more controversial forefeiture cases was a guy whose car was forfeited because he was caught getting a blow job in it from a prostitute. The idea was to make it hard for the johns to repeat their crimes, and to make the punishment hurt. The topic on appeal was actually the defendant's (ex)wife arguing it was unconstitutional to deprive her of her 50% ownership in the car; she had no knowledge of the wrongdoing. She lost.
Another case was a California woman whose house was seized because her son was secretly growing pot in the backyard. She was innocently unaware -- not just looking the other way -- yet she lost the house. Forfeiture has been going like gangbusters for years, and some police departments have made fortunes off of it.
Now, I believe the U.S. gov't is generally quite just by world standards (quite just is not perfect). But all the same we sometimes blow it big time, often out of fear and loathing of "criminals." I wouldn't vote libertarian because they tend to deny the government's affirmative obligation to protect individual rights; they are compatible with the ACLU only insofar as they advocate a gov't "hand off" approach to social values and privacy. Here, "civil libertarian" is closer to the mark.
But whatever your values, forfeiture needs to be reined in. (A related problem is that criminals are assessed income taxes on their illegal income but are not allowed to claim deductions. So if you bought $99 worth of drugs and sold it for $100, you would owe taxes on the $100, besides being a drug dealer with a ridiculous sense of profit margins.)
So you'd be ok with the FBI trashing your house for a little matter of not paying your power bill?
The crime committed here is simple theft of services. Never mind the fancy dancy legal jargon, it's a smoke screen.(IANAL)
Why does it have to be gun totin', badge weilding, cuff-em-and-stuff-em action? Do these people strike you as the dangerous type? Must they be subdued under threat of their life? Why?
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
What fraud was allegedly committed?
And wouldn't said wire fraud have to extend over state lines prior to federal agents being involved?
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Perhaps they should've left their butt-plugs in?
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
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There's absolutely no excuse for this. If i tapped into the electric lines coming into my house and hooked a bunch of equipment to the line before it went to the meter, i don't think the FBI would show up with search warrants. I'd probably get my service cut off, and the electric company would ask for a lot of money before reconnecting it. Or if you live near power lines and run a loop under them to pick up power- they're not going to do much more than tell you to stop. Same thing if i tapped into the watermain without paying. They're railroading these people.
I'm tempted to order cable internet just so i can let the guy show up, balk at the draconian contract, and tell him to shove it. Luckily i don't have that much time.
IANAL, but
18 USC 1343, makes it a Federal crime or offense for anyone to use interstate wire communications facilities in carrying out a scheme to defraud.
Since bidirectional cable networks are commonly used for transmission of network data in- and interstate pretty it is pretty much guaranteed that it falls under this criterium. From a legal standpoint it doesn't really matter if the fraud actually took place across state lines, just that a facility suitable for this purpose was used.
However, due to the rather global nature of internet it is highly unlikely that anyone using such a scheme would actually not invoke interstate (never mind intercontinental) communications. Thus pretty much making a waterproof case.
The first time Slashdot covered this story was about five months ago when the event actually occured.
Sometimes, when someone is under investigation, law enforcement will arrest them for something minor like a traffic violation, tax evasion, or, in this case, "theft of service". Just because the news media doesn't have all the facts doesn't mean it's as simple as it looks.
Fight Spammers!
I'm glad you like the flamethrower image as it clearly represents Mattel's position on free speech.
Fight Spammers!
Some of you don't appreciate the freedoms you do have. Be glad you don't live in a country where they put a tire around your neck, fill it with gasoline and light it on fire (ie, necklacing). You bitch and complain and things you don't even understand. This is NOT Nazi Germany and it isn't even Castro's Cuba. We are blessed, but you would rather complain about silly things.
Yes, I suppose there would be a *serious* conflict of interest in asking the FBI to investigate itself. OTOH, asking the FBI to make an inquiry as to whether or not the local government was justified in requesting their services might have value. Perhaps the Department of Justice is the better venue. As you might have gathered, IANAL. The basic point I was trying to get across is that there is recourse for this guy. Also, I'd like to point out to the "America is coming to an end" crowd that throughout the history of the US, things like this have happened and will continue to happen. Who knows, maybe Runner vs. Ashcroft will be a landmark Supreme Court decision right up there with Brown vs. Board of Education. Or maybe it would be Runner vs. Toledo. The point is, the guy has a long and important fight ahead of him, and may come out OK after all. Stay tuned for the obligatory EFF or ACLU backed legal battle.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
A proceeding is made directly against the property. Something like U.S. v. 1353 Elm Street, Skokie, Illinois, or U.S. v. one Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. When the property is found to have been used for, among other things, "the distribution of narcotics," the property is forfeited to the United States. States have their own versions of forfeiture laws. Conservative forces in Congress have been instrumental in enacting asset forfeiture laws as part of the war on drugs, and in doing so they greatly increased the ante. I guess Congress thinks taking drug dealers' houses, cars, and guns away will help . Will it? who knows. You know those ads in the classifieds that say "Cars, Trucks, boats, all starting at $50!" This is asset forfeiture in action. They hold a sheriff's sale and put the proceeds in some sort of general fund, like public education in Missouri (adopted 1990, revised 1999). The law enforcement agency doesn't get the money directly, but sometimes they have in the past, and now they are being reformed. What do you think your local police do with unclaimed property in the lost and found that's taking up space in the station? They sell it after a certain period, like 6 months. Understanding the rationale behind the law is important. Proceedings directly against property, e.g. for the collection of unpaid property taxes, have been around at least since the 1800's. Nothing unusual.
Here, the uncappers probably violated some sort of federal wire fraud act. If they are even charged and convicted, they'll get a few months in prison. You have to understand that it's completely within the U.S. attorney's discretion in that district whether to charge them or not. Most of them will probably walk. I suspect the worst couple of offenders might be charged and "perhaps" convicted, but even then they'll get the 12 step program since there's nothing courts like more than reducing the number of bullshit cases that go through them, like this one. Yes, it sucks to have your life disrupted by such an arrest. However, this does happen every day, and it's a reminder that it could happen to any one of us at any time. The fact that few people are caught doesn't mean the feds won't crack down on those they do catch, just like any other crime. I would suggest writing to your legislators and asking them to revise the law, but unfortunately they don't give a shit about joe blow who uncapped his cable modem. As far as asset forfeiture, that issue has already been settled, and if you have issues with that, the ACLU has many interesting articles on the subject.
