I recently changed from Verizon DSL to Charter Cable internet services.Ā About a week later, I started receiving warnings via email from Charter tellingĀ me to stop downloading music from limewire (copyright infringement?). AfterĀ that they sent notices to stop downloading movies from UTorrent. Whatās funnyĀ is that both were files that never finished downloading. What I want to know isĀ how do they know who I am, where I go on the internet and when I choose to saveĀ something to my computer? How does someone else know when your on a websiteĀ downloading anything?
Well to start with, Charter isnāt just any āsomeone elseā ā¦ theyāre yourĀ ISP.
And as your ISP they know a lot about you, and have the ability to do a lotĀ with that information.
Verizon could have but for whatever reason chose not to.
Letās look at that in a little more detail.
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Your ISP Sees (almost) All
The whole point of having an ISP is to use their services to provide youĀ with a connection to the internet.
That means that when you send or receive data ā any data ā it travels fromĀ your computer through your router and immediately encounters equipment ownedĀ and operated by your ISP.
Where, if they choose, they can look at the data.
Rarely do they look at the contents of the data, but more and more theyāreĀ looking at the type of data ā theyāll note whether itās email or a web requestĀ or an instant message.
Or file sharing.
Typically, traffic that crosses the internet is identified by the IP addressĀ of where it came from, the IP address of where itās headed, and a āport numberāĀ that indicates what type of traffic it is. Port 80 is web traffic, 25 is email,Ā and so on.
And file sharing is on many ISPs radars.
Your ISPās Rules: The Terms of Service
Hereās an often frustrating catch: your ISP sets the rules about what theyĀ do and do not allow on their system.
That means that they can disallow file sharing protocols whether or notĀ youāre using them to perform illegal downloads. The justification is typicallyĀ that file sharing protocols use up a great deal of the ISPs capacity, and thusĀ have to be disallowed in order to provide adequate service to all of itsĀ customers.
Whether or not you believe it is up to you, but itās a plausibleĀ position.
And if you violate the ISPs rules ā their TOS (terms of service) or AUPĀ (acceptable use policy) ā then the ISP has the right to disconnect you.
Your ISP Knows You
Of course your ISP also knows who you are. You pay them every month, theyĀ know where you live since they deliver the internet connection to yourĀ home.
And they also know your IP address, since in order to connect to theĀ internet at all they had to give the IP address to you.
What that means is when (say) a movie studio says āwe see one of our moviesĀ being downloaded to and shared from this IP addressā your ISP can then turnĀ right around and say āI know who that is ā¦ Iāll tell them to stop itā.
And you get the warning message you get.
Itās a File **Sharing** Protocol
When you use services like limewire, utorrent or others itās important thatĀ you realize that youāre not only downloading whatever it is youāreĀ downloading.
Youāre also sharing what youāve downloaded previously with others who areĀ using the same service.
Thatās why itās called āpeer to peerā file sharing ā there is no centralĀ server, itās everyone using the service sharing with each other.
Thatās typically the copyright issue that most people get stuck on. If youĀ download, say, a movie ā well thatās you downloading one movie.
But with the file sharing software continuing to run, dozens if not hundredsĀ of others could be ādownloadingā that same movie from your machine āĀ even before you finish downloading it yourself. Now all of a sudden yourĀ machine becomes implicated not in one copyright violation ā your download ā butĀ as a source of dozens or hundreds of other copyright violations as you makeĀ that same movie available to others.
Thatās when the movie studios or record labels contact your ISP, and in turnĀ when the ISP contacts you.
What About Encryption?
ISPs canāt see what you encrypt, itās true. Itās one of the reasons VPNs andĀ https and encrypted email are and should be in widespread use: no one who canĀ see the traffic can read its contents. Many file sharing protocols have begunĀ to do exactly that: encrypt.
However.
The port number that defines what it is you are sending is not encrypted. ItĀ may change (25 is email, 465 is typically encrypted email), but it stillĀ defines what it is you are sending. They canāt see the contents, but your ISPĀ can still see:
- The IP address of where the data is being sent. (That must be in the clearĀ so that internet routers know where to send the data.)
