Disgust, Pure and Total Disgust

[Phyre]

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/25000

This is so stupid. Did this guy beak a federal law or did he possibly just break a contract? I say possibly because from the descussions there is no mention of uncapping in the TOS or AUP for this company. As far as I know, there is not law (federal, state, or local) that states that uncapping a modem is against the law. The feds or the local police should not have been involved. If anything, this was a civil matter.

Another problem I have is if you own your modem, you can do whatever you want to that modem. If the ISP isn't smart enough to limit their caps at the head end, then they need to investigate the necessary know-how and technology.

Also, does this mean that if my ISP does not deliver the necessary speeds and does not compensate me with or without me telling them, can I call the FBI on them for breach of contract? In other words, if they are overselling nodes and not updating their networks to keep up with the demand, I should be able to call the FBI on them. That's how I interpret the above story.

Some of what I said above is a little far-fetched...I know this. But, it is no more far-fetched than the happenings mentioned in the story.

I guess this guy is lucky this happened before the Homeland (In)Security Act was passed, or he would be serving a life sentence. Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't one of the parts for the Homeland (In)Security Act state that hacking deserves a life sentence?

Please, help me muddle through the mud.

Phyre

[intercede007]

Ohh..you mean other then the fact that he is stealing bandwidth from EVERY OTHER PERSON on that node? Cable modems share bandwidth from every customer using that node. So if I was on that node, he was using bandwidth I paid for fair and square.

It's also against the TOC/EULA..whatever most cable companies have.

So lets see, he violated his contract with the cable companies AND stole (yes, he STOLE a service from other PAYING customers) bandwidth. Sounds to me like he had it coming.


EDIT

I'd also venture to guess that since it happened over communication lines that the FCC got involved, which would mean that Federal Laws were violated, thus the reason for the FBI to show up.

[StealthHawk]

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/23727

For the record, uncapping ( hacking your modem in order to gain access to untapped bandwidth) is not legal. Those who perform the practice can expect retaliation from their broadband provider, and should expect serious repercussions for doing so. That said, one Ohio ISP has taken punishment for the practice to an unprecedented level that should raise the eyebrows of providers, customers, and concerned citizens alike.

low and behold that the author of both articles is the same person. earlier he says that uncapping is not legal.

[intercede007]

I'd sue the thieves for the money I paid the cable company for my bandwidth for the length of time they stole it. Hackers? No, just common thieves with a tiny bit of technical ability.

[Mod]

"The police left with 8 computers, a VCR, 4 monitors, 6 keyboards, 7 mice, 24 copies of my book on CD ROM, the Cable modem, a linksys Cable modem Router, an ATMEL Smart Card Writer, 4 Smart Cards, 3 DVD+RW Discs and some Misc. Cords. 2 legitimate copies of Windows XP, and 1 Visual Studio Enterprise."

I bet they were thieves disguised as police. I am seriours. Mainly because of the DVDs, VCR and Winxp Copy. Corrupt cops...

[styles-T]

Hes ruining a companies reputation when you think about it..If I pay 30$ a month for cable and get 56k speeds you better believe Im switching companies..

[Bigus Dickus]

atmel writer and *cough* "smart cards?" Sounds like bandwidth wasn't the only thing he was stealing. ;)

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by Bigus Dickus
atmel writer and *cough* "smart cards?" Sounds like bandwidth wasn't the only thing he was stealing. ;)

what is a smart card exactly?

[g0at]

stealing cable bandwidth is just as bad (possibly worse) as stealing cable.

there's a reason it's illegal... so people wont do it!!!

[intercede007]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
what is a smart card exactly?


If you have the proper equipment, you can program the cards Hughes electronics manufactures and uses to control the content accessible by a subscribers DirectTV reciever.

[Bigus Dickus]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
what is a smart card exactly? Little credit card looking thing with a tiny processor embedded. They're used for a lot of things, mostly security related, though I think the bank transfer type of cards are very similar.

