23 ms·

Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

513 points by resolutebat 3y ago

nazgulsenpai 3y ago
Even though this happened 25 years ago (sidenote, good God I'm getting old) it still made my blood boil. Makes you wonder how many people who weren't as proactive weren't as fortunate as to have the bogus charges dismissed.
- incompatible 3y ago
  It seems fairly tame to me, as far as historical injustices go.
  - 3-cheese-sundae 3y ago
    Sure, I suppose just about anyone could shrug off having their life ruined by an unsubstantiated criminal charge by simply framing it in the context of genocide or thermonuclear war.
    - incompatible 3y ago
      Her life was hardly ruined. She just had to spend a few hours sorting out other peoples' mistakes, which is fairly routine in my experience.
      - 3-cheese-sundae 3y ago
        You're correct, it was not, but GP was referring to those who weren't proactive or fortunate to have the bogus charges dismissed. The original poster had the time, money, and wherewithal required to document the issue, pay for legal representation, fight the case, chase expungement, and absorb the damages to her character from the remnant records of her criminal charge that remained even after expungement of official records. Far less has destroyed the livelihood of far more people.
        incompatible 3y ago
        I suppose I'm just old, and people doing stupid things isn't going to make my blood boil any more. I've accepted it by now as human nature. If you want to actually annoy me, you need to do something purely evil, like harming innocent people just to advance some stupid agenda of your own. Russians firing missiles at apartment buildings in Ukraine is a current example.
        vore 3y ago
        Or, like, someone having their life destroyed by being sent to jail for having cable internet as set up by the provider? The author clearly had the means to sort her own case out, but you can certainly imagine someone who didn't and would be in jail for it. Sure, on the scale of evil it's nowhere near the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but I don't think this is shrug your shoulder and say "tough titty" territory either. How would you like it if you were unlucky enough to not have been able to sort this out and be in jail for it? On the bright side, it's not as bad as getting your house bombed!
        incompatible 3y ago
        Certainly, there was somebody who was actually sent to jail, even after patiently explaining their case in court, and if the management of the cable provider knew exactly what was happening, and continued their persecution because of some stupid business reason, it would be more concerning. However, that's not how the story was told.
        devnullbrain 3y ago
        You wouldn't be annoyed by spending 6 months in jail? You must be old!
        incompatible 3y ago
        It would perhaps be an interesting new experience, when interesting new experiences are hard to find. But it's probably one of those things that seems more interesting in theory than it turns out to be in practice, and I'd get tired of it after a few days.
jonny_eh 3y ago
I feel like if something this dumb happened now, there'd be no way to get it resolved that quickly, and without hiring a lawyer. Getting Comcast lawyers to respond to you at all is the one bit in particular I can't picture happening.
- coding123 3y ago
  You can't even get a lawyer to call you back anymore because they're working from home too - which means they are at the beach all day with the kids, and will maybe check their voicemail in the next few days.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    Have you tried to get in touch with a handyman, or a building contractor, or a pool service guy, or a CPA, or a doctor’s office or basically any service provider lately? Nobody seems to be picking up the phone anymore in any profession. I had to leave a message on a home painter’s voice mail saying “I have a stack of cash right here that I want to give to you to paint my house! Please for fuck’s sake call me back!”
    - derefr 3y ago
      Hypothesis: most service providers were previously operating on an interruptible work stack (LIFO), because persistently-annoying people could "jump the queue." Now with work-from-home they're doing strict FIFO (as they should!); and it turns out their queue is long.
      - mindslight 3y ago
        I've got a different theory. Tradespeople prioritize based on how much a job pays. So if you haggle them down, make them deal with insurance, or your type of job doesn't command much money, they'll happily keep you in their queue as an option in case work dries up, but won't be interested in doing your job as long as they're getting paid more for doing other jobs.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Eisenstein 3y ago
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 https://www.nexttv.com/news/get-cable-modem-go-jail-142544
- qingcharles 3y ago
  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+Business+Information%22 https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Cahners+Busine...
hgsgm 3y ago
Comcast/Xfinity is a criminal organization. Hasn't changed. Don't give the your money. When's the last time an honest, reputable business changed its name? I've seen name changes in restaurants, social networks, apartment buildings, duct cleaning scammers, and it's never for a good reason.
- haggy102 3y ago
  The problem is that it's often the only choice. ISPs often have a monopoly over their territory.
  - throwaway54_56 3y ago
    I moved a mile away from my old house and had to switch cable providers. I preferred the old one, but apparently I crossed the boundary.
  - OhMeadhbh 3y ago
    Interestingly... in the UK... they did something similar to the DSL Provider / ISP split we did here in the states. So you could order cable service from one company and layer 3 from a completely different company. People tell me it's done wonders for competition there.
    - midasuni 3y ago
      Well yes. Openreach were fixing a problem with my phone like yesterday, that’s generally a monopoly. My layer 3 service is from A&A, which suits my needs. Other people probably wouldn’t want to chat with the engineers on IRC when there’s a problem though so they would go with talk talk or Bt or whatever.
      - OhMeadhbh 3y ago
        Oh man. I would have LOVED to be able to talk to Lumen engineers via IRC a couple years ago. It took about 4 1/2 months to work through the army of script-reading CS reps to get to a manager who agreed to let me talk to a tier-2 rep who immediately put me in the queue for a callback from an engineer. Within 5 minutes of talking with THAT engineer, they had enough info to realize someone had mis-keyed my account number in one of their internal tools. It took another five minutes for them to correct it and within an hour my intarwebs were working fine. I suspect that had I been able to talk to a tier-2 engineer (even if via IRC) it would have taken at most a day to resolve.
Hizonner 3y ago
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.
- shusaku 3y ago
  > In Which I Find Out that the Attorney for Comcast Actually Does Have a Sense of Humor I think the work by this attorney really did a lot to take the blame off of Comcast, which is probably why the author felt fine not suing at the end.
- emodendroket 3y ago
  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?
  - AaronM 3y ago
    Growing up my best friend dated a girl with very strict parents, who did not approve of the relationship. He was pulled over and arrested for grand theft auto. Spent three days in jail until she was convinced to make a statement at the police station and they let him go. Parents reported the car, which they must have owned, as stolen, and gave my friends description to police