- The IP address of where the data came from. (That must be in the clear forĀ the TCP/IP protocol transmission acknowledgements to work.)
- The port that identifies what the data is ā¦ email, web, etc. ā¦ which isĀ also not encrypted.
They canāt examine the data, but they can still see where the data is comingĀ and going, and what kind of data it is.
So even encrypted your ISP could still say āhey, youāre running peer-to-peerĀ file sharing software, and we donāt allow that: knock it offā.
Yes, there are attempts to further obfuscate peer-to-peer file sharingĀ traffic, but you get the idea ā for the most part even if the ISP canāt seeĀ what youāre sharing, they can see that youāreĀ sharing.
And for many, thatās enough.
Heheā¦ Leo, check your articles. The comments are getting spammedā¦
08-Nov-2010
Iām with a small ISP that is about my only choice, since Iām in a rural area. They adamantly reject Peer to Peer downloading. And thatās just fine with me, because when a few people hog the bandwidth we all suffer. Maybe the big guys can swallow the extra overhead. Plus, I donāt like piracy of any sort, because in the long run we all suffer when that kind of mentality overtakes our culture.
well what if you are unable to say go to a cinema due to illness or other reasons and your only option is to download it. but being ill are not able to afford buying film after film. WHAT DO YOU SAY THEN GOOD SIR!
Itās still illegal.
No, āLeoā, itās not illegal.
If you were sophisticated enough with respect to intellectual property law, you would understand that.
Please stop spreading misinformation, because itās clear you donāt know what youāre talking about.
There are legal ways to download many of those movies which usually consist of paying for the rights, such as via Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and many others. But unless the owners of the copyrights give you permission, it is illegal in most countries.
No, āNJā, itās not āLeo.ā Unlike your ID, it happens to be his name ā heās the owner of the site. And you may be technically correct, copyright violation is not āillegal.ā You wonāt go to jail for it. But It can be enforced as a civil matter; it is a tort. But thereās not a lot a difference from the laymanās point of view. [FWIW, I am not a lawyer, Iām just married to one.] Certainly downloading a two-minute clip from a two hour film might be fair use, but downloading the entire film, even for private use, would clearly be a violation of copyright.
If you canāt pay for it ā if you donāt want to pay for it āĀ then youāre not allowed to watch it.
However ā¦ if a movie is never released in your country ā¦ and youāre even willing to pay for it ā¦ what should you do then? =|
Legally? Live without it.
i say when is enough enough and why can guys like Bill Gate steal and force you to buy what they all ready took from someone else!!! most movie are Lame anyways and i wouldnāt waste my time stealing them!!
Bill Gates? He has had nothing to do with the operation and policies of Microsoft for years.
I agree,I do see the need for torrents,and these sort of programs, but they do have legitimate uses , not just piracy. I myself have had the infringement email two times in just over two years. I use Comcast and both times it was working on someone elseās PC , trying to figure out what was wrong with , and then I realized the freezeās ,BSODās, slow internet ,ETC, issues they were having were caused by two or three torrent apps or other FSP app ( or both) auto starting and running in the background . I had a false one a long time ago when I had TDS, never really figured out who was at fault there ,but I was downloading a demo/beta of a game and the main server was down and the secondary was so slow, and they had recommended and linked to the torrent on the site, but then an hour or so into the download, I got the email. I use it for the latter, but I always close it when not in use, so many people donāt realize, forget, or just donāt know,its still running/sharing files in the background even when your last download is finished,even if you are done downloading, it will run as a server until you close it,and sometimes the ā X ā just minimizes it out of your way.
