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Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

telecom.csail.mit.edu

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Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#101

Post by dghlsakjg »

dylan604 wrote: post #93
Larrikin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I once "heard a story" about a very smart white guy that was retired special forces--just to put this racial thing to bed. Anyway, this guy lived in a subdivision that did not get cable. The cable company said there were not enough subscribers to justify the expense of the construction to bring them service. So mister special forces takes it upon himself to string a cable himself, and then decided to bring cable to t…

Did this happen in the lower mainland?

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#102

Post by DiggyJohnson »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #96
wkat4242 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of incidents involving firearms is astonishing. I'm glad I live in Europe where literally nobody has guns except police and heavy criminals that only really use them to shoot their rivals. I thought most people in the US were proud of their firearm handling professionalism which of course includes not brandishing, threatening or murdering people. I'm really a bit surprised to hear this. I did a similar job…

> I thought most people in the US were proud of their firearm handling professionalism which of course includes not brandishing or murdering people. I take it you have not actually visited the United States.

It seems like you’re the one that hasn’t been here.

That’s a shocking number of gun related incidents in the GP. Seems like accessing TV/internet must be an issue like road rage that brings out the absolute worst in people. People don’t go around popping shots at technicians or waving their weapons around in the US.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#103

Post by aidenn0 »

emodendroket wrote: post #15
Hizonner wrote: post #7

While Comcast should get plenty of blame here, it's also true that it's flat out dereliction of duty for a prosecutor to file a case based on nothing but an uninvestigated complaint from some random corporation. At least Comcast made some attempt to fix it... and also got stonewalled by the State's Attorney's office.

You know, I've had similar thoughts about the Hertz debacle where people were thrown in jail for having rented cars and used them as agreed. I don't think if I made a phone call to the local police department and told them so-and-so stole my car they'd throw them in jail without asking any questions (at least I hope not). Why is Hertz any different?

If you lend a car to a friend and then report it stolen, your friend will absolutely end up in jail.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#104

Post by kmeisthax »

wkat4242 wrote: post #89
thatoneguy wrote: post #31

I was a "broadband technician" around then and AT&T Broadband did not give AF if you were stealing cable or not. I only handled cable modem installs and quit after a year to go major in philosophy and because: - Getting quietly threatened once (with AR-15 up against the customer's front door) on a troubleshooting call that I wasn't able to leave until "the internet started working". - Having to increasingly go do cab…

The amount of incidents involving firearms is astonishing. I'm glad I live in Europe where literally nobody has guns except police and heavy criminals that only really use them to shoot their rivals. I thought most people in the US were proud of their firearm handling professionalism which of course includes not brandishing, threatening or murdering people. I'm really a bit surprised to hear this. I did a similar job…

You're right that the US is very proud of their trigger and muzzle discipline. Or at least half of it. The other half points loaded guns with the safeties off directly at their own crotches to own the libs[0].

Going a layer deeper, Americans really, really love to abuse the shit out of customer service workers. To put it extremely charitably, we're used to being fucked by corpos so we pre-emptively fuck them back in the dumbest way possible. Less charitably, our country has a bunch of bullies that want to shout at anything they can bully. I don't think they'd actually pull the trigger, but, y'know, law of large numbers, times small but non-zero probability of homicide by virtue a gun being present on the scene equals probably at least one murdered cable tech.

[0] https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/28/holographic-nano-layer-ca...

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#105

Post by qingcharles »

Eisenstein wrote: post #5

Anyone have a link to the 'Multichannel News' article? The link is dead and archive.org doesn't have a snapshot. Edit: I found it https://www.nexttv.com/news/get-cable-modem-go-jail-142544

Ah, good detective work. I was trying to find the print magazine, and this is the best I could find:

https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Cahners+Busine...

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#106

Post by aidenn0 »

icedchai wrote: post #51

I remember getting a cease-and-desist letter, registered mail, from @Home because I was running a server off of my cable modem. Still, it was pretty amazing at the time! A 3 megabit connection (only 128K upstream, IIRC) in 1998 was nothing to sneeze at...

Most ISPs still have clauses forbidding running servers on non-business accounts; they just don't pursue them much

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#107

Post by dghlsakjg »

emodendroket wrote: post #26
quickthrower2 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

= always have $10,000+ liquid on hand in case you need to?

The article gives an estimate closer to $1000, which sounds likely in what sounds like a pretty straightforward case.

The article is 24 years old...

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#108

Post by senkora »

russell_h wrote: post #64

I don’t understand why she would have to sign a waiver absolving Comcast in order to have her criminal record expunged. What am I missing?

I know nothing about law, but I thought maybe expunging the record was like “garbage collecting” the records of the case, which would make it impossible to reference them in future litigation, such as the counter-litigation against Comcast.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#109

Post by noduerme »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #96
wkat4242 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of incidents involving firearms is astonishing. I'm glad I live in Europe where literally nobody has guns except police and heavy criminals that only really use them to shoot their rivals. I thought most people in the US were proud of their firearm handling professionalism which of course includes not brandishing, threatening or murdering people. I'm really a bit surprised to hear this. I did a similar job…

> I thought most people in the US were proud of their firearm handling professionalism which of course includes not brandishing or murdering people. I take it you have not actually visited the United States.

In fairness, everyone I know in the US who owns firearms - which is basically everyone I know here - takes safety and knowledge of the laws around storing/carrying/brandishing/firing them very seriously. But the sheer scale of the US population and the absolute number of guns is just difficult to conceive of from a European perspective. We have something like 60 privately owned guns in this country for every person in the Czech Republic. So even if only 1% of our gun-owning population were irresponsible or criminal with them, it would still add up to a lot of deaths every day.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#110

Post by Zuiii »

dylan604 wrote: post #91
tzs wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has nothing to do with copyright.

Right. Its using a service without paying for it which is theft if proven that it was done intentionally. Not sure how copyright was brought into this conversation.

No, it can't be theft unless the service provider lost the channel being "stolen" to the "thief" which makes no sense. Things quickly become silly when we insist on using the wrong concept where it doesn't apply.

Charges like disrupting business operations or unauthorized access I can see, but theft? nah.

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