    - extraduder_ire 3y ago
      I think that one is actually "malicious prosecution", as described in the article.
      - eru 3y ago
        That might be true, but good look keeping your girlfriend, if you sue their parents (even if the parents are jerks).
jandrese 3y ago
This is what life is like on the bleeding edge. In 1999 he was one of the first to "cut the cord" and it was a situation that Comcast was not yet ready to understand.
- minaminamina 3y ago
  She
- usaar333 3y ago
  Seems also like too much talking with the company. I had cable internet only around this time and for some time a trap wasn't set. Why would you tell the company? Just don't watch cable TV if you have concerns.
  - jandrese 3y ago
    That's what was tried, but Comcast still started a criminal case.
freitzkriesler2 3y ago
Holy moly blast from the past. I remember reading this on slashdot. Let's not all visit the site at the same time lest it get slashdotted!
- dsr_ 3y ago
  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.
  - brewdad 3y ago
    Don’t read the article before commenting? I’m way ahead of you. :)
    - freitzkriesler2 3y ago
      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.
owenmarshall 3y ago
I feel like this story could be titled “In Which a Smart Person Overestimates Their Competency With The Legal System” Always get a lawyer.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  = always have $10,000+ liquid on hand in case you need to?
  - emodendroket 3y ago
    The article gives an estimate closer to $1000, which sounds likely in what sounds like a pretty straightforward case.
    - quickthrower2 3y ago
      That is hindsight bias. How much do you need for the typical defense?
      - owenmarshall 3y ago
        Part of the reason you call a lawyer early is so they can help steer things away from the point where you need a lawyer to mount a criminal defense. Cheaper that way, too.
      - qingcharles 3y ago
        In the USA. Typically you'd want to put $10,000 aside for a felony defense. $50K upwards is the standard for a decent murder defense. Plus bail money.
        OhMeadhbh 3y ago
        Bail for murder is pretty low, though. Unless the court thinks you're loaded with bling.
      - emodendroket 3y ago
cogman10 3y ago
I thought this might be fiction because the amount of time for pirating cable seemed crazy.. However [1] there are indeed up to 6 month penalties for stealing cable. That's just ludicrous. How could copyright theft ever be anything other than a civil action? Jail time for stealing cable, that's just insane. Nobody gets hurt from stolen cable. We really need to look long and hard at what we allow jail time for. Jail time in service of big media corporations seems just insane. [1] https://www.tec.com/legal/cable-theft-information https://www.tec.com/legal/cable-theft-information
- Larrikin 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - mwint 3y ago
    I wonder if it’s a thing where no one ever actually wrote “cable theft is a 6mo max sentence”, but rather a serious of things that seem reasonable on their own: - Cable theft is fraud - Fraud is a Class Z crime - Class Z crimes have this sentencing range I guess I can see how that happens.
    - ikiris 3y ago
      its much more that theft of service is generally treated as an actual crime, and the franchise situations especially due to the costs led to them pushing for laws with real teeth instead of civil penalties that are pointless on poor people.
    - cogman10 3y ago
      Someone actually wrote 6 months, it's the same statute. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/553#:~:text=For%20the%20purpose%20of%20this,in%20violation%20of%20subparagraph%20(1 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/553#:~:text=For%2...
  - torstenvl 3y ago
    This comment is deeply inappropriate. Engaging in ideological flamewar is against HN guidelines and is just plain rude to all of the HN folks who actually work in the field you're being casually dismissive of.
dools 3y ago
Here in Australia, you would just need to call the TIO to get it sorted out. Likewise if financial institutions are stuffing you about, call ACMA. If it's an energy company, call Energy and Water. A perfect example of how the private sector cannot self regulate to the benefit of consumers simply because a profit motive exists. Every time I've made an ombudsman complaint I have received Good Service™ from the company and a speedy resolution to my problem.
- emodendroket 3y ago
  It seems worth saying that in this instance a lot of the problem was that once it got into the hands of the prosecutors Comcast could not simply "just drop" the charges but only request that the state do so.
  - dools 3y ago
    I actually think that a lot of the problem is the fact that "cable theft" is a class of crime all on its own! "Sometimes, operators turn on a signal by accident or forget to deactivate it after a tenant stops a cable subscription. People are liable for any services they use in this way and it is generally advisable to contact the cable company to report an unexpected cable signal" https://www.mylawquestions.com/what-is-cable-theft.htm https://www.mylawquestions.com/what-is-cable-theft.htm That's absurd, it can only be the result of corruption.
- ajxs 3y ago
  Fellow Australian here. I can confirm every word of this. The TIO gets things done. The telecom companies live in fear of the ombudsman's office, to the point that even mentioning their name can get things moving.
- ETH_start 3y ago
  The private sector is not expected to be able to self-regulate by free market advocates. With the exception of anarcho-capitalists, those who believe in a free market regard the government's role as integral, in providing public goods like an effective justice system that polices misbehavior like fraud. What distinguishes a belief in free markets is believing that misbehavior—that government bodies have a right to punish and prohibit—does not include mutually voluntary interactions, like selling high-risk financial instruments to willing customers, who according to a court, are deemed to have provided informed consent to those risks.
neoCrimeLabs 3y ago
"26 April 1999: I've been "slashdotted". " [1] Wow, that brings back memories! I remember reading this article when it was posted to Slashdot because I had /just/ ordered @Home service. Instead I went with DSL service with the phone company (forgetting the Ma' Bell branch at the time). The service never worked, it took 30 days of calling support, going through the script to get past Tier 1 (remove software, install software...etc), only to be put on hold for 30 minutes before getting dropped. I finally went with @Home, which worked without going to jail. The early days of broadband were an interesting time. It was a nice upgrade from ISDN or Dial-Up, though. [1] - https://yro.slashdot.org/story/99/04/26/1229227/get-a-cable-modemgo-to-jail https://yro.slashdot.org/story/99/04/26/1229227/get-a-cable-...
- xattt 3y ago
  The comments on the article are a nice time capsule that show how little perspectives have changed.
thatoneguy 3y ago
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 cable TV disconnects because people were usually in a bad way and I had more than one colleague that had either had a gun pulled on them or straight-up shot and left to die up a pole for most of a day while trying to disconnect cable. - Having to increasingly go on cable TV installs because people's shitty TVs backfeeding electricity into the cable line meant I was getting zapped at least once a week. That said, I met a lot of cool people, gave out a lot of free TV/HBO because I didn't care unless the customer was a dick, wrote down a lot of funny stories and ultimately realized that I could go college in spite of dropping out of high school because I happened to install the non-traditional student advisor's cable modem. My colleagues said they'd see me back at the shop in four years after I graduated with a philosophy degree. Jokes on them, I dropped out after getting a job at Google.
