Discussion
A neighbour of mine has recently been sent a bill for his broadband service which was more than expected due to the download limit being exceeded by some margin. After checking with the supplier it would appear that someone has been streaming data in the early hours of the morning although they refused to tell him what it was. He has been told he is liable and as such is going to pay. For my own interest does anyone know the legalities around this. Does the supplier have to tell him what was being down loaded if he asks? Is he liable? Also is it possible to tell who is doing it and is it actually illegal?
I got laptop for my wife to use a couple of months ago...soon after I had the same experience - almost a months allowance used in a couple of days!
Eventually after my ISP did all kinds of checks (Zen are fantastic for service) a computer guru friend discovered that the laptop was continually 'updating' Apps even when we thought is was switched off.
He turned them all (14) off - no problems since.
Got a new Orange £8-99 per month deal - found it was taking £12 ish monthly - called Orange "The extra is for the Apps!" - I told them I would not know an App if it crawled up and bit me on the arse...£10 credited to my account
Beware!
Eventually after my ISP did all kinds of checks (Zen are fantastic for service) a computer guru friend discovered that the laptop was continually 'updating' Apps even when we thought is was switched off.
He turned them all (14) off - no problems since.
Got a new Orange £8-99 per month deal - found it was taking £12 ish monthly - called Orange "The extra is for the Apps!" - I told them I would not know an App if it crawled up and bit me on the arse...£10 credited to my account
Beware!
Pub lawyering beware!
It's rather easy to just crack the password used to connect if is not strong enough. Didn't realise that download limits in broadband still existed these days
.
Wikipedia said:
In London, 2005, Gregory Straszkiewicz was the first person to be convicted of a related crime, "dishonestly obtaining an electronics communication service" (under s.125 Communications Act 2003). Local residents complained that he was repeatedly trying to gain access to residential networks with a laptop from a car. There was no evidence that he had any other criminal intent.[16] He was fined £500 and given a 12-month conditional discharge.[17]
Was the router password just his name? Gah! I think he should report but doubt anything will happen after it. Is the router logging stuff? You could probably tell if wasn't something on your network that used the allowance (many caveats on this statement though!)It's rather easy to just crack the password used to connect if is not strong enough. Didn't realise that download limits in broadband still existed these days
.A man received the following text from his neighbour:
“I am so sorry Charlie. I've been riddled with guilt and I have to confess. I have been tapping your wife, day and night when you're not around. In fact, more than you. I'm not getting any at home, but that's no excuse. I can no longer live with the guilt and I hope you will accept my sincerest apology with my promise that it won't happen again.”
The man, anguished and betrayed, immediately went into his bedroom, grabbed his gun, and without a word, shot his wife and killed her.
A few moments later, a second text came in: “Damn autocorrect. I meant ‘WiFi’ not ‘wife’.”
“I am so sorry Charlie. I've been riddled with guilt and I have to confess. I have been tapping your wife, day and night when you're not around. In fact, more than you. I'm not getting any at home, but that's no excuse. I can no longer live with the guilt and I hope you will accept my sincerest apology with my promise that it won't happen again.”
The man, anguished and betrayed, immediately went into his bedroom, grabbed his gun, and without a word, shot his wife and killed her.
A few moments later, a second text came in: “Damn autocorrect. I meant ‘WiFi’ not ‘wife’.”
http://www.lovelyish.com/2012/09/04/10-hilarious-m...
Worth clicking on the eight other images and also reading the comments
Worth clicking on the eight other images and also reading the comments
Devil2575 said:
A neighbour of mine has recently been sent a bill for his broadband service which was more than expected due to the download limit being exceeded by some margin. After checking with the supplier it would appear that someone has been streaming data in the early hours of the morning although they refused to tell him what it was. He has been told he is liable and as such is going to pay. For my own interest does anyone know the legalities around this. Does the supplier have to tell him what was being down loaded if he asks? Is he liable? Also is it possible to tell who is doing it and is it actually illegal?
If someone is using it without permission that is illegal, but it's not going to help him. His router may be able to show the MAC addresses (unique identifier used by the network card) that have been connected recently, and he can tally these off against his own devices to see if it really is wifi theft vs one of his own devices doing something. But bear in mind that any visitors who have used the network with permission will also show up, and he'll have no way of knowing what was legitimate and what wasn't.
Devil2575 said:
A neighbour of mine has recently been sent a bill for his broadband service which was more than expected due to the download limit being exceeded by some margin. After checking with the supplier it would appear that someone has been streaming data in the early hours of the morning although they refused to tell him what it was. He has been told he is liable and as such is going to pay. For my own interest does anyone know the legalities around this. Does the supplier have to tell him what was being down loaded if he asks? Is he liable? Also is it possible to tell who is doing it and is it actually illegal?
A lot of the time the ISP can only see how much data has been used and at a push what type of protocol has been using the bandwidth (P2P, streaming, VOIP etc) but they normally don't have the ability to historically check exactly what was watched, viewed etc.I've worked for a few ISP's myself and every time someone has reported they never used x amount of data, on investigation they always had.
The best excuse i had from a customer who had no WiFi and was adamant they hadn't used the data was someone must have cloned a key to their house and "broke in" to use their internet to download movies & TV shows. They never had Wireless and thought that was more likely to have happened than they using it without noticing
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hstewie said:
hstewie said: Have a look on his router and you will probably see the list of devices that it's assigned an IP address to - it's basic but if you look at that and see anything unusual it would be a start point.
As an addition to this....Get all the MAC addresses of the devices in the house some routers allow you to add 'friendly' names so they are easy recognised. So thats all PC's, tablets, phones, ipods, home automation, TV's, blu ray players, PS4's, Xbox's etc. Once all the devices are accounted for, if there are any in the list afterwards, the wifi has been 'stolen'.
Some routers may show a list of devices that have recently connected or like a history, others may only show those connected at that time of looking.
Amused2death said:
Rename the network, change the password and then hide the network.
Should stop all but the most determined.
This...Should stop all but the most determined.
Very easy to do and we have done it for my folks.
Even went as far as assigning a limit on number of devices that can attach to the router, we only increase them if we visit them.
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