Plain and simple I pay a premium price for 1.5 and by god if some fool is not paying and using my pipe then lock his ass up and throw away the key. Ok the FBI might have been a little over kill, but they need to pay dearly for stealing others service.
Got Code?
Sure, it is slanted somewhat... but I have not seen an objective article in a while and, at least here, would rather see it slanted towards law-breakers when cable company.
Not legal? It's called ILLEGAL. Uncapping your modem is ILLEGAL. "Not legal" is trying to cover it up.
Or perhaps just trying to achieve the advertized "lightning fast unlimited speed, 100x of a modem" internet? They mentioned (in the older article) someone who got away by claiming that he was simply trying to get what was advertized.
So the fact that there wasn't enough bandwidth makes this better? Okay? They basically modded it to use as much bandwidth as possible, to the detriment of others.
No it does not make it ok. But it DOES point out that they must have LIED when estimating the costs/damages to get it up to 250K and involve FBI. Seriously... I have not seen 100Mbit on a LAN...
They broke the law and must now fact the music.
Sure. but does the term "cruel and unusual punishment" mean anything to you?? They did not steal even close to 250K worth of bandwidth.
Passive voice. He's just a victim! Its not his fault! All his neighbors say he's a great guy!
Judging by the article, his life was, in fact, screwed over already with more to come. Enron execs must have been executed by the same logic, right?
Friggin' bummer. You gamble long enough and you will lose.
The question is: what do you lose? No one says they should be exempt. but fine and service termination seems more reasonable.
It is EXTREMELY unfair to make an EXAMPLE out of someone. This is exactly how cruel and unusual punishment occurs.
John Weglian, chief of the special units division of the prosecutor's office, offers no apologies for Buckeye's unusually harsh treatment of the uncappers. "Cyber crime is potentially very damaging to society. We are taking a firm position on that type of criminal activity. We hope these cases will have a deterrent value, given the cost factors for the defendants in successful prosecutions."
The cable operators claim a loss of $11,000 for each of the 23 offenders and absurdity at best as the operators had the power to kill service at anytime, if indeed such losses were occuring. The uncpping was detected and the ISP could have terminated the contract with the individuals in question and fined them the cost of the modified equipment.
Now why is this a bother to Orwell and the authors of the US Constitution? Because it is a great step towards the end of free publishing in the US and towards the thought control of 1984. Violating a "service contract" with a monopoly ISP has been equated with serious law breaking. The same service contract includes prohibitions on running "servers" or electronic publications. Prohibiting electronic publications on a monopoly service ammounts to denial of first amendment rights to free speach. The internet is a public place, built largely from public networks on public land and supported by monopoly structures. The implication is that US citizens in the future will be felons if they attempt to express themselves in the electronic commons by runing their own news servers, email, or web servers.
Some people can't stand any competition, but the Founding Fathers knew that that's what a free press is all about. These services are against the wishes of their monopoly ISP wich also happens to be the monopoly telco or carrier of CableTV and all other significant electronic publications in the area. From the publisher's perspective, this is a nice step towards criminalizing competing with them. Not being able to run a free press is something the Founding Fathers would not find funny at all. The first amendment to the constitution puts free speach and press in the same class as religion and free assembly - inviolate. They also debated extensivly on the evils of exclusive franchise that copyright grants and how to balance that with the good that it can do to promote the useful arts - 14 years only, thank you. They could never have imagined a world of only one large press organization, AP, five music publishers, three broadcast networks and the technological steps those entrenched intersts would take to preserve and extend their power.
Orwell precicted such control through technology and it's ultimate results. These "untaper" federal cases combined with Paladium, are a great step towards 1984. Paladium, with its concept of "trusted computing" will assure that personal computers will spy on their owners, who can only use them to recieve official propaganda. Orwell saw it comming.
The stage has been well set by the large publishers and you are discredited. They have issued a long string of kiddie porn arrests and news storries about the demise of music publishers. These storries have convinced the public that the free internet is responsible for the demise of popular music and an increase in child molestation. "Hackers" have been equated with child molesters, warez losers and other "pirates" and parisites. this wired story does a good job of demolishing the connection between child molestation and the internet, but the readership of Wired is nothing compared to MSNBC/Time-Warner/AOL/McDonalds/AP/Conglomoram/GE. Your neighbors may not pitty you when the FBI coyly knocks on your door. "Why esle would anyone want to have all that bandwith or run a server?" a clueless populance will ask. You have been painted as some kind of pervert that treatens the great public circus, home, harth and the whole "entertainment ifrastruture" without which the US economy would obviously colapse.
I invite one and all to see exactly what I want to do with my internet connection. It's simple, I want to share my life with relatives that live in different states and my interests with anyone who cares. There's nothing Earth shattering here, not even bad music.
On December 1st, my modest site will go black when my contract with Cox Cable expires. The nose has tightened slowly, every six months brought some new loss of service and increase in costs, and it is now intollerable. I'm not willing to pay $75/month to simply surf the great corporate billboard nor am I willing to give money to a company with the same contract terms and philosophy as Buckeye.
Don't worry, I'll keep posting here on Slashdot. Now you know who twitter is.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
My friend discovered this while living in Portland, but no dice in Eugene... Same company though.
