Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

telecom.csail.mit.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 486 posts

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

#361

Post by icedchai »

aidenn0 wrote: post #106
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

Yes, absolutely! But you probably won't get a registered letter about it. Maybe a nasty call or an email. I remember having to call into the @Home NOC and have them re-scan my server.

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

#362

Post by robertlagrant »

what-the-grump wrote: post #343
robertlagrant wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. I like to tell the US about how we decent Europeans had to come to the US and stop two world wars that they fought in the Americas.

America has been at war for around 225 years. Most of which has been fought outside of America. We just like shooting freedom bullets on other people's land, and when we run out of problems we shoot freedom bullets at each other.

If your thesis is that America should not have entered the world wars because of reasons other than it would've saved American lives to avoid them, I'd love to hear it.

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

#363

Post by bombcar »

rsynnott wrote: post #355
bombcar wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People vastly underestimate the number of privately held firearms in Europe, and how “easy” it is to obtain one. It’s not an insurmountable obstacle, and depending on the country can range from “California difficulty” to “basically an NFA stamp” but they’re out there. Often they are not “the scary black rifle” type, but they’re still firearms. Then again, in the USA you can buy a Gatling gun and you rarely hear issue…

This is very country-dependent; in some they're actually quite common, in some they're extremely heavily restricted. In Ireland, say, you will require a legitimate reason to have one (essentially the only legitimate reasons are sports shooting, hunting, and certain farming activities), training, secure storage inspected and signed off on by the police, and permission from the police. In practice, it's so onerous that…

Exactly - gun laws are way more complicated than people assume - some countries on paper will be identical to Ireland but basically anyone can say "hunting" and the police don't do much more than just sign off on it.

And in other countries, they make no distinction between a black-powder blunderbuss and fully automatic military weapons - they're both equally hard to obtain, so the people who do get a gun end up with a select-fire rifle.

Pistols are often more heavily regulated than rifles, because they're concealable.

In the USA you can just buy a black-powder cannon if you want. Artillery not so much if it is autoloading. The "own a musket for home defense" copy pasta comes to mind.

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

#364

Post by mk67 »

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…

Literally quite a lot of people have guns in Europe though, many many millions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...

Nevertheless never heard of such a thing happening.

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

#365

Post by eequah9L »

pixl97 wrote: post #347
midasuni wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh another “The US is big” post. The EU has 30% more people There are 60 times as many privately owned guns in the EU as there are in Montana. There are 5 time as many guns in the US, but 20 times as many murders. There is a cultural problem in the US with firearms.

Nobody really lives in Montana so that's not a big surprise.

I think it's playing a similar argument as the GP with US-guns-per-Czech-person. OK, Czechia is a bigger part of Europe than Montana is of US, but it looks as if Montana was picked to show how the original argument is invalid.

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

#366

Post by PeterisP »

wl wrote: post #340
refracture wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans take pride in having them, but being properly trained in safely handling or effectively using them is optional. Try and force it and you’ll get the tyranny talk. Sadly I’ve heard many stories of cable/dish techs dealing with this nonsense.

The opposition to mandatory training is because the actual goal is usually to harass and discourage or raise revenue rather than improve safety. There's plenty that's been tried and none of it seems to have improved safety outcomes. The people who are irresponsible with guns pretty much always know better and decided to be stupid, anyway.

Well that's kind of the key point of making some rules (and training) about handling firearms, to have a legally valid reason to prohibit the irresponsible people from handling firearms if they have demonstrated that they won't, and can't use "I didn't know" as an excuse after they have decided to be stupid.

The first step, of course, is coming to an agreement whether that subpopulation of 'irreversibly irresponsible' people should have the right to bear arms or not; in USA there doesn't seem to be a consensus about that.

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

#367

Post by bryanrasmussen »

iotku wrote: post #292
Doxin wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you're not going to accidentally forget to disengage a safety at the worst possible time That's much better than the opposite problem: forgetting to engage the safety and accidentally discharging. > it does increase the risk when improperly handling the firearm I just feel like having to toggle a switch before killing a man is the least you can do to avoid accidents.

>That's much better than the opposite problem: forgetting to engage the safety and accidentally discharging. If you're following the firearm safety rules you're not pointed at anything/anybody you don't wish to destroy so it's a moot point. (yourself included, though at least in that case nobody else was harmed needlessly) A safety lockout (or lacktherof) shouldn't be a factor in your pointing of a gun at someone and…

>On the other hand some people decided that they're cautious enough and by in large most people avoid accidents and practice good safety practices to avoid harm should one happen.

ok, so the group "most people using firearms" and the group "most people using websites" do not significantly overlap is what I'm hearing?

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

#368

Post by freitzkriesler2 »

brewdad wrote: post #57
dsr_ wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all static content (and badly in need of refurbishment, which I will be responsible for) -- but, yes, please don't abuse the good folks at MIT's CSAIL who donate the hosting.

Don’t read the article before commenting? I’m way ahead of you. :)

LOST!

That's one of the things I miss about slashdot was the summary. Why click the link? I wish hacker news would implement that.

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

#369

Post by Doxin »

bombcar wrote: post #329
Doxin wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aware of firearm safety rules and all that. That's not my problem with this. My problem is that the safety on a firearm is part of a defense-in-depth type situation. Removing the safety switch removes a layer of that defense. I hope I don't need to explain why that's a bad thing on this forum.

There’s also the “if you ever pull the trigger in a situation where the safety keeps it from firing, you are doing something horribly wrong”. People often treat the safety as a “gun off” switch when it should never be considered that. I understand the Glock philosophy - no gun is “safe” until you’ve personally verified that there is no ammunition in it at all, and even then it should be treated as if it is loaded. Re…

I invite you to re-read my previous comment and meditate some on what "defense in depth" means. Of course you're not supposed to rely on the safety, but that doesn't mean it should be removed. The entire point of defense in depth is to construct things in such a manner where a single mistake is not enough to cause trouble.

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

#370

Post by smaudet »

tzs wrote: post #134
Zuiii wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is defined as theft under the laws of several states. Here are links to a few states' theft of services statutes. Pennsylvania: https://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/CT/HTM/18/00.039.02... Texas: https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/penal-code/penal-sect-31-04/ New York: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/PEN/165.15 Oregon: https://oregon.public.law/statutes/ors_164.125

Right, but nobody takes anything, the sticking point is the copyrighted content.

Unless someone tries claim you are stealing electric current, this claim of theft is absurd - first you must attach a device to the cable, then spend your time watching said device (presuming it has a screen). Until that happens, it belies belief that you have "taken" anything. After that point, one must assume somehow this is content enriching your life somehow (dubious), or that you are recording and reselling content (which would be obvious fraud, at the copyright level).

Before then, the fact is that another entity is blasting all content continuously on all their lines. That's not theft.

I'm not arguing that people should be intentionally jacking into other people's wires, or saying cable should be free for everyone, just that the legal definition of theft here is absurd. That you can then be prosecuted for something you have not done by no fault of your own except malpratice of the people involved in originally laying the lines, is ridiculous and a sure sign if cronyism and protectionism, not one of a healthy judicial system.

Post reply on HN