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http://www.theatlanticwire.com/tech...ll-out-their-anti-piracy-alert-systems/62520/

So far the punishments aren't very harsh, but isn't this a step in the direction of complete crackdown? Hope you didn't like downloading MP3s, TV shows, Movies or Games if you have one of those providers. But wait, can't you just switch providers? Well considering those companies own 75% of the US online coverage? Probably not.

All I can say is I'm counting the days to Google Fiber. It's just going to crush all the competition in every city it enters even more with this news.

That's pretty absurd.

stienman said:

That's pretty absurd.

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Friends of mine are already getting the Time Warner Cable warnings. So that means they're already on strike 3-4.

Now I'm going to have to be more careful when I download season four of downton abbey.

stienman said:

Now I'm going to have to be more careful when I download season four of downton abbey.

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How could you be more careful if your ISP is the one pretty much introducing SOPA to it's customers?

I know you're not being serious but this could really hit alot of people hard. I guarantee as the warnings increase, so will the backlash. I don't think the ISPs realize what they've started.

Wait, what happens if you're playing an MMO that distributes patches via torrent/peer and you download part of your legally-bought patch from an IP address associated with piracy because that's how the patching system works?

I'm counting down to Google Fiber as well, because hopefully they can break this fucking "monopoly" and make it so that Canada doesn't have the highest internet prices in the world.

Your internet prices are higher than ours?

...well, shit.

SpecialKO said:

Wait, what happens if you're playing an MMO that distributes patches via torrent/peer and you download part of your legally-bought patch from an IP address associated with piracy because that's how the patching system works?

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I'm guessing a warning? It's supposedly a 6 strike system that you can call and -explain yourself- to avoid after a certain number of warnings. Like I said, this is such a stupidly blanket attempt at this, it's going to blow up in their face.

I didn't see it in that article, but are they still punishing customers based on bandwidth usage (even for legitimate reasons)?

VPN

Tress said:

I didn't see it in that article, but are they still punishing customers based on bandwidth usage (even for legitimate reasons)?

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If they are, that dam has got to break sooner or later. With legal movie streaming becoming more and more popular, the MPAA will eventually be siding with consumers for once if ISPs start limiting the ability of customers to use streaming services.

Gilgamesh said:

How could you be more careful if your ISP is the one pretty much introducing SOPA to it's customers?

I know you're not being serious but this could really hit alot of people hard. I guarantee as the warnings increase, so will the backlash. I don't think the ISPs realize what they've started.

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I was being serious. The only thing I've pirated in the last several years was downton abbey, since it had already aired in the uk, and was for sale there, but wasn't yet available in the US.

I'm annoyed at the possibility of slippery slope.

When Comcast introduced the BitTorrent slowdown years ago there was a huge outcry and they relented. I'm worried that people will pass this off as "well, you're pirating, so you deserve it" and the public will let this slip by. Then it's not much of a leap to suppose that they will again start restricting what we can use the pipe for.

I'm expecting people will get all sorts of warnings for piracy when they haven't been commiting, but that there will be no real recourse.

I'm expecting them to start blocking servers on home ip addresses to address piracy concerns.

So it's annoying that they're doing this, but these companies are media companies now, so they've got hands in each others pockets, and there's simply not much we can do about it until it actually affects the Internet use of the average netizen.

On the other hand, the great firewall of china shows an example of how poorly such systems work, so I'm not really concerned about the impact to piracy, I'm simply concerned about the possible impact to other useful services and Internet development.

stienman said:

On the other hand, the great firewall of china shows an example of how poorly such systems work, so I'm not really concerned about the impact to piracy, I'm simply concerned about the possible impact to other useful services and Internet development.

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This! So much this.

The biggest pirates are still going to figure out a way to pirate. Average people are just going to have put up with more and more restrictions on how we do stuff. This is going to hamper creativity and innovation. It's going to sour relationships between paying customers and media providers and make the system antagonistic and impede healthy growth.

SpecialKO said:

Your internet prices are higher than ours?

...well, shit.

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Well maybe not highest in the world but certainly higher than they should be:

Holy crap, Canada, does EVERYTHING have to be more expensive in you?

Que people blaming it on universal health care.

Hell TWC already throttles Youtube/TwitchTV no matter what kind of user you are, it's like they're just asking everyone in a Google Fiber city -You're already going to leave us, so let's fuck you over as much as possible until you can/do.-

Bowielee said:

Holy crap, Canada, does EVERYTHING have to be more expensive in you?

Que people blaming it on universal health care.

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We have cheaper ...

uhm

...

beavers?

And we have cheaper softwood lumber but you jerkfaced jerkfaces won't honour our free trade agreement! Jerkfaces

More expensive internet, cell phones....

Liquor, at least in Ontario...

We got that on the cheap here.