Mike
What you do is learn about the TOR network. Then you trip, and fall into the TOR, subsequently hitting your head, and your fingers hit download on one of the movies you missed due to your illness. Then you wake up from your little coma nap, and PRESTO!; you just got that movie and your ISP doesnāt know you downloaded it! My friend who uses it stands by it 100%, and heās a Networkās and Servers Admin for Microsoft, so I think he knows what heās talking about. The TOR does something to mask your identity online. He says itās a little slower loading pages you just searched, but not really much, just because itās working in the background masking your IP and playing tennis with it. Your ISP, for the people who have been asking, know your downloading stuff because they know the IPās of the sites that serve people with mass downloads. Iām sure they have a simple algorithm that when there clients IP, (YOU), meets up for a lunch date with the bad, bad, but so good sites like Piratesbay, then it probably pings and they know. Oh and itās a no-brainer when your average incoming and outgoing packets skyrocket. TOR it, and they wonāt. Itās simple. But, itās your decision to do anything on the Internet, always remember that. Iām just showing you the door, itās up to you to grab the handle and go through it.
Theft is still theft whether you think youāll get caught or not. Just sayināā¦
Microsoft as well as many websites like Facebook and Amazon steal our data from us to sell it to advertisers and theyāre doing it on a daily basis but for them I guess itās legal, right?
Theft? LOL. People are being robbed by their politicians and banks, financial institutions and billion dollar firms every day, and all that, legally, through lobbyism, billion dollar companies who bribe ou dear politicians to promote their laws and fight others but of course they donāt call it bribes, they call it lobbyism. You can bribe a politician, pay him/her million dollars ever year āin feesā so they can support these companiesā policies and financial goals all behind your back, unknown to you, and youāre telling me itās illegal to download some torrents. Have you checked where all these people are living? Have you checked their offshore accounts to dodge taxes their implemented for the rest of us but are unwilling to pay themselves? Step back a little to see the bigger picture, buddy and stop with the āhigher moral stanceā. You have no clue how the world really works, how youāre being ***** everyday or you donāt want to know. Whatever it is I donāt know whatās worse
What a dismal view of the world.
than you should use a windows run computer Bill Gates has more things he steals and more programs seams like you wouldnāt want to use a computer with windows on it
Some ISPs have traffic shaping which will actually slow down uTorrent. Theres encryption for getting past that, however its not good for anonymous (the only thing it does is prevent passive listening, IIRC).
Oops. By āuTorrentā it should have said BitTorrent. uTorrent is the client I use.
In the same train of thoughtā if I am using a program such as PeerGuardian, how am I protected exactly? What information is hidden from 3rd parties, and how much (if any) is hidden from my ISP?
When I use BitTorrent to download a new version of Ubuntu, itās highly efficient and completely legal. Iād hate to see a technology blocked because itās misused sometimes. Kind of like banning cars because some people drive when they are drunkā¦
Regarding email encyprtion you should clarify that port 465 is (typically) TLS encryption which is just the credentials of the message ā not the message itself. I think you should do an entire newsletter on encryptionā¦ itās a topic people need to know ā to protect themselves.
11-Nov-2010
The one thing that has always puzzled me about this subject is this: With all the information (the IP address of where content is being sent from, your IP address, etc.) passing through ISPs, why is it so difficult for ISPs and the police to track down websites that host illegal content and particularly child abuse pictures?
11-Nov-2010
From what I understand, the police need a court order or something to get information from ISPs. But Im not sure how hard those are to get. And a lot of them I imagine are outside of jurisdiction.
well technically we have the right of privacy and when law enforcement try to invade that through ISPs then that is illegal, thats why they need to get a warrant first, its like breaking into a home. unless its a matter of national security then the police cant tell the isp to show them the data. or make a law about it
Not since the Patriot Act. All ISPs are required to keep record of Internet traffic for years and let the government take a peek when it needs something.
Hate to burst āknowledgeableā bubble experts in communications. Iāve been reticulating for 44 years.
Optic degrades 6 times faster than co-axial which means you have to strip it out and replace it every 6-10 years otherwise it becomes useless. Coaxial has a life of 50 years plus and is %10 of fiber cost. 90% of internet users [ non commercial] donāt NEED 100mb/sec as 10mb/sec is just fine [2 sec verses 20 sec ??]. Cost for connection of fiber escalate out of sight compared to coaxial cable. Coaxial is far easier to repair, resists damage where optic will crack, split, fracture, break and is a pain in the proverbial to join ā joins further degrade efficiency. $1.6 billion to fiber optic a small city, $160 million with coaxial.
