Need your help to keep free 3g!

[ucfgrad93]

Originally Posted by patrickt

The entitlement generation appreciates nothing and demands more. It's the nature of the beast.

Originally Posted by Shopaholic

Oooooooh it's way more than a few!

Sadly, I have to agree with you.

[Victoria]

It's maddening that a few people with an inflated sense of entitlement selfishly spoil a good thing for so many others. One can't get a touch with 3G here in Canada - probably due to people abusing it. I planned to get one for friend in a senior's setting. With the 3G, residents are independent, in term of buying books - no wi fi necessary.

[WT Sharpe]

That's what I'm talking about.

[howyoudoin]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

Script Kiddies are attracted to Hackaday posts like this one, like files are to sh!t.

Sadly, the following comment from there is not unusual:

HackJack says:
February 27, 2012 at 6:53 pm

Why is everyone acting like this is the first bit of news posted about this? People have been doing this for a LONG time and there are MANY tutorials out there on how to do it.

I’ve been tethered to my kindle for 6 months, using it as my main internet connection. With browsing and utorrent I’ve racked up over 46GB. No disconnection here!

Sadly, trying to talk sense into them just stirs up their mob mentality.

These are the sort of people who ruin a good thing for everyone. Here's a company being generous, and their generosity is being exploited to the hilt by scum.

[DiapDealer]

To be perfectly honest (and I agree with most everyone's sentiment toward these few who are "spoiling" things), I think wide open Free 3G (even if it was just experimental) was only financially "work-able" when the units were still selling for $200-300+. That kind of price buys a lot of network time. So while I deplore those that are taking advantage of the situation, I'm pretty sure that unlimited free 3G (defined as anything other than purchasing books) is quickly going to get phased out (as older devices get replaced) anyway. Regardless of what these abusers do.

[Shack70]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

To be perfectly honest (and I agree with most everyone's sentiment toward these few who are "spoiling" things), I think wide open Free 3G (even if it was just experimental) was only financially "work-able" when the units were still selling for $200-300+. That kind of price buys a lot of network time. So while I deplore those that are taking advantage of the situation, I'm pretty sure that unlimited free 3G (defined as anything other than purchasing books) is quickly going to get phased out (as older devices get replaced) anyway. Regardless of what these abusers do.

I think they are already doing that, the new touch 3g doesn't support web browsing over 3g, just access to the store and Amazon stuff.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Shack70

I think they are already doing that, the new touch 3g doesn't support web browsing over 3g, just access to the store and Amazon stuff.

& Wikipedia. That's a pretty nice plus.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by JoeD

But before all that, chances are they'll just ban people abusing it. Once they start doing that the problem may all but go away anyway.

They'll ban people abusing it. And then those people will come on MR and complain that Amazon banned their account, they don't have access to their books, they didn't do anything wrong, and Amazon won't explain why they can't have access to their books...

[Polyphemus]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

They'll ban people abusing it. And then those people will come on MR and complain that Amazon banned their account, they don't have access to their books, they didn't do anything wrong, and Amazon won't explain why they can't have access to their books...

... and these threads will go on for days and days while the complaining party supplies constant contradictory updates...

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

Script Kiddies are attracted to Hackaday posts like this one, like files are to sh!t.

Sadly, the following comment from there is not unusual:

HackJack says:
February 27, 2012 at 6:53 pm

Why is everyone acting like this is the first bit of news posted about this? People have been doing this for a LONG time and there are MANY tutorials out there on how to do it.

I’ve been tethered to my kindle for 6 months, using it as my main internet connection. With browsing and utorrent I’ve racked up over 46GB. No disconnection here!

Sadly, trying to talk sense into them just stirs up their mob mentality.

I agree that behaviour like this is Bad and Wrong, but note that we only have HackJack's word that he's managed to do this, and I'm not inclined to put a lot of stock in his word - I think it's more likely that he's making false claims.

Either way, as has already been said, I'm sure Amazon will block accounts (or limit their bandwidth) if they decide individual accounts are a problem.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by avantman42

I agree that behaviour like this is Bad and Wrong, but note that we only have HackJack's word that he's managed to do this, and I'm not inclined to put a lot of stock in his word - I think it's more likely that he's making false claims.

Why would you think that? Tethering a Kindle is technically very easy to do. It's just... wrong.

[avantman42]

I didn't phrase myself very well. I believe he tethered his Kindle, I'm very sceptical about his claim to have used it as his main internet connection and downloaded 46GB over it. I'd have expected Amazon to limit connections to ports 80 & 443 for a start, which would prevent bittorrent (which he claims to have used). He may be telling the truth, but I'm sceptical of such claims from some anonymous source on the internet.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

...Tethering a Kindle is technically very easy to do. It's just... wrong.

And that's the bottom line as far as I'm concerned.

[Jessica Lares]

I don't think this will be a huge issue in the long run TBH.

No one's going to cut the cord to their internet provider just to use free/slow 3G on a Kindle which will most likely fry from the over usage in a six month span. The 3G is there for you to read e-mails, read the news, post to Facebook, and NOT for streaming Netflix, tormenting 2GB+ files, and heavy websites.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by avantman42

I didn't phrase myself very well. I believe he tethered his Kindle, I'm very sceptical about his claim to have used it as his main internet connection and downloaded 46GB over it. I'd have expected Amazon to limit connections to ports 80 & 443 for a start, which would prevent bittorrent (which he claims to have used). He may be telling the truth, but I'm sceptical of such claims from some anonymous source on the internet.

There are a number of HTTP proxy solutions that hide any kind of traffic inside innocent-looking HTTP web traffic. The technical issues are relatively easy, but it is the MORAL issues that are hard (especially for people who choose to be dishonest).

One of these methods is to use Tor (The Onion Router). Although discouraged by Tor users because it wastes Tor bandwidth, bittorrent traffic can be proxied through Tor, so it uses port 80 and looks like normal web browser traffic. And why would somebody who steals 3G bandwidth care about how badly he is abusing Tor with his torrent traffic?

Script kiddies are often very dedicated and resourceful in their efforts to steal what they want.