- boneitis 3y ago
  I guess it really did depend on the mood and demeanor of whatever technician got sent out on a given day. Back in those same years, it was a painful, nonstop pendulum swing every month-or-two, between a) cripplingly unusable internet, and b) working Internet but with absolutely every channel unlocked for free. Everytime something happened that required a technician to come out while it was in state "b", it always triggered a stern talking to to teenage-me from a tech and them putting the filter back on and ruining the Internet again until finally the next time another tech presumably couldn't fix it without again removing the filter. I frequently had successive visits that left me stranded in state "a". Comcast, man.
  - euroderf 3y ago
    The invisible hand of the free market has clearly worked to perfection.
behringer 3y ago
Tip for anybody in a similar situation, when they give you a gift card and a years free service, it means they are certain you can sue them for at least 10 times that amount.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  I would pay 10 times that amount not to be in a lawsuit against a large corporation. Have you ever had to do a videotaped deposition? They get to ask you anything they want while you are under oath for about a day and they aren't very nice about it. And that is just one thing you are going to have to do for your measly couple thousand dollars.
nullc 3y ago
Ah the good ole days when comcast was easy to deal with and would correct their errors.
- euroderf 3y ago
  This actually happened ? Do we have an example of enshittification ?
icedchai 3y ago
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...
- aidenn0 3y ago
  Most ISPs still have clauses forbidding running servers on non-business accounts; they just don't pursue them much
  - icedchai 3y ago
    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.
russell_h 3y ago
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?
- senkora 3y ago
  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.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  How can there be any criminal record to expunge, if there hasn't been any criminal conviction?
- mnw21cam 3y ago
  That does seem to me like a fairly obvious case of evil to me. I guess the reason is that they probably could have sued for malicious prosecution and asked the court to expunge it without signing a waiver, but it was easier to just sign.
wkat4242 3y ago
In the Netherlands customers were often left connected even in the analog days. The base package was cheap and the premium channels were scrambled anyway. I had cable for free like this after I moved into a new place for years. I spent a lot of time soldering descramblers which worked for a year or so until the coding changed again. Only for personal use. They usually only managed video anyway, not audio. But it didn't matter as in the premium material I was interested as an exploring teenager the video was way more important than the audio >:) Of course this was pre-internet which solved that material access issue. But I don't think people ever actually went to jail for this stuff. With the premium boxes there was no way to detect it, they could only go after the sellers of the kits.
themerone 3y ago
I suffered with crappy DSL for several years because dealing with Comcast was worse than having bad internet.
riwsky 3y ago
Corporate swatting at its finest.
killjoywashere 3y ago
You can love your country all you want, your country does not love you.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mihaaly 3y ago
It resonates a tiny bit to my brief experience with Comcast (or actually any other providers being hostile to clients) in 2014 when stayed in the US briefly and they were the only one providing much needed broadband in that area (unsure if I was doing a study on the competitors otherwise). As you can imagine having broadband just for 4 months for a forigner was something of a unique deal for them, we had to go into some sort of special agreement at the Comcast desk (I do not remember much of the specifics) of which I felt I must have a proof about on top of the spoken promise of the representative that 'this and that will work this way in your situation'. Somehow I felt the one cancelling my service will not be that keen on alterations like the one I talked with about getting into contract with them. I am unsure but I think I asked for a written additional note some sort or perhaps went into an agreed recording of the conversation, but what I am sure about is that my wife - who left later than me and managed the closure of the service - had difficulty convincing them that it was just a 4 months service not an early termination of a 12 or 24 months one. Those proof asked was life saver with them and left a dent in my recollection that words of Comcast is not to be trusted easily but you need armor strength explicit proofs surrounding you in dealing with them. And actually with several others. Since then the similar paranoid defensive dealing with overly kind and eager representatives saved me lots of trouble. It is exhausting not to trust anything and is shame we have to waste time and energy on such instead of just honest processes.
munro 3y ago
This is really the amazing part of the internet, seeing a file that has been casually hosted on a web server since 1999, not even budging for HTTPS-- I feel teleported back in time
ifdefdebug 3y ago
What strikes me most is the level of anxiousness people in the US develop when faced with frivolous/absurd charges. This guy is working so hard - hours and hours - trying to convince Comcast to get their shit right and install a video trap! Here where I live, you would just lough out loud, lean back and continue watching TV. Because you know it would take a judge exactly 1 minute to consider two facts - 1) you had a contract for that cable and 2) installing a video trap is not your job - before he'd slap the charges back into the face of the cable companies attorney.
- kaapipo 3y ago
  *gal
- tgaj 3y ago
  I don't know where you live but even in my European country you should be anxious when interacting with judicial bureaucracy. Kafka's "The trial" is still relevant today.
- krisoft 3y ago
  > This guy is working so hard - hours and hours - trying to convince Comcast to get their shit right and install a video trap! Yeah, I wouldn't care about that. > I live, you would just lough out loud, lean back and continue watching TV. Here where I live I wouldn't even connect a TV unless I have paid for the service. I wouldn't know if they forgot to install a video trap. > it would take a judge exactly 1 minute to consider two facts - 1) you had a contract for that cable and 2) installing a video trap is not your job Yeah well. But what if Comcast brings in "evidence" that they have installed a video trap? Maybe their guy documented installing one but forgot to actually do it. Or maybe he installed it on the wrong line. Now you are not laughing because on paper it seems like you have opened up the box and removed the video trap.
seabass-labrax 3y ago