I have Charter, which I don't see on the list. Am I safe for now, and should I go on a downloading spree to stock up while I can? (I keed. Mostly.)

If only there was some kind of service you could get for a modest amount that would completely defeat any and all attempts to monitor your internet traffi-

Bowielee said:

VPN

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ghesundheit.

/sarcasm The awesome thing is how this is going to affect public Wi-Fi.

Chad Sexington said:

We have cheaper ...

uhm

...

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Doctors?

Google Fiber is slowly making it's way eastward. I can't wait till it hits Ohio and then TWC goes out of business. I use WoWWay but everyone else I know still uses TWC.

Welp I've finally been hit by Time Warner Cable's blocking. They are now throttling any kind of bitTorrent program I use and every fix I've looked for online has failed.

I have no other high speed internet options until Google Fiber comes in next year. Unbelievable.

Gilgamesh said:

Welp I've finally been hit by Time Warner Cable's blocking. They are now throttling any kind of bitTorrent program I use and every fix I've looked for online has failed.

I have no other high speed internet options until Google Fiber comes in next year. Unbelievable.

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Is that even using a VPN?

Bowielee said:

Is that even using a VPN?

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No, all I've really tried doing is encrypting the download but they've already blocked that too. Can't afford to get a VPN, I download because I can't afford certain things, guess I don't get them at all I suppose.

I2P?

Gilgamesh said:

No, all I've really tried doing is encrypting the download but they've already blocked that too. Can't afford to get a VPN, I download because I can't afford certain things, guess I don't get them at all I suppose.

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http://proxpn.com

Although the free account does limit your speed to 300kbps, no idea if that's better or worse for you.

Gilgamesh said:

No, all I've really tried doing is encrypting the download but they've already blocked that too. Can't afford to get a VPN, I download because I can't afford certain things, guess I don't get them at all I suppose.

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You can't afford ~$7/mo? How are you justifying playing WoW in your finances?

Oh and one caveat, don't go with the #1 ranked "hidemyass." Scuttlebutt on the internet says they log all connections and are regular privacy sluts about turning over logs to whoever asks for them, so really not much point in them anyway. But I hear good things about privateinternetaccess and BTguard (which is more of a proxy than a VPN really, though they do offer full vpn for slightly more).

GasBandit said:

You can't afford ~$7/mo? How are you justifying playing WoW in your finances?

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Because I wasn't aware it was that cheap?

Installed proXPN, installed, ran it.

10kb a second throttled.....

Also equally important is WHERE you are torrenting. Are you just doing public torrents, like off piratebay or some other such place? A private tracker goes a long way. I can get you an IPTorrents.com invite, but bear in mind they're real sticklers for UL/DL ratio. As in, they want you to maintain a better than 1.0 ratio (seeding at LEAST as much as you download).[DOUBLEPOST=1374863354][/DOUBLEPOST]

Gilgamesh said:

Installed proXPN, installed, ran it.

10kb a second throttled.....

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Of course, if your ISP is just throttling all torrent-type activity no matter the IP, you might be out of luck at this point and have to wait for them to lift your cap. But I'd be surprised if they did that, it'd make patching games like WOW practically unworkable since they use a modified BT client for distributed patching.

VPNs are more about not getting caught... but you're already caught.

GasBandit said:

I can get you an IPTorrents.com invite

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Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your tracker.

NSA said:

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your tracker.

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Sure, just shoot me an e-mail at MaybeTryReadingTheConstitution@FirstAgainstTheWallWhenTheRevolutionComes.com.

... for links to decent spoofers. Be damned if I'm going to be throttled over an occasional "patch" and "free-to-play" download...

Officer_Charon said:

... for links to decent spoofers. Be damned if I'm going to be throttled over an occasional "patch" and "free-to-play" download...

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Welp I'm switching ISPs now (new service gets connected on Monday). Same speed but this time I'll be using a VPN until Google Fiber comes along. Luckily I'll be paying the same per month, yet have a few better options for the TV service and DVRs. This ISP also throttles torrents if they -catch- you so I'll just have to stick with VPNs for now.

Unless you've heard something I haven't yet, Google Fiber may be a long way off. They do one city at a time, and the cities have to climb over each other offering google deals/breaks to get them to come.

My area was up for Google fiber, and despite intense lobbying, was unable to get it.

GasBandit said:

Unless you've heard something I haven't yet, Google Fiber may be a long way off. They do one city at a time, and the cities have to climb over each other offering google deals/breaks to get them to come.

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It's eventually going to happen though, unless Time Warner and Comcast wake up and start matching service and price. It may take a few years, but it's going to be nationwide eventually unless something stops them.

AshburnerX said:

It's eventually going to happen though, unless Time Warner and Comcast wake up and start matching service and price. It may take a few years, but it's going to be nationwide eventually unless something stops them.

