A friend of mine just informed me and a few others that she got a hundred dollar bill, added to the monthly one for her cable modem, because she exceeded a certain number of downloadable files on Kazaa (songs and videos). Is this Kazaa or her cable company doing this? How do they know when she’s gone over the limit (although she was never alerted)?
Cable company, probably. I read a report about a month ago about some of them allotting their customers a certain amount of bandwidth/downloading per month (Time Warner, for instance, was planning on doing this). It looks like some of them have started implementing that policy.
Knowing how contentious discussions about file-sharing programmes here are, and also knowing about something similar which is happening here in respect of porn sites, I’d suggest you find out about internet dumping and set up your system to reject redirections to paid download sites.
Why is it whenever I open one of these file-sharing threads, no one seems to use WinMX? Does it suck? I only see “Kazaa/Morpheus” threads.
I use it (WinMX) and have never encountered any problems whatsoever.
My guess is that your friend gets her cable access through her telco - redirection to paid internet sites is becoming as common now as redirection to 1900 numbers was a few years ago.
It might be more common for such redirection to happen via warez and file-sharing sites (watch those exit pop-ups), but really, if you’re trying to get something for nothing and you haven’t bothered to configure your PC to the most basic levels of net security or to any attention about where your requests are being redirected, then I don’t have a huge amount of sympathy.
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- The bad part is that bandwidth costs money, and somebody’s got to pay for it. Persons running file-sharers are not known for being light on their connections. Some co-workers of mine have “races” to see who can get the latest movie downloaded first.
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- The good part is, nothing will kill spam and useless web eye-candy faster than charging for bandwidth. - DougC
At this risk of being thoroughly warned by the mods here, can I ask **what ** charges are showing on your bill - because the current file sharing systems are not operated by corporate entities and therefore cannot be billed by such.
Unlike the file sharing programme which we will no longer mention, the current ones are client to client - not going through a centralised server.
Looks like some people have been smart enough to set themselves up in ways which make accessing their files billable. And isn’t it ironic that in order to complain about them having done so most people would have to preface their statement with “well I was trying to break the law and get something for nothing”?
Poetic justice, in my book (and I use FTP all the time - I just don’t use it illegally).
“Unlike the file sharing programme which we will no longer mention, the current ones are client to client - not going through a centralised server.”
That’s what I told her. I thought the whole thing sounded a bit like an urban legend and want to see the bill for myself.