This was a fascinating read; good on the author for not losing her cool in that absurd two months. As a British citizen, though, there were a number of things that piqued my interest about the proceedings as described in Maryland and the USA in general. - Why was the Maryland State Attorney so keen to continue with the prosecution, despite a hostile witness? In general, why do individuals and companies appear (to an outsider) to have so much influence in the USA to 'press charges'? From a theoretical perspective, it doesn't seem like there is any advantage to the criminal justice system in allowing people to persuade the prosecutors to open a case, since a large company like Comcast could churn out hundreds of vaguely plausible but socially inconsequential claims of fraud, when the prosecutors could surely find better things to spend their time on. - Why is it possible to attempt to 'avoid being served' at all? I can't see anything wrong with receiving the notice by mail like any other correspondence. Are police officers in the USA really expected to just drive around as glorified (and armed, for that matter) postmen for the prosecutor's notices of petty criminal charges? - Finally, and, for me, most importantly, how could the author have acquired a criminal record from a case that was dropped prior to a trial, let alone a conviction? It seems really dodgy that, in order to 'expunge' the record of a crime that the state doesn't necessarily think occurred, you have to agree to indemnify a third party from your claims of damages when that third party had no involvement originally except to initially report the 'crime', and even more so in this case, as the author opens by noting that there wasn't even a contractual relationship between them! I'm under no pretence that my own country's judiciary is perfect, but it appears to me that the USA has a number of bizarre procedural bottlenecks that could be fixed with little more than a stroke of a pen. That begs the question: who stands to gain from this? Eagerly awaiting responses from knowledgable and/or wise Americans!
- xoa 3y ago
  >- Why was the Maryland State Attorney so keen to continue with the prosecution, despite a hostile witness? Speaking in generalities without knowing Maryland's state situation specifically, but whereas US Attorneys (federal) are executive positions (nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate), state level is (including Maryland) an elected position (you'll note the author mentioning voting for one of them). So politics ends up playing some role in that they want to get reelected, so be "tough" on certain causes of the day etc. Britain has plenty of history of that too fwiw. Prosecutorial discretion should play a role but it's not always pure. That said this was probably nothing special, merely in the same category as minor thefts, where if someone was guilty it'd be some sort of plea. Very bad to be caught in the grinder, but no sort of conspiracy. Someone complained of a small crime, state didn't do a good job with it. >In general, why do individuals and companies appear (to an outsider) to have so much influence in the USA to 'press charges'? From a theoretical perspective, it doesn't seem like there is any advantage to the criminal justice system in allowing people to persuade the prosecutors to open a case, since a large company like Comcast could churn out hundreds of vaguely plausible but socially inconsequential claims of fraud, when the prosecutors could surely find better things to spend their time on. This is a weird statement. In the majority of cases who else would you generally expect to kick off a case but the victim of a crime? It's always up to the government whether to start (or stop) a prosecution, but we thankfully do not live in a panopticon and thus the biggest source of starting criminal trials is... people reporting crimes. Prosecutors do have limited time and resources, so what they choose to pursue is going to depend on a lot of calculations both sometimes unreasonable and often completely reasonable. Whether what they pick is the best use of their time or not is not a trivial question. And again, Maryland AG is an elected position, so if people were angry about them going after cable fraud at all they'd be free to campaign against them on that. >- Why is it possible to attempt to 'avoid being served' at all? I can't see anything wrong with receiving the notice by mail like any other correspondence. Millions of people have no permanent address, or may only check their mail once in a long while. Mail sometimes goes missing (for weeks, months, or permanently). We're talking criminal prosecution here though even civil suits are no joke. It is an absolutely vital small bit of justice vs the opposing party (and particularly the vast powers of the state) to at the very minimum ensure people absolutely know they are being sued. And in turn have a chance to muster their defense, meet court deadlines and so on. There are reasonable safeguards if a court decides someone is purposefully evading, but there is a bar there. >Are police officers in the USA really expected to just drive around as glorified (and armed, for that matter) postmen for the prosecutor's notices of petty criminal charges? Yes, and the government can suck it the hell up. There are also professional servers who can be hired. But reasonable efforts must be expended to ensure someone being prosecuted or sued has been given adequate notice of that fact. The flipside is abuse of default judgements, which is far, far worse. >- Finally, and, for me, most importantly, how could the author have acquired a criminal record from a case that was dropped prior to a trial, let alone a conviction? They... couldn't? Author clearly is not a lawyer and was confused on something there. Maybe they're talking about some sort of credit report Comcast had filed as well. Or they just wanted the court records sealed (they mention getting spam mail pretty fast) or I don't know. But they weren't convicted of anything and thus had no "criminal record". >I'm under no pretence that my own country's judiciary is perfect, but it appears to me that the USA has a number of bizarre procedural bottlenecks that could be fixed with little more than a stroke of a pen. I could pick a handful of cases from British history going back decades and draw broad conclusions about the entire country as well and it'd also be silly.
ToddWBurgess 3y ago
As an ex Excite@Home employee (anyone remember Excite??) I think its cool to see the old company pop up on HN in 2023
JCM9 3y ago
Interesting story that’s sadly too representative of the gross incompetence and negligence of some companies. In scenarios like this absolutely do sue them and then deny every settlement offer their corporate lawyers throw at you, continually demanding a jury trial. After a few failed attempts to get the case thrown out on technicalities they will start freaking out knowing they don’t stand a chance in front of a jury and will offer up very very generous settlements to compensate you for their incompetence.
cannabis_sam 3y ago
It’s insane to me that “cable theft” is even considered a criminal offense… it’s literally a civil dispute between a corporation and a person, about alleged misuse of service, with very little damage outside of theoretically “harming” the profits of the corporation, a notion that quite literally requires assuming an argument ad absurdum. How stupid does a politician have to be to promote this as a criminal offense? It just denigrates criminal law. Edit: my bad, it was promoted by Barry fucking Goldwater, a bona fide fascist. So not stupidity, just genuinely evil cruelty.
sinnet3000 3y ago
I hope he updates the page with: 05 September 2023: Hacker News Front Page I doubt there's been a webpage that was slashdotted in 1999 and then became front page news of other website more than 20 years later.
thewileyone 3y ago
I had cable modem when DSL was being pushed by all the telcos. On my street, everyone switched over to DSL and I think I was the sole cable modem user and the access point was right in front of my house. I was getting regular speeds of 1Mbps cause no one else was using cable modem. This was glorious in 1999.

