big brother and torrents

[the_dope_chaud]

watch out people, in Quebec, videotron, a major cable/phone/net provider has started cracking down and checking our dowloads. I cant talk about it too much here, but lets say I got a warning letter from them telling me exactly the name of the torrents people at my house downloaded that break copyrights.

[Nocutius]

ouch.

[bobletman]

that must suck a lot. Lately it was discovered that theres apparently a secret bill trying to be passed in canada to ban piracy.

[PP Mguire]

For once im going to say USA FTW. Charter sent my best friends grandma an email saying they will have to get the law on them for using Bittorrents. Me and him both told her its invasion of privacy to monitor your downloads in the US. Let them try. I think she told them exactly what we said (Like an idiot) but they havent botherd her since.

[Enigmachine]

HMm... Someone close to me used to be legal counsel for Videotron. I will have to ask for advice, but as far as I know that person quit that job to avoid putting up with all the **** that was coming. :| :)

How do they know those downloads are illegal anyway? Hopefully Revision 3 will sue the RIAA and those people who brought their sites down under american counterterrorism laws. Once the RIAA (and the MPAA) have been proven terrorists, it might help veto the totally insane new copyright bill here in Canada...

I think (I sincerely hope) that Videotron is setting itself up for a major slap. One thing to note is that Videotron (and mother company Quebecor) are not just ISPs but also major content producers so they clearly have a vested interest in not respecting the privacy of its users.

I guess I better start looking for a new ISP right away...

[borschtBomber[SS]]

wow that sucks man, so are all the hippies gonna run back to the US now? lol

[PP Mguire]

How do they know those downloads are illegal anyway?Im pretty sure Charter knew exactly where we where going when his grandma sent that email. Invasion of privacy much? Idk bout Canada but around these parts youll wind up in court pretty fast for it if proven guilty.

[Methious]

You'd be amazed how much information about your online activities is recorded for posterity.

Data mining with filters can pull any aspect of that activity out of the pile of data stored on the servers the activity flows across.

The sheer volume of information on the aggregate has been the only stumbling block keeping "Big Brother" from having the keys to the kingdom.

If they manage to assign the duty of guarding the gates to the individual ISPs then they will have cut it into manageable chunks with only offenders being reported.

Kinda scary if your setting on a pile of torrented files. Might be time to put a microwave beside the computer and if you hear that authoritative knock on your door throw that pile of DVDs in and crank it up. (I love that scene from "The Core".)

[slugbug]

Good thing I don't use bit torrent then. I use something better :smile:

[tywashere]

Total invasion of privacy.

and wait what? Do they know if you like o_O look are prons?

[=CDU=Above]

Here's what happened to me. Back in the day I downloaded a Sony Pictures movie. I then received a letter from my ISP saying that I did so ans Sony is pissed and that if I didn't remove the material from my hard drive (still not sure how they would know if I did or not) and if I did it again my ISP would ban me for life.

You don't have to tell me twice...done and done. Never did it again....not worth it. There wasn't a lot of cable internet providers back then. Didn't want to lose it.

It turns out that Sony themselves put out the torrent. When some one downloaded it....it gave them your IP. Smart.

[joz]

always bounce things around when torrenting.
I only torret music (one song every couple weeks.) but when I do, I boot up "Secure" account for torrenting, lock down stuff, find myself a few proxie servers. and start a bouncing.

[bobletman]

Here's what happened to me. Back in the day I downloaded a Sony Pictures movie. I then received a letter from my ISP saying that I did so ans Sony is pissed and that if I didn't remove the material from my hard drive (still not sure how they would know if I did or not) and if I did it again my ISP would ban me for life.

You don't have to tell me twice...done and done. Never did it again....not worth it. There wasn't a lot of cable internet providers back then. Didn't want to lose it.

It turns out that Sony themselves put out the torrent. When some one downloaded it....it gave them your IP. Smart.

Whenever you are downloading always use peergaurdian 2. It checks for fake trackers such as movies released by sony and it blocks them

[werty316]

Or better yet, know what a scene release is; thats all I have to say.

[slugbug]

Two words: SSL encryption. Ok so that's 4:smile:

[Schwarz]

Holy *&@#(&@ Jules, you gotta show me that letter...
Man thats crazy... internet will probably lose a lot of interest in the upcoming years because of that...

[PP Mguire]

Funny i dont get messed with. I browse behind 3 proxies though :)

[the_dope_chaud]

yeah, well for the sake of discussion, let say they named me only one torrent, which happens to be a game made by ubisoft montreal. Coincidence ?? And it was a release from one of the best known hackers (RELOADED).
I think not.... I believe ubisoft probably is owned by quebecor in the end anyways. If they seach throught all ou 7 computers, I`m up **** creek, that all I gotta say. Cleaning up those things as soon as possible, and finished torrenting for me !!!

PS: I know this is sensitive information... I dont want to get banned, delete the thread if you want, admins, I thought it would be worthwhile to advise my fellow bjorners.

[Enigmachine]

Nah, Ubisoft is owned by the Guillemot, who are French.

I think you answered part of my question in any case. I use bittorrent A LOT, mostly for podcasts. So that's 6-7 video files torrented a day. The only way they could track you down is if they were looking at very specific files - probably ones they put out themselves - instead of looking at all your torrent traffic and deciding on a course of action from there.

That means 99.99% of my torrent use is legal... The other 0.01% probably is too, as long as I'm copying stuff I already have a license for... right?

Anyway whatever they do, I'm certain this crackdown will hurt them more than it will hurt us. For instance I don't know a single startup company that pays for all its licenses - because they can'T afford it! And I have stopped buying games from specific game companies because of their piracy policy...

Oh well. At least I can still vote.

[Methious]

I wouldn't be freaking I download stuff I have the license for. I run from behind a Yoggie gatekeeper Pico which surfs from behind secure proxies any way but I don't torrent hacked stuff anyway.

A lot of that content especially keygens is heavily contaminated with trojans and Virii.

If you don't mind waiting a while you can usually get good games off of Amazon for like $20 bucks. I just snagged Unreal Tournament 3 for $20 and it's still $60 at the local Wal Mart.

I used to grab any file I could get years ago, but then realized that if every one did it that would take the incentive away from the programmers and we'd have less games to play. So now I bargain basket them off Amazon.

Which reminds me I haven't loaded UT3 yet so laters.

[=CDU=Above]

Yeah, all that said...it's probably better that I not do it anyway.

[PP Mguire]

You live in the US though, so they cant do anything to you. Thats why UK torrenters get screwed. When i move to Canada i guess im gonna have to have game cash set aside lol.

[joz]

Funny i dont get messed with. I browse behind 3 proxies though :)
only three? newbie.

[PP Mguire]

All i need.

[joz]

All i need.
lightwieght.

[PP Mguire]

Actualy i really dont need them. Ya see, i dont need protection :/