Qwest Suspends Grandma's Internet Connection
A case of Hollywood going after the individual.
Cathi "Cat" Paradiso, a 53-year-old grandmother from Pueblo, Colorado, was accused of illegally downloading 18 films and TV shows, including "Zombieland," "Harry Potter," and "South Park."
A representative from Qwest phoned Paradiso informing her of the alleged Hollywood copyright infringement, which lead to a suspension of her internet service. Paradiso was told that if she was accused to illegal activity one more time, Qwest would have to terminate her account and that other ISPs in the area would learn of her name, making it hard to sign up for new internet service.
The interesting fact underlying the entire incident is that Paradiso did not commit any of the activity that she was accused of. Yes, she was an internet user as she works from home as a technical recruiter; but she maintains that she did not download a single movie.
"Take me off your hit list," Paradiso wrote in a January 15 e-mail plea to some of the studios who had accused her, as quoted by CNet. "I have never downloaded a movie. Period... You'll need to admit you made a mistake and move on to the correct perpetrator... I am saying this once more: My computer is not a toy. My livelihood depends on my ISP's reliability. Look for the perpetrator and leave my service alone."
CNet made inquiries into Paradiso's case, which led Qwest to dig deeper. A technician last week discovered that Paradiso's network was compromised, which absolves her of the downloading activity. Of course, the question remains whether the one employing internet service is responsible for the type of activity that happens on the account.
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The MPAA witch hunt continues. Now persecuting old women and children!
It seems the accusation was not totally inaccurate in this case. Grandma just needs someone to put some security on her network.
On another note, it seems a tad unlikely to me that Grandma knew the acronym "ISP" but didn't think that securing her network was important.
It seems the accusation was not totally inaccurate in this case. Grandma just needs someone to put some security on her network.On another note, it seems a tad unlikely to me that Grandma knew the acronym "ISP" but didn't think that securing her network was important.
Who said her network wasn't "secure"? Just because you have a password on it doesn't mean it's impossible to break into it.
I think "Grandma" is a bit misleading here. True, she is a grandmother, but "Grandma" typically implies your stereotypical eighty-five year-old lady; this woman is only fifty-three. So, no, its not unlikely that a fifty-three year-old female 'technical recruiter' knows what an ISP is. Just because her network was "compromised" doesn't mean it was "unsecured".
I still think it was hilarious that some of the big record labels got sued by a bunch of artists for copyright infringement to a sum of about $16million they illegally made from follow up compilations without the artists consent. Of course when the individual artists complained, they were told where to go...
and then the great American Legal system turned on the Music industry LOL
Supergranny 1
ISP -
Nice one
well just to play devils advocate here...if her livelihood depends on internet connectivity, perhaps she should do a little more to secure it.
It is part of every ISP's T.O.S. that you are liable for all activity on your connection and therefore should take steps to secure your network. It's "networks" like hers that allow malware, virus', D.O.S. attacks etc. to exist...not to mention movie stealing freeloaders piggybacking her connection.
a freakin cheapo router and freebie firewall configured properly would have prevented this whole situation fer' chrisakes'
plus, they would still be freeloading off her connection stealing movies if Qwest had not acted so you know what? Good for them. Pirates can walk the plank for all I care.
People should protect their networks, and most people do, but protected and secure are two different things, people used to think that FTP was protected because of passwords, but thazt doesn't mean it's secure.
As for the question of someone breaking into your network, and using it for illegal activity, then you getting blamed for it, to me, it seems to be akin to a guy running into a bar and shooting 3 people. Nobody in this situation would blame the manager, people would blame the perp. But at the same time, it would be expected that the manager take steps (eg, installing more cameras, perhaps a security guard on busy occasions) to help prevent it from happening again. The one problem with this analogy is that IT is so much more complex, it is entierly possible for someone to break into a network and leave barely a trace for a normal user to pickup.
Regardless of Guilt this shows a few things; First is that they don't have any good ways to track who is downloading what, and secondly, you can simply download whaterever you want as long as you have a compromised internet connection and claim you didn't do it. As by law she is innocent until proven guilty, but this is just a waste of time for everyone involved it seems.
grandma? i figured she would still be using dial-up or anything for the internet at all.
I no longer buy any new Hollywood films.I only buy my films used.
Screw you Hollywoood !!!
Does she get compensated for downtime? I'd be demanding it.
Chances are one of the following:
1) if she had wifi it was hacked which is too easy these days any fool can do it.
2) She had a proxy trojan very easy to get too i clean machines for a living 1 in 3 customers have one the most common place to get it is either myspace or facebook.