Not being too knowledgeable about bandwidths etc, I thought that all the massive movie streaming, tv catchups etc that were being urged to watch (and my wife does due to the hours she works) would use more bandwidth than just downloading file-sharing material or am I wrong? I have music playing on the internet all day, am I being greedy? Whatās an acceptable limit for daily use? Why donāt ISPs give us programs and guides to let us monitor our usage? Why donāt ISPs limit the amount of customers they take on if thereās not enough to go around??
Getting back to the original question, I think I read somewhere that they can only track what we upload and not download, or am I wrong. Itās all so confusing.
For further info in what encrypted ports (465) are capable of read this link:
http://luxsci.com/blog/the-case-for-email-security.html
In particular this paragraphā¦
āBy using SSL for Webmail, POP, IMAP, and SMTP (see SMTP TLS) you ensure that communications between your personal computer and your email service provider
I use a VPN!
How and what are the protections of this vs. my ISP Co., and also what limitations does this have?
Can they āseeā what Iām doing (like using a Bit Torrent,) etc., and that is coming from my Acct.ā?
Thanks Leo for your GREAT Newsletter!
03-Dec-2010
They even know where your money is coming from so if you have a agreement and go over and you have a direct debit theyāre charge direct from your bank. And you wont know until the next bank statement.
If you Have or use a Elite Proxy your untraceable! lol
To get around this, just download your movies using direct downloading (Hotfile/Fileserve/Filesonic/Mediafire/Megaupload/Rapidshare/Uploading) instead of using P2P. P2P, in fact, is ludicrously amateurish, and you will discover that once you learn to use Google.
30-Aug-2011
Can my ISP see that I downloading files from a UseNet Server and if so what can they see? Filename, data type, etc? This seems to be the correct article to ask this question. Please donāt delete.
19-Dec-2011
Hi Leo, thanks for your insight and you were correct about your comment on 30 Aug 2011! SOPA, Megaupload, etc.
Great article Leo,
I just bought an elite proxy for a few dollars per month.
If I use this proxy on windows mail, will it stop my isp or others being able to view the data being sent etc.
31-Jan-2012
I recently (past 3 weeks) began downloading movies off of torrent sites. As soon as the file was completed downloading I stopped it from seeding. After downloading about 80 movies I started receiving emails from my ISP saying that they were contacted by the movie distributors (ie. Sony, Universal, etc.) and forwarded the message to me. Each email listed the title of the movie in question and demanded that I remove the files and stop downloading or I will be disconnected.
I have stopped downloading and removed the PSP sharing software (Vuze) from my computer but can they (my ISP or the movie distributor) see if I have actually deleted the movies off of my computer or personal shared network media drive?
I understand how the ISP sees what I am doing but how did the movie distributor know I downloaded one of their movies? Do they upload the torrent themselves and watch to see who downloads it?
Sorry for the long post but you obviously know what you are talking about and I hate to completely delete all of those movies if I donāt have to. But at the same time, I really donāt want to get in trouble or have my internet disconnected (guess I should have thought about that before I started downloading movies, haha!).
Your input is much appreciated, Leo.
they know because if you most likely used a public tracker which are infested with uploads from sony themselves to catch ppl who download them. if they are the uploader of the torrent, it isnt hard to track u and send that info to the isp regardless of your encrpytion.
@Stephan
Ask Leo canāt, or wonāt, respond to questions that ask to do
something illegal, or ask for help with something that would
be illegal or improper.
Nice informative article Leo, Can I just add that over here (UK) British Telecom Slow down but donāt stop file sharing, but after midnight to 7am they allow full speed.