It's protectionism, pure and simple. Yes it eliminates your first amendment rights but the constitution never stood in the way of a dishonest buck or thought control. It's not "cybercrime" they are after, it's "thoughtcrime" in the long run. Where do I get off saying that? Just go read my other post.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
This bullshit has to stop. Our governments have been pushing us around long enough. I can't stand it anymore. They take half our paychecks, tell us how we can poison ourselves [weed is illegal, alcohol is good?] cant we make up our own minds??? [just to name a few] We need to make a change so people will listen, so the governments will change. The government is killing, and abusing each and every one of us, among other things. To have the feds involved in uncappers? Holy shit this is too extreme. People fear we are about to enter war, if you dont like it, do something about it. Rather than being at war with other countries, telling them how to run their lives, their countries, we should focus more on ourselves, and our own governments. Fight the power. xipperhead, xipperhead.com
With all the publicity this case is getting, I'm sure there will be thousands of people all accross the country droping their cable modems. Most of the "providers" ban servers and charge between 50 and 75 bucks a month for the silly boxes. How many people are really going to pay that kind of money for that? To surf the great corporate billboard faster and better than ever? Nope, the local cable company not only blocks your ports so you can't serve, now they are capping your line so you get DSL speed if you are lucky. Pththth-fit. Can you say content death? How many of you are willing to risk going to jail to run servers?
Don't even thing of running a server, you will be depriving your ISP of valuable "hosting" fees, like $10/month or so. If you run a server and it get's slashdotted, oh my, that 30kbit/second uplink crimp will cost them so much bandwidth you might even hit your five gig cap. Monetary loss of hitting your cap = $0. I'll give the cable company that amount next month. How about you?
The biggest losses are the trust these fools threw away about two years ago. A bad reputation leads directly to bankruptcy.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
This article is not well written, its vastly slanted towards law-breakers.
Neither is your comment. It's vastly slanted towards self-righteous reactionism.
Exhibit #1:
For the record, uncapping ( hacking your modem in order to gain access to untapped bandwidth) is not legal.
Not legal? It's called ILLEGAL. Uncapping your modem is ILLEGAL. "Not legal" is trying to cover it up.
No, the proper term for a breach of contract is not legal. There are laws about breaching contracts, true, but the offense is civil. Not criminal.
Exhibit #2:
As such, their control over the political system in the area is considerable
No examples, no proof, just innuendo and slander.
Since when is an observation in a column that's non-inflammatory and obviously editorial in nature slander? Get a dictionary and look up the word, man. It doesn't mean what you wish it did.
Exhibit #3:
a fact that may under-ride the horrifying journey several individuals are taking through the area's legal gauntlet because they uncapped their cable modems.
More speculation and innuendo. "Legal gauntlet" - what they are the victims now? Oppressed? They broke the law and must now fact the music.
Again, this is independent observation in an editorial piece. Even if it were not, observation that slants the facts to fit one's argument isn't merely "speculation." Do you have some sort of agenda against the poster? THAT's speculation. Moreover, excessive use of force can constitute oppression, and I suggest you read the article more closely instead of replying in a fit of anger.
Exhibit #4:
discovered that twenty three of his subscribers were getting more juice from their connections than they paid for.
Getting more juice. What a joke. They were stealing bandwidth from other customers. And not paying for it.
Bandwidth may be a finite resource, but the company in question has failed to demonstrate a consistent record of customer complaints; that other customers were injured is, actually, speculation on your part. Uncapping doesn't necessarily affect people if you do it at 2AM (not that I'm supporting the act, just raising a point.) They have also failed to demonstrate or prove that the uncapped modems were stealing significant amounts of bandwidth--anyone with half a brain can see that their numbers are massively inflated--and thus the author is raising a valid question: Why haven't we seen proof of this "gravely injurious act" that would make this proverbial boulder necessary to crush the ants?
Exhibit #5:
According to an interview in a recent Cable World article, Shyrock noted that one subscriber had "altered his modem to handle 100 megabits per second, up and downstream", though the company could never realistically even obtain such speeds.
So the fact that there wasn't enough bandwidth makes this better? Okay? They basically modded it to use as much bandwidth as possible, to the detriment of others.
Yes, it does. The damages that the company quoted to the FBI cannot have possibly been true. The fact that the company is quoting similarly heavy figures to a journalistic source is not surprising, but it also shows a basic lack of technical understanding. Again, here, you're also speculating that customers were injured, which they haven't shown happened.
Instead of disconnecting service for uncapping (as is the case with nearly every provider in the U.S.)
Its obviously working very well!
Wonderful. I'll refer you to the hundreds of other analogies that other posters have submitted, because they're all very excellent. It's becoming rapidly obvious that you missed the point of the article in your misguided attempt to appear on a moral high ground.
companies before his life was turned upside-down
Passive voice. He's just a victim! Its not his fault! All his neighbors say he's a great guy!
A Slashdot poster who questions the article's use of grammar, yet can't seem to grasp the proper use of commas himself. Grow up.
The worst that could happen to him, he figured, was that his ISP got angry and disconnected his service. He couldn't have been more wrong.
Bummer. It was just a little mistake. No problem!
That's the worst that SHOULD happen to him -- if not a fine and a settlement of some sorts. Calling in the FBI to settle one's outstanding payments on a civil case is nothing short of ludicrous.
This article can be summed as: "No fair! We weren't expecting to get caught!"
No, not really. But the summation of your comment would seem to be a giant mass of logical fallacies and emotional arguments.
Lets be real people. You can't steal bandwidth. If you modify your equipment to take more bandwidth than you are intended to have by your provider, you may end up in trouble. It doesn't look any of these people are going to jail. They got indicted, have to go to an "aversion" program, and pay some fines. The equipment - that which isn't illegal modified or containing illegal materials - will be returned. If they aren't the defendents should get lawyers.
Ah, so you did miss the point of the article. No one questions that what the users did was wrong; they're simply questioning the company's actions, and its motives.
The reprecussions suffered by the criminals is what happens when you break the law and get caught. Bummer. Don't break the law, or if you have a problem with it get it changed. Each defendent consciously knew what they were doing was wrong, and one even admits that he gambled that the consequences would be minor. Friggin' bummer. You gamble long enough and you will lose.