In this case, it was likely a DTV satellite card. :)

[PsychoSy]

Originally posted by g0at
stealing bandwidth is just as bad (possibly worse) as stealing cable.

I disagree and for damn good reasons...:p

I applaud anyone that steals cable or satellite TV. Why? Simple - it's ours to begin with! The birds in space that carry the signals were either fully developed and funded by tax-payers money or they were at least put into space by NASA - which also gets funding from tax payers. Whenever a satellite goes on the brink and needs repair or replacement, does Les Moonves or Paul Allen hop on a rocket and fix it? Nope - our tax-funded astronauts do. :D

Lastly, according to the FCC, the general public owns the airwaves. As a result, the signals beamed to these birds in space should NEVER have been scrambled/encrypted and therefore, anyone stealing cable/satellite TV is only stealing what rightfully belongs to each and every one of us in first place.

Stealing internet bandwidth by uncapping your cable modem, on the other hand, is and should be illegal because that's a service delivered not on the taxpayer's dole but by companies involved and that cost is offset by paying customers and/or advertisers.

[intercede007]

While the repair part is closer to the truth, NASA puts very few satelites into space anymore (although I will conceed that the Air Force does lend use of the Vanderburg launch facilities when sea launches become un-seasonable) for commercial purposes. Hughes Aerospace, now owned by Boeing, launched all off the DirectTV satelites into orbit themselves, along with the XM Radio service and the New Skies internet service.

DirectTV is a service, and stealing that service is a crime. So to is Cable. Satelites were built by one company, launched by another, then broadcast shows produced by yet another, down to the agents that finally distribute it over the cable lines to your home. All of these companies are in buiness to be compensated for the services they provide. Stealing from all those people is a crime.

Thinking it through, why would the FCC impose communist-like restrictions on that marketplace? Democratic nation, Capitalist economy....companies making services to sell to paying/willing customers....where is the rub? No one is forcing anybody to use Cable or Satelite TV, they could very easily install an antenna on their homes and get the news for free.

Furthermore, the people "own" the airwaves, they delegate the power to regulate it to the FCC, the FCC makes guidlines to protect free enterprise and fair-use, and the people still get to play DJ with their Ham radio's and low power FM.

Stealing is stealing, and it makes it even more upsetting when I get screwed over it (like my cable bill going up or my bandwidth being sucked down by someone else).

[PsychoSy]

I didn't know Hughes launched their own birds for DTV. I thought they were using the existing Ku-band birds out there. I'm an poor old sap still stuck in the 80s. My family bought one the huge C-band dishes around 1985 and it was awesome - everything was in the clear and we could've added a Ku-band adapter but they were too expensive.

By 1987, most of the channels like HBO, Cinemax, and such went scrambled and you needed a Video Cipher II + subscription to watch it. It sucked. The real pisser for me was the 3 major leaguers went scrambled, too, by 1988 which drove me right out of my tree. NBC aired Super Password at 12 Noon right off their network feed while the local NBC stations breaked for their Midday News. The only way I could see Super Password without a dish is if the weather was good enough for WKYC's analog signal (Cleaveland's NBC affiliate) to travel the 200 miles over Lake Erie, which wasn't often.

Another thing was if WDIV pre-empted NBC programming for a prime time Tiger's game and WTVG had an Indians game, we could just turn on the dish to the network feed and still catch Cosby, Cheers, etc.

When they started scrambling channels, I remember the lengthy, venomous debates from Capitol Hill on C-Span and C-SPAN2. The Democrats were angry as hell and the Republicans countered them with saying TV shouldn't be free and that it's opens up great buisness opportunities, yada, yada. One Republican actually argued that walking out of the room to hit the fridge or the head during a commerical was theft, which should sound familiar as it's been paraded recently by many Democratic liberals that hate such devices as TiVo!! :D :p

where is the rub? No one is forcing anybody to use Cable or Satelite TV, they could very easily install an antenna on their homes and get the news for free.

