Unencrypted modems - beware

[G]

Does the reponsibility not lie with the person who owns the connection ultimately.

Otherwise someone could potentially look at something life changingly illegal involving children and then claim that anyone could have used the connection as its not secure as there defence? Seems crazy.

[SoulKiss]

Originally Posted by G

Does the reponsibility not lie with the person who owns the connection ultimately.

Otherwise someone could potentially look at something life changingly illegal involving children and then claim that anyone could have used the connection as its not secure as there defence? Seems crazy.

In that case, because its a criminal issue, the cops would take the PC away and perform the forensics mentioned by Daimo to confirm the files were/had been there.

This is just a civil case as its only copyright infringment (so not theft).

How would you prove it was not you that made a load of calls to Sex Chat Lines if I happened to go into the BT Roadside cabinet and piggy-back on your phone line.

That HAS actually been done, with the person involved being the person running the line - so they got a cut of the bill ran up while they made the fraudulent call.

Its VERY difficult to prove who is responsible for files being on a machine - I can write a website that would put a picture in your browser cache without you knowing using VERY unsophisticated means - all I do is tell your browser to put the picture off the viewable part of the screen and bingo - you have a picture on your machine that you dont know about.

Even better is if I can put a password protected (encrypted) Zip file on your machine that you dont know about called "dodgy_pics.zip" then tip off the cops.

When you cant provide them with the password, you will get locked up just based on the fact that you are refusing to decrypt the file for them - 4 years is the usual sentence I believe.

Originally Posted by G

Does the reponsibility not lie with the person who owns the connection ultimately.

Otherwise someone could potentially look at something life changingly illegal involving children and then claim that anyone could have used the connection as its not secure as there defence? Seems crazy.

A woman was successfully prosecuted for downloading music files even so there was no actual evidence that she had. Turned out it was her children.
The reason was...she was the one that was responsible as she was paying for the connection!
Partial quote - "

Sylvia Price has given up her battle to prevent the
record industry imposing a £4,000 fine after her
daughter illegally downloaded music from the web. The
53-year-old, who lives in Springbank, Cheltenham,
hired a solicitor to fight the case against the British
Phonographic Industry but now says she can't afford to
take it through the courts.
She has instead made a settlement offer of £2,500.
Mrs Price said: "They (the BPI) should have sent
something to saying 'If you keep doing this we will fine
you' - they should have sent a warning first."
She said it could take her 10 years to pay off the fine in
monthly instalments of around £20.
Her daughter Emily, 14, downloaded 1,400 songs on to

her computer over two years.
"

[SoulKiss]

Originally Posted by slark01

A woman was successfully prosecuted for downloading music files even so there was no actual evidence that she had. Turned out it was her children.
The reason was...she was the one that was responsible as she was paying for the connection!
Partial quote - "

Sylvia Price has given up her battle to prevent the
record industry imposing a £4,000 fine after her
daughter illegally downloaded music from the web. The
53-year-old, who lives in Springbank, Cheltenham,
hired a solicitor to fight the case against the British
Phonographic Industry but now says she can't afford to
take it through the courts.
She has instead made a settlement offer of £2,500.
Mrs Price said: "They (the BPI) should have sent
something to saying 'If you keep doing this we will fine
you' - they should have sent a warning first."
She said it could take her 10 years to pay off the fine in
monthly instalments of around £20.
Her daughter Emily, 14, downloaded 1,400 songs on to

her computer over two years.
"

You missed a vital part

Originally Posted by Other Website

Due to the girl's age, her mother Sylvia Price is legally responsible for the bill. Price has until 1 July to make the payment. If she is unable to pay by the July deadline, the fee will rise to £4,000.

They essentially held the Daughter to blame (not the connection owner) but transferred it to the mother because the Daughter is a Minor.

Had she just said, all Shaggy-like "It wasn't me" then she might have gotten away with it.

Also I would counter claim that the £2,500 to stop us taking you to court is extortion.

Anything to do with this by any chance? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11..._filesharing_/

EDIT: And would this be the letter your client has just received? http://regmedia.co.uk/2008/11/19/davenport_letter.jpg

[the_lone_wolf]

just tell them he wasn't in at the time and his laser printer must have downloaded it

[yorkie_chris]

So then, what's the precedent for people who are downloading and sharing mp3 and films?
For me once a film or album's finished downloading it's probably still on the torrent client for 24 hours or so (gentleman, me).

One for the geeks, and the law-talkin-guys, is can you get a Swiss-ISP? One who'll nicely redirect any requests for IP information... like to "face-bothered.com" perhaps? Or are they bound by law to reveal who you are?

What about rerouting your connection through somewhere else like a proxy? Or will they just surrender your actual IP too?

Tell them where to go. Getting an adequate level of proof for the court that this chap did it, as opposed to a trojan, someone "borrowing" his wireless, it being planted maliciously etc. particularly so long ago is nearly impossible. It's very time consuming, expensive and difficult to prove even when the police kick down the door and seize the PC almost instantly after the alledged offence took place, with a trained computer forensics bod in tow. Six months after the supposed offence, on a machine attached to a wireless network, where they haven't even been able to sieze the machine concerned? They have no chance and even an extremely shoddy defence expert witness could get this thrown out very quickly.

Soulkiss' point about intentionally leaving something poorly secured as an intentional defence is an interesting one. It's an area I'm interested in and spend a fair amount of time studying/researching* (because I've yet to see a sensible way of addressing this in law, rather than anything nefarious).

On the subject of the non-disclosure of encryption keys, it works nicely in theory, but there are very few (only one, last time I checked) cases where it has been used. There are also several "defences" that would stop a court in their tracks, again like the poorly secured defence, I see no reasonable way of addressing this for the prosecution, short of literally torturing the info out of the person. Even then, there are ways the individual can pretend to co-operate, but trash it.

*I work in a related field and am working on a few academic papers on the subject.

Originally Posted by Luckypants

Or is your client aledging that someone hi-jacked his internet connection because his wireless network was not secured?

yes.

And mini matt, yes that's the one.

[yorkie_chris]

So is the response "F##k off and prove it, see y'all in court" gonna work?

I watch this thread with interest.