Keep posting long enough, and I'm sure you'll eventually write a coherent argument. What are you trying to do here -- say the same thing three times over?
got standards? --- http://www.w3.org/
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The article says that the methods used to identify the perpetrators are "unknown". In fact its very simple. You ask the modem via SNMP what its speed is, and it tells you.
So these people got "over 100Mbits" speed limits on their modems. I'm paying £25/month for 0.5 Mbit. So if that were increased by a factor of 200 then it would cost $5,000/month. Multiply by 23 people and you have a problem worthy of the FBI's time. Particularly since it only required search, seizure and some very minor forensics (like identifying the uncapping software on the seized computers).
So overall I think these people got what they deserved.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
Thanks to local construction, Wirtz, who never signed a contract with Buckeye, claims his broadband connection was incapable of achieving speeds higher than 128kbps down. By utilizing a Cisco configuration file, he uncapped his Motorola Surfboard modem to 2.5MBps, for what he estimates was no more than a total of 16 hours, and only when he needed to move large files.
Apparently not everyone even HAD a contract. Though the "16 hours" bit DOES sound disingenuous to me.
The article states that the ISP is claiming that collectively the "suspects" had "stolen" over $250,000 in bandwidth, which in turn lead to the Gesta - ah - the FBI knocking on doors and "seizing" all the coolest hardware, while leaving the only real "culprit" piece in place. The FBI apparently is interested in economic crimes that are not big ticket items. The ISP had to indulge in some very creative accounting in order to demonstrate how really aweful the offenders. I should also think that the FBI neglected to check the complainant's arithmetic to be sure there wasn't a misplaced decimal point or two.
Shryock also confirmed the company wasn't sure how customers were getting the extra speed. "We don't fully understand how they're pulling this off just yet, but we're learning more every day."
In other words the ISP isn't simply dishonest, but incompetent as well, since their cusomers could use a simple configuration on file on their cable modems to reset them. Bandwidth management should have been handled at the server end. Any dial-up modem can be forced to a speed limit. The servers owned by the ISP should be far more sophisticated.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
Naw - we have enough difficulty getting Billy-Bob to stop playing GTA3 down the station when the boys want to watch the Bold and the Beautiful.
Scottish university, I mean. £50 a year for a Uni lan connection that is wince-inducingly fast (100Mbps burst maximum, I'm often getting four megaBYTES a second through it).
Admittedtly, it is firewalled into submission to prevent "abuse", but it's easy enough to counter by getting people to listen to things on sockets 25, 21 and 80...
I think a lot of people are missing the point here. let me use an analogy.
Power is delivered in volts and amps just as internet content is delivered by bandwidth and time. The equations have the same form: p=v*a, c=b*t respectively.
Just because one might double the voltage, say from 120 to 240 volts does not mean they use more power. In fact if people check the insulation ratings of the NMD wiring in their homes then they can quickly determine that it is usually rated up to 600 volts and typically they run 120V over it.
So if the homeowner needs more juice at a particular spot, a really inexpensive way to achieve this is to ask an electrician to "upgrage" the circuit to 240v. This involved a tiny wiring change at the breaker and a new plug to be installed in the outlet. The other alternative might be to pull say 12 gauge wire through the walls and run 20 amps at 120V (instead of 10 amps at 240V).
So with a simple wiring mod, you get twice the juice man! But you have NOT stolen any power and the electical utility doesn't give a DAMN.
Simialry, if these accused felons need to transfer some large files, then they can use say 1 hour of time at 128KB/sec or 1/2 hour of time at 256KB/sec. They still used the same amount of capacity in the transmition system and thus didn't steal a thing. The only way that they can really increase the burden on the transmission system is if their total transmission is higher as a result of making the pipe fatter.
Our last ISP (cadvision) use to publish that they were providing up to 10 mb/sec access speeds to the internet. Technically they were - on the last mile. Of course, they hooked the 10MB/sec DSL modems into a Dslam on the net which was backhauled on a T1 lines running 24 or FEWER DS0's to the max shared capacity was only 1,536mb/sec.
Buckeye claiming theft here is about the same as your electrical uliltity bitching about wanting a voltage cap because they wish to ignore the amps term in the power equation.
Well, next time you get caught speeding on the highway, I ask that you be executed on the spot. After all, it's called ILLEGAL.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
As such, their control over the political system in the area is considerable
No examples, no proof, just innuendo and slander.
Ah, c'mon. You gotta be really naive to think that a group that controls most business and the media in an area doesn't have influence over the political system.
- What's that? You want a big donation? Sure! Remind me to run a couple good news about you at primetime!
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
Slow down there, turbo. What they did was remove the cap on their cable modem. Removing the locks on the bank's outer doors is not the same as emptying the vault. You're basing your numbers on how much they could have stolen.
Furthermore, you really have no idea what you're talking about in the first place. Bandwidth is kind of a fuzzy term--we sometimes use it to mean throughput (MB/s), and sometimes to mean latency (ping time). Sometimes we actually mean bandwidth, but that's in Hz not MB, and I guarantee that you did not actually mean bandwidth.
Let's just pretend you meant throughput--most people do. My cable modem generally gets about 250 Kb/s, and I pay $40 per month. You just told me that 1 Mb/mo (not 1 Mb/s) should cost $200. I can get better throughput than that with a station wagon filled with magnetic tapes; I've got a month to get it there.
But for the benefit of the doubt, let's pretend you actually meant 1 Mb/s over the course of a month. What are the chances, do you think, that they could have sustained that kind of load for an entire month. That's 2.5 Tb of data they'd have to have transferred. These are home users, not an ISP. And even then, they'd only owe $200 ($400 with the expensive price).
Anyway, when an ISP pays high prices for bandwidth, what he's really paying for is the gurarantee that the bandwidth will be available when you need it--whether you use it or not. These people had no such guarantee.
The lawyers would argue that since they took the cap off their modem, they effectively had access to that kind of bandwidth for a period of time, though they probably never did anything with it (and logically really couldn't have, either). But they should have to pay for the unused ability to consume that bandwidth for that period of time.
