ISP to customers: piracy allegations could affect your smart thermostats

midian182

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Internet service providers threatening customers who persistently download files via torrents is nothing new. But one US ISP has warned copyright infringers that if they don’t stop pirating, they might find their smart thermostats losing some functionality.

Armstrong Zoom Internet is a provider in the northeastern part of the US that boasts around one million subscribers. As other ISPs have done in the past, it recently sent out letters to a number of users accused of copyright infringement.

The notices warns that if Zoom is notified of any more offenses, there will be consequences. These include removing the accused from their current service tier and placing them at the lowest level.

“This will allow you to access email, but limit your speeds and affect your ability to upload or download material to the internet or use other file-sharing capabilities,” explains the note.

Painfully slow internet speeds sound like sufficient reason to step away from the torrents, but Zoom goes on to warn that other connected services could also suffer.

“Please be advised that this may affect other services which you may have connected to your internet service, such as the ability to control your thermostat remotely or video monitoring services.”

It’s important to note that the ISP isn’t threatening to disable owners’ smart thermostats completely, but the reduced service could prevent them from being operated remotely—a feature many people use, especially during the winter.

As noted by Torrent Freak, should a customer find themselves demoted to the lowest service tier, they will need to answer some copyright questions and read an educational piece about copyright infringement if they want their regular service restored.

Should a repeat offender receive even more complaints, they will have their Zoom internet service terminated, which means controlling their thermostats, or any other smart home devices, remotely definitely won't be an option.

Back in 2015, an Australian court told the rights holder of Hollywood blockbuster Dallas Buyers Club that penalties must be capped for those who illegally downloaded the movie. It also demanded a $442,000 bond before details of the accused were released. The move came after Dallas Buyers Club LLC (DBC) was granted permission to contact almost 5000 iiNet ISP customers and seek damages for copyright infringement.

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So essentially, copyright owners can report users and said users can have their service hampered or terminated, all without due process. Oh boy am I happy we got rid of Net Neutrality and that Internet is no longer a utility /s. To all those people saying that the reaction to Net Neutrality was overboard, I told you so. It hasn't even been a month and Comcast is already raising prices and now this.
 
Oh boy am I happy we got rid of Net Neutrality
Yet our net is more neutral without NN. That's as bad as thinking Anonymous is a special group. I wish you would shut up about NN and come back when it really effects you or someone you know. And no I'm not talking about a 10 or 20 dollar monthly bill increase. You want me to stand on your side, come back when you have something to put on the table. And no piracy concerns are not worthy, that is movie makers twisting their arm. That's a completely different battle. One that if you want me to help you fight, here I am.
 
Yet our net is more neutral without NN. That's as bad as thinking Anonymous is a special group. I wish you would shut up about NN and come back when it really effects you or someone you know. And no I'm not talking about a 10 or 20 dollar monthly bill increase. You want me to stand on your side, come back when you have something to put on the table. And no piracy concerns are not worthy, that is movie makers twisting their arm. That's a completely different battle. One that if you want me to help you fight, here I am.

This and comcast raising prices is something. Previously you stated "oh let's wait and see". Now that Comcast is raising prices and throttling is occurring you have to fall back to defense b "oh why do you care?".

What kind of American leaves his countrymen out to dry. It's really sad that you dislike me because I believe that every American should have equal access to the Internet.

"And no piracy concerns are not worthy, that is movie makers twisting their arm."

This isn't privacy related, it's about throttling in this instance. They are selectively throttling specific data based on unsubstantiated reports. It's the exact thing NN was put in place to prevent. I can understand if it was through due process but that is not the case here.
 
Very click-baity title.

They are not removing the ability to use these services via the customers internet connections - just advising customers of the loss of services expected by being dropped to the lowest tier.

Obviously if your upload is only 512kb, your ability to stream video is going to drop significantly. Some customers may not realize this, however, and continue to pirate without using a VPN - which is a silly thing to do.

So customers of Zoom, if you're going to Pirate please use a torrent friendly VPN service such as Slick VPN, which will prevent Zoom from knowing what you're doing.
 
Another reason you won't find one IoT or other smart device in my home. The only "smart" device
I have, is the phone. No smart TV, no smart appliances, no smart meters (utility hasn't replaced them yet).
I don't want anyone remotely turning my stuff on and off.
I can see it. Go too fast in your car...well, we'll slow down your internet speed. Or, go through a red light, well, we'll turn your tv off for 24 hours and on and on.
 