Stations are cutting back on their analog signal output to the point where if you're farther than 20 miles from their transmitter, forget about it. I live 45 miles from Detroit and 28 miles north of Toledo and can't grab anything with the tower on the house. The motors burn up after 1-2 years and cost about $75 to replace ($100 if you have lots of bees and wasps that require lots of Raid spray). It isn't cost-effective to the people that matter - the man with the wallet.

Also, using a $40 pair of amplified indoor antennaes got me nowhere. Sure, I might be able to watch CSI if I sit on the ARM of the chair with one leg on behind my head and the other jammed so far up my ass that I'm belching up Dr. Scholls, but that's not a healthy way to watch TV. Besides, if I could've stayed that damned limber, I'd be an idiot not to seek a carreer in porno movies. :p

Don't get me started on HDTV - My family liked the idea when we first read an article about it in Orbit magazine back in the late 1980s but we can't stand it now thanks to alot of the bureaucratic BS that's cropped up. Some HDTVs will need an expensive tuner upgrade in a few years while other HDTVs have them built in and even those might not work because the manufacturers have yet to agree on some mumbo-jumbo standard. Also, the FCC demanding all TV stations to be broadcasting in HDTV by a certain year has caused many problems as some stations simply can't afford either the technology and implementation of HDTV or broadcasting both regular and HDTV compliant signals (which is something that threatens the C-SPAN networks the last time I checked).

Sometimes Capitalism is good.
This isn't one of them.

[intercede007]

Originally posted by PsychoSy

Sure, I might be able to watch CSI if I sit on the ARM of the chair with one leg on behind my head and the other jammed so far up my ass that I'm belching up Dr. Scholls, but that's not a healthy way to watch TV. Besides, if I could've stayed that damned limber, I'd be an idiot not to seek a carreer in porno movies. :p



LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :clever:


I see your point, and to a certain extent, I do agree, but I think that when a company makes a service, they have the right to protect that service however they see fit.


EDIT :
I mean really, thats the hardest I think I've laughed in quite a long time (mostly because it's funny, partly because I know exactly what your talking about). Good stuff!!! :D

[PsychoSy]

Whoa, whoa, whoa! I just read the actual article that was linked (forgive me - I was L-A-Z-Y) and noticed "Buckeye Cable" and that's very familar in my neck of the woods. That's Toledo's market.

Not only that but the owners of Buckeye Cable also own the Toledo Blade, if my memory is correct. These folks have got some mighty hefty stroke in the court system, if you catcha my drift!

This moron is doomed and he deserves it! :p

[g0at]

Originally posted by PsychoSy
I disagree and for damn good reasons...:p

I applaud anyone that steals cable or satellite TV. Why? Simple - it's ours to begin with! The birds in space that carry the signals were either fully developed and funded by tax-payers money or they were at least put into space by NASA - which also gets funding from tax payers. Whenever a satellite goes on the brink and needs repair or replacement, does Les Moonves or Paul Allen hop on a rocket and fix it? Nope - our tax-funded astronauts do. :D

Lastly, according to the FCC, the general public owns the airwaves. As a result, the signals beamed to these birds in space should NEVER have been scrambled/encrypted and therefore, anyone stealing cable/satellite TV is only stealing what rightfully belongs to each and every one of us in first place.

Stealing internet bandwidth by uncapping your cable modem, on the other hand, is and should be illegal because that's a service delivered not on the taxpayer's dole but by companies involved and that cost is offset by paying customers and/or advertisers.

uhm... ok... last that i checked, they didnt "beam" cable anywhere... it stayed on.... god what was it called? ah... yes... a CABLE. Anyways... cable theft is a nasty crime, it not only adds to the cost of other peoples cable bills, but it brings the picture quality of all the neighborhoods cable (the good people who actually paid for it mind you) by sapping the cable power, forcing the company to come out occasionally and fix it, wich costs the good paying customers money.

and i dont think stealing satellite TV is bad, but the fact that the airwaves belong to the people is disturbing. a portion of those encrypted messages being sent to those "birds" are from our own government, sometimes important enough to compromise our countries security. what say we unencrypt those? Security and discretion? bah! liberty is better!

