Bandwidth theft - procedure and contacts to solve

rsasman

New Member
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
2
HI guys
I am living in the Uk don't really know much about the ISP's back home
Just have a quick question, when you visit the net you have too through your ISP
and is your ISP is your defualt home page
 

Pr0PheT

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Jul 28, 2005
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21

Freaksta

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Sep 4, 2005
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Well I have paid the fine now and have gotten my pc back, I also found out that there is no criminal record because I was not sentenced in court.

I wont stipulate how much the fine is, all I can say is don't do it. And I am in jhb.

I have scanned and attached the search warrant....

http://img163.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=07593_Untitled-5_122_915lo.jpg
http://img41.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=07598_Untitled-6_122_1051lo.jpg

Aw, cant you give us a rough figure.. Wonder how much they escalate it by./?
 

Conkill

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Joined
May 3, 2007
Messages
183
Yes this is a thread about Bandwith theft and I believe this is serious and the worst case scenario is that nobody seems to be taking it serious enough to get the cops involved and if we do get the cops involved what are they actually going to do for us they can't even help you when your house gets robbed. We are stuffed.

Hey at least you can shoot the robber if he breaks into your property how the heck do you shoot at someone that lives in another province, while he actually steals your info right under your noise while you browsingon the net.

These culprits know excatly what they are doing and they also know that catching them is a mission and getting them prosecuted is almost impossible. I say we catch them ourselfs then we break there hacking fingers one at a time. So know we just need to find some P.I to track them down.
 

UnUnOctium

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Mar 6, 2005
Messages
3,127
Yes this is a thread about Bandwith theft and I believe this is serious and the worst case scenario is that nobody seems to be taking it serious enough to get the cops involved and if we do get the cops involved what are they actually going to do for us they can't even help you when your house gets robbed. We are stuffed.

Hey at least you can shoot the robber if he breaks into your property how the heck do you shoot at someone that lives in another province, while he actually steals your info right under your noise while you browsingon the net.

These culprits know excatly what they are doing and they also know that catching them is a mission and getting them prosecuted is almost impossible. I say we catch them ourselfs then we break there hacking fingers one at a time. So know we just need to find some P.I to track them down.

Actually, you may not shoot a robber :p, it's illegal to open fire unless he does first (or so i heard :S). So yea, work up a trust with the robber, offer him some tea, etc.
 

ld13

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Oct 28, 2005
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Actually, you may not shoot a robber :p, it's illegal to open fire unless he does first (or so i heard :S). So yea, work up a trust with the robber, offer him some tea, etc.

LOL :D

You may shoot if:
a) The said person is a Direct danger to you or someone else
b) Dont ask me, I dont Know the law.
Generally, if you dont just shoot him for the heck of it (he is standing without a weapon and poses no threat to anyone), the court will be on your side. They are truly on your side you know.

Conkill, I have to agree with you. The culprits know exactly what they are doing and you will be surprised as how easy it is to obtain the username & password of someone's network that is not secure. The chance that any non-tech savvy person will notice you taking a few gigs, is less than 0%. The culprits also know that it is too much schlep to report these things in the first place too.

If we could only access the database that links your port number with your home address we could maybe "do" something about this small problem ourselves. :p
 

JQ444

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Aug 3, 2005
Messages
72
Been buying extra gig for the last three months now - first time since I've started using Telkom ADSL in 2000 that I get capped so regularly and it happens in the 3rd week of the month.

I cannot get any joy from anybody at Telkom - they cannot produce any IP addresses where certain downloads on my usage reports have been made from. The one was 400mb on a day that we weren't even at home. They are like shopkeepers who charge you for goods that they cannot prove are in your shopping trolley.

I have given up - the SAPS at my local station have no idea what I'm talking about, let alone being able to solve the matter for me. It just piles up the frustrations.

What I would like to find out from all the very intelligent peeps here is how much bandwidth could be absorbed by Facebook? It's the only criteria that has changed in my 7 yrs of bad marriage with Telkom.
 

PostmanPot

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Joined
Jul 16, 2005
Messages
34,953
Been buying extra gig for the last three months now - first time since I've started using Telkom ADSL in 2000 that I get capped so regularly and it happens in the 3rd week of the month.

I cannot get any joy from anybody at Telkom - they cannot produce any IP addresses where certain downloads on my usage reports have been made from. The one was 400mb on a day that we weren't even at home. They are like shopkeepers who charge you for goods that they cannot prove are in your shopping trolley.

I have given up - the SAPS at my local station have no idea what I'm talking about, let alone being able to solve the matter for me. It just piles up the frustrations.

What I would like to find out from all the very intelligent peeps here is how much bandwidth could be absorbed by Facebook? It's the only criteria that has changed in my 7 yrs of bad marriage with Telkom.

