I suppose you could allege that the process that is described for how the CAS system is supposed to work (I don't have a link handy right now, but you could probably google it and find something fairly quickly) is actually just a fabrication and they are just going to do things the same way they have in the past, but that assessment is founded only on opinion.
Do *YOU* know how many legal torrents on TPB are actually flagged as infringing? And even then, since the content is supposedly legal to distribute, we'd be talking about stuff that's probably available elsewhere online anyways, and more than likely just as easy to find elsewhere, so it's not like there's even a significant chance of censorship. If you have any evidence to support the notion that this is an entirely regular occurrence, happening all of the time, to a vast majority of legally distributable content, please cite your sources and provide links.
1) Having actually read extensively about the exact process by which they will even identify infringement, it strikes me as highly unlikely they would wrongly associate incorrect content with infringement in the first place, since it evidently involves checking some of the actual file content associated with a suspect individual shared file, and verifying that the content really does belong to them before they can take action and request the ISP to issue an alert.
2) IP spoofing involves either forging the source address in the IP header, whch can trivially be rejected by your ISP's router, since they know exactly which IP's are assigned to you, or else through the use of a proxy, wherein the end point might identify the IP address of a proxy rather than your own, unless you are the one who is actually running a proxy service for other people (which again, is probably a violation of your ISP's terms of service for residential internet service).
3) software error is admittedly possible, but there is no logical reason to assume that it is particularly likely. I find the assessment that because its likelihood is unknown to mean that it is invalid to assume it's unlikely to be baseless, and therefore wrong. If evidence should surface that conflicts with this assessment, I shall alter my views, accordingly, but at this juncture, I have no reason to assume that software errors are probable.
The only issue that I *do* have with this is that, if your IP *IS* somehow incorrectly identified as having downloaded infringing content, you apparently cannot challenge the allegation until after about the 3rd or 4th alert.
Probably because the likelihood of identifying an IP that actually had nothing to do with an infringement is small to insignificant. If a person a) doesn't download infringing content in the first place, and b) doesn't casually permit connectivity to others (which they probably aren't supposed to be doing with residential ISP service anyways, according to their ISP's TOS), then it seems only natural that the likelihood they would ever even get a first notice is vanishingly small.
How about just the factual statement that I don't ever download infringing content in the first place? The only response they could allege to that is that I am lying. At which point it should become evident that such rebuttals are less about what actually happened or even trying to establish any proof, and more about what people might simply want to believe, irrespective of the evidence at hand.
But with respect to what you've said, it's worth pointing out that there are people that ignore evidence of evolution too... that doesn't actually mean that the evidence is invalid.
And while I do use Bittorrent on occasion, it is is *ALWAYS* to download completely legitimate content that is only being distributed via torrent to lower loads on the server. I don't ever download infringing content... ever, and I do not share my internet connection with anyone, so I would find it unlikely in the extreme that my IP address would ever get associated with such an activity in the first place, and I would dare say that people who follow similar practices should be equally unlikely to find themselves in the situation.
All I could do to prove it was a mistake is all that anyone who is falsely accused of doing something wrong can do to prove their innocence, which is to tell the truth.
Simply put, if it was not a mistake then there would necessarily be some accompanying evidence that my wifi had been hacked into, since my router logs all connections to it. These logs cannot be manipulated without logging into the router as an administrator, which in turn cannot be done except by a direct wired connection to the router. If there is such a record in the log, then the software did not make a mistake, although I would still contest that I myself am innocent. If there wasn't such any such record, then it must follow that their process for identifying my IP, by whatever means they did so, has an error in it.
It is worth nothing that whether or not they believe this does not change its veracity; if they do not believe the truth, then there is nothing more anyone could do about that anyways... but that's still not a problem with the policy itself, that's a problem with the people and their perceptions.
As things stand, however, I'm confident enough that this would not actually ever impact me in any way. I don't pirate stuff in the first place, and I have complete confidence in the security of my home network to not be worried that somebody else might try to utilize it for such, so I'm not that concerned about it.... nor am I particularly worried that innocent people who don't casually share their private network connectivity with other people will be likely to be pinged by this system either.
Considering our rather primitive ancestors managed to survive the last ice-age, which peaked fewer than 25,000 years ago, I'd dare suggest that, as a species, we probably wouldn't all die out if the earth experienced another one in the future. In fact, given all of the advances we've made since that time, we'd almost certainly end up faring far better than any of our ancestors did previously.
I can be an ISP to an entire city block from one internet connection if I wanted to.
Not without violating your ISP's terms of service, which would be grounds for suspending your account entirely, until you applied for a commercial internet connection.