What they stole wasn't the bandwidth itself but rather the possiblity to use that bandwidth. If you argue that they abused this ability and degraded the service of the company's other customers, then still the only damages the people would be liable for--what they actually "stole"--could be accounted as follows:
Take the bandwidth (in execess of what they were alotted) they consumed (probably in Mb/s) times the amount of time they spent actually consuming it (probably in seconds, maybe minutes) and divide it by the length of the billing cycle (likely 1 month). Then take that very, very, very small number and multiply it by the actual cost of that bandwidth over the billing cycle. The resulting price--the value of what they stole--could probably be taken out of their pocket change and still leave enough for a burger and fries.
Bottom Line: this definately looks like a civil case, not a criminal one: they received services that they didn't pay for, and they broke the rules of their contract. That's bad, but certainly not news, and certainly doesn't warrant the treatment they got. The value of the services they actually received realistically amounts to so little that settling out of court for $4 and a slurpee would be a good idea if the court understood the technology involved.
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925
I watched a two-part series about some very disturbing developments in the US police and justice system. They are availible online and although it's a Dutch program almost everything is spoken English so it's worth to watch for non-Dutchies
Realplayer stream part 1:
http://info.vpro.nl/rmstreams.db?7273010
Realplayer stream part 2:
http://info.vpro.nl/rmstreams.db?7273012
Repeat after me: We are all individuals
See
http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/SJG/
Looks like nobody has learnt a thing over the years.
So how does one uncap a Motorola cable modem using a Cisco configuration file? Well, they hack the Cisco router in the cable system, of course!
You see thse folks didn't really "uncap" their own cable modem. They changed the configuration files on the Cisco routers in the providers network. So as you are being ultra paranoid as normal here on the dot; try and figure out how many other customers were affected by these idiots. And how many truck rolls that those other customers might of (or actually did) cause.
I think you'll find that it is much easier to reach the $250,000 USD "let's invite the FBI to investigate number".
And (again) why does this dolt refer to an officer serving a warrant as "gun wielding". If you actually think they had guns drawn while serving these warrants you should slowly move away from the computer and turn off the TV. Cause you are an idiot.
"I'll be better when I'm older"
I can't find any reference to this quote on google. Is it real?
No..It IS Excessive Force. Excessive Force occurs when the amount of manpower and/or the actions of said manpower far exceed the reasonable expected need to place someone under arrest.
I don't care what the motivation is, it's still excessive force in your story, and in the story in Toledo.
It would have been just as effective for Buckeye Cable to have sent Cease and Desist Letters to the uncappers, and shut down the services of those who did not. The case could have been handled in a civil court, with Buckeye Cable suing for restitution. The matter could have been handled completely by the local police, or barring that, the Ohio State Police, who almost certainly have their own Electronic Crimes Department.
>I mean, where do you draw the line?
I draw the line when a local cable company involves the Federal Government for something that while may have cost Buckeye Cable money, is not clearly illeagal, especially considering the article states that some people DID NOT sign agreements stating bandwidth caps.
I don't know if anyone else has said anything like this here- i dont feel like trying to search all the posts so I apologize if this is redundant, but..
I felt strongly enough about this story that I emailed askus@cablesystem.com the following:
<QUOTE>
I read with great concern the article on broadbandreports.com about your company's despicable actions on your own customers.
http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/23727
You should be ashamed of yourself. This is not being a good citizen or good business practice. If you have any decency at all you will drop the charges and make a public apology.
</QUOTE>
I encourage other's who feel the same to.. um.. do the same.
Of course if you dont feel the same way, dont.. That (should) go without saying.
c-
... And I understand that the method used was over the top but again, once you break a rule, the penelties aren't really for you to decide. I mean, if the cable company wanted to shell out money they could have sent 5 helicopters to circle the houses too.. more dramatic but still the same outcome. My feeling is that once you break a contact or you break the law you're kind of at the mercy of the person that you wronged. As far as the people that didn't sign contracts are concerned, two things could happen 1] They owned the cable modem and therefor no damage was done to the cable companies equipment and they will be cleared of all wrong doing due to the fact that they didn't do anything wrong or 2] If the cable company owns the modem, they are still in violation for tampering with their equipment.. This is the same thing as taking off a cable filter to get more channels.
What Buckeye Cable had with these folks is a dispute about whether they honored a clause in a contract. One could say that the real principle was the criminal system favored the business against the individual in the case of my relative, and again here. But in that case it really would be a criminal system. If it comes to that, turnabout is fair play, and there is then no ethical limitation on the individual scamming what he or she can from it. It's like stealing from the mob - hazardous to your health but not wrong. This is why it's so important that the system itself operate fairly, and not tilt towards corporations and businesses. Without fairness, the population my be terrorized, but cannot be governed.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
So did they use Ashcroft as wel as automatice weapons to take them down?
The new Darth Vader fo this centruy and the FBI, Ashcroft..
Don't Tread on OpenSource
If uncapping your cable modem is a felony because you are denying resources to others then wouldn't the FBI have to step in to look at spammer cases. Using that same logic a spammer denies resources across state and international lines. One step further, wouldn't an ISP that looked the other way with a spammer be AIDING AND ABETTING a known felon! One step futher, cound an ISP suffer the same consequences as the spammers themselves (i.e. the driver in the commission of a crime can be given the same sentence as the perpatrator). Has Buckeye Cable ever looked the other way in similar cases with the use of resources? I think we have some serious ethical issues here that need to be resolved and using analogies while they help understanding don't always frame an issue fairly. We need as society to quit thinking the Internet is just like the Real World and start doing some critical thinking in trying to define the cyber one.
HT
Or are you saying as long as you steal from a broadband company it is OK? A $499 - $5000 dollar value is required for a F5. Shoplifters do time even if they needed the food. Life isn't fair. These idiots need jail time. If you are stealing then you need jail time as well. The company is perfectly within its rights to press charges. I think more companies should. I do not like having to subsidize thief's.
You can disagree, But my opinion is not a troll, it is real.
Get a free ipod.