Oh boy am I happy we got rid of Net Neutrality
Yet our net is more neutral without NN. That's as bad as thinking Anonymous is a special group. I wish you would shut up about NN and come back when it really effects you or someone you know. And no I'm not talking about a 10 or 20 dollar monthly bill increase. You want me to stand on your side, come back when you have something to put on the table. And no piracy concerns are not worthy, that is movie makers twisting their arm. That's a completely different battle. One that if you want me to help you fight, here I am.


this has nothing to do with Net Neutrality. The loss of that will be felt in about 3 to 4 years depending on when the FCC is done settling all their lawsuits and confirms that, indeed, the handing over of the Internet to the ISPs has been completed. For a long time, ISPs have wanted to fully control the worlds largest economy, and they finally will be able to do so after NN - if you don't believe so, you have far too much faith in mankind.

This is just dropping the speed of ALL services for customers, and has nothing to do with NN, unlike the click-baity title of the article would led you to believe.

Video Cameras and NEST products require higher upload, and ZOOM's upload speed on their lowest tier is only 1mbps - while most basic NEST stuff won't be limited by this, video surveillance would be.

NN's loss, again, is tragedy for the free market as a whole, as the oligopolies that are the ISPs will be carving up the Internet to differentiate their business models and squeeze more capital out of people's desire to access it. Legally it also puts the US below the UN requirements stating that access to the Internet is indeed a human right - so we're now on par with China on that. No matter what your stance on NN, that's a fact: the US now falls under a violation of human rights as per the UN - few care about this, but it should provoke a slight "huh" from people.

We've enjoyed NN since 1996 - losing it is a major issue, if you think we can do without NN... I don't know why you want to change the Internet, it should remain as it always has since it's inception, but whatever... nothing we can do about it. Only hope our state representatives have a better idea of how to protect our rights than the feds do.
 
We've enjoyed NN since 1996 - losing it is a major issue, if you think we can do without NN... I don't know why you want to change the Internet, it should remain as it always has since it's inception, but whatever... nothing we can do about it. Only hope our state representatives have a better idea of how to protect our rights than the feds do.
That's just it, we didn't loose NN at all. We gained part of it back. People need to stop referring to what was lost as NN. Evernessince can't seem to do that, I'm hoping you can.
 
You know as well as I do that with or without NN, that simply wasn't going to happen.
I didn't say privacy, I said piracy which is the topic.

This isn't per say about piracy concerns as much it is the lack of due process in order to throttle. So any copyright holders can tell your ISP you are doing such and such, and they can throttle you without any way to defend yourself.
 
Another reason you won't find one IoT or other smart device in my home.
^ This. The Smartest homes of all are the ones that don't have critical core appliances of the house (fridge, cooker, boiler / thermostat, pet feeders, etc) connected to the fragile insecure Internet on the back of dumb "Internet of Things is the future!" marketing as some "alternative" to a little common sense...
 
You know as well as I do that with or without NN, that simply wasn't going to happen.
I didn't say privacy, I said piracy which is the topic.

This isn't per say about piracy concerns as much it is the lack of due process in order to throttle...

Um, very first paragraph...
Internet service providers threatening customers who persistently download files via torrents is nothing new. But one US ISP has warned copyright infringers that if they don’t stop pirating, they might find their smart thermostats losing some functionality.

It's so annoying reading fake news in the comments. Just saying...
 
Um, very first paragraph...
Internet service providers threatening customers who persistently download files via torrents is nothing new. But one US ISP has warned copyright infringers that if they don’t stop pirating, they might find their smart thermostats losing some functionality.

It's so annoying reading fake news in the comments. Just saying...

Just a heads up, receiving unsubstantiated claims from random companies who say they have control over a copyright does not qualify. First, we have zero idea if ISPs even require any proof before submitting a complaint and second we have zero idea if they even check if these companies even hold the correct copyrights.

It all boils down to the fact that they have zero transparency on their processes and you just expect everyone to trust ISPs to do the right thing and properly investigate claims made by copyright holders. That world is a completely fallacy, as no company will waste any extra money they don't have to. It's far more likely these companies are going to appease big copyright holders to avoid lawsuits, meaning people get implicated with zero due process.