*MY* point is that if a person hasn't downloaded any infringing content, and nobody's actually used that person's internet connection to download any infringing content, then they aren't likely to have any real basis on which to even make an allegation of infringement in the first place, let alone reject an appeal, whereupon criminal charges would then have to follow.
First of all, I don't have an open wifi... and secondly, I don't infringe on copyright, so how is it that you propose that software which allegedly doesn't make mistakes would link my IP to an infringement, exactly?
The only "magic" involved would be understanding how my IP address ever got associated with downloading infringing content in the first place. I don't practice it. My wife doesn't practice it. Our kids have all grown up and some have families of their own. I have a secured wifi, which keeps logs of every connection, and my router cannot be administered from outside of the wired lan, so nobody could erase logs of connecting to it from outside my apartment. If somebody did hack into my system, I would quite willingly give whatever logs I had to the police which might be useful to them in tracking down the person. The occasional time I use bittorrent is to either download a new release of slackware whenever one comes out, or else to download other multimedia content which is entirely freely distributable, and only being distributed via bittorrent to lower the load on the main server, so there's no real way that an accurate tracker could correctly associate my IP address with any infringing content. That is the proof I would quite happily offer to demonstrate that their information is mistaken, should their data ever happen to identify me.
So is he suggesting that all technology which enables us to interact in any sort of virtual sense with some type of environment is inherently flawed?
That would mean the mouse is bad... and the keyboard too, for that matter.... since we are not physically drawing any letters that we type ourselves, we are directing a machine to do it for us.
What's not to believe? That it will be refunded if the appeal is successful, or that appeals would ever be successful?
If the latter, what's the basis for believing that the appeal process wouldn't be successful, if neither the appellant nor anyone else using that person's internet connection ever did what was being alleged?
A defendant in *ANY* sort of case or trial that does not have an accompanying countersuit assumes all risk, even if they know they are innocent. The disincentive for them to frivolously charge innocent people, however, is that when those people win their appeals and get their fee completely refunded, somebody's going to be coming after the ones who made those accusations to pay the bills for that appeal process. And it's going to be a lot more than $35.
It's not necessarily a waste of $35, since if they are unable to verify the alleged infringement, you get the $35 refunded, and the "strike" is removed.
I'm not saying that might not be true, but that's not what I actually meant.
What I mean is simply that when it comes to wind power, we can only tap into a very tiny percentage of the total power that is actually there, because most of it happens at an altitude that is far higher than what we engineer devices to utilize.
One thing that immediately springs to mind is that an app developer *could* theoretically, specify this as a minimum target OS, and it will not run on an earlier version, even if the application doesn't use any facilities not offered by earlier versions.
Yes, there are times in my life that I know are probably forever lost to me on account of the "fog of memory" (awesome term for it, by the way), and I have to admit that at times I really do wish I could remember some of those points in my youth far more vividly, but I'd be hesitant to hand responsibility of remembering my daily experiences to a computer, because that would mean I, myself, would not have as much need *TO* remember. And, as the saying goes, if you don't use it, you lose it; I am fairly certain that a user of such technology would find all too soon find that they wouldn't even be *able* to remember almost anything without, other than things which would ordinarily stand out in one's memory anyways.
You cannot take energy of of the air without having any impact on weather or climate patterns.
Sure... just like you can't use Niagra Falls to run turbines without having a major effect on the.... oh, no... wait.
You see, although you're technically right... you can't take energy out of a system without affecting it, the scale at which we could ever even *HOPE* to usefully harness power from such a system compared to the scale of actual net power available in the whole system is naught but insignificant. To be fair you might appear to some very local effects on things like temperature, wind direction, etc, but then so do things like towns or cities with any large or particularly tall buildings. Ultimately, most of the phenomena that has any real impact on climate in our atmosphere happens at *FAR* higher altitudes than any wind farm blades will reach.
An adult hand with even the same DNA as another would still not necessarily have the same fingerprints. Although the precise process by which they are formed is subject to some debate, it is generally agreed that fingerprints are formed by some combination of environmental factors in the womb between roughly the 10th and 17th week of development. Even identical twins, with identical DNA, have distinct fingerprints.
There are often terms of service for any utility, and part of those terms can easily be that you do not use the service of that utility to break the law.
So yes... electric companies *can* say that you aren't allowed to use it to power things when you are using those things to commit a crime, such as powering heat lamps to illegally grow marijuana in your own home.
The only thing that might be argued to be wrong with this is that there may not necessarily be any tangible proof that a particular ISP subscriber had anything to with a particular crime.
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The assessment I made was informed. Is yours?
I suppose you could allege that the process that is described for how the CAS system is supposed to work (I don't have a link handy right now, but you could probably google it and find something fairly quickly) is actually just a fabrication and they are just going to do things the same way they have in the past, but that assessment is founded only on opinion.
