Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: P2P Liability On a Shared Connection?
An anonymous reader writes "I have a roommate that insists on using BitTorrent without taking any kind of precautions. He has an affinity for downloading material that is extremely popular and high-risk. He's received a warning from a well-known media giant in the past about his file sharing, but hasn't been sued. We've recently begun living in an apartment together (with one other person) and share our Internet connection and IP address. If his p2p activity leads to someone attempting to take legal action, could I be held liable? How would our accusers differentiate between our computers if we all share the same IP address? Would they just sue the lot of us?" Some lawyers would certainly like to get a look at everything on the other side of the connection. Has anyone out there faced legal problems as a result of someone else's use of your connection?
Presumably they would just try and sue whoever they can. Chuck a couple of letters out to whoever lives there and see who caves or settles first.
If you are renting would the landlord be targetted?
I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
Since you cant share ownership of an internet account, someone has to have their name on the paper work. If its you, then its your account and you are liable but also in a position to dictate change. If its him, then its his problem.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
this is not legal advice and i may be a lawyer in your state but am not your lawyer and do not represent you.
1. If they take legal action you could be sued and held liable. the burden of proof is 1% - i.e. if you are found even 1% liable you could be held liable, even if it was for a trifling amount. its preponderance of the evidence in a civil matter i.e if they show it is more than 51% likely that you were responsible for the 1% liability you are liable.
2. your accusers would ask for discovery and depending on the judge and state you would have to give up your computers for them to poke around or use a 3rd party lab to poke around for signs of infringement.
3. Yes they would likely sue everyone in the household who owned a computer.
Even if you assume you are 100% legally in the clear, they can still sue you, get your ISP to cut you off, and make your life generally miserable. Sadly being in the right doesn't mean someone else can't accuse you of being in the legal wrong and thus forcing you to prove otherwise.
We are all guilty on their internets.
Thank you for that confession on behalf of all Anonymous Cowards. I'll use your confession in my own defense against every kind of accusation, should it ever become necessary:
Me: "Your honor, that AC already admitted his guilt, so there is no case for me to answer..."
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Right !
And make sure you have a full hard disk encryption ! -> http://www.truecrypt.org/
And make sure you have your tier1 data some where else and also encrypted (SDHC 32GB or 1,8" SSD sounds good or ?).
I prefer saving my data encrypted on a datasette .. ;)
that if you receive any letters from any lawyers you will answer them truthfully. So if you get accused of illegal downloads, you would truthfully reply that you didn't do it, but your roommate.
It seems your roommate insists, against your objections, to do things that are illegal, and bound to get you into expensive trouble, without taking any precautions. If the shit hits the fan, you have no obligation at all to support him in any way; your only responsibility is to get out of trouble yourself as cheaply as possible.
Put the connection in his name, the warning goes to him - the law suit goes to him...
Run a Tor exit node and open up a guest wireless connection that anyone can use.
giggity
A few years ago (circa MS Flight Sim X) my unprotected wireless was used to download and share the aforementioned software through a torrent. MS contacted my ISP (Cox) and I got a letter from MS's IP dept. I had to go through quite a bit of paperwork and finally talk to someone at MS. I explained that I didn't realize my neighbors had access to my wireless (honestly didn't think it would reach). Basically I was told this was my one and only chance, don't let it happen again and secure my router.
I remember when MOD was an audio format, and DOS wasn't a network attack....
Granted it's a lot of logs - but if you put in a linux+iptables or bsd+pf box as your router, you could log every connection to file - at least text zips well. store them for 6 months, only log connections which become fully established (since if you log half-open connections you'll likely be logging orders of magnitude more). It probably wouldn't take up a huge volume of space if you compress them, and you could also probably not log outgoing connections terminating on port 80 or 443 (though undoubtedly peer clients try and use those from time to time, it'd help you shave your logs if you hedge your bets that someone looking to sue your roomate isn't using 80/443 for their endpoint).
This in addition to truthfully answering lawyers' questions should cover your ass plenty sufficiently.