513 points by resolutebat 3y ago

Even though this happened 25 years ago (sidenote, good God I'm getting old) it still made my blood boil. Makes you wonder how many people who weren't as proactive weren't as fortunate as to have the bogus charges dismissed.

incompatible 3y ago
It seems fairly tame to me, as far as historical injustices go.
- 3-cheese-sundae 3y ago
  Sure, I suppose just about anyone could shrug off having their life ruined by an unsubstantiated criminal charge by simply framing it in the context of genocide or thermonuclear war.
  - incompatible 3y ago
    Her life was hardly ruined. She just had to spend a few hours sorting out other peoples' mistakes, which is fairly routine in my experience.
    - 3-cheese-sundae 3y ago
      You're correct, it was not, but GP was referring to those who weren't proactive or fortunate to have the bogus charges dismissed. The original poster had the time, money, and wherewithal required to document the issue, pay for legal representation, fight the case, chase expungement, and absorb the damages to her character from the remnant records of her criminal charge that remained even after expungement of official records. Far less has destroyed the livelihood of far more people.
      - incompatible 3y ago
        I suppose I'm just old, and people doing stupid things isn't going to make my blood boil any more. I've accepted it by now as human nature. If you want to actually annoy me, you need to do something purely evil, like harming innocent people just to advance some stupid agenda of your own. Russians firing missiles at apartment buildings in Ukraine is a current example.
        vore 3y ago
        Or, like, someone having their life destroyed by being sent to jail for having cable internet as set up by the provider? The author clearly had the means to sort her own case out, but you can certainly imagine someone who didn't and would be in jail for it. Sure, on the scale of evil it's nowhere near the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but I don't think this is shrug your shoulder and say "tough titty" territory either. How would you like it if you were unlucky enough to not have been able to sort this out and be in jail for it? On the bright side, it's not as bad as getting your house bombed!
        incompatible 3y ago
        Certainly, there was somebody who was actually sent to jail, even after patiently explaining their case in court, and if the management of the cable provider knew exactly what was happening, and continued their persecution because of some stupid business reason, it would be more concerning. However, that's not how the story was told.
        devnullbrain 3y ago
        You wouldn't be annoyed by spending 6 months in jail? You must be old!
        incompatible 3y ago
        It would perhaps be an interesting new experience, when interesting new experiences are hard to find. But it's probably one of those things that seems more interesting in theory than it turns out to be in practice, and I'd get tired of it after a few days.

jonny_eh 3y ago

I feel like if something this dumb happened now, there'd be no way to get it resolved that quickly, and without hiring a lawyer. Getting Comcast lawyers to respond to you at all is the one bit in particular I can't picture happening.

coding123 3y ago
You can't even get a lawyer to call you back anymore because they're working from home too - which means they are at the beach all day with the kids, and will maybe check their voicemail in the next few days.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  Have you tried to get in touch with a handyman, or a building contractor, or a pool service guy, or a CPA, or a doctor’s office or basically any service provider lately? Nobody seems to be picking up the phone anymore in any profession. I had to leave a message on a home painter’s voice mail saying “I have a stack of cash right here that I want to give to you to paint my house! Please for fuck’s sake call me back!”
  - derefr 3y ago
    Hypothesis: most service providers were previously operating on an interruptible work stack (LIFO), because persistently-annoying people could "jump the queue." Now with work-from-home they're doing strict FIFO (as they should!); and it turns out their queue is long.
    - mindslight 3y ago
      I've got a different theory. Tradespeople prioritize based on how much a job pays. So if you haggle them down, make them deal with insurance, or your type of job doesn't command much money, they'll happily keep you in their queue as an option in case work dries up, but won't be interested in doing your job as long as they're getting paid more for doing other jobs.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Eisenstein 3y ago

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 https://www.nexttv.com/news/get-cable-modem-go-jail-142544

qingcharles 3y ago
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+Business+Information%22 https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Cahners+Busine...

hgsgm 3y ago

Comcast/Xfinity is a criminal organization. Hasn't changed. Don't give the your money. When's the last time an honest, reputable business changed its name? I've seen name changes in restaurants, social networks, apartment buildings, duct cleaning scammers, and it's never for a good reason.

haggy102 3y ago
The problem is that it's often the only choice. ISPs often have a monopoly over their territory.
- throwaway54_56 3y ago
  I moved a mile away from my old house and had to switch cable providers. I preferred the old one, but apparently I crossed the boundary.
- OhMeadhbh 3y ago
  Interestingly... in the UK... they did something similar to the DSL Provider / ISP split we did here in the states. So you could order cable service from one company and layer 3 from a completely different company. People tell me it's done wonders for competition there.
  - midasuni 3y ago
    Well yes. Openreach were fixing a problem with my phone like yesterday, that’s generally a monopoly. My layer 3 service is from A&A, which suits my needs. Other people probably wouldn’t want to chat with the engineers on IRC when there’s a problem though so they would go with talk talk or Bt or whatever.
    - OhMeadhbh 3y ago
      Oh man. I would have LOVED to be able to talk to Lumen engineers via IRC a couple years ago. It took about 4 1/2 months to work through the army of script-reading CS reps to get to a manager who agreed to let me talk to a tier-2 rep who immediately put me in the queue for a callback from an engineer. Within 5 minutes of talking with THAT engineer, they had enough info to realize someone had mis-keyed my account number in one of their internal tools. It took another five minutes for them to correct it and within an hour my intarwebs were working fine. I suspect that had I been able to talk to a tier-2 engineer (even if via IRC) it would have taken at most a day to resolve.

