4 ms·

Can that really be right? One out of every 1535 people in America?

by corin_ 15y ago

chopsueyar 15y ago
None of these 200,000 actually went to court. It is fairly inexpensive to mail a letter.
bricestacey 15y ago
That is the claim, since 2010. Now, modify the number to account for average household size.
pitdesi 15y ago
One out of every 1200 Internet users (source: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=number+of+internet+users+in+USA http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=number+of+internet+user...) The real question is why do you think that can't be right? It's too high? I'm surprised it hasn't happened to one of my friends. Looking at the spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B8oEqWOAwM3SM2Y1Y2NmNWMtY2M0Yy00MGExLWJkMjctMGFmMjg3OWZjY2U4&hl=en_US https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B8oEqWOAwM3SM2Y1Y2NmNWMtY2M...) It seems that it is mostly people who download porn. And Hurt Locker, Cry, and Expendables
- benatkin 15y ago
  > The real question is why do you think that can't be right? It's too high? I'm surprised it hasn't happened to one of my friends. Exactly my initial thought. But now that I think about it, at 1 in 1200, I'm not surprised that it hasn't happened to one of my friends, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened to one of my friends.
dangrossman 15y ago
I believe it. Just two months ago I received one of these letters alleging I downloaded a game over BitTorrent, showing an IP address and how many bytes of the file I supposedly seeded. Problem was it wasn't my IP and I had never heard of the game. I had to fax Comcast's "Security" department to verify that the IP address in question had never been assigned to a modem on my account... Yet Comcast told the copyright holder I was their John Doe.
- chadgeidel 15y ago
  As an aside - what do you do to keep track of your IP? I have a consumer-grade router (running Tomato firmware) between "the world" and myself, so the router actually gets the IP. Is there some automated solution to keep track of this? Thanks.
  - dangrossman 15y ago
    I've had Comcast at 5 different apartments and only once did my IP address ever change while living at the same address, after a prolonged maintenance period when they ran new physical cables in my neighborhood. The IPs are semi-static, and I would notice immediately if my IP changed since I have deny requests from any IP but my own to several webpages of mine. Plus the IP address in the copyright infringement notice had a rdns hostname corresponding to an entirely different state.
    - chadgeidel 15y ago
      I've got Qwest/CenturyLink and they change my IP quite frequently. A month ago they were changing it once a week. In the early evening (9-10 PM local time).
  - notaddicted 15y ago
    Dynamic dns effectively keeps track of it, but it won't record it: http://dyn.com/dns/dyndns-free/ http://dyn.com/dns/dyndns-free/ On a sidenote, one way to get a new IP is to go into the router control panel and change that MAC address.

Can that really be right? One out of every 1535 people in America?

by corin_ 15y ago

Can that really be right? One out of every 1535 people in America?

chopsueyar 15y ago

None of these 200,000 actually went to court. It is fairly inexpensive to mail a letter.

bricestacey 15y ago

That is the claim, since 2010. Now, modify the number to account for average household size.

pitdesi 15y ago

One out of every 1200 Internet users (source: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=number+of+internet+users+in+USA http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=number+of+internet+user...) The real question is why do you think that can't be right? It's too high? I'm surprised it hasn't happened to one of my friends. Looking at the spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B8oEqWOAwM3SM2Y1Y2NmNWMtY2M0Yy00MGExLWJkMjctMGFmMjg3OWZjY2U4&hl=en_US https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B8oEqWOAwM3SM2Y1Y2NmNWMtY2M...) It seems that it is mostly people who download porn. And Hurt Locker, Cry, and Expendables

benatkin 15y ago
> The real question is why do you think that can't be right? It's too high? I'm surprised it hasn't happened to one of my friends. Exactly my initial thought. But now that I think about it, at 1 in 1200, I'm not surprised that it hasn't happened to one of my friends, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened to one of my friends.

dangrossman 15y ago

I believe it. Just two months ago I received one of these letters alleging I downloaded a game over BitTorrent, showing an IP address and how many bytes of the file I supposedly seeded. Problem was it wasn't my IP and I had never heard of the game. I had to fax Comcast's "Security" department to verify that the IP address in question had never been assigned to a modem on my account... Yet Comcast told the copyright holder I was their John Doe.

chadgeidel 15y ago
As an aside - what do you do to keep track of your IP? I have a consumer-grade router (running Tomato firmware) between "the world" and myself, so the router actually gets the IP. Is there some automated solution to keep track of this? Thanks.
- dangrossman 15y ago
  I've had Comcast at 5 different apartments and only once did my IP address ever change while living at the same address, after a prolonged maintenance period when they ran new physical cables in my neighborhood. The IPs are semi-static, and I would notice immediately if my IP changed since I have deny requests from any IP but my own to several webpages of mine. Plus the IP address in the copyright infringement notice had a rdns hostname corresponding to an entirely different state.
  - chadgeidel 15y ago
    I've got Qwest/CenturyLink and they change my IP quite frequently. A month ago they were changing it once a week. In the early evening (9-10 PM local time).
- notaddicted 15y ago
  Dynamic dns effectively keeps track of it, but it won't record it: http://dyn.com/dns/dyndns-free/ http://dyn.com/dns/dyndns-free/ On a sidenote, one way to get a new IP is to go into the router control panel and change that MAC address.