If you are pay for X amount of bandwidth and you use Y amount of
bandwidth, and Y > X then its probably stealing (its just the way I
think about it).  The ISP gave these people only so much bandwidth, if
they take more then its stealing.  One of the people only uncapped for a
couple of minutes, what if I only stole a car for a couple of minutes, I
doubt that person would be to happy about it (this might not be the
greatest example).  If you use a FTP server, you do not take more then
your allocated amount of bandwidth, so I don't see it as stealing, might
be against TOS but its not stealing.  I do not agree with the way that
the ISP dealt with the people uncapping, but I do see how they can
justify uncapping as stealing, especially in a market were every bit of
bandwidth cost money, and uncapping could cause a company to pay for a
hole lot more bandwidth.

Dennis

On Mon, 2003-07-14 at 14:25, will hill wrote:
> On 2003.07.14 12:45 Dennis Rowe wrote:
> > They said that the uncappers were stealing bandwidth.  Ftp servers do
> > not steal bandwidth.  It might not agree with the TOS but it will not
> > get the fbi on you.  If they attacked every server, then everything from
> > kazaa to msn messenger would be affected.
> > 
> > Dennis
> > 
> 
> I'm not sure they "stole" bandwidth.  One of the people raided only uncapped 
> for short bursts.  He used it to save himself time uploading his work from 
> home.  The uploads would have simply taken him longer.  
> 
> The laws might be insanely impractical, but they are what they are.  That it 
> can happen does not mean that it will.  I understand that AOL instant 
> messenger, for instance, has it's own little server on port 21.  Just the 
> same, the low probability of such a thing happening to me is not zero.  They 
> could log up my ftp use and bust me.  It's all the same thing, obtaining data 
> services without permission.  The No Electronic Theft act is stupid but it's 
> there.
> 
> I'm not a very practical target.   The 3 gigs of photos and what not I used 
> to serve out to friends and family by ftp don't make a very inviting target 
> either.  Imagine the kind of publicity they would get for raiding someone 
> sharing baby pictures with their mom.  Still, it's different enough to get me 
> in trouble.  Not a lot of people run ftp, so it would not hurt Cox badly if 
> they did something ugly.  I could easily be lumped into a group of 
> unsophisticated warez traders.  I never consumed much bandwidth, but other 
> people running ftp sites have.  
> 
> ftp on Cox is not practical anymore anyway, so I just don't do it.  They have 
> changed my ip several times and uploads from their crimped modems are 
> painfully slow.  
> 
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