Hizonner 3y ago

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.

shusaku 3y ago
> In Which I Find Out that the Attorney for Comcast Actually Does Have a Sense of Humor I think the work by this attorney really did a lot to take the blame off of Comcast, which is probably why the author felt fine not suing at the end.
emodendroket 3y ago
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?
- AaronM 3y ago
  Growing up my best friend dated a girl with very strict parents, who did not approve of the relationship. He was pulled over and arrested for grand theft auto. Spent three days in jail until she was convinced to make a statement at the police station and they let him go. Parents reported the car, which they must have owned, as stolen, and gave my friends description to police
  - extraduder_ire 3y ago
    I think that one is actually "malicious prosecution", as described in the article.
    - eru 3y ago
      That might be true, but good look keeping your girlfriend, if you sue their parents (even if the parents are jerks).

jandrese 3y ago

This is what life is like on the bleeding edge. In 1999 he was one of the first to "cut the cord" and it was a situation that Comcast was not yet ready to understand.

minaminamina 3y ago
She
usaar333 3y ago
Seems also like too much talking with the company. I had cable internet only around this time and for some time a trap wasn't set. Why would you tell the company? Just don't watch cable TV if you have concerns.
- jandrese 3y ago
  That's what was tried, but Comcast still started a criminal case.

freitzkriesler2 3y ago

Holy moly blast from the past. I remember reading this on slashdot. Let's not all visit the site at the same time lest it get slashdotted!

dsr_ 3y ago
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.
- brewdad 3y ago
  Don’t read the article before commenting? I’m way ahead of you. :)
  - freitzkriesler2 3y ago
    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.

owenmarshall 3y ago

I feel like this story could be titled “In Which a Smart Person Overestimates Their Competency With The Legal System” Always get a lawyer.

quickthrower2 3y ago
= always have $10,000+ liquid on hand in case you need to?
- emodendroket 3y ago
  The article gives an estimate closer to $1000, which sounds likely in what sounds like a pretty straightforward case.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    That is hindsight bias. How much do you need for the typical defense?
    - owenmarshall 3y ago
      Part of the reason you call a lawyer early is so they can help steer things away from the point where you need a lawyer to mount a criminal defense. Cheaper that way, too.
    - qingcharles 3y ago
      In the USA. Typically you'd want to put $10,000 aside for a felony defense. $50K upwards is the standard for a decent murder defense. Plus bail money.
      - OhMeadhbh 3y ago
        Bail for murder is pretty low, though. Unless the court thinks you're loaded with bling.
    - emodendroket 3y ago

cogman10 3y ago

I thought this might be fiction because the amount of time for pirating cable seemed crazy.. However [1] there are indeed up to 6 month penalties for stealing cable. That's just ludicrous. How could copyright theft ever be anything other than a civil action? Jail time for stealing cable, that's just insane. Nobody gets hurt from stolen cable. We really need to look long and hard at what we allow jail time for. Jail time in service of big media corporations seems just insane. [1] https://www.tec.com/legal/cable-theft-information https://www.tec.com/legal/cable-theft-information

Larrikin 3y ago
[flagged]
- mwint 3y ago
  I wonder if it’s a thing where no one ever actually wrote “cable theft is a 6mo max sentence”, but rather a serious of things that seem reasonable on their own: - Cable theft is fraud - Fraud is a Class Z crime - Class Z crimes have this sentencing range I guess I can see how that happens.
  - ikiris 3y ago
    its much more that theft of service is generally treated as an actual crime, and the franchise situations especially due to the costs led to them pushing for laws with real teeth instead of civil penalties that are pointless on poor people.
  - cogman10 3y ago
    Someone actually wrote 6 months, it's the same statute. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/553#:~:text=For%20the%20purpose%20of%20this,in%20violation%20of%20subparagraph%20(1 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/553#:~:text=For%2...
- torstenvl 3y ago
  This comment is deeply inappropriate. Engaging in ideological flamewar is against HN guidelines and is just plain rude to all of the HN folks who actually work in the field you're being casually dismissive of.

dools 3y ago

Here in Australia, you would just need to call the TIO to get it sorted out. Likewise if financial institutions are stuffing you about, call ACMA. If it's an energy company, call Energy and Water. A perfect example of how the private sector cannot self regulate to the benefit of consumers simply because a profit motive exists. Every time I've made an ombudsman complaint I have received Good Service™ from the company and a speedy resolution to my problem.

emodendroket 3y ago
It seems worth saying that in this instance a lot of the problem was that once it got into the hands of the prosecutors Comcast could not simply "just drop" the charges but only request that the state do so.
- dools 3y ago
  I actually think that a lot of the problem is the fact that "cable theft" is a class of crime all on its own! "Sometimes, operators turn on a signal by accident or forget to deactivate it after a tenant stops a cable subscription. People are liable for any services they use in this way and it is generally advisable to contact the cable company to report an unexpected cable signal" https://www.mylawquestions.com/what-is-cable-theft.htm https://www.mylawquestions.com/what-is-cable-theft.htm That's absurd, it can only be the result of corruption.
ajxs 3y ago
Fellow Australian here. I can confirm every word of this. The TIO gets things done. The telecom companies live in fear of the ombudsman's office, to the point that even mentioning their name can get things moving.
ETH_start 3y ago
The private sector is not expected to be able to self-regulate by free market advocates. With the exception of anarcho-capitalists, those who believe in a free market regard the government's role as integral, in providing public goods like an effective justice system that polices misbehavior like fraud. What distinguishes a belief in free markets is believing that misbehavior—that government bodies have a right to punish and prohibit—does not include mutually voluntary interactions, like selling high-risk financial instruments to willing customers, who according to a court, are deemed to have provided informed consent to those risks.

neoCrimeLabs 3y ago

"26 April 1999: I've been "slashdotted". " [1] Wow, that brings back memories! I remember reading this article when it was posted to Slashdot because I had /just/ ordered @Home service. Instead I went with DSL service with the phone company (forgetting the Ma' Bell branch at the time). The service never worked, it took 30 days of calling support, going through the script to get past Tier 1 (remove software, install software...etc), only to be put on hold for 30 minutes before getting dropped. I finally went with @Home, which worked without going to jail. The early days of broadband were an interesting time. It was a nice upgrade from ISDN or Dial-Up, though. [1] - https://yro.slashdot.org/story/99/04/26/1229227/get-a-cable-modemgo-to-jail https://yro.slashdot.org/story/99/04/26/1229227/get-a-cable-...

xattt 3y ago
The comments on the article are a nice time capsule that show how little perspectives have changed.

