DFW Mustang Forums banner

Letter from the ISP?

731 views 10 replies 8 participants last post by  DFWminis 
#1 ·
Anyone else had one of these sent to them? This wasn't by mail either, it popped up in place of my homepage.

Dear Subscriber:

This notice is being sent to you by Road Runner Customer Care because we have received a complaint that your computer has been used to distribute copyrighted material without authorization through a peer-to-peer program. We received this complaint from the movie studio, record company,
television studio or other company that owns the copyrighted material. The purpose of this email is to remind you that the distribution of copyrighted material in this fashion may violate both the copyright laws and Road Runner’s terms of service, and to tell you a bit about peer-to-peer programs,
the dangers they can pose to your computer and our network, and the steps you can take to protect yourself.

A computer can become accessible to a peer-to-peer network for an unlimited period of time after a peer-to-peer program is downloaded. You may not even be aware that such a program is on your computer; a child or a visitor to the home could have downloaded it. That is why we want to
alert you to this issue.

Peer-to-peer programs may contain many problems. For example:
• Downloading and offering for upload copyrighted material without authorization is unlawful. If you or others using your computer have been doing this, you could be subject to civil penalties and criminal fines. Such activity also violates the Road Runner terms of service.

• The programs allow any anonymous person on the Internet to look at your computer files and copy them for themselves. Such a hacker could view all of your files, which can lead to identity theft.

• The programs, which use large amounts of memory, can interfere with the functioning of your computer by destabilizing your operating system, leading to a general sluggishness at bootup and during operation.

• The programs can contain spyware, adware, malware, viruses and pornography.

If you are interested in a discussion of problems associated with peer-to-peer file sharing, please follow this link: http://research.pestpatrol.com/whitepapers/p2p_impact.asp.

If you use the Windows OS, the best way to remove peer-to-peer programs is through the Add/Remove Programs tool. Other removal options are discussed at http://security.uchicago.edu/peer-to-peer/no_fileshare.shtml.

Thank you for subscribing to Road Runner.

Very truly yours,


Road Runner Customer Care
 
See less See more
#4 ·
Rhut roh raggy
 
#5 ·
To what extent can an internet company track downloads/uploads?
 
#6 ·
All your traffic goes through their servers, so I'd say 100%.
 
#7 ·
lol. ive gotten 3 of those from verizon fios.
atleast verizon doesnt cry about it being against their TOS and at least they say they wont release any subscriber information but if something does change in the future they maybe legally required to... basically be more careful.

after the last one i got i replied:
"WTF ever dudes, this movie was pure shit anyways. i'll have to download more to flush this one out of my memory. GFYs."


use peer guardian. use private trackers.
 
#8 ·
I get this same letter from Cbeyond and Time warner to my corporate clients.

Basically they have zero idea what it is, just that your IP showed up on a packet sniffer or showed a high download count. (Hrm, this weekend they downloaded 50GB of data....send the letter)

I tell the clients to ignore them as the letter is just a CYA by the ISP in case someone ever files a real complaint. It's the ISP equivilent of "Stop jacking off, you'll go blind!"

One client was a law firm, so he wrote a very nice demand letter for a copy of the original complaint. Tumbleweeds roll across the land as there was no answer and no further emails.
'
 
#10 ·
Thanks for the input fellas. I'll be a little more careful where I get my "data" from.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top