In Case you get busted (semi serious)

[fred861]

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[lysine]

sigh....


Remember if you got a wireless network you can make it very hard for them to prove which computer was actually doing the downloading:


it doesn't really matter, because you're ultimately responsible for your connection. if your name is on the isp contract, you're going to be held liable most likely. I don't believe there is any definitive court ruling on this yet though.





1) Change your network adapters


what good will changing your mac address do? your isp keeps a log of what ip address is assigned to your connection. it varies from isp to isp, and country to country, how long these logs are archived for. if they receive a subpeona from a court, they have to turn over the log.


2) Encrypt the partition you download to (also install all your downloading apps on this partition)

this is about the only valid point. except why use commercial software you have to pay for, when there is a great, free, open source alterative:
http://www.truecrypt.org/



3) make sure you clear your history every now and then


that's really not going to help anything, other than your roommate, parents, or friends finding out that you've been looking at donkey porn.



4) use PeerGuardian (http://phoenixlabs.org/)


definitely not a magic bullet, and the effectiveness is debatable, but it's better than nothing, imo.




5) Remember so far all cases of people being sued has been because they were Uploading Data, try and download as much as you can with leech only networks like HTTP FTP and newsgroups


agreed.



also prefer private bittorrent trackers to pulic ones


it would be just as easy for an agent working for a media company to get an account on a private tracker. people freely give out invites to people they know little or nothing about.




When they knock on the door:


no one is going to be knocking on your door for your average filesharing, unless you're involved in high level stuff, or have connections to those who are. downloading from p2p programs is not going to garner criminal charges against you, only civil ones. if there is someone at your door, never let them inside, never discuss anything with them, refer them to your legal representation. the only reason you would have to do anything, is if they have a valid search warrant. the warrant will specific an exact location that they can search.



1) -Quick format your hardrives with a multipass formating program (even the encrypted ones don't take any risks)


if your computer is confiscated, they can recover data that has been deleted. clearing your history files and deleting things does not do anything, unless it's cleaned by a program that uses the US Department of Defense (DOD 5220.22-M) standard for data deletion. the time it takes to fully remove the data from the drive is way longer than you could stall, unless you have an armed standoff for a couple of days...



2)Get rid of your stash of discs chuck 'em out the window wateva!!!


yeah, I'm sure that they won't notice that...



3)Tell them it wasn't you

if you have a wifi network tell them someone was leeching it! ( this is an applicable excuse even for people using WEP and WPA, they can't prove that nobody cracked it!)

tell 'em your pc was hacked, show 'em all your trojan horses!


see first point, up at the top of the thread.




4) Remember they try to bully you into paying up, they are scared of going to court (not 100% sure of this so hum don't take any risks here guys!)

if there are agents at your house, they're not trying to bully anyone into paying anything. they're participating in a criminal investigation. they are not scared to take you to court. if anyone should be scared of going to court, it should be you.


disclaimer: this advice is not legal advice, I am not a lawyer, and applies only to those in the united states for the most part.

[fred861]

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[EisDann]

im scared

[cubkiller89]

Just have a shot gun in your house. Tell them if they come back again ur going to kill their family always does the trick
lol jk

[erRor67]

If I recall correctly, there was a case (maybe two) where they used the open wifi defense and it worked (at least, i think it worked).

But yeah, newsgroups is a nice way to go. Peerguardian is another protection people should use. Its better than nothing but remember, Peerguardian does nothing when using bit torrent. Because they can just get ur IP from the tracker.

Oh, and they can still sue you for downloading. It doesnt matter if you dont upload.

[keepit]

wow thx for this :lol:

[klubhead]

this has been a matter for years and years.... how do you people know they are starting to crack down even more now?

[Sickfit]

Don't plan on getting busted anytime soon...but thanks for the truecrypt link.

[Broken]

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/5768/shakesiglo8.th.jpg


Back-up plan,
Have giant milk shake hold off FBI with AK-47 while I escape by flushing myself down the toilet.
:shuriken:

[Brenya]

they don't only go to uploaders. i was watching the news two days ago and the RIAA sued this chick in her 20s for around 25,000 dollars because 6 years prior she downloaded a shit load of music from kazaa. she started crying on tv and everything. she was like "all my friends were doing it, i never knew it was such a big deal!"... damn, the news said she only downloaded like 100 dollars worth of music too. RIAA rep. said that they needed to set an example to all the other pirates. well it definitely scares the shit out of me that they are able to sue you 10 years down the road after having stopped being a pirate (or that they even would).

so yeah guys be paranoid :) ... use tor! lol jkjk the speed sucks.

oh yeah and truecrypt rocks ;)

[Tagentx]

How much do cleaners help? Thanks for the info on encrypting your harddrive, never thought to do that.