MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Ruling: IP address does not identify person

Kumabjorn · 05-06-2012, 02:37 AM

I went out on a long walk yesterday, thinking about this discussion. Now, I know I'm not going to convince HarryT, because he is a direct victim of IP theft and I truly appreciate his frustration. But I'm going to give it one last try, no analogies, just a theoretical case.

I live in the woods, a decent distance from nearest movie house, and they seem to be disappearing anyway. My alternative is to stream or download movies from vendors on the net. Unfortunately, the available speed in the woods is such that it isn't really feasible.

Every weekday I drive to work in a small village. On the outskirts of that village lives TerryH, a computer wizard (from my back in the woods view) who is equipped with the latest in fiber optic connections and WiFi routers. So in the morning I stop outside TerryH's house and hack into his WiFi router with my laptop (I have sufficient speed to learn from cracker sites) I set it up to use a BitTorrent to download two movies into a hidden folder on TerryH's computer. I then drive to work.

On the way home from work I again stop by at TerryH's house, enter his network in stealth and copy the movie files over to my own hard drive. This goes on for six months. I happen to be a lazy person so I just leave the movie files on TerryH's computer. His IP provider notices that he is taking down several GBs before noon every day and inform the police.

Based on his IP address the police pays TerryH a visit, impounds his computer and discovers some 300 illegally downloaded movies on his hard drive. TerryH has two teenage children, a daughter and a son. In the police officer's mind that explain the variety in downloaded movies.
TerryH claims, rightfully so, absolutely no knowledge about the downloaded movies. He points to his secure setup, the passwords, no broadcasting of SSID, MAC filtering etc all so that his children will not make illegal downloads. Hence, TerryH is arrested since he has to be the culprit being the owner of the IP address.

Me? I draw a deep breath of relief when I read about the arrest in the local paper. Happy that the law didn't force the police to dig deeper in their investigation, they were happy to go by the rule that says IP address owner is the guilty party. Now, all I have to do is find another sucker with a hi-tec setup, and then crawl back into the woods.

I believe I have here described a possible scenario that complies with HarryT's premises. Was I able to change your mind?

05-06-2012, 02:37 AM	#171
Kumabjorn Basculocolpic Posts: 4,356 Karma: 20181319 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Sweden Device: Kindle 3 WiFi, Kindle 4SO, Kindle for Android, Sony PRS-350 and PRS-T1	I went out on a long walk yesterday, thinking about this discussion. Now, I know I'm not going to convince HarryT, because he is a direct victim of IP theft and I truly appreciate his frustration. But I'm going to give it one last try, no analogies, just a theoretical case. I live in the woods, a decent distance from nearest movie house, and they seem to be disappearing anyway. My alternative is to stream or download movies from vendors on the net. Unfortunately, the available speed in the woods is such that it isn't really feasible. Every weekday I drive to work in a small village. On the outskirts of that village lives TerryH, a computer wizard (from my back in the woods view) who is equipped with the latest in fiber optic connections and WiFi routers. So in the morning I stop outside TerryH's house and hack into his WiFi router with my laptop (I have sufficient speed to learn from cracker sites) I set it up to use a BitTorrent to download two movies into a hidden folder on TerryH's computer. I then drive to work. On the way home from work I again stop by at TerryH's house, enter his network in stealth and copy the movie files over to my own hard drive. This goes on for six months. I happen to be a lazy person so I just leave the movie files on TerryH's computer. His IP provider notices that he is taking down several GBs before noon every day and inform the police. Based on his IP address the police pays TerryH a visit, impounds his computer and discovers some 300 illegally downloaded movies on his hard drive. TerryH has two teenage children, a daughter and a son. In the police officer's mind that explain the variety in downloaded movies. TerryH claims, rightfully so, absolutely no knowledge about the downloaded movies. He points to his secure setup, the passwords, no broadcasting of SSID, MAC filtering etc all so that his children will not make illegal downloads. Hence, TerryH is arrested since he has to be the culprit being the owner of the IP address. Me? I draw a deep breath of relief when I read about the arrest in the local paper. Happy that the law didn't force the police to dig deeper in their investigation, they were happy to go by the rule that says IP address owner is the guilty party. Now, all I have to do is find another sucker with a hi-tec setup, and then crawl back into the woods. I believe I have here described a possible scenario that complies with HarryT's premises. Was I able to change your mind?