Search the forum for "Captian Niemand".
 

kevinswan007

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Joined
Dec 23, 2006
Messages
1,878
just change your adsl password and change your adsl router password.
it wont happen again.
also, if you REALLY want to be sure, switch off the router when you are not using it. That way, you can prove it was not you, cause telkom can see when your router is on or not.
 

JQ444

Active Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2005
Messages
72
I change my passwords on a regular basis.

All I get from Telkom is that all traffic went through my port, therefore they are not going to investigate the matter any further. What totally frustrates me is when you ask if they can trace where a specific download was made from (there were a few in excess of 200mb last month, none of them done by any of us and twice on days that we were not at home), and they cannot tell you. They apparently don't keep track of that information. To me that information is very important.

Maybe I should add here that we run a wireless network at home between 4 computers, all with firewalls, anti-virus, etc. Other than the basic software updates, nothing else is really downloaded onto these computers. My daughter has discovered Facebook, and as far as I can tell, it works similar to Yahoo Messenger, therefore no serious extra demand on the bandwidth - at least not to the tune of 3GB in 2 and a half weeks. Or so I hope.

Anyway, the extra 2GB that I have on standby is really slow. Somewhere in the username it has "2GBsh" and it seems to me that it is shared bandwidth. It is incredibly slow on local and very seldom successful on international. Basically just helps to do mail. They also don't have a solution for me in terms of an upgraded account for this household. I can go for 4GB unshaped or two portions of 3GB shaped, but they don't have a bigger account available (say, 6GB).

As for Capt Niemand, I'm searching... thanks for the feedback, every little bit helps.
 

disabled

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Oct 16, 2005
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1,925
Excuse me for being stuck on stupid but how do you tell when someone's stealing your bandwidth?...and how do you avoid such issues?
 

Paul_S

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Jun 4, 2006
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Excuse me for being stuck on stupid but how do you tell when someone's stealing your bandwidth?

Unusually high usage typically originating from a different physical location to where you are. This can be picked picked up by looking at the NAS Port ID.
If the port IDs in your connection logs are different and you're only connecting from a single premises then alarm bells should start ringing.
However you're more likely to find out the hard way ... when your bandwidth keeps running out.

...and how do you avoid such issues?

Do the following three things :
1. Disable remote access on your ADSL router.
2. Change your router's admin password.
3. Change your ISP account password.
 

checkblog

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Joined
Aug 11, 2006
Messages
16
Bandwidth theft

I suggest you ask youe ISP to port lock your account to your ADSL Line, that way only you can logon with your details. even if your details are compromised.
 

Rastabob

New Member
Joined
Oct 5, 2005
Messages
6
DSL Charges

Hello

Just thought id add my 2c. I have moved out of home, and recently my parents have had their computers seized and been charged with fraud due to adsl account theft. They have paid an admission of guilt fine of about R1500 and have not received formal criminal charges. However you are placed on the "admission of guilt" criminal records. Any further cases would likely result in a proper criminal record.

There are several frightening things about this. Firstly the case was for account usage for November 2006, so people out there should be worried! Secondly that the police are actually spending resources investigating stuff like this. Really!?!?! If Telkom just sent out a notice to all its users detailing how to change their default passwords, account theft would decrease by at least 90% and the police could investigate real crime.

It all seems very sketchy to me! Does anyone know what evidence would they collect from your pc to use against you? Im not sure how they could prove you actually accessed the victims router without permission to get their details. I dont see that proving you logged onto that users adsl account is enough to prosecute you for data theft? Has there been any successful convictions in court?

Id urge everyone out there not to press charges. Its unethical to steal somebody's bandwidth, but telkom are the ones who sold you "a house with a universal key". Change your routers password, educate yourself a bit about the internet and get over it. Do you leave the liquor cabinet unlocked with your teenage children when you go away for the weekend? Do you really want to destroy some little geeks life because they stole R50 of you cap?
 

Ricard

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Jul 6, 2007
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2,819
Id urge everyone out there not to press charges. Its unethical to steal somebody's bandwidth, but telkom are the ones who sold you "a house with a universal key". Change your routers password, educate yourself a bit about the internet and get over it. Do you leave the liquor cabinet unlocked with your teenage children when you go away for the weekend? Do you really want to destroy some little geeks life because they stole R50 of you cap?

If you cant do the time - DONT do the crime.. easy..... If someone leaves their front gate open, does that entitle you to pick the flowers at the front door?

Making an excuse to justify the crime is really lame. Some of these criminals have stolen THOUSANDS of gigabytes of bandwidth that someone else paid for...

THEFT! If are not entitled to the benifit, then its plain theft
 
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