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Don't Pirate Or We'll Mess With Your Connected Thermostats, Warns East Coast ISP (engadget.com)
Internet service provider Armstrong Zoom has roughly a million subscribers in the Northeastern part of the U.S. and is keen to punish those it believes are using file-sharing services. According to Engadget, "the ISP's response to allegedly naughty customers is bandwidth throttling, which is when an ISP intentionally slows down your internet service based on what you're doing online. Armstrong Zoom's warning letter openly threatens its suspected file-sharing customers about its ability to use or control their webcams and connected thermostats." From the report: The East Coast company stated: "Please be advised that this may affect other services which you may have connected to your internet service, such as the ability to control your thermostat remotely or video monitoring services." All U.S. states served by Armstrong Zoom will be experiencing temperatures around or under freezing over the weekend and into the near future. Bandwidth throttling for customers in those areas who have connected thermostats could mean the difference between sickness and health, or even life and death. Seems like an extreme punishment for any allegedly downloaded Game of Thrones cam rips.
Meet my grandmother.
She doesn't even know where her thermostat is anymore. She finds it too confusing with too many buttons.
She only controls it from her 10" tablet, with a big screen.
If you take away her internet, not only can she no longer control her tablet, she cannot Skype me for help, nor can she VOIP 911 in an emergency.
Yes, for many, Internet is a public utility the same as Water, Gas, and Electricity.
They aren't law enforcement. If they have a problem with someones possibly illegal online activities they should report it and let a court determine if the action was a copyright violation or not.
No you see lacking an FCC ruling we have to use FTC guidance on the matter (see 740 F.3d 623 [2014]). ISPs have the right under FTC rules to secure their network by any means. If they feel a copyright violation "might" happen, they have a right to secure their network and the FTC gives them any means to do that. Now you have recourse in court if you can show that they blocked your "service" and it's important that FTC meaning of "service" means that ISPs can do everything except cut you completely off, without serving you notice. So pretty much as long as you can ping 8.8.8.8 and you're doing something that gives the ISPs a reasonable cause to fear your traffic. They can do whatever the hell they like since the FCC was granted authority over "traffic" in PL104-104 sec 509 and the FCC has indicated that they're not going to stand behind you on this topic.
To anyone thinking they'd like to try their hand in court, by all means, have at it. Let me know how it went, but I can assure you it's not going to go the way you think it should.
This threat is no different from "It is a nice house you have here, would be unfortunate if something were to happen to it."
Yes it is different. A house is physical and network traffic isn't. That's like the big point of why Congress really needs to fucking act on that whole NN thing. Judges don't see IP packets are things that belong to you, and until someone with law making ability says that packets on someone else's network are yours, they aren't yours, the end.