I understand what you are saying, but there are a few points I want to comment on:
Exhibit #5:
According to an interview in a recent Cable World article, Shyrock noted that one subscriber had "altered his modem to handle 100 megabits per second, up and downstream", though the company could never realistically even obtain such speeds.
So the fact that there wasn't enough bandwidth makes this better? Okay? They basically modded it to use as much bandwidth as possible, to the detriment of others.
This is serious. This means the company lied to the FBI to get them involved. This should have been a police matter, but the company would rather waste tax-payer money and FBI time on an obviously local matter.
If you modify your equipment to take more bandwidth than you are intended to have by your provider, you may end up in trouble.
I am wondering about cable modems that you purchase from the store. What if they allowed for personal cable modems and I prevented the cable company from modifying my equipment? I can see the bandwidth being stolen argument, but I also can see that the cable company has no right to alter my computer equipment.
If you can't do the time, blah blah blah. If you're smart enough to uncap your cable modem then you should have been smart enough to understand that what you are doing involves activities that fall into the jurisdiction of the FBI.
;)
The FBI does not do anything half ass, when they act, they throw their weight around. Excessive, perhaps, but I guess the people who did this should have thought a little bit more about what could happen.
Plus, who knows, maybe the FBI knows something about these guys that we don't and they are terrorists
Search and siezure is used to collect evidence. What the hell do you expect the FBI to do, call up the suspect and ask him to please bring his computer[...]
Search and seizure of evidence is supposed to be limited to, what a surprise, evidence or possible evidence, which means items somehow related to the crime.
What's the relation of VCR to "evil act" of modem uncapping? I can understand them seizing computers, there's probably software used to uncap the modems, the modems itself, PDAs, notes, disks etc since they might possibly contain related information (like "Uncap your modem and get FBI to visit you HOWTO"). But VCR? Why not seize the lawnmowers also?
The moon is not fully subjugated. I demand a second assault wave preceded by a massive nuclear bombardment.
There's a article in the last issue of 2600 magazine about on persons experience getting busted for uncapping....and also uncapping tips as well. Not sure if which vendor it was for though.
Things Are The Way They Are
IANAL, but
18 USC 1343, makes it a Federal crime or offense for anyone to use interstate wire communications facilities in carrying out a scheme to defraud.
Since bidirectional cable networks are commonly used for transmission of network data in- and interstate pretty it is pretty much guaranteed that it falls under this criterium. From a legal standpoint it doesn't really matter if the fraud actually took place across state lines, just that a facility suitable for this purpose was used.
However, due to the rather global nature of internet it is highly unlikely that anyone using such a scheme would actually not invoke interstate (never mind intercontinental) communications. Thus pretty much making a waterproof case.
I think you are wrong on this one. The crime was LOCAL. The ISP is within the state and so was the alleged uncapper.
Let's take a hypothetical case. I live in Canada and like most Canadians, I am close to the Canada/U.S. border (20 miles). I use my cell phone to call someone in another location in Canada but even closer to the border. The cell call gets routed through some US based cellular provider for part of the trip. The call discusses some matter that is legal in Canada but illegal in the United States. Extending your example, I am now a wanted person in the US.
Amercia, land of free and home of the brave. Think again about the meaning of FREE and BRAVE.
If VISTA is the answer, you didn't understand the question
Mod this up!!! AWWW yeah. Thank you for eloquently stating what I was thinkning. For you republicans, I hope you are happy. We might get to keep our guns, but by God, don't uncap your cable modem.
I thing he is VERY involved...
Sorry for lowering the tone but when I saw 'uncapping' and 'shafted' I though this was to do with pr0n regulations... :(
The founding fathers themselves recognized that those rights were given to us by God.
Thank goodness they also recognized that not everyone believed in the same God and put in the first amendment, eh?
But, anyway, it is ironic to see someone get busted for doing exactly what he was working on to prevent.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
On another note, I always read that the Iran-Contra affair was about selling *weapons*, not drugs.
It was about selling drugs to get the money to buy the guns to trade to the Iranians for the return of our hostages. It was illegal to give Iran military weapons. Any government department that has any legal money whatsoever gets that money from Congress since that is one of the major roles of Congress. So since they were not authorized to give weapons to those countries, they had to come up with another source of income. So they imported and sold large amounts of cocaine to fund their illegal operation. This, in a nutshell, is what happened.
If you break the law which they clearly have, you are going to get punished for it. If you don't want the FBI to come and take your stuff, well gee, DON'T GIVE THEM A REASON. K? Good.
http://about.me/paultenny
The one guy, Wirtz, admitted that he uncapped his modem, according to the article. But the author offers justifications for the uncapping: he had a cool business, he only did it for a short time, and he only did it for limited use. So what? He admits to committing the crime (whatever it happens to be, the article neglects to tell us what crimes these uncappers have been indicted for), and thus he should be punished. That's why we have a criminal justice system: to enforce the laws and punish those who violate them. Cool guys who are on the verge of inventing some neat device don't get a special dispensation from the laws.
The careful reader of this article will also note that it is not well-written: there are several grammatical errors; as noted above, the article fails to mention the crimes for which the uncappers have been indicted; and the last bit about the Blocks being on a crusade against that former town prosecutor is worse than pure speculation, its libel.
Well, you could draw that same analogy for
public schooling
medica(id/re)
social security
food stamps
income tax
sales tax
The only alternatives to a progressive tax are
A) A regressive tax, where you tax the poor a greater percentage of their income, or
B) a flat tax, where someone who makes $15,000 is left with $12,000 and someone who makes $15 million is left with $12 million.
Just because you can say 'Hey! The communists did that!' doesn't make it inherently bad. Might I suggest -1 Troll to parent?
Is the war on drugs equivalent to the 100 Years War or something? Shit...how long are we going to fight this damn thing before people wise up?
(paraphrased) To the unenlightened, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Arthur C. Clarke
Remembering that quote has saved me hundreds of hours of frustration.
Valkenvania seems to be for real (though maybe somewhere in Ohio), and yet things are bound to get worse.