Most people with proxy trojans don't realize they have one most av's will not pick them up as they are custom and code is changed very often behavioral security software may pick it up ie. threatfire.
At the bare minimum it seems as if the initial investigation was not thorough.
Downloading south park.. illegal? They have a damn official website where you can watch it as many times as you want for free, they don't care if you have it for free or not. Of all the thing. *facepalm*
The MPAA witch hunt continues. Now persecuting old women and children!
53 year woman is NOT old
BTW this is called FASCISM
no comments...
But hey - it makes perfect sense for the "Corporations"... being 53yo woman - I order an internet connection that comes with "free wifi router" - I never use WiFi - so I don't care about it... Plus I have installed "free security software" that came with my PC (Norton Internet Security Crap), then I have been using my equipment advertised as "plug and play" and voila - I get sued for idiots hacking my WiFi... Why should I know how to do it? Why should I hire someone to do it for me? It's not even my router - it belongs to the ISP! My computer is "safe" - why do "I" get SUED?! Bottom line - Fuck you MPAA, RIAA and others...
a friend of mine hacked someone’s 128bit wep encryption in 2 hours to show us it could be done!
a "secure" network is only really secure from casual opportunists...
newer stronger security just makes it harder, but does not prevent it happening
this is terrible
let the elders live their lives enjoyably.
Time for the elderly to learn to lock their wi-fi!
Time for the elderly to learn to lock their wi-fi!
Problem is any form of encryption on wifi can be hacked by anyone you can point and click on hacking websites and download a program to do it for you there are plenty out there.
As long as bull shit like this continues and the MPAA's and the RIAA's rain of being complete ass hole bastards that deserve to be stoned, I will continue support the artists and the artists only, not them.Go to a concert, buy a shirt, use iTunes, don't help these pieces of shit take away personal freedoms of people all across the globe because of some tiny profit loss. It all comes down to the fact that they find it cheaper to sue good people for costing them less than a 10% profit hit than adapt to the internet and make their money with the consumer like iTunes.The MPAA and the RIAA are what are known as corporate terrorists. They spread fear and limit personal freedoms to feed their greed and allow their CEOs to make more millions of dollars, because tens of millions of dollars a year just isn't fucking enough for them.
*reign
BTW this is called FASCISM
While this is absurd, it definitely isn't fascism. It doesn't help anything for anarchist teens to yell about anarchism on the internet. Learn a thing or two about it and have an educated opinion.
Make all material copy-protected if you do not want illegal downloads. If you are not smart enough to do it, than you have to suffer the losses!
Personally I just hate all the so called "stars", and the last time I went to the movies was in 1988. You will not get a penny out of me, I have the time to wait and watch the movie when is available on the local channels.
This is what happens when this power is granted without proper oversight by a court of law rather than the ISP acting as a cop for the MPAA and RIAA. This kind of misdirection is a fact of every computer network. And it is also why the ISP's should not be hi-jacked by the entertainment industry.
Moral of the story, have someone "compromise" your network or do it yourself. Download whatever to your hearts content. Blame hackers when you get caught. Become absolved. Rinse and repeat.
Make all material copy-protected if you do not want illegal downloads. If you are not smart enough to do it, than you have to suffer the losses!Personally I just hate all the so called "stars", and the last time I went to the movies was in 1988. You will not get a penny out of me, I have the time to wait and watch the movie when is available on the local channels.
As has been shown over and over, copy protection is no protection. Just another tool to beat up legal users without putting any damper at all on the "illegal" users.
What RIAA and MPAA and others are trying to achieve is to convince the courts that they "OWN" whatever it is that is copy-protected/EULA click wrapped and that everyone else is only "renting" it. They are telling the public that they don't "own" what they buy. And we are being stupid enough to let them get away with this.
As much as I favor copyrights and copyright protection, technology has overtaken the situation. Efforts to protect copyrights have become more obnoxious and illegal than the copying! Wouldn't it be better just to say, "The time for authors, artists, production studios, etc., to make huge profits has come--and gone!"? Until the last century, performing artists generally were not wealthy. The situation reminds me of blacksmiths making horseshoes once automobiles came on the scene.
What RIAA and MPAA and others are trying to achieve is to convince the courts that they "OWN" whatever it is that is copy-protected/EULA click wrapped and that everyone else is only "renting" it. They are telling the public that they don't "own" what they buy. And we are being stupid enough to let them get away with this.
Of course they own it. they hold the copyright which you're only licensing for personal use. if it was yours then everyone would have to pay you royalties.
So if I ever get busted downloading shit online, all I have to do is disable the password on my wireless router and blame it on someone else in my apartment. Me +1 MPAA 0