Technical: Block the standard ports for bittorrent at your router and tell him it's your ISP doing it. Change the password to the router and say the ISP did that remotely because of new T&Cs too. If he's such a low-watt bulb that he doesn't know to download and use PeerBlock or Blocklist Manager, it'd be a stretch to think he'd be able to unravel that cunningly crafted web of deceit.
Manly: Cut him loose. He couldn't give two shits about how his behaviour affects you. You could be a pussy about it and hope you find a conveniently non-confrontational legal loophole so you never have to take any form of stand against his irresponsibility. Or you could relocate your balls and tell him to take a hike because you're not going to be liable for his douchebaggery.
Your choice.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
Hope you enjoy being the girlfriend of the inmate with the most cigarettes!
This is not a technical or legal question. It is a question about relationships. I'll take a stab, but, seriously, it does not belong on Slashdot. It belongs on some advice column.
As I understand it, you have a roommate who partakes in risky behavior that you have requested he stop. He does not agree to your request. It seems therefore that you need a new roommate since you do not wish to expose yourself to any potential risk and -- this is the important part -- you and he do not have sufficiently compatible lifestyles. You need a new living situation, whether that be by leaving and finding a new apartment on your own, or kicking this fellow out.
Any other discussions about relative liability or that include technological solutions, while potentially fascinating, are completely and utterly missing the point. This is not a technical or legal problem: it is a problem about relationships.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
You glaringly left out: authorized use.
Given that the owner of the account is aware of the copyright infringement and not doing anything to stop it there probably is a legal argument that he is authorizing that conduct in some de facto sense.
I don't know what agreements you have in place, but if the Internet connection is in your name, then I would not allow anyone else to connect that you cannot trust.
If the Internet connection is in your troublesome roommate's name, I would get your own Internet connection. This may be difficult, but most places have at least 2-3 ISP options (DSL, Cable, Clear, etc.). It's too bad you probably can't get two public IPs for your connection and each have your own router for your devices behind it.
I think paying for your own Internet (or not having your roommate chip in or having to give them a discount for their share of the Internet you are not going to share) is more than worth it.
When (not if, it will happen eventually unless the laws are changed) your roommate ends up in court and should you somehow get named, your defense will be easy. You never connected to his Internet and have your own. Produce your bills as proof, and that's the end of the story for you.
I think the advice that someone else gave about keeping logs of where the connection went is a good idea at first thought - and I'm not lawyer - but that sounds kinda shady - you kept logs to prove it wasn't you? How do you prove there wasn't any editing or that you only ever used that one IP? Just sounds like you could have audit problems proving things since you would have access to the logging system. To have it be bulletproof, you need to have some third-party setting up that system without you having access to it.
a lot of people are taking the view that "hey it's his problem".
have you considered the possibility that when the shit hits the fan, this roommate will turn around and say it is YOU who did it? can you prove it isn't you? because i guarantee you the other side won't care - as long as they get their pound of flesh. and even if you CAN prove it, it's gonna be a lot of pain and hassle. you'd better start documenting how/what/why it is that it's NOT you who's downloading it now, because you're gonna get caught in the trawler and trawling is damn well what the other side is doing, it's not precision strikes.
"... the right to not incriminate yourself is only for criminal cases and this would be a civil case..."
Actually, this is not true (see the Wikipedia entry on 5th Amendment).
You still have the absolute right to remain silent, and to not implicate yourself. HOWEVER, there are 2 important things to remember about this: (1) some civil cases are treated like criminal cases in regard to the 5th Amendment, and (2) in those that don't while you can still plead the 5th, it can be considered to be evidence against you.
On the other hand, presumed evidence is generally not as strong as actual physical evidence, so if you are guilty, you are probably still better off pleading the 5th.
In Denmark & Sweden you'd get busted as this has happened before, and they've set an example in order to get people to really secure their WiFi routers in their homes.
Say, you have an open network, the old excuse...but...It wasn't me - officer, simply won't hold up in court, you're liable for anything that goes trough your router, your cable, your network.