You said, āThat means that they (ISPs) can disallow file sharing protocols whether or not youāre using them to perform illegal downloads.ā
I am 63 and I do not d/l copyrighted material me being in the music business, so; my question would be: āIsnāt the ISP acting as a de facto agent of Law Enforcement, and just how did the ISP come to insert themselves as de facto law enforcement?ā Granted it is ātheirā ISP however, when an intity inserts itself in to what may or may not be legal without sworn legal authority Iād think they are letting themselves in for a nice law suit especially if that ISP is the only āgameā in town? Yes? No?
14-May-2012
There are a lot of activities that use a lot of bandwidth, are all of them going to be disallowed? If so, I might as well kill myself now.
A bettter title would be āHow can my ISP not know what Iām doing? Afterall, they are almost up my butt.ā
Im very sorry for posting here but i am completely out of ideas!! please someone help! I have a question, is it legal for a comcast internet tech to tell me i have to install something on my computer that in turn erased all my bookmarked pages that i use for reference for work? He had me install some āxfinityā software and told me i could just remove it when it was finished if i did not want it on my computer. Well, as soon as it was finished installing I imediatly opened google crome to start my work (writing ebooks on political topics). To my dismay, ALL of my reference matirial I had spent months looking for and bookmarking was gone!! No bookmarks!! I called the service center, they sent out a tech guy to my place again. He told me that he was not sure why they make people install this software because people are unhappy about it usually. He also told me that other people have had the same problem before and that there is nothing they can do about it. This is unacceptable to me!! It has ruined my focus and direction associated with my writing as I now have absolutely no references!! Please someone tell me this is illegal so i can put a stop to this kind of guided misfortune!! Thank you! B
23-Jun-2012
Just wanted to thank you for this simple, clear and concise post on downloading! It really helped me to understand this topic. I really appreciate it!
I became instantly addicted with torrent downloading when i first found BitLord. I constantly downloaded discographies and many movies and games. With all of this foolish downloading came the most unexpected consequence: a copyright notice. One of the discographies i downloaded was of āPuddle of Mudā and that was who contacted my ISP (Charter). After reading a few articles, including this one, Iāve found out that i was caught primarily because many people were downloading the same thing i was (at least i think). That brings me to my question: if i were to download illegally again, it would be foolish i know, would charter know that Iāve done it again?
Itās not normally your ISP who would go after you. When you download via a torrent, your IP number appears in a list of uploaders and downloaders. This list shows up in the torrent program of everyone sharing the files with that torrent. The owner of the copyright or a proxy just has to download that torrent to see the IP numbers of all the people sharing that file. They can determine which ISP you are using to share the file. (http://askleo.com/finding_the_owner_of_an_ip_address/). They then send those IP numbers to their lawyers who get a court order to get the ISP to tell them who is downloading that file using that IP number.
Quite possibly, yes. Donāt do it. On charter or any other ISP. Illegal is illegal, regardless of whether or not you get caught.
I use hotspot blocker and turns my PC into a VPN.
If you want movies use yifi-torrent.org
Thank you for writing a tech blog that filled in some blanks re: why my ISP has a hard-on for uTorrent and NOT being completely full of s#!t and ACTUALLY contributing to the depth and breadth of knowledge available on the internetsā¦I downloaded uTorrent and started f-ing w/ Pirate Bay as a test to see if p2p networking was still POSSIBLE in 2014. In my university days (The Engineering Dorm) we all had windows 95 boxes connected via ethernet and a MASSIVE HP-UX server that took up most of the 1st floor of the CSC building ā¦ even though it was installed 20 yrs agoā¦it still works and is still in use.
In 1998 this was ādamn fast networkingā we played Quake 2 and it felt like real-time, I could send a file over the network as fast as the circuit would allow (4MB/s?) and up/down to the interwebs was =lly impressive.
We started out using FTP in conjunction with ICQ and IRC. From this, we could establish relationships with freshman dormies across North America, and for large files that were hard to download back then, we could grant each other āleech access.ā Yes we shared copyrighted software, movies, music etc. et al.