thatoneguy 3y ago

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 cable TV disconnects because people were usually in a bad way and I had more than one colleague that had either had a gun pulled on them or straight-up shot and left to die up a pole for most of a day while trying to disconnect cable. - Having to increasingly go on cable TV installs because people's shitty TVs backfeeding electricity into the cable line meant I was getting zapped at least once a week. That said, I met a lot of cool people, gave out a lot of free TV/HBO because I didn't care unless the customer was a dick, wrote down a lot of funny stories and ultimately realized that I could go college in spite of dropping out of high school because I happened to install the non-traditional student advisor's cable modem. My colleagues said they'd see me back at the shop in four years after I graduated with a philosophy degree. Jokes on them, I dropped out after getting a job at Google.

boneitis 3y ago
I guess it really did depend on the mood and demeanor of whatever technician got sent out on a given day. Back in those same years, it was a painful, nonstop pendulum swing every month-or-two, between a) cripplingly unusable internet, and b) working Internet but with absolutely every channel unlocked for free. Everytime something happened that required a technician to come out while it was in state "b", it always triggered a stern talking to to teenage-me from a tech and them putting the filter back on and ruining the Internet again until finally the next time another tech presumably couldn't fix it without again removing the filter. I frequently had successive visits that left me stranded in state "a". Comcast, man.
- euroderf 3y ago
  The invisible hand of the free market has clearly worked to perfection.

behringer 3y ago

Tip for anybody in a similar situation, when they give you a gift card and a years free service, it means they are certain you can sue them for at least 10 times that amount.

Eisenstein 3y ago
I would pay 10 times that amount not to be in a lawsuit against a large corporation. Have you ever had to do a videotaped deposition? They get to ask you anything they want while you are under oath for about a day and they aren't very nice about it. And that is just one thing you are going to have to do for your measly couple thousand dollars.

nullc 3y ago

Ah the good ole days when comcast was easy to deal with and would correct their errors.

euroderf 3y ago
This actually happened ? Do we have an example of enshittification ?

icedchai 3y ago

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...

aidenn0 3y ago
Most ISPs still have clauses forbidding running servers on non-business accounts; they just don't pursue them much
- icedchai 3y ago
  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.

russell_h 3y ago

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?

senkora 3y ago
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.
denton-scratch 3y ago
How can there be any criminal record to expunge, if there hasn't been any criminal conviction?
mnw21cam 3y ago
That does seem to me like a fairly obvious case of evil to me. I guess the reason is that they probably could have sued for malicious prosecution and asked the court to expunge it without signing a waiver, but it was easier to just sign.

wkat4242 3y ago

In the Netherlands customers were often left connected even in the analog days. The base package was cheap and the premium channels were scrambled anyway. I had cable for free like this after I moved into a new place for years. I spent a lot of time soldering descramblers which worked for a year or so until the coding changed again. Only for personal use. They usually only managed video anyway, not audio. But it didn't matter as in the premium material I was interested as an exploring teenager the video was way more important than the audio >:) Of course this was pre-internet which solved that material access issue. But I don't think people ever actually went to jail for this stuff. With the premium boxes there was no way to detect it, they could only go after the sellers of the kits.

themerone 3y ago

I suffered with crappy DSL for several years because dealing with Comcast was worse than having bad internet.

riwsky 3y ago

Corporate swatting at its finest.

killjoywashere 3y ago

You can love your country all you want, your country does not love you.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

mihaaly 3y ago

It resonates a tiny bit to my brief experience with Comcast (or actually any other providers being hostile to clients) in 2014 when stayed in the US briefly and they were the only one providing much needed broadband in that area (unsure if I was doing a study on the competitors otherwise). As you can imagine having broadband just for 4 months for a forigner was something of a unique deal for them, we had to go into some sort of special agreement at the Comcast desk (I do not remember much of the specifics) of which I felt I must have a proof about on top of the spoken promise of the representative that 'this and that will work this way in your situation'. Somehow I felt the one cancelling my service will not be that keen on alterations like the one I talked with about getting into contract with them. I am unsure but I think I asked for a written additional note some sort or perhaps went into an agreed recording of the conversation, but what I am sure about is that my wife - who left later than me and managed the closure of the service - had difficulty convincing them that it was just a 4 months service not an early termination of a 12 or 24 months one. Those proof asked was life saver with them and left a dent in my recollection that words of Comcast is not to be trusted easily but you need armor strength explicit proofs surrounding you in dealing with them. And actually with several others. Since then the similar paranoid defensive dealing with overly kind and eager representatives saved me lots of trouble. It is exhausting not to trust anything and is shame we have to waste time and energy on such instead of just honest processes.

munro 3y ago

This is really the amazing part of the internet, seeing a file that has been casually hosted on a web server since 1999, not even budging for HTTPS-- I feel teleported back in time

ifdefdebug 3y ago

What strikes me most is the level of anxiousness people in the US develop when faced with frivolous/absurd charges. This guy is working so hard - hours and hours - trying to convince Comcast to get their shit right and install a video trap! Here where I live, you would just lough out loud, lean back and continue watching TV. Because you know it would take a judge exactly 1 minute to consider two facts - 1) you had a contract for that cable and 2) installing a video trap is not your job - before he'd slap the charges back into the face of the cable companies attorney.

kaapipo 3y ago
*gal
tgaj 3y ago
I don't know where you live but even in my European country you should be anxious when interacting with judicial bureaucracy. Kafka's "The trial" is still relevant today.
krisoft 3y ago
> This guy is working so hard - hours and hours - trying to convince Comcast to get their shit right and install a video trap! Yeah, I wouldn't care about that. > I live, you would just lough out loud, lean back and continue watching TV. Here where I live I wouldn't even connect a TV unless I have paid for the service. I wouldn't know if they forgot to install a video trap. > it would take a judge exactly 1 minute to consider two facts - 1) you had a contract for that cable and 2) installing a video trap is not your job Yeah well. But what if Comcast brings in "evidence" that they have installed a video trap? Maybe their guy documented installing one but forgot to actually do it. Or maybe he installed it on the wrong line. Now you are not laughing because on paper it seems like you have opened up the box and removed the video trap.