Do *YOU* know how many legal torrents on TPB are actually flagged as infringing? And even then, since the content is supposedly legal to distribute, we'd be talking about stuff that's probably available elsewhere online anyways, and more than likely just as easy to find elsewhere, so it's not like there's even a significant chance of censorship. If you have any evidence to support the notion that this is an entirely regular occurrence, happening all of the time, to a vast majority of legally distributable content, please cite your sources and provide links.
1) Having actually read extensively about the exact process by which they will even identify infringement, it strikes me as highly unlikely they would wrongly associate incorrect content with infringement in the first place, since it evidently involves checking some of the actual file content associated with a suspect individual shared file, and verifying that the content really does belong to them before they can take action and request the ISP to issue an alert.
2) IP spoofing involves either forging the source address in the IP header, whch can trivially be rejected by your ISP's router, since they know exactly which IP's are assigned to you, or else through the use of a proxy, wherein the end point might identify the IP address of a proxy rather than your own, unless you are the one who is actually running a proxy service for other people (which again, is probably a violation of your ISP's terms of service for residential internet service).
3) software error is admittedly possible, but there is no logical reason to assume that it is particularly likely. I find the assessment that because its likelihood is unknown to mean that it is invalid to assume it's unlikely to be baseless, and therefore wrong. If evidence should surface that conflicts with this assessment, I shall alter my views, accordingly, but at this juncture, I have no reason to assume that software errors are probable.
The only issue that I *do* have with this is that, if your IP *IS* somehow incorrectly identified as having downloaded infringing content, you apparently cannot challenge the allegation until after about the 3rd or 4th alert.
Probably because the likelihood of identifying an IP that actually had nothing to do with an infringement is small to insignificant. If a person a) doesn't download infringing content in the first place, and b) doesn't casually permit connectivity to others (which they probably aren't supposed to be doing with residential ISP service anyways, according to their ISP's TOS), then it seems only natural that the likelihood they would ever even get a first notice is vanishingly small.
How about just the factual statement that I don't ever download infringing content in the first place? The only response they could allege to that is that I am lying. At which point it should become evident that such rebuttals are less about what actually happened or even trying to establish any proof, and more about what people might simply want to believe, irrespective of the evidence at hand.
But with respect to what you've said, it's worth pointing out that there are people that ignore evidence of evolution too... that doesn't actually mean that the evidence is invalid.
And while I do use Bittorrent on occasion, it is is *ALWAYS* to download completely legitimate content that is only being distributed via torrent to lower loads on the server. I don't ever download infringing content... ever, and I do not share my internet connection with anyone, so I would find it unlikely in the extreme that my IP address would ever get associated with such an activity in the first place, and I would dare say that people who follow similar practices should be equally unlikely to find themselves in the situation.
All I could do to prove it was a mistake is all that anyone who is falsely accused of doing something wrong can do to prove their innocence, which is to tell the truth.
Simply put, if it was not a mistake then there would necessarily be some accompanying evidence that my wifi had been hacked into, since my router logs all connections to it. These logs cannot be manipulated without logging into the router as an administrator, which in turn cannot be done except by a direct wired connection to the router. If there is such a record in the log, then the software did not make a mistake, although I would still contest that I myself am innocent. If there wasn't such any such record, then it must follow that their process for identifying my IP, by whatever means they did so, has an error in it.
It is worth nothing that whether or not they believe this does not change its veracity; if they do not believe the truth, then there is nothing more anyone could do about that anyways... but that's still not a problem with the policy itself, that's a problem with the people and their perceptions.
As things stand, however, I'm confident enough that this would not actually ever impact me in any way. I don't pirate stuff in the first place, and I have complete confidence in the security of my home network to not be worried that somebody else might try to utilize it for such, so I'm not that concerned about it.... nor am I particularly worried that innocent people who don't casually share their private network connectivity with other people will be likely to be pinged by this system either.
Yeah, I kind of mentally tripped over that expression myself. My first thought was "what? bacteria is a singular form noun now? when did that happen?"
Considering our rather primitive ancestors managed to survive the last ice-age, which peaked fewer than 25,000 years ago, I'd dare suggest that, as a species, we probably wouldn't all die out if the earth experienced another one in the future. In fact, given all of the advances we've made since that time, we'd almost certainly end up faring far better than any of our ancestors did previously.
Not without violating your ISP's terms of service, which would be grounds for suspending your account entirely, until you applied for a commercial internet connection.
*MY* point is that if a person hasn't downloaded any infringing content, and nobody's actually used that person's internet connection to download any infringing content, then they aren't likely to have any real basis on which to even make an allegation of infringement in the first place, let alone reject an appeal, whereupon criminal charges would then have to follow.
