Topic: DMCA bites

[scottws]

Yesterday I was home sick.  I decided to take a break from retagging my music and finish the Company of Heroes campaign.  Well, I hadn't played in awhile and I knew a new patch came out, so I decided to grab it.  It was 120 MB or something like that.

It finally gets to completion time... but about 16 seconds before it was complete, it just stops.  I'm like, "What the hell? This sucks!"  Then Google Talk disconnects.  I try to open a website but get nothing but page not found.  I'm not running eMule or any bittorrent client, both of which I've experience issues with breaking my connection at times due to the massive amount of connections they use.

I ping my router.  It responds.  I ping my router's gateway.  It doesn't. So I go downstairs and check out the DSL modem:  "Hmmm... DSL light is on..."  I unplug it anyway for 20 seconds and plug it back in, and wait for the DSL light to go solid, which it does.  I go back upstairs and try reloading Overwritten and get page not found again.  I go the DD-WRT interface and release the router's IP and renew it and get a new one.  I try to reload again but am still getting nothing.  I try reconnecting Google Talk but I'm not getting anything there either.

So I go downstairs and start looking for the phone book to call the ISP.  For some reason I decide to log onto my dad's PC, which is the only one with a wired connection to the router.  I open IE and instead of my dad's normal page coming up (some Dell thing), I get a notice from Zoomtown, the ISP.  It is saying that our service was suspended due to DMCA violations.  It says we need to delete or remove access to the material in violation and then we need to send a letter saying we won't do it anymore and the ISP isn't responsible and blah blah before service can be restored.

I immediately think of my brother and his Limewire which he leaves open 24-7.  He's always downloading songs, like seriously several a day.  Plus he's a moron.  When he moved in, I discovered that he had his entire C drive shared and had a few viruses.

He's not careful at all like I am.  Me, I usually run Peer Guardian 2 when I fire up uTorrent or eMule, but admittely not all the time.  I only leave the program open for the length of time it takes to complete the download generally, and I haven't downloaded anything in the past year really except for Battlestar Galactica.

So I install PG2 on my brother's computer (still had the installer on my file server) and tell him what happened and that it is probably because what he does with Limewire.  He's like what do I do?  I told him not to use it for several weeks after we get service back, and to disable uploads and to close the program as soon as transfers stop and to always use PG2.

My mom got really pissed off about it.  Not so much the service interruption but the whole breaking the law thing.  She and my brother get in a massive fight yesterday.

Today, my dad calls me at work.  He said he called Cincinnati Bell.  He said the material they received a complaint about was Battlestar Galactica and he asked if that was from me (I'm far more nerdy than my brother is and I'm sure to my dad that sounds pretty damn nerdy).

Can you believe that?!  My brother downloads thousands of songs and doesn't take any precautions.  I download some TV shows and that's it and I'm the one that gets caught!  I didn't even know that TV networks were even pursuing this at all.

[Ghandi]

Hmm, as I read this I am illegally downloading on Bitlord. I'm also downloading Peergaurdian at the moment.

But yeah, thats shitty luck man. I'm guessing you've gotten your internet back, based on the post.

[sirean_syan]

Huh. This is the first "real" case of this that I've ever heard of. I mean, I've heard horror stories and stuff, but never anything that I'd take with more than a grain of salt. Sucks.

I won't if Comcast actually goes through my history. Maybe I should look into Peergaurdian or something even though I rarely torrent anything.

[Xessive]

Man, that's a rip..

I can watch the TV shows for free on my TV anyway.. But I choose to download because 1) they're commercial-free and 2) I can watch it any time I want!

[idolminds]

Huh...guess I'll check out this peer guardian doohickythingamabob.

That sucks, though. Esp since its like the one thing you've done gets you in trouble when your brother does it 24/7 without a peep.

[PyroMenace]

Thats not good. Cause thats all I download too. My brother got in trouble way back when he was actually hacking into other PCs and such, just being juvenile. Comcast called us and just asked us to stop, they just gave us a verbal warning, which was enough. But anyway, this makes me more paranoid now.

[Quemaqua]

Crazy.  I use no protection whatsoever.  Then again, I tend to download fairly obscure shit nobody cares about, and it's next to never TV shows.

[scottws]

Hmm, as I read this I am illegally downloading on Bitlord. I'm also downloading Peergaurdian at the moment.

But yeah, thats shitty luck man. I'm guessing you've gotten your internet back, based on the post.

Actually no.  I'm at Jennie's.

[Pugnate]

Man, that's a rip..

I can watch the TV shows for free on my TV anyway.. But I choose to download because 1) they're commercial-free and 2) I can watch it any time I want!

You are watching the eps on TV at the cost of having to watch advertisement as well. Nowadays I hear things are so coordinated that you can't even flip the channel to something else. When it is advertising time, it is advertising time.

But yea that totally sucks Scottws. You are kinda infamous now, as you are the first person I guess we all know to go through all any of this. So basically your ISP has blocked your internet because of all that downloading?

Yes it is ironic that you were the one penalized and not him, but I suppose certain downloads raise bigger and redder flags.

[shock]

Creepy!

I am at a university, so I don't know what would happen if I got caught, seeing as I have to log in with my name/password each time I want to access the Internet.  It would come right back to me.

But anyway, how do you setup the Peer Guardian 2 thing for torrents?  I don't use P2P, but I do use torrents occasionally.