We've seen this countless times in the past, where people were sent copyright infringement notices without ever torrenting, being the only one in the house, and while having a secure wireless network. These companies will send out notices based simply on IP addresses logged for pirated files but that is 10% reliable as nearly every consumer internet plan uses Dynamic IP addresses and it is very easy to send a notice to the wrong person when IP addresses and re-assigned every 2 days.
 
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I'm gonna laugh my butt off when a consortium of IoT makers sues the hell out of that tiny ISP. Armstrong is a nobody in that industry..the only reason they have ANY leverage is because their the only wired ISP serving a lot of rural areas. Their wildly unpopular with their captive customers. Believe me, the much more influential hardware companies are going to nip this in the bud. Oh, and there's nothing remotely click-bait about the title of this piece - it repeats verbatim what Armstrong is threatening.
 
So essentially, copyright owners can report users and said users can have their service hampered or terminated, all without due process. Oh boy am I happy we got rid of Net Neutrality and that Internet is no longer a utility /s. To all those people saying that the reaction to Net Neutrality was overboard, I told you so. It hasn't even been a month and Comcast is already raising prices and now this.

Comcast was going to raise their prices anyway, just like they do EVERY year. Net Neutrality had nothing to do with that whatsoever. They called me to tell me that the prices would be going up 3+ months ago and tried to sell me into another 2-year commitment. Net Neutrality didn't fix anything at all, and rolling it back hasn't broken anything.
 
Comcast was going to raise their prices anyway, just like they do EVERY year. Net Neutrality had nothing to do with that whatsoever. They called me to tell me that the prices would be going up 3+ months ago and tried to sell me into another 2-year commitment. Net Neutrality didn't fix anything at all, and rolling it back hasn't broken anything.

It wasn't mean't to be a heavy handed fix that forces ISPs to charge certain prices. It was designed so that customers could file complaints and then the FCC could do something about it. People need to make up their mind, do they want light handed or heavy handed internet regulation. Right now we have extremely light handed, NN was only a small step above that.
 
It wasn't mean't to be a heavy handed fix that forces ISPs to charge certain prices. It was designed so that customers could file complaints and then the FCC could do something about it. People need to make up their mind, do they want light handed or heavy handed internet regulation. Right now we have extremely light handed, NN was only a small step above that.

People can already file complaints... With the FTC. The Clayton Act and the Sherman Act already regulated antitrust cases, price fixing, price discrimination, and monopolies. Title II was redundant, and wasn't a step up at all.
 
People can already file complaints... With the FTC. The Clayton Act and the Sherman Act already regulated antitrust cases, price fixing, price discrimination, and monopolies. Title II was redundant, and wasn't a step up at all.

The Clayton Act and Sherman Act deal with parties attempting to interrupt the free and open trade of the market. Sounds good, the only problem is it doesn't apply to ISPs.

For example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Antitrust_Act_of_1914

"price discrimination between different purchasers if such a discrimination substantially lessens competition or tends to create a monopoly in any line of commerce (Act Section 2, codified at 15 U.S.C. § 13);"

ISPs managed to get around this by creating regional monopolies. You can't lower competition where there is no local competition and you're not technically a monopoly because other ISPs are operating in other parts of the US. It's pretty plain to see the price discrimination when my friend down the street pays $80 a month for 30/30 from the same provider as me while I get 60/60 for $40. The only difference is that I happen to have two providers I can choose from, yay.

"mergers and acquisitions where the effect may substantially lessen competition (Act Section 7, codified at 15 U.S.C. § 18) or where the voting securities and assets threshold is met (Act Section 7a, codified at 15 U.S.C. § 18a);"

Oh, good thing ISP's networks don't overlap or the Time Warner / Charter merger might have been blocked. Too bad that isn't the truth.

In addition, from the linked article

"Unilateral price discrimination is clearly outside the reach of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, which only extended to "concerted activities" (agreements)"

So in other words, unless these companies are signing agreements to fix prices, this act will not apply to them

The Sherman Anti-Trust act is even more basic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act

As it deals with restriction of trade and the attempt to form monopolies.


As I've demonstrated, the Sherman and Clayman act don't even cover the basics of regulating ISPs, let alone the tackle the details required that couldn't have possibly been known when either of those bills were passed.
 
This is why you shouldn't have a "smart home." Keep things disconnected.
 
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