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Internet slowdowns at home aren't just annoying anymore. They can be hazardous to your health or dangerous if you're in an area that freezes.
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.
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. In this case, when said ISP believes you're doing something illegal.
As part of its throttling routine, Armstrong Zoom's warning letter openly threatens its suspected file-sharing customers about its ability to use or control their webcams and connected thermostats.
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."
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/05/pirates-risk-being-left-in-the-cold/
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 08 2018, @08:45PM (11 children)
How do they know if someone is file sharing? Or infringing copyright?
What if a group of friends are sharing perfectly legal files among themselves?
If the protocol you use is encrypted, they can't really know.
Even better, suppose the protocol is standard. What if all file sharing happened over an HTTP connection that had an encrypted stream. Maybe just use HTTPS, but that is a higher hoop to jump through. What about something like a "netcat" type tool that would provide a pipe for anything, but did so over an ordinary HTTP connection that specified an application/binary content type which was then actually encrypted content.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 08 2018, @08:56PM (4 children)
There's a profile, if you move more than X bytes a month, particularly in such and such size chunks, there's a higher probability that you're "one of those people," and they will treat you accordingly. If you have a choice in ISPs, this isn't such a problem. Unfortunately, with private monopolies this kind of profiling amounts to illegal discrimination - but now you get the fun of proving damages in a court case before there's any real hope of justice/relief.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday January 08 2018, @09:04PM (3 children)
An interesting case would be to have actual damages. Prove them. And set a precedent.
In such a case, the ISP cannot know what is in your traffic and they have no right to know. That is a core argument of the action, that they are unfairly discriminating. Maybe there would be a lawyer that would take such a case on contingency.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @09:32PM (1 child)
Yeah, why don't you get right on that?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 08 2018, @11:07PM
Because it's so much easier to say than to do.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 08 2018, @09:40PM
Absolutely....
Not in the reality I live in.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @09:12PM (4 children)
> How do they know if someone is file sharing? Or infringing copyright?
They don't *know*, but they get complaints from rights-holders and copyright trolls -- they often participate in torrent swarms and try to nail a few IP addresses. Those complaints have a pretty low chance of actually being accurate, but accusations are enough to get you a few threats, and occasionally a throttle or cancellation of service. Look up "six strikes" in your favorite search engine.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 08 2018, @09:27PM (3 children)
I have already read about sick strikes.
If you're genuinely not pirating, and the torrent is between you and a closed group of friends, then how would a rights owner complain?
Yes, sadfully, accusations are enough to get you shot and killed these days.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 08 2018, @09:44PM (2 children)
Again, it's profiling... like if you loiter in certain neighborhoods at certain times, odds are you are buying/selling drugs. It's not proof, but it is probable.
They scattershot and have a higher than 0 correlation between who they accuse and who is actually "guilty" (itself a laughable state...) so, they think they're justified. Sure, they occasionally ruin some innocent family's life, but for every time that happens, they have nailed 3 or 4 honest to God file sharing criminals, so that's O.K. - right?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @10:25PM (1 child)
When it's warm outside, I will often stand out in the street next to an elementary school. By your logic, odds are that I'm a pedophile right? Given that, I should be approached by local law enforcement and told to "move along," and that John Q. Law "doesn't want to see you around here any more," as I'm clearly looking for vulnerable children to abduct, defile and murder, yes?
Except my home is next door to that elementary school. And so, rather than me "standing next to an elementary school," I'm actually "standing in front of my home." What's more, the vast majority of those who molest/abuse children are people known to the children, not strangers.
TL;DR: Your analogy sucks.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 08 2018, @11:07PM
Try that in Sarasota county Florida...
Yep, if the same crew is running that town as was in the 1990s, absolutely, John Q. Law will insist you prove your innocence or clear the hell off away from the vulnerable children. If any member of the Force's children attend the school they'll probably pre-emptively arrest you just to make sure the message gets through the first time.
You've got some ID to prove that? In Sarasota county you'd better.
Now you're talking about logical sense, I'm talking about interaction with conservative law enforcement in a town with Judges and lawyers who back them up blindly.
What are you, a cop lover?
Seriously, though, I know a lot of good cops, people who are in law enforcement to help make the world a better place, people who take the time to understand a situation before crashing in, arresting whoever it takes to calm the situation and letting God sort 'em out later. Then I've also known a few cops who aren't like that...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by crafoo on Tuesday January 09 2018, @02:05AM
I imagine they can infer quite a bit by the statistical data of your packets: time, frequency, size, rate. All without even looking at destination addresses. I'd recommend running openvpn on a vps or at least getting a vpn account just to give yourself a slim margin of privacy (from your ISP only though).