[caveman_nige]

Around 15,000 suspected pirates may soon get legal letters accusing them of illegally sharing movies and games.

ACS:Law plans to send notes to the accused in the new year offering a chance to settle out of court for "several hundreds of pounds".

A lawyer who has defended people who have received similar letters described it as a "scattergun approach" that would catch "innocent people".

ACS:Law said it was "unaware" of anyone who had been wrongly sent a letter.

Andrew Crossley of the firm told BBC News it was acting to "eradicate" sharing of its client's products.

"We give them opportunity to enter into compromise right at the start to avoid having to deal with it [in court]," said Mr Crossley.

If it went to court and the lawyers were successful, he said, damages "would run into several thousands of pounds".

But consumer group Which? said that it had heard from around 150 consumers who had been "wrongly accused" in similar cases.

"A lot are accused of downloading pornography," Jaclyn Clarabut of Which? told BBC News. "People find it distressing or embarrassing and pay up."

Others, she said, "don't want the threat of court action" hanging over them or cannot afford to pay for a lawyer and settle the claim for the lower figure.

We estimate that commencing in the New Year we will be despatching circa 15,000 letters in relation to these two orders
Andrew Crossley

She said that based on previous experience, "a lot of people will be surprised" by the latest wave of letters.

Michael Coyle, lawyer at Southampton based firm Lawdit, described the scheme as "having very little to do with protecting the rights of the copyright holder".

Instead, he said, it was "more to do with making money from alleging copyright infringements on a massive scale".

He has represented several hundred clients who have received letters from ACS: Law and other firms. None of his clients has ever been forced by a court to pay a fine, he said, although some clients had decided to settle out of court.

"This scattergun approach to the file sharing litigation will inevitably result in a large number of innocent parties being issued with a claim for copyright infringement."

ACS: Law are "currently under investigation" by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), but a spokesperson said it could not divulge any more details about the nature of the complaints. The Law Society has also received complaints.

Mr Crossley said his firm had been targeted by an "internet campaign" and was cooperating with the inquiries.

"It doesn't of itself indicate that I have done anything wrong," he said. "I have no qualms or concerns about what I am doing."

Data harvest

ACS: Law recently obtained two High Court orders that require ISPs to hand over the names and addresses of the account holders for 30,000 IP addresses, a number which can identify a computer on the internet. It is currently preparing three more.

The orders were obtained on behalf of two German clients: DigiProtect and MediaCat.
Mouse and keyboard
Which? say innocent people have been caught out in similar cases

Both firms are licensees of copyright work. They act on behalf of copyright holders, including various pornography studios, to pursue alleged copyright infringements.

They use software to monitor file sharing networks to harvest IP addresses which are then turned over to law firms to get account details.

"We state that they [the alleged file-sharers] have made available to others via peer-to-peer file-sharing networks various products that they have rights in," said Mr Crossley.

He said these included "games, films and music".

"We estimate that commencing in the New Year we will be despatching circa 15,000 letters in relation to these two orders," he said.

The letters would be used to tell the alleged "file-sharer" that they were thought to have infringed copyright.

It would also inform recipients that a claim may be made against them in court and would "invite" them "to enter into a compromise to avoid any litigation."

The amount would vary, he said, but was typically £300-500.

The money is split between the copyright holder, licensee, the firm monitoring IP addresses and ACS: Law, which operates on a no win, no fee basis.

'Spoof' address

Concerns have been raised about the technology used to identify IP addresses.

Which? has highlighted various examples of innocent people accused by firms such as DigiProtect .

"Many have never heard of peer-to-peer file sharing," said Ms Clarabut.

ILLEGAL FILE-SHARING
File-sharing is not illegal. It only becomes illegal when users are sharing content, such as music, that is protected by copyrights.
The crackdown will be aimed at people who regularly use technologies, such as BitTorrent, and websites, such as The Pirate Bay, to find and download files.
There are plenty of legitimate services which use file-sharing technology such as some on-demand TV services.


"Some are accused of downloading video games but never played a game in their life."

A study published in 2008 by Which? highlighted the case of Scottish couple Gill and Ken Murdoch, aged 54 and 66, who were accused of sharing a video game.

At the time, Mrs Murdoch told Which?: "We do not have, and have never had, any computer game or sharing software."

The letters were sent by another law firm, which no longer represents DigiProtect. Mr Crossley said the Murdochs had been identified because the ISP gave the lawyers the wrong information about the account.

Mr Crossley admitted the account holder may not be the person sharing files illegally. As a result, he said, the letter, would also invite the recipient to name the person they thought was responsible.

The growing popularity of wi-fi means many people share an internet connection. Recent studies have also shown that many people do not password protect their wi-fi connections, meaning they can be hijacked and used for nefarious means.

In addition, technology exists that can hide or "spoof" an IP address.

Mr Crossley said that "spoofing" did not apply for file sharing purposes.

Expert analysis

Mr Coyle said he also had reservations about the methods used to identify people and said they had never been challenged in court by experts.

"The last thing they want is this software being examined in a court of Law - it would shoot the goose that lays the Golden Egg," he said.

No court case has ever been fully decided from a letter sent by ACS: Law, he said.

Although Mr Crossley admitted the software had never been analysed in court, he denied it had never been scrutinised.

"Every application submitted to court is supported by an expert report," he said.

The report was compiled by "an independent expert" and confirmed that the "data being collected is accurate".

"That is the starting point for us," said Mr Crossley. "It is very important for us to be accurate. If it is not, everything that comes from that data must be flawed."

Similar concerns are currently being outlined to the UK government which recently outlined how it plans to tackle illegal file-sharers.