Our proudest moment was watching Star Wars Episode I a few weeks before it was in the theaters. NOT the āKramer w/ a video camera version,ā ā¦some creep at LucasArts or Film or whatever was part of our IRC network and we talked him into sending the Final Cut (Nelson: āhahah!ā). So what if the movie sucked? It saved everyone 10 bucks and it proved that if we wanted something, we could get it.
Then Napster hit and all hell broke loose; not for USā¦I found TONs of extremely rare music you canāt even buy if you want to. Outside the dorms, we did the same using our ISP, who also didnāt notice or care.
FTP didnāt always work so good on a cable modem (compared to the T1-ethernet on campus) and Napster was shutting itself on and off as it got into more legal trouble. Iād switched to a p2p called Poison that worked great and the files were virus-free. Not so for classmates who started using TOR ā theyāre adult entertainment ESPECIALLY came retrofitted with adware and the clients had names that made āpoisonā sound friendly in comparison. In fact they seemed to be specifying that theyād rā your sysreg if you used it. And they did.
Recently I wanted to see if it was still possible ā Iām a tech guy and I have readers who enjoy my online experiments, so I downloaded uTorrent as it seemed to be the safest choice. I used a win7box that gets used STRICTLY for experimentation purposes ā it is a war-torn veteranā .js mouse-event Google account destruction occurred twice, registry overwrites and more malware/adware/viruses than you could count ā by design ā so I can backtrace the security hole, report it on my blog, show readers how to avoid it and sometimes I repaired the win7 box post-trauma. If machines could get purple hearts, that box has a couple and is quite sick with adware as I write.
uTorrent specifies on their site āNo downloading of copyrighted materialā and seems to indicate that you canāt use uTorrent to download content not approved and licensed for file-sharing BY THEM.ā ā> This is TRUE unless you know how to hash a magnet-link and open a torrent locally and leave it wide open for down/up mania.
I thought the p2p nature of file sharing would obfuscate the origins and destination of each file. I further thought the hashing would make identification of the filename or its contents, source, destination, etc too difficult to crack for an interested 3rd party to look any further into.
ānormally it would. What my ISP saw (and I tested the limits of what theyād notice) was 20 or 30 gigs coming in and out of my IP almost every day.
THAT triggered SOMETHING that runs on my ISPs SSL ā
IF(DATA_IN > SOMETING || DATA_OUT > SOMETHING){INVESTIGATE(); SendWarningEmail(cx);}
So I disabled uTorrent as per their request. Limit and max_rate of packets test is completed.
One week of ~30GB transferred (15dn-15up) is enough to set off a flag at ā communications ā> Limit per day is <30Gb for daily usage and probaby <200Gb per week. Note that I was TRYING to set their alarm as my readers had been curious.
Hashing and p2p masks neither the IP NOR the filename. Lesson learned. That was the point.
Againā¦great blog ā will add it to my shortlist of "Blogs that don't suck 2014," to be published around yrs end.
I WOULD knock you for the js popup when I bookmarkedā¦.but it's actually a good idea, people who bookmark MAY ACTUALLY want to subscribe. Still the popup???ā¦.cmon dude! I think you're above that.
Also ā consider mentioning that you "consulted for" Microsoft. Do you really want tech readers, especially software engineers to know that you were on the payroll? xD
Lulz,
Tapper7
The popup timing was coincidental. I think itās set for 30 or 60 seconds, not related to the bookmark. Should also show up only once every 6 months (unless you clear cookies).
As for Microsoft ā on the contrary, Iām quite proud of the time that I put in there. It was a wonderful experience.
Great Article and helped clear up a few questions but what are your thoughts on this: On Christmas Day 2014, AT&T sends me the alert due to being a part of the āparticipation in the Copyright Alert Programā. I donāt have or use any of these so called P2Pās (that I know of). I do use Google Drive & Google Music. Do you think that could be triggering it? Those are the only things I can think of that are putting my data out there and thatās for backing up purposes only. Iām a little ticked b/c I donāt share things nor do I have care to but what triggered this and is there a way to search all my devices for P2P so I donāt have to worry about this anymore? Thanks again!