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It's not expanding very fast. "Matter of years" is a little optimistic. Even at this point, they still only have Kansas City done, and have only started to preliminarily to expand into Austin and Provo. Given that there are 19,355 "incorporated" entities (Cities, towns, etc) in the United States, at the rate they're going (if they finish Austin and Provo this year, it'll be average of 1 city per year since rollout), that works out to be just over 53 years at the most optimistic of estimates.

Not exactly a blowtorch lit under existing cable and telecom companies.

I know, I know.



(it's surprisingly hard to find a picture of an actual wet blanket on google image search)

AshburnerX said:

It's eventually going to happen though, unless Time Warner and Comcast wake up and start matching service and price. It may take a few years, but it's going to be nationwide eventually unless something stops them.

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I don't believe we'll ever see it here in bumfuck, Florida. We don't even have the usual jerks like Time Warner or Cox. Out here it's satellite if you want tv, and verizon 4G cellular if you want internet.

GasBandit - Austin (where I live) is the recently confirmed Google Fiber city, so yeah, I'm just biding my time for 7 months.

Ravenpoe said:

I don't believe we'll ever see it here in bumfuck, Florida. We don't even have the usual jerks like Time Warner or Cox. Out here it's satellite if you want tv, and verizon 4G cellular if you want internet.

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Eventually wireless internet is going to be better than it is now in a decade or two and could potentially be as ambiguous ubiquitous as cellphone coverage. So you might not have the best connection, but eventually you'll have something bearable.

AshburnerX said:

Eventually wireless internet is going to be better than it is now in a decade or two and could potentially be as ambiguous ubiquitous as cellphone coverage. So you might not have the best connection, but eventually you'll have something bearable.

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FTFY.

Also, I have little to no experience with trackers/VPNs/etc, so I won't be of much use.

--Patrick

AshburnerX said:

Eventually wireless internet is going to be better than it is now in a decade or two and could potentially be as ambiguous as cellphone coverage. So you might not have the best connection, but eventually you'll have something bearable.

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As far as speed goes, it's not too shabby, but the data caps terrible.

I actually set up my own VPN for my mobile devices to connect to when out on the road, so I can stream content to my tablet anywhere with a wifi internet connection (my phone's 3g, a teensy bit too slow for streaming video) using VLC's streaming without... you know, exposing my whole home network to the internet at large.

GasBandit said:

they're real sticklers for UL/DL ratio. As in, they want you to maintain a better than 1.0 ratio (seeding at LEAST as much as you download).

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I never quite understood this. I mean, I understand not wanting a bunch of leeches DLing without UPing, but isn't it technically impossible for all users to be over a 1.0 ratio?

Bubble181 said:

I never quite understood this. I mean, I understand not wanting a bunch of leeches DLing without UPing, but isn't it technically impossible for all users to be over a 1.0 ratio?

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It depends on how it's counted. If each torrent has to be 1.0 or greater, it means that you have to leave all your torrents up until they reach 1.0 so it effectively means that they count active seeds as following the rule even if they are below 1.0.

If they count a global upload value, then you are right, they have to actively seed popular things so that over time they'll obtain a 10-20 seeding rate which will account for their less than 1.0 rate on less popular things.

If everyone downloaded everything, then yes, one could never get to 1.0. But because people have tastes and only download a relatively small amount of stuff relative to what's available, then it's still possible, mathematically.

Bubble181 said:

I never quite understood this. I mean, I understand not wanting a bunch of leeches DLing without UPing, but isn't it technically impossible for all users to be over a 1.0 ratio?

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Their exact policy is a bit complex. Overall, they want you to maintain a 1.0+ global average, but don't actually start threatening to kick you until you get to 0.5 or so. They also have an individual 1.0 quota for every individual torrent. This would normally be extremely difficult, but some torrents are tagged as "freeleech" which means they are exempt from quotas and don't add to your download byte count. So a good way to raise your ratio is to get a popular freeleech-enabled torrent and seed it for a long time. Additionally, the more you seed, the more "bonus points" you generate even if no peers are actually downloading what you're seeding. You can spend 50 bonus points to "zap" a hit'n'run (a torrent you haven't gotten to 1.0 ratio yet) so you can stop torrenting it without it showing up on your "you stopped seeding the following torrents too early, dipshit" list, or you can spend them to buy upload credit at about a 10mb-1bp ratio.

So, all that comes together to give me a 3.0+ ratio with 7431 bonus points, though it used to be higher. I think how it works is you have to be 1.0 to send invites, make requests and other stuff... they call that rank "super user." Below 1.0 you get just regular "user" and can still download torrents, but if you slip to below 0.5 or maybe it was 0.3 (I don't remember exactly) they demote you to "peasant," send you a nasty e-mail and give you 2 weeks to fix your ratio before they delete your account. And restrict you to freeleech torrents only.