The Digital Economy bill recently had its first reading and includes a plan to disconnect persistent offenders.



source:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8381097.stm

[mad al]

I heard this on the radio yesterday. Someone obviously needs more cash.

[dctyper]

well if i recieve a letter i will ask to go to court

[Meat-Head]

Originally Posted by dctyper well if i recieve a letter i will ask to go to court

Just for a few seconds only

OFF TOPIC:
True story, man breaking into a car, so the woman grabbs her cam-corder and films him, anyway the guy goes, she took the film to the police station and they said, not excat words but "Sorry duck, you breached his human rights by not telling him you was fiiming him, take you film and put it whwere the sun don't shine, have a shitty day".

ON TOPIC:

So if you get a letter let us know more.

[radioham]

Originally Posted by mad al I heard this on the radio yesterday. Someone obviously needs more cash.

Must be a MP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Cheers Chas.

[paulthecarper]

had one of those letters about a year ago
told me the time that the file was downloaded and the name
the house was empty at that time
wrote back and told them that and it could be proved
they sent letter back and said they were indiscution with their
clients heard nothing since they asked for five hunndred pound at the start

[stonedagain]

If it wasn't for file sharing, everyone would switch to a cheaper or free broadband package.

[Bulld0g]

Originally Posted by paulthecarper had one of those letters about a year ago told me the time that the file was downloaded and the name the house was empty at that time wrote back and told them that and it could be proved they sent letter back and said they were indiscution with their clients heard nothing since they asked for five hunndred pound at the start

£5oo for what ?

[^^TommyTee]

another attept too scare,confuse, and criminalise the individual

the isp,s have a responsability

lets hope wifi is developed with much greater range capability

what a joke

[chroma]

my reply will be fairly straightforward.

"whats a download?"
"ive noticed my connection has been really slow lately and the man on the phone said there wasnt a problem, could this be people stealing my interwebs?"

"ive heard people talking on the webs in those cyber room things about 'wifi security' whats this? could it be related? how do i know if my gubbins is securitied?"

Then when they replay back as to secured wifi i'll just tell them "oh those option thingies over the internet in my box? they stoped a few of my devices working so i followed some webpage and turned em off i think... i dont really know it all seemed very difficult to understand what with all those star trek words, now everything works fine though."

The bottom line is these companies have the burden of proof, if you act like you require supervised help to eat a choc ice it doesnt make their jobs any easier.
With a well rigged directional antenna and direct line of sight wifi can be operated from a looooooong distance away, some ausies are accessing wifi over 30miles away.

with an unsecured wifi router and well maintained logs theres absoloutly no way they can prove you did a damned thing.

[waqasahmed]

Well, apart from the fact they could search your HDD Then again Id rather go out, get a HDD, destroy my old one, dont run ANY illegal software and then they have no evidence do they

[crowbareight]

If they come looking for me , I reckon they will need to take the rest of my County as well !!!
Ahmm South Armagh Ring any bells !!! Every other person is doing something dodgey here !!! Doing the double, no car tax,drink & driving, all night pubs ! Its a crooks Utopia !
Were that illeagal they just lift the innocent instead !!
They have only just got around to getting us to tax our cars now & get a telly licence !
Crikey it could be 20 years before they get us sorted out !
They are even doing away with less cops on the streets !
So they think a letter is gonna suck us in !!!
Another fire lighter for free !!
& didn't have to burn the cover of FHM !!

[chroma]

Originally Posted by waqasahmed Well, apart from the fact they could search your HDD Then again Id rather go out, get a HDD, destroy my old one, dont run ANY illegal software and then they have no evidence do they

you dont need to destroy it physicaly

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=1024

This just performs a zero write (every part of your hard drive will be overwritten with zeros)

Theres a windows version of dd but as far as i know the syntax will differ dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=c:\ bs=1m assuming that the windows variant has a virtual /dev/random or /dev/zero stream built in.
I also dont know how fast a virtual implementation would be (in unix/linux dev/zero opearattes faster than most write speeds so your limited only by how fast the drive can be written to)
Anyway straying from the point here.

The point is performing a low level zero format makes a drive completely unrecoverable.
The tinfoil hat brigade diffagree and suggest that "space aliens" and "NSA forensic speialists" can recover the data via scanning the platter(s) with an electron microscope.
This has never actualy been demonstrated or proven and unless you had some seriously sensitive data i figure the NSA would for go the expense of spending months opticaly retreiving every bit from a drive using a very expensive bit of kit. considering that even if they did spend all those manhours they might not actualy retreive anything useful.

[bvilleuk]

Originally Posted by chroma you dont need to destroy it physicaly dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=1024 This just performs a zero write (every part of your hard drive will be overwritten with zeros) Theres a windows version of dd but as far as i know the syntax will differ dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=c:\ bs=1m assuming that the windows variant has a virtual /dev/random or /dev/zero stream built in. I also dont know how fast a virtual implementation would be (in unix/linux dev/zero opearattes faster than most write speeds so your limited only by how fast the drive can be written to) Anyway straying from the point here. The point is performing a low level zero format makes a drive completely unrecoverable. The tinfoil hat brigade diffagree and suggest that "space aliens" and "NSA forensic speialists" can recover the data via scanning the platter(s) with an electron microscope. This has never actualy been demonstrated or proven and unless you had some seriously sensitive data i figure the NSA would for go the expense of spending months opticaly retreiving every bit from a drive using a very expensive bit of kit. considering that even if they did spend all those manhours they might not actualy retreive anything useful.

So I don't have to hide the Porn then ??!!

[Raven]

Originally Posted by bvilleuk So I don't have to hide the Porn then ??!!

Lol, best not to take any chances just tie that hard drive to a brick and dump it in the canal - or douse it in lighter fluid and chuck it a lit match.....just don't try this at home!