Iād be shocked if it were limited to only P2P protocols. Iām sure traditional file up & download protocols, and maybe even a few backup protocols are monitored. Only solution Iām aware of is to encrypt prior to uploading.
Sky my ISP has given my ip information to an internet troll I am now waiting on a letter from them demanding money is this legal
Iām not a lawyer, so I have no idea. Youād have to contact an attorney in your area.
Hi Leo if you get warning from your isp about downloading illegal content and you stop downloading it for a while how can you tell them to remove the warning stars that you get from them
They should eventually go away. If not, your only option would be to contact your ISP directly by phone or email.
Hello guys, just read through the comments but i have a query which wasnāt answered .
I am working on a project and I would like to know if it is possible for ISPs to track only downloads made on their network. If that is possible which applications can be used to achieve this.
I will be grateful for any contributions.
An ISP would only be able to see the traffic which passes through their own servers
For months now I have stopped using uTorrent. And have done a factory reset on my pc. But Iām still getting warnings from my ISP (Time Warner) is there a way the files are still sharing? And if so, how do I get it all to stop?
If youāve turned everything off that you know of, the other possibility is that thereās malware on your machine. Run up-to-date scans.
Ok my question is i use p2p programs like Limewire and uTorrent can the ISP see what the files Iām actually downloading are? And would they care? I donāt download any new movies or anything like that I always download old movies of 10 years older that on available in my country tv shows and fansub from anime and that.
Ed
Depends on the specific program. Most now use encrypted connections, which would seem to mean that no, the ISP canāt see the files, only that youāre using p2p protocols and servers.
Thanks for the article. Never occurred to me they can see the type of data from ports
I use uTorrent and have gotten warnings from my ISP telling me exactly what movie i was downloading. My landlord was not happy about this because he is paranoid about get the service shut off.
Heās right. He could even be fined for copyright violations. It happened to me, Luckily, the guest who downloaded the movie willingly paid it.
Thankyou for such a lovely article . Iāve never got any warnings about this , but can ISP track my comments like this one and other personal email-sort of things?? Is there anything that may prevent us from āISP TRACKINGā than VPN proxy networks?
ISPs can track anything which goes through their servers unless it is encrypted and rerouted by a VPN.
In askleo.comās case, since itās an https site the ISP cannot see your comment. On non-https sites they could. An encrypting VPN or proxy is the only solution Iām aware of.
Does downloading videos from YouTube trigger the alert too or just torrents?
YouTube actually downloads to your computer before itās played, and itās stored in a buffer, so it shouldnāt appear any different to the ISP than when itās simply playing.
https://askleo.com/whats_the_difference_between_streaming_and_downloading_a_video_and_how_does_it_impact_the_limits_my_isp_imposes/
I have been downloading movies and for the last couple of days I cant download from any site why is that please help
As mentioned in the article, if they are illegal downloads, perhaps your ISP is blocking them.
Without a LOT more details thereās no way I can help.
It is not illegal to download anything of the internet what so ever..it is illegal to share copyrighted material..and for legal purposes your isp schouldnt be watching what you do at the privacy of your own home that is a invasion of privacy and your isp scould be sued if they are invaded your privacy in which you pay for internet services.and you are doing something illegal then they law schould get involved not your isp ..that is invading your privacy you pay to have access to internet not acesss for people to invade your privacy..my reccomedation..get a new isp..
This isnāt legal advice, but to see what youāre downloading, your ISP isnāt looking at your home computer. They are looking at the traffic which is passing through their computers. I may be wrong, but I believe they have the right and possibly even the responsibility to police their servers for illegal activity of which downloading pirated material is in most countries.
āIt is not illegal to download anything of the internet what so everā is just flat-out wrong. Downloading pirated copies of movies, for example, is illegal in most jurisdictions. Thatās a simple example, and the laws involved get quite complex, but there are definitely things that are illegal to even download. (As always, Iām no lawyer, this is my opinion and understanding ā if you need an actual legal opinion contact an actual attorney versed in these types of laws.)