First of all, I don't have an open wifi... and secondly, I don't infringe on copyright, so how is it that you propose that software which allegedly doesn't make mistakes would link my IP to an infringement, exactly?
The only "magic" involved would be understanding how my IP address ever got associated with downloading infringing content in the first place. I don't practice it. My wife doesn't practice it. Our kids have all grown up and some have families of their own. I have a secured wifi, which keeps logs of every connection, and my router cannot be administered from outside of the wired lan, so nobody could erase logs of connecting to it from outside my apartment. If somebody did hack into my system, I would quite willingly give whatever logs I had to the police which might be useful to them in tracking down the person. The occasional time I use bittorrent is to either download a new release of slackware whenever one comes out, or else to download other multimedia content which is entirely freely distributable, and only being distributed via bittorrent to lower the load on the main server, so there's no real way that an accurate tracker could correctly associate my IP address with any infringing content. That is the proof I would quite happily offer to demonstrate that their information is mistaken, should their data ever happen to identify me.
No more than what anyone else gets refunded when they win a case against them without filing a countersuit.
So is he suggesting that all technology which enables us to interact in any sort of virtual sense with some type of environment is inherently flawed?
That would mean the mouse is bad... and the keyboard too, for that matter.... since we are not physically drawing any letters that we type ourselves, we are directing a machine to do it for us.
What's not to believe? That it will be refunded if the appeal is successful, or that appeals would ever be successful?
If the latter, what's the basis for believing that the appeal process wouldn't be successful, if neither the appellant nor anyone else using that person's internet connection ever did what was being alleged?
What kinds of devices have we been interacting with for centuries? That's what I'd like to know.
A defendant in *ANY* sort of case or trial that does not have an accompanying countersuit assumes all risk, even if they know they are innocent. The disincentive for them to frivolously charge innocent people, however, is that when those people win their appeals and get their fee completely refunded, somebody's going to be coming after the ones who made those accusations to pay the bills for that appeal process. And it's going to be a lot more than $35.
Not to mention that the $35 is refunded if the consumer's appeal is successful.
.... that the $35 fee is refunded to consumers who pay it, and are not found to have actually committed any copyright infringement.
It's not necessarily a waste of $35, since if they are unable to verify the alleged infringement, you get the $35 refunded, and the "strike" is removed.
I'm not saying that might not be true, but that's not what I actually meant.
What I mean is simply that when it comes to wind power, we can only tap into a very tiny percentage of the total power that is actually there, because most of it happens at an altitude that is far higher than what we engineer devices to utilize.
One thing that immediately springs to mind is that an app developer *could* theoretically, specify this as a minimum target OS, and it will not run on an earlier version, even if the application doesn't use any facilities not offered by earlier versions.
Yes, there are times in my life that I know are probably forever lost to me on account of the "fog of memory" (awesome term for it, by the way), and I have to admit that at times I really do wish I could remember some of those points in my youth far more vividly, but I'd be hesitant to hand responsibility of remembering my daily experiences to a computer, because that would mean I, myself, would not have as much need *TO* remember. And, as the saying goes, if you don't use it, you lose it; I am fairly certain that a user of such technology would find all too soon find that they wouldn't even be *able* to remember almost anything without, other than things which would ordinarily stand out in one's memory anyways.
I can't help but think of the ending of Stream of Consciousness.
Sure... just like you can't use Niagra Falls to run turbines without having a major effect on the.... oh, no... wait.
You see, although you're technically right... you can't take energy out of a system without affecting it, the scale at which we could ever even *HOPE* to usefully harness power from such a system compared to the scale of actual net power available in the whole system is naught but insignificant. To be fair you might appear to some very local effects on things like temperature, wind direction, etc, but then so do things like towns or cities with any large or particularly tall buildings. Ultimately, most of the phenomena that has any real impact on climate in our atmosphere happens at *FAR* higher altitudes than any wind farm blades will reach.
An adult hand with even the same DNA as another would still not necessarily have the same fingerprints. Although the precise process by which they are formed is subject to some debate, it is generally agreed that fingerprints are formed by some combination of environmental factors in the womb between roughly the 10th and 17th week of development. Even identical twins, with identical DNA, have distinct fingerprints.
There are often terms of service for any utility, and part of those terms can easily be that you do not use the service of that utility to break the law.
So yes... electric companies *can* say that you aren't allowed to use it to power things when you are using those things to commit a crime, such as powering heat lamps to illegally grow marijuana in your own home.
The only thing that might be argued to be wrong with this is that there may not necessarily be any tangible proof that a particular ISP subscriber had anything to with a particular crime.