[Cobra951]

It's not luck.  I think there's a massive hunt on the internet for P2P transfers of movies and TV shows, something much more effective than previous efforts on the music front.  And the video people in power didn't get their feathers ruffled about this until fairly recently, with the exploding popularity of bittorrents and broadband.  (Movies were naturally protected previously by their sheer size, and lack of reliability and speed of previous downloading technologies with large files.)

I already told you my ex got a letter from her ISP regarding the sharing of a movie.  That was V for Vendetta.  After that, I stopped using P2P altogether to acquire movies, although I continued to use bittorrent for other things occasionally.  Then I was bitten by the Heroes bug, and downloaded the first 5 episodes.  A few weeks later, another letter from the ISP, about sharing Heroes, copyrighted material.

It is clear to me that in order to continue using any transfer technology which involves sharing anything on your system, new anonymizing steps need to be implemented.  Think about this, and how easy it is for someone like us, who knows exactly how the game works, to spy on the popular torrents, and pass IP addresses along to their bosses in Hollywood, or wherever.  When you participate in a bittorrent, you can see the IPs of everyone who is contributing to what you're getting.  No big leap here to see that, so can they!  It doesn't matter what encryption tech you may be using.  At some point, the IP has to be resolved, or you don't get your data packets.  Only some sort of 2-way proxy would insulate you, not peer-to-peer encryption. 

Picture me as one of these evil witch hunters.  What would I do?  I would constantly visit pages like torrentspy and isohunt.  I would look at the more popular torrents, and cross-ref them with my list of content to protect.  I would then join any offending torrents with my fancy client software, and print out all the IP addresses participating.  I would compile that list in a neat form, and forward it to my evil bosses.  Job done, and very well too.   

[scottws]

Creepy!

I am at a university, so I don't know what would happen if I got caught, seeing as I have to log in with my name/password each time I want to access the Internet.  It would come right back to me.

But anyway, how do you setup the Peer Guardian 2 thing for torrents?  I don't use P2P, but I do use torrents occasionally.

You just install it.  It's a daemon that runs in the background that inspects all incoming connection requests against a list of known blacklisted IPs or IP ranges.

When you install it, it asks you what blocklists you want to load.  It can block ads and spyware and all kinds of stuff.  If you just select P2P and let it auto-update every other day or every day you'll be set.  I should warn you that this is not foolproof, but it certainly doesn't hurt....

[scottws]

Well, my Internet is back up.

I was thinking about PG2 and wondering if it would really keep you out of trouble in a case like this.  With bittorrent, you're part of a swarm, and with clients like uTorrent it is trivial to see all the IP addresses participating in the swarm.

So, let's say you are from the RIAA or something.  You are checking out the illegal bittorrent offering of some album.  You try to download stuff so you can prove that this is an illegal share.  You aren't getting any data from one IP (it's not allowing you to connect because they are running PG2), but you definitely see their IP in the swarm.

So, is that IP in trouble or not?

[iPPi]

That sucks.

Have they fixed PeerGuardian?  I used to use it, but I remember it was an absolute resource hog so I stopped using it.

[scottws]

No idea.  I've only been using it for a little while.

Edit:  From Wikipedia:

Early Windows versions suffered from CPU usage problems. This was caused by the way the first version operated (reading the connection table several times a second). The issue was corrected in the 2.0 version with the introduction of a proper driver-based system.

[iPPi]

Hmmm  interesting, I might start using it again then.

[Cobra951]

I was thinking about PG2 and wondering if it would really keep you out of trouble in a case like this.  With bittorrent, you're part of a swarm, and with clients like uTorrent it is trivial to see all the IP addresses participating in the swarm.

So, let's say you are from the RIAA or something.  You are checking out the illegal bittorrent offering of some album.  You try to download stuff so you can prove that this is an illegal share.  You aren't getting any data from one IP (it's not allowing you to connect because they are running PG2), but you definitely see their IP in the swarm.

So, is that IP in trouble or not?

   Uh, that's what I said above, more or less.  If you participate, you can be seen by other participants.  Only some sort of bittorrent-friendly proxy system is going to insulate you.  And why should spies hired by the MPAA restrict themselves to IPs blacklisted by Peer Guardian?  If I were them, I'd be sure to spy from all over random creation.  They know the game as well as you and me now.

[scottws]

I realize you said the same thing, but is it enough for them to have an IP, or do they need to verify that they can actually get the offending content from you?

PG2 isn't perfect, but it is blocking over 730 million IP addresses.  It's a pretty comprehensive thing.

[Cobra951]

OK, let's think about it.  This is not some sting operation being carried out by a law-enforcement agency.  It's private money funding private investigations.  The only things ISPs know is that they get a list of their allegedly offending IPs.  The ISPs then cooperate with the private powers and supply them with the personal info attached to the allegedly offending IPs.  At this point, the ISP can send you nasty-grams, or shut off your service.  Worse, the private powers can intimidate you into paying them some arbitrary sum of money to prevent a lawsuit, one which they can control by having a hell of a lot more money and legal muscle to pursue than you.

It seems to me that simply by having your IP show up on a bittorrent gets you in hot water.  It's not going to be enough for criminal charges, but civil liability and no end of hassles may be knocking at your door.

[Quemaqua]

And George Orwell hath beshit himself.