[PsychoSy]

Originally posted by g0at
uhm... ok... last that i checked, they didnt "beam" cable anywhere... it stayed on.... god what was it called? ah... yes... a CABLE.

And how does that cable get the signal - Fed Ex?!? Little dwarfen druids in the basement?!? :p

No, let me tell you how it got started. Cable companies usually got their signals by - SURPRIZE - large sattellite dishes. They also had sophisticated professional-grade receiving equipment (mainly manufacturered by Motorola) that could grab all the feeds they wanted for their channel line-up, decrypt any of them that are scrambled - from HBO to your local network affiliate -, and then those multiple feeds are forwarded to a router that can be configured to dictate what channel goes where on their line-up.

Small family-owned cable systems would use 2-5 dishes while large corporate owned cable companies had it easier - their corporate offices would do all that grunt work then configure their routers to beam their entire lineup - feeds and all - to a few Ku-band sattelites. This way, their smaller branches could simply point a few of their dishes (in most cases, three dishes 1 for primary and 2 for back-up) to these birds, grab that feed, and forward it off to their local equipment which would parlay it all down the cable lines underground or on the poles and into your home.

This is how the cable industry worked for the most part but things did change slightly in the 1990s when the Federal Government finally forced telco companies to open up their fibre-optic technology - something they fought tooth and nail over to stop and lost their asses - to the cable industry. Fibre-optic technology is something the cable companies wanted ALL ALONG but it took a long time for them to get it since the telco companies held a monopoly over the technology. Once the government forced the telcos to open it up, it allowed cable companies to put their signals on the fibre optic lines. This resulted in cable companies saving money - they no longer had to rely on scores of the dishes for their feeds. In the old days, 95% of a cable company's channel line-up was grabbed off sattelite but now, that percentage is down to 7-10% - mainly just for local network affiliates.

People who used traditional C-band dishes in the 1980s could NOT get local network affilate feeds, even with a traditional receiver with the Video Cipher II technology built-in (unless they went to the black market). The FCC regulations only allowed cable companies, satellite providers such as Direct TV, and traditional C-band disk owners that lived outside of the great 48 to grab network affilate feeds. For example, Detroit's WDIV, WJBK, and WXYZ TV all beamed their feed on C-band sattelites but unless you had black-market box, the only legal way to purchase and use a reciever that would decrypt those signals was to live in Alaska, Hawaii, and some parts of Canada. It is these types of feeds that cable companies continue to rely on using sattellite dishes for while the rest is on fibre optic lines (if it weren't for fibre-optics, we wouldn't have cable-modem internet service or Digital Cable today either).

Anyways... cable theft is a nasty crime, it not only adds to the cost of other peoples cable bills,

Don't be so quick to believe that - if a business thinks the average consumer is dumb/ignorant enough, then that's all the motive they need to jack up their prices or nickle and dime you with strange, vaguely-worded charges on the bill (what the flange is that "franchise fee" garbage anyway?!?) They will BS you into thinking that "it's the thieves fault" for these price hikes but the #1 cause of price hikes and overcharges is simply consumer ignorance. If they think they can get away with burying a hidden charge on your bill without you noticing it, they'll do it. Their business "Bible" is 1 page long and all it contains it the following quote from P.T. Barnum - "There's a sucker born every minute!"

but it brings the picture quality of all the neighborhoods cable (the good people who actually paid for it mind you) by sapping the cable power, forcing the company to come out occasionally and fix it, wich costs the good paying customers money.

Another line of FUD from the cable company. The majority of signal quality anomolies are caused either by ancient 20+ year old telephone and electrical wires being too close to their cable line, causing RF bleeding, or the cable company's own ancient 20+ year old HAPs and TAPs that need replacing because entropy and mother nature (weather) does more damage to them than cable thieves. Good news is with Digital Cable and cable-based internet service on the rise, these HAPs and TAPs are getting replaced because they require it.

the fact that the airwaves belong to the people is disturbing. a portion of those encrypted messages being sent to those "birds" are from our own government, sometimes important enough to compromise our countries security. what say we unencrypt those? Security and discretion? bah! liberty is better!

