Judge orders Time Warner to identify illegal downloaders

[sys-eng]

Really? I can't see it being very difficult for an ISP to keep accurate records of which IP address was assigned to which account and telephone number.

Not difficult at all. Every ISP that I know of has those records. It is an amazingly small database to keep track of all those IP addresses for a year.

 

[Ccomp5950]

IP address != Person

The holder of my Internet account is one Santa Clause, the address and phone number are correct, but they will have one hell of a time subpoenaing Mr Clause.

Would be a PR nightmare as well.

 

[sys-eng]

IP address != Person

The holder of my Internet account is one Santa Clause, the address and phone number are correct, but they will have one hell of a time subpoenaing Mr Clause.

Would be a PR nightmare as well.

I do not know how your internet service is provided. If your ISP is your cable TV, satellite TV, or telephone service provider (wired or wireless); the name on the account for that primary service is the account holder. It is illegal to provide a false identitiy for a financial transaction in the USA. The ISP's turn over such usage data frequently to the government.

 

[Ccomp5950]

You missed the point, an IP address is still not identification of a specific person.

 

[sys-eng]

You missed the point, an IP address is still not identification of a specific person.

That is true but the burden of proof is on the account holder. I worked for a large telephone company for 28 years, and this type of case came before us frequently. If someone makes prank calls from your telephone account to 911, you will have trouble. If someone is shot by a gun that you own, you will have trouble. If someone performs an illegal act such as threatening the president of the USA from an IP address assigned to your home, you will have trouble. Law enforcement does not have to use a video camera to catch someone in the act.

When I see such downloads on a customer's computer, I make them aware of this action and leave it there. Most people truly believe that what they do non the Internet is anonymous. They could not be more wrong.

 

[Ccomp5950]

That is true but the burden of proof is on the account holder. I worked for a large telephone company for 28 years, and this type of case came before us frequently. If someone makes prank calls from your telephone account to 911, you will have trouble. If someone is shot by a gun that you own, you will have trouble. If someone performs an illegal act such as threatening the president of the USA from an IP address assigned to your home, you will have trouble. Law enforcement does not have to use a video camera to catch someone in the act.

No it's not. The burdon of proof is on the accuser, always. It's called "Innocent until proven guilty". Granted in civil cases "proven" takes a lower standard (Preponderous of evidence) than in criminal cases (beyond a reasonable doubt). But the burden is still on the accuser.

 

[sys-eng]

You seem to be overlooking that the accuser has already tied the IP address to the account holder and the physical address. That is all the proof they need. The burden of proof then passes to the accused to explain how someone else did it such as "someone broke into my house on 17 different occasions (sometimes while I was at home) and downloaded files and stored them on my computer but I never noticed it or reported any of the breakins". The excuses people try to give are just not reasonable which is why they always lose such cases if the accuser pursues a judgment.

Much like the example I gave with the gun, if someone is shot with your gun while it is in your possession, then you had better get proof to defend yourself that you did not do it.

"Proven guilty" is determined when a judge or jury says the accused is guilty. If the accuser has provided enough evidence to get that decision, then they have proven their case.

 

[SmithFamilyDesigns]

"My wireless network is unsecured."

 

[MobileTechie]

Yet again the headline doesn't match the actual story.

The headline talks about downloaders whilst the story talks about people making material available by sharing it.

They are two different things.

 

[sys-eng]

While downloading and seeding are two different things, the file sharing programs such as torrents have seeding or sharing on by default and few people turn it off. I cannot remember the last time I found a customer's computer with seeding turned off.

Yet again the headline doesn't match the actual story.

The headline talks about downloaders whilst the story talks about people making material available by sharing it.

They are two different things.

 

[RegEdit]

As much as I hate when people illegally download movies, songs, etc. This isn't the way to catch them.

There is no other way to stop it. That's the problem.

It doesn't matter if it's dynamic IP addressing. The ISP's record the IP's they assign and when. The plaintiffs record a screenshot of the illegal downloading with Ipaddress, port number and time.

 

[onetech4all]

Re:

Time to go back to the old days of swapping, selling and trading CDs and DVDs. )

 

[Ccomp5950]

I cannot remember the last time I found a customer's computer with seeding turned off.

Looking at uTorrent install I have, I can't even see how I would turn off seeding. It appears it's impossible, I just attempted to do so while downloading a live cd and it kicked my download speed limit down to 40 kb/s in the process.

 

[BDPCR]

Force encryption (VPN or otherwise) of outgoing traffic in the bittorrent menu. Outgoing traffic will be encrypted and not viewable by an outside source.

 

[wtigger]

Or use free Proxy Servers, that will also obscure the original IP