seabass-labrax 3y ago

This was a fascinating read; good on the author for not losing her cool in that absurd two months. As a British citizen, though, there were a number of things that piqued my interest about the proceedings as described in Maryland and the USA in general. - Why was the Maryland State Attorney so keen to continue with the prosecution, despite a hostile witness? In general, why do individuals and companies appear (to an outsider) to have so much influence in the USA to 'press charges'? From a theoretical perspective, it doesn't seem like there is any advantage to the criminal justice system in allowing people to persuade the prosecutors to open a case, since a large company like Comcast could churn out hundreds of vaguely plausible but socially inconsequential claims of fraud, when the prosecutors could surely find better things to spend their time on. - Why is it possible to attempt to 'avoid being served' at all? I can't see anything wrong with receiving the notice by mail like any other correspondence. Are police officers in the USA really expected to just drive around as glorified (and armed, for that matter) postmen for the prosecutor's notices of petty criminal charges? - Finally, and, for me, most importantly, how could the author have acquired a criminal record from a case that was dropped prior to a trial, let alone a conviction? It seems really dodgy that, in order to 'expunge' the record of a crime that the state doesn't necessarily think occurred, you have to agree to indemnify a third party from your claims of damages when that third party had no involvement originally except to initially report the 'crime', and even more so in this case, as the author opens by noting that there wasn't even a contractual relationship between them! I'm under no pretence that my own country's judiciary is perfect, but it appears to me that the USA has a number of bizarre procedural bottlenecks that could be fixed with little more than a stroke of a pen. That begs the question: who stands to gain from this? Eagerly awaiting responses from knowledgable and/or wise Americans!

xoa 3y ago
>- Why was the Maryland State Attorney so keen to continue with the prosecution, despite a hostile witness? Speaking in generalities without knowing Maryland's state situation specifically, but whereas US Attorneys (federal) are executive positions (nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate), state level is (including Maryland) an elected position (you'll note the author mentioning voting for one of them). So politics ends up playing some role in that they want to get reelected, so be "tough" on certain causes of the day etc. Britain has plenty of history of that too fwiw. Prosecutorial discretion should play a role but it's not always pure. That said this was probably nothing special, merely in the same category as minor thefts, where if someone was guilty it'd be some sort of plea. Very bad to be caught in the grinder, but no sort of conspiracy. Someone complained of a small crime, state didn't do a good job with it. >In general, why do individuals and companies appear (to an outsider) to have so much influence in the USA to 'press charges'? From a theoretical perspective, it doesn't seem like there is any advantage to the criminal justice system in allowing people to persuade the prosecutors to open a case, since a large company like Comcast could churn out hundreds of vaguely plausible but socially inconsequential claims of fraud, when the prosecutors could surely find better things to spend their time on. This is a weird statement. In the majority of cases who else would you generally expect to kick off a case but the victim of a crime? It's always up to the government whether to start (or stop) a prosecution, but we thankfully do not live in a panopticon and thus the biggest source of starting criminal trials is... people reporting crimes. Prosecutors do have limited time and resources, so what they choose to pursue is going to depend on a lot of calculations both sometimes unreasonable and often completely reasonable. Whether what they pick is the best use of their time or not is not a trivial question. And again, Maryland AG is an elected position, so if people were angry about them going after cable fraud at all they'd be free to campaign against them on that. >- Why is it possible to attempt to 'avoid being served' at all? I can't see anything wrong with receiving the notice by mail like any other correspondence. Millions of people have no permanent address, or may only check their mail once in a long while. Mail sometimes goes missing (for weeks, months, or permanently). We're talking criminal prosecution here though even civil suits are no joke. It is an absolutely vital small bit of justice vs the opposing party (and particularly the vast powers of the state) to at the very minimum ensure people absolutely know they are being sued. And in turn have a chance to muster their defense, meet court deadlines and so on. There are reasonable safeguards if a court decides someone is purposefully evading, but there is a bar there. >Are police officers in the USA really expected to just drive around as glorified (and armed, for that matter) postmen for the prosecutor's notices of petty criminal charges? Yes, and the government can suck it the hell up. There are also professional servers who can be hired. But reasonable efforts must be expended to ensure someone being prosecuted or sued has been given adequate notice of that fact. The flipside is abuse of default judgements, which is far, far worse. >- Finally, and, for me, most importantly, how could the author have acquired a criminal record from a case that was dropped prior to a trial, let alone a conviction? They... couldn't? Author clearly is not a lawyer and was confused on something there. Maybe they're talking about some sort of credit report Comcast had filed as well. Or they just wanted the court records sealed (they mention getting spam mail pretty fast) or I don't know. But they weren't convicted of anything and thus had no "criminal record". >I'm under no pretence that my own country's judiciary is perfect, but it appears to me that the USA has a number of bizarre procedural bottlenecks that could be fixed with little more than a stroke of a pen. I could pick a handful of cases from British history going back decades and draw broad conclusions about the entire country as well and it'd also be silly.

ToddWBurgess 3y ago

As an ex Excite@Home employee (anyone remember Excite??) I think its cool to see the old company pop up on HN in 2023

JCM9 3y ago

Interesting story that’s sadly too representative of the gross incompetence and negligence of some companies. In scenarios like this absolutely do sue them and then deny every settlement offer their corporate lawyers throw at you, continually demanding a jury trial. After a few failed attempts to get the case thrown out on technicalities they will start freaking out knowing they don’t stand a chance in front of a jury and will offer up very very generous settlements to compensate you for their incompetence.

cannabis_sam 3y ago

It’s insane to me that “cable theft” is even considered a criminal offense… it’s literally a civil dispute between a corporation and a person, about alleged misuse of service, with very little damage outside of theoretically “harming” the profits of the corporation, a notion that quite literally requires assuming an argument ad absurdum. How stupid does a politician have to be to promote this as a criminal offense? It just denigrates criminal law. Edit: my bad, it was promoted by Barry fucking Goldwater, a bona fide fascist. So not stupidity, just genuinely evil cruelty.

sinnet3000 3y ago

I hope he updates the page with: 05 September 2023: Hacker News Front Page I doubt there's been a webpage that was slashdotted in 1999 and then became front page news of other website more than 20 years later.

thewileyone 3y ago

I had cable modem when DSL was being pushed by all the telcos. On my street, everyone switched over to DSL and I think I was the sole cable modem user and the access point was right in front of my house. I was getting regular speeds of 1Mbps cause no one else was using cable modem. This was glorious in 1999.