Highly unlikely. Why? Big pain in the ass. Intercepting and decrypting goverment security info off a bird would require more money, time, and physical work than any snot-nosed script-kiddie has. Trust me - the process would BORE the brat to death as well as grab QUITE of an ammount of attention from his/her parents or the neighbors.

There's more easier methods out there - BY FAR...like the Internet!

[Bigus Dickus]

The only thing I'm really against in all the RIAA/DMCA/DTV crap going on is the whole pay per view philosophy. If DirecTV would give me unlimited access to all the channels for $100 a month, I'd happily pay it. As it is, they get far less than that from me, because I refuse to pay on a per view basis. So, they are losing money due to their greediness, at least from this customer.

It wouldn't cost them one cent more to grant me access to all channels, and I'd be willing to double my subscription price. The amound of commercials viewed by me would likely rise, thus giving them leverage to charge higher advertising fees. But no, the greedy little bastards just can't comprehend that concept.

Companies just don't get it. They all want to move to pay per view/listen charging schemes, because they're convinced it will make them more money. But, whereas someone is currently willing (grudgingly) to pay $15 for a CD, they certainly wouldn't be willing to pay $1.50 ten separate times to listen to a single song, or even $0.15 a hundred separate times, because it just seems absurd. Instead, they'll pirate, or just go without - as have I in the case of the programming I would like to receive. In the end, they'll only make $5 per album on average, instead of the $10 they would now (figuring for current pirating) - hypothetical numbers of course.

Greedy idiots. May they rot in hell. They're ruining the entertainment industry.

[Bigus Dickus]

In fact, after a bit more thought, I'd currently be willing to pay $200 a month for all the TV, movies, radio, downloadable .mp3 and .wav's I could stand, with no restrictions other than I no pass on this material to non subscribing individuals (which could be mostly accomplished with existing forms of copy protection, for the average person anyway).

Do I spend $200 a month as it is now? Not hardly. Perhaps $75 in combined TV + the odd DVD or CD. Would most people end up spending more per month with that scheme? Probably, since most people are middle age working people that don't pirate, and even some younger people that pirate would be so pleased with the change of attitude that they would pay a flat monthly entertainment fee rather than this pay per view bull****.

At least offer that option for those that want it. Leave the small packages + pay per view movie type of formats there for those that really don't watch that much TV. It wouldn't be hard to do.

I'd guarantee that they would see more profits in the long run.

[ASCI Blue]

Not allowing lawyer contact is a biiiiiiiig no-no. That could in theory get everything thrown out. Rates up there with not allowing police contact.

[intercede007]

I imagine since there were several people being investigated, they denied the telephone calls to prevent the suspect from warning anyone else involved about the warrants. This is standard operating procedure and since you aren't technically under arrest, and the warrant has been signed from a judge after reviewing the evidence, the presence of an attorney is unnecessary. The individual can clearly read, and in the warrant it specifically states what is to be searched and under what premise.

If anything is obtained illegally or searched without cause, the attorney will find out about it.

For the safety of the officers, it is standard procedure to ask the person being investigated to be seated comfortably, not to move, and wait for the search to be completed.

[PsychoSy]

Especially with the FBI agents involved. Their job is to secure you and gather the evidence as fast and thorough as possible. The dude would've gotten his phone call but not until he was in a secure environment (i.e. downtown). I believe that often times, having a personal lawyer at a crime-scene can be a double-edged sword. Sometimes it's good, but it can backfire. In this case, it would've backfired - the lawyer would have appeared to be confrontational and un-cooperative, which would reflect the official written FBI and police reports. Once a judge sees that, yikes! So, the FBI pretty much done him a favor while also operating on standard proceedure.