What's even worse, is that some politicians in Denmark are these days discussing to forbid anonymous surfing.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
The best thing your room mate can do (besides not torrenting at all) would be to get a seedbox in another country and use private trackers exclusively. This way, your IP address is never exposed to the swarm. You can download all the files from your seedbox to your house computer using encrypted FTP. You can rent a seedbox, which is just a rented virtual server that is already setup for torrenting, using prepaid credit cards and false personal information. You can get seedboxes in countries with more lax IP laws such as The Netherlands. It's still best to avoid public trackers as an extra layer of protection. I know several people that have used this route for years and they haven't had any trouble.
Consider this scenario. Your friend illegally downloads copyrighted material--and you have full knowledge. Your friend is sued.
You are subpoenaed.
Are you going to lie for his ass?
Are you going to tell the truth and burn your friendship?
Add a complicator: You are sued also (but you are innocent).
Ask the two questions again. Further ask yourself: How are you going to defend yourself without fucking your friend over?
Present this scenario to your friend. Maybe it will wake his selfish sorry ass up.
They are first in line to be sued.
Also, the actions of your roommate could bring down the man on ALL of you, and you get all your stuff confiscated and have to defend yourself in court.
Not much different if he had drugs mailed to the house, you are all in trouble when the postal service finds out..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Doesn't work that way.
You are NEVER obliged to self incriminate, during any trial civil or criminal. They can interpret your silence however they want, but they cannot force you to speak up. You can ALWAYS plead the 5th, and if you do so, any testimony you give can't be used against you in a criminal trial. The issue is whether what you say can be used against you criminally.
As for the hard drive, it's not a 5th amendment issue anyway because self incrimination only applies to your person, not to property.
It's a 4th amendment issue where they need to get a warrant for your hard drive by showing probable cause, after which if you fail to cough up the keys you can be held for obstruction.
You do realize that it wouldn't happen like on TV, right?
(as a side note, I am ignoring the differences between criminal and civil here. Most of it applies to both sides.)
If they've seized your computer, there will be a subpoena compelling you to provide the correct password. It's not like you'll be held in an interrogation with a cop saying "give me the password or else [blah, blah, blah]". It'll be a long, drawn out process. You'll learn the wonderful world of the legal process. Subpoenas, depositions, countless hearings, motions, and eventually you'll actually end up in the court room to testify about stuff.
"I'm stressed, I can't remember it" might (but probably) won't work on day one. By the time you end up in front of a judge, claiming that you can't remember the same password that you had to type every day to unlock your computer, he'll laugh at you, and then you can learn about "contempt of court".
The only thing you should say is "I have nothing to say without my attorney present". When asked questions that are irrelevant or argumentative, your attorney will say so and advise you not to answer. All in all, the more you say is bad. Refusing to do something, like give a password, is bad. Saying "I can't remember" is bad. Asking your attorney "should I answer?" is good. You have legal counsel, because you are not an attorney. Even if you are, you are directly and emotionally involved. Your attorney doesn't really care, except he/she is paid to protect your interests.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Hello from New Zealand. As of a recent law change here, the account holder is the person fully responsable for all traffic on the connection. My girlfriend's name is on the telco accout here and she would be fined a substantial amount of money and risk going to jail (eventually) if I or any of the other flatmates were to download from P2P. I run a pfsense firewall / router and have blocked all P2P traffic, we all use downloadnow (multi access to rapidshare, hotfile, megashares etc...) which you cannot be fined for using and is much harder to track you unless you are already been monitored. This may not be the case elseware, but I'd say it's not worth the risk.
Best solution: if you care and he won't comply, stop being roommates
Realistically, have him use a VPN. They aren't expensive (under $40/year), and there are a few good reasons to use them. For you, the VPN would be in his name and your ISP is none the wiser (aside from bandwidth usage) so you can sleep easy. For him, there's a layer of protection (NOT ABSOLUTE), and the compression tends to help your download speed a bit and upload speed quite a bit. (For me on JPEGs: 20 Mbs down / 1.5 Mbs up to 25 / 4 at the cost of +40 ms worst case latency.)
Trouble convincing him? Use a packet sniffer and start teasing him about his interests in porn or something. Probably a better idea (albeit less comical) is to block bittorrent and his favorite websites at the router, thus forcing him to use your suggestion, and granting you a massive credibility boost if he does get sued.