Last night I was merrily surfing the net when suddenly my browser lost its connetion to the net ... shortly there after the following screen appeared fraaamed in the usual Cox Communications logo and format.
================================================================== The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, known as DMCA, was signed into law by President Clinton in 1998 to provide certain remedies for a copyright holder who has reason to believe that an Internet user is infringing his or her copyrights. This law permits copyright holders, or their representatives, to notify Internet service providers that specific customers have been identified as having files containing infringing material. As an Internet service provider, Cox Communications respects the privacy of our customers but must also meet our legal obligations when a DMCA infringement notice is received. We have received a notice stating that your computer contains files that infringe copyrights of a third party. Under the DMCA, we have the responsibility to temporarily disable your Internet access, until such time as you take the necessary steps to remove the infringing files and to prevent further distribution of copyrighted material. Please take the following steps immediately in order to address this request and have your Internet access restored: Step 1. Remove the copyrighted files. the following files must be deleted from your computer: Title: Rome Filename: rome.209.hdtv-lol.r00 Filesize: 15000000 Title: Rome Filename: rome.209.hdtv-lol.r03 Filesize: 15000000 [snip many similar entries] Title: Rome Filename: rome.209.hdtv-lol.r01 Filesize: 15000000 Step 2. To avoid any future infringement, we highly recommend turning off the sharing feature of your peer-to-peer software, such as KazAa, Morpheus, Grokster, etc. For specific instructions on how to disable the feature for your specific software, consult with the software vendor. Step 3. After deleting the files and disabling file sharing, you may click here to reactivate your service. Please note that reactivating your connection without cleaning your computer first may result in additional suspensions or permanent termination of your Cox High Speed Internet service Thank you for using Cox High Speed Internet. Cox Online Privacy Policy and related terms and agreements ===================================================================== No warning, no phone number to call ... nada. So I called 411 got a Cox number, futzed around for a while and got to a second tier security guy, who after a short but heated discussion in which I am sure I used the word facist he agreed to turn my servcie back on. His plea, "I am just the messenger." So my resonse was "Tell your facist bosses we don't like this kind of treatment." Anyway service was back up in about thirty minutes. A buddy who is staying with has been using Bit Torrent. Apparently his Bit Torrent system was serving the file in question that is "protected" by the DMCA. Am I the only one who has encoutered this from Cox? Have they just started doing it? Other comments? -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