Now instead of making even more bad laws, how about decent ones, to have the FBI rather use their time for going after some spamming scum, who are possibly the only guys to truly deserve this kind of encounter with the authorities?
As someone who lives in Toledo (I am working in the downtown area right now) this article shocks me.
BR> I know the Block family controls a lot, they own pretty much the only paper (The Toledo Blade) and run Buckeye Cable. What I never realized is that with their hold on the media I never heard a thing about this incident happening. I mean this isn't a big town, a lost chicken makes headline news at times. And now I found out the FBI was doing a crackdown and John Q Public never found out? Very disturbing.
I have been a Buckeye Express (cable internet) subscriber for three years now. This is the first I have ever heard of them doing something like this. The service is pricey ($49.95/mo if you use their cable TV too, $59.95 if you don't), but it is rock solid. I have had 1 (one) period of two hours downtime in the last three years. That was only because of a huge area storm, and they credited my account $20 for the outage.
What it really comes down to is I have been recommending this service to friends for years now, and they do this to their customers? Uncapping is illegal, sure. But how ethical is destroying someones life when they could just turn them off good ethics?
We have a small paper in town called the Toledo City Paper. It is the alternative paper for people who hate the filtered content the Blade delivers. I am going to make sure they see this story.
The thing that really sucks here in Toledo is Buckeye is usually your only option. If you do have choices it is either Ameritech DSL (horrid), Adelphia Cable modem (Not Much Better), or ComWavez ($$$$$$$$$$).
Looks like the ACLU supports what they should, equality of religion and the right of even unpopular people to exercise free speech. They probably wouldn't like Nazis any more than we do, but they'd realize that it's better than idiots get the right to speak than that people need government approval first. Most of the rest (drugs, prostitution, etc) is about letting adults decide how to live their own lives and removing "victimless crimes" from the books.
Rights, granted by god... Uh huh, and your presents are really from Santa. Do you believe in the Easter Bunny as well?
The ACLU may be widely supported by communists and socialists, but you might want to consider that the only agency really committed to supporting constitutional rights is supported by these people. I don't see anyone else doing it... Capitalists want to prevent comminists from speaking, communists are evidently comfortable with everyone being able to state their opinion.
fact:
1. the president of the u.s.a. is in charge fo the f.b.i.
2. i break my service contract with a cable company.
3. postal workers in black clothing show up at my door step, (not to deliver the mail).
conclusion:
i believe that that there is a raving lunitic in the executive branch.
Can I have the FBI kick down the door of my ISP? I've signed up for a 128kbps bandwidth and on several occasions my bandwidth has gone under the speed I have signed up at. I estimated the cost of my missing bandwidth to be about 200,000$
In that first non-italicized paragraph, s/bad/good/. That would make a little more sense.
[Brandon Wirtz] was on the verge of releasing a Smartcard based DRM solution for Windows Media Player to several different companies before his life was turned upside-down.
Wow, talk about ironic.
I don't think I'll shed to many tears for this guy, personaly.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Since most insurance companies do not profit from insuring people, but rather from investments.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Am I the only one who found it funny the guy they profiled was working on DRM technology? In other words, he was trying to bring about the very thing you're complaining about.
Not that this helps the other 16...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
..that this article is just a rehash of an article that was posted *BACK IN JUNE*. I thought it all seemed a little too familiar. It was even posted on slashdot back THEN.
:)
Short term memory loss?
As you can read in other comments, its very simple for cable providers to 'recap' people at their end.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
That's what's known in the business as "not idiotically trusting user machines".
grep -ri 'should work'
I don't believe this is stealing, and here's why:
They didn't FORCE the cable company to give them more bandwidth. They opened up THEIR modem caps to make use of all AVAILABLE bandwidth.
Consider:
The power company provides power to my house. Sure, they have expectations of how much power I'll use, but they don't LIMIT it. I could replace my breakers and fuses (on MY property) and run mile-long strings of christmas lights from every outlet in the house. If the power company is PROVIDING me this power, WITHOUT LIMIT, then it's mine to use (and go blind from).
Same thing with the modem. The cable company didn't LIMIT the bandwidth available to them, on the COMPANYS end... the 'hackers' changed THEIR PROPERTY to use WHAT THE COMPANY MADE AVAILABLE. Now, if they'd hacked the router, or used a techs password to change settings, then they'd be hackers (poor ones, at that), and I say bust their ass. But they didn't.
Example 2: The water company provides me water via a 3 1/2" pipe. Most peoples houses immediately drop that to 1". But it's 3 1/2" when it gets to my property. So if I leave it at 3 1/2" and use it to form beautiful, 100-foot high waterfalls for the entire summer, yes, I'm not using it as intended, but I'm using WHAT THEY PROVIDED.
Now, before dozens of AC's jump on me and say "but you pay for water and power!", I point out that these boys did, indeed, pay for cable internet access. And while I cannot make claim to having read their contract, I have yet to see a highspeed contract that spells out exactly what you'll get, IE: We, will provide you with 5GB up/downstream at no more than 768kbps, and any attempt to go over will constitute breach of contract. Instead, companies package speed and up/down together, but they have never said "You may ONLY have x bandwidth", but instead "We will provide you with x bandwidth". In fact, come to think of it, it's only DSL that does that... all cable modems i've seen DO NOT specify max bandwidth. Instead, DSL sells up/down and bandwidth as a package, but cable seems to sell access to their network. So if the cable company doesn't specifically tell you that you can only have X amount of bandwidth, they make huge amounts of bandwidth available, and you're paying for the access (not the bandwidth.. the ACCESS to the network), then what's the problem? If they went over their up/down limit because of bandwidth, then charge them for the excess, but don't complain because you put a giant stack of money on the table, but only wanted people to take what they could carry in one hand.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
No, it's not the same thing. Here's the crucial difference. If the cable company wants to spend their OWN money to buy helicopters to fly around the houses of people who uncap modems, wants to rent clowns with megaphones riding elephants to parade around Toledo trumpeting the evils of uncapping their modem, hell even putting ads on TV and billboards to that effect, fine. That's their choice, it's what they want to do I have no problem with it.
