[geeks] FBI vs. bandwidth thieves

[Tim H.]

On Thu, 27 Jun 2002 17:30:39 -0400
Kurt Huhn <kurt at k-huhn.com> wrote:

> Yeah, if cable companies cared to keep *real* engineers on staff
> instead of MCSE boot-camp graduates, they might know that.  Limiting
> bandwidth per originating IP on your network isn't exactly difficult
> to do.  Fuck, but I get fed up with cable companies...

My thought when I brought up the question was along the lines of this:
If the cable companies primary objective is to make money, not spend
time prosecuting people, then it would have been simple to throw a
clause in the customer service agreement (isn't it funny how that tells
a customer what they can and can't do, but there is no guarantee of
customer service in it?) that says "customers who manage to get in
excess of $X KBs transfer speeds will be charge ${$y} per MB
up/downloaded at that rate.  Then instead of getting FEDERAL LAW
ENFORCEMENT (yes I am amazed/ticked off that the FBI is even involved in
a local business matter) involved they could just send the "evil haxor"
a big fat bill.

Of course that was before I thought through the obvious implications of
trusting transfer rate regulation to a piece of hardware they let you
take home.  They probably had to call the FBI to figure out why their
upstream data bill was so big.  

I am reminded of a guy I know who bought a cable modem on eBay and
plugged it in and had free access for almost a year.  They never caught
him, but they took down his segment for maintenance, and he panicked,
thinking they had caught him, so he went in and subscribed.  That's even
dumber than not being able to regulate bandwidth, they never noticed a
foreign device on the network.

Tim