RIAA, Copyright infringement and Prepaid Sim Cards

Hey Guys,

This may have been asked before. A lot of people are suddenly talking about how they have gotten emails from their ISPs telling them to abort illegal p2p downloads from the internet.

I have a lot of questions about this subject, like - is it legal for a backbone provider like IS, to notify your ISP who then notify you to stop your illegal p2p? Surely there has to be some privacy between you and your ISPs back end provider. How is it right that an individual representative of your ISP, as well as IS/SAIX/Verizon know what you download even though it may be non legal software.

Secondly, what is there to stop somebody getting a 3G card and a loads of prepaid sims loaded with data bundles and downloading anonymously like that (apart from the premium priced caps). Yes they can track your IP over 3g/hsdpa but vodacom doesn't know who you are nor EXACTLY where you are at any given time.

I just thought I'd rant and share my thoughts on this matter.

Lennytiger said:

Hey Guys,

This may have been asked before. A lot of people are suddenly talking about how they have gotten emails from their ISPs telling them to abort illegal p2p downloads from the internet.

I have a lot of questions about this subject, like - is it legal for a backbone provider like IS, to notify your ISP who then notify you to stop your illegal p2p? Surely there has to be some privacy between you and your ISPs back end provider. How is it right that an individual representative of your ISP, as well as IS/SAIX/Verizon know what you download even though it may be non legal software.

Secondly, what is there to stop somebody getting a 3G card and a loads of prepaid sims loaded with data bundles and downloading anonymously like that (apart from the premium priced caps). Yes they can track your IP over 3g/hsdpa but vodacom doesn't know who you are nor EXACTLY where you are at any given time.

I just thought I'd rant and share my thoughts on this matter.

Click to expand...

I think there is privacy. They don't release subscriber info to the higher tier ISP. So for example RIAA's watchdogs MediaSentry (Peer Guardian) find an IP address which HOSTS an episode of LOST, they find out that that range belongs to IS and they pass that info on with the date and time of the even to IS who then passes it onto their own customer - your ISP which then notifies you to stop your naughty UPLOADS. This is a one way traffic.

I guess the way you describe it, it could be done too. One could also go to an internet cafe and download that way. One can also use one of a dozen torrent2http services as well or use some proxy which one paid for with a temporary credit card number (you can buy preloaded credit card numbers). Likewise you can pay for an EasyNews account with cash by mail and
not leave a trail behind and use a proxy or a set of proxies or a free wifi to download or cash internet cafe etc etc. I guess they don't worry about this, all they want to do is frighten enough people to get the message out to have fewer people offering uploads. When the uploads disappear, so will sharing as there won't be enough to download.

There are still services like RapidShare and private FTP sites or hosts in countries which don't have proper law enforcement (same localities which also allow child pron hosting). Plus in hosting like the child pronographers, maybe fileshareres could do some good by displacing these people by hosting MPAA/RIAA content on botnets.

Remember with RIAA/MPAA/RISA the downloading is not illegal, only UPLOADING.

If you were really desperate you could use a Skype account with an unlimited calling plan to dial into an ISP and connect to the web at dialup speeds that way, then do all the hosting that way - yeah it would be slow - maybe duplexing two accounts that way could create a 10K download, 7K upload. However, that seems quite extreme and the speed would be slow, ne?

PeterCH said:

If you were really desperate you could use a Skype account with an unlimited calling plan to dial into an ISP and connect to the web at dialup speeds that way, then do all the hosting that way - yeah it would be slow - maybe duplexing two accounts that way could create a 10K download, 7K upload. However, that seems quite extreme and the speed would be slow, ne?

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Except that to dial in would require an ISP account, and thus a traceable IP address...

arf9999 said:

Except that to dial in would require an ISP account, and thus a traceable IP address...

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There are free dial up accounts. You know. In SA we once had XS-Inet.
Those still exist around the world with no verification necessary anway.
You could dial into a foreign ISP that way too .

or you could just load peerguardian2 when you are downloading your torrents!

Ek will nou nie snaaks wees nie, maar....
If you're going to use 3G to download stuff, it's probably cheaper to just buy it.

alf101 said:

Ek will nou nie snaaks wees nie, maar....
If you're going to use 3G to download stuff, it's probably cheaper to just buy it.

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Apart from local, it's actually cheaper for us to buy the stuff anyways. Downloading a 6GB game costs ~ R390... the price for most games anyways. Same idea with series. Movies cost less to download, but of course the quality lacks that of a dvd...

alf101 said:

Ek will nou nie snaaks wees nie, maar....
If you're going to use 3G to download stuff, it's probably cheaper to just buy it.

Click to expand...

True, very true. Unless he's looking for some obscure stuff which can't be
purchase locally or online.