But to spend federal time and resources, so paid for by US, on something that is clearly a gray legal matter, and to seize the assets of these people indiscriminately without first establishing guilt is heinous and SHOULD NOT have happened.
So if Microsoft wants to send Federal Agents to your house tomorrow to seize all of your assets and arrest you because you've not followed the EULA, you'll think that's okay?
I think you are wrong on this one. The crime was LOCAL. The ISP is within the state and so was the alleged uncapper.
True, but by using this facility it is possible to communicate interstate, correct? And in carrying out your fraud you are most likely engaging in interstate communications anyway (don't tell me these people were just downloading their neighbours webpages). I suppose it is for somewhat historical reasons and also practical considerations that wire frauds are generally considered federal crimes.
The cell call gets routed through some US based cellular provider for part of the trip. The call discusses some matter that is legal in Canada but illegal in the United States. Extending your example, I am now a wanted person in the US.
Shouldn't really be applicable. First off phone companies are common carriers and are not liable for whatever information is being conveyed. Secondly this could only be used against you if you were already under surveillance and a recording of your communication was made legally.
However, if you were to use a mobile phone with illegal modifications that somehow essentially result in you carrying out a fraud (faking your number, etc.) then you would definetly be wanted by the US federal government!
According to the article, the person who got busted for uncapping his modem used a Cisco configuration file to do so. This, apparently, he fed to the modem from a PC in his living room.
Not knowing the mechanism by which this works, I'm worried that while tinkering with my system, I might accidentally clobber my cablemodem settings and land myself in some trouble. So, I would like to ask the following specific question:
Did the people who uncapped their modems buy their own modem, and use an included interface to adjust its settings? If this is the case, I can relax, because I'm using the "stock" modem from my ISP and as far as I can see there are no interfaces of any kind connected to it (so presumably, it only works within their limits, period).
On the other hand, did the people who uncapped their modems alter the modem right over the ethernet cable plugged into it via some undocumented mechanism? If so, well, that really sucks, and makes me nervous.
I know this question makes me look like a total knob, but I'm asking, seriously. This isn't something you can do by accident, without specialized equipment and software, is it?
Thanks,
Phil
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Using your logic, it would be a felony to defraud someone via mail, even if they were in my state, merely because the mail service operated on an interstate/international basis. I'm no expert, of course, but I don't think your logic (or that of the FBI) is valid (or perhaps I don't know the whole story.)
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
It is funny that you should pick a mail fraud as a counterexample since that is in fact the oldest form of federal offence! And it doesn't even matter if it happens instate or not.
.
Mail Fraud is the oldest form of fraud statutorily regulated and prosecuted by our federal government. Like other forms of white collar fraud, the objective of mail fraud is to accomplish a desired result by deception, trickery, concealment, and/or dishonesty, albeit through the use of the United States Mail Service or other private/commercial interstate carriers. Statutorily regulated since 1872, the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the authority of Congress to pass the statute.
I think we can pretty much call the issue closed. Just the fact that FBI came knocking on these peoples' doors more than confirms that their offense was of federal kind - that at least is logic that even you can't disagree with.
If you want a little reading on the subject try this
One small excerpt:
If you have been arrested or questioned by the police at the city, county, parish or state level, this usually indicates that you are suspected of a state crime.
Federal law enforcement agencies frequently encountered by defendants are:
1. Federal Bureau of Investigation
2. Criminal Division of the IRS (CID)
3. United States Secret Service
etc...
I just can't take it anymore. Nothing personal - but, you know, all generalisations are false.
Nah, it doesn't. Your 20-80 principle is just a convenient colloquialism for describing any uneven statistical distribution, and then applying it to things that follow a certain distribution. There are plenty of things in life that don't fit it, but you don't notice because you don't think to apply the principle except where it seems to fit.
In other words, your 20-80 principle only applies to life in general if you're allowed to adjust the split point on a case-by-case basis. Making it a tautology if you know anything about statistics (which, btw, would probably put you ahead of me, but I digress).
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
Maybe they found some homemade "how to uncap your cable modem" video tapes.
Vote for Pedro
MOD PARENT UP PLEASE
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
Hrm...
Could a case be made for a monopoly breakup? =P For a while, the area I live in only had one cable company (before the local telco got into the game). It had taken over a rival cable company. Heh, only in Canada could a company losing money faster than Worldcom be able to buy a profitable, stable, better service company. =P
"Yes your honour, my clients did this because it was the only way they could get faster service, on the account that Buckeye is the only broadband company. Faster service is available, but conveniently, not in the Buckeye service area..."
Julie Moult is an idiot.
Nope. But if, say, you smuggled some more equipment out of Walmart without paying for it that let you convert the tv to a tivo.. that would be stealing. In the case you mention, you're only depriving Walmart of potential revenues. In the latter case, you're depriving them of actual revenues. (It's a crappy analogy, I know, but the original analogy wasn't accurate either). Bandwidth is not free, it is not even cheap. A 1.5Mbps connection costs less money for the ISP than a 10Mbps connection does. If the ISP could provide more bandwidth to everyone at no cost to themselves.. then yes, you could make the point that there should be nothing wrong (or at least illegal) with uncapping your modem. But that's not the case, and that's what differentiates this situation from, say, overclocking your Celeron or copyright infringement. Now I'm not convinced that the FBI needed to be involved, and I do think they were overzealous in confiscating equipment. But there is actual monetary loss here, and this isn't the madeup BS that the record companies put out either. There's no difference between this case and, say, filling up your car's tank with gas and driving off without paying for it.
There is a building with four floors. On the first floor, there
is a convention of architects. On the second floor, there is a
vinyl manufacturing plant. On the third floor there is a fast food
stand, and on the fourth floor there is a library.
Q: What would happen if a librarian traveled down in a small
elevator with one other person from each floor?
A: The elevator would be full.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...