Unusual University E-mail...

I actually disagree with you on this one. This is equivalent to the ISP monitoring your info. Because he used there private network, they have all the documentation they need to kick him out of school, without refund, The only question is whether they can turn his info over to the MPAA or the RIAA. This is why they want him to sign the document. He actually commited several felonies in the amount that he downloaded. Again. Talk to your parents, and get a lawyer. Deny everything, unless a police officer is present, in which case say NOTHING. I can not stress enough the seriousness of this situation. You can be kicked out of school, you can be sued, and depending on state law, your parents can be sued for your actions. PLEASE TELL YOUR PARENTS, AND GET A LAWYER! Remember your rights, and most importantly don't let them touch that computer without court order.

Camain

reply to post by William Marshal


You can't be serious.... You just can't be.

But then again, it is easy to be serious about other people's lives over the internet - isn't it?

Stop giving dangerous advice. No lawyer would ever advise a client to do as you have suggested. Not unless that lawyer was the Prosecutor....

reply to post by William Marshal


DUDE! Your nuts. Do your really comprehend the trouble he is in? He could be fined 100's of 1000's of dollars, he can get kicked out of school. While I do agree, he should learn from this mistake, taking a knife and cutting your legs off are not the way to do it. Yes, he made a mistake, it should not cost him for the rest of his life. Additionally, it should not cost his parents there life savings, additionally, it should not ruin his college career.

I stick by my advice, TALK TO YOUR PARENTS, AND GET A LAWYER!

Camain

I'm not sure why they sent it out so late. You'd think they would have sent it in June to give you ample time to take care of it.

At my university they blocked file sharing programs from their network so they don't have this problem.

I could just imagine though how many people are getting these emails at your school since I'd think most everyone does it. Heck, I might be doing that right this moment...

Originally posted by William Marshal
What ever happened to just being a man and saying ya I did it and I was wrong. Please forgive me and I will not do it again.

When the penalties start overwhelming the crime, then you have to think twice over fessing up. Admitting to this could amount to tens of thousands of dollars and a permanent criminal record. Admit nothing.

well I guess I can see that Honor and doing the right thing has no place here. I guess it isnt only the evil corporation that are corrupt. Amazing what you can justify when the microscope isnt trained on you.

I really dont think this is all that serious. They will slap him on the wrist along with the others that did it. Ya'll need to stop fear mongering. This young man is small potatoes. I'm not saying he may not get punished, But $100,000 Are you serious? Paranoid!

Now I'm not saying I would sign anything, thats just nuts. But to stand up and do a mea culpa is prudent. and would more than likely garner respect from the university and the staff alike. I'm 43, I have 18 years of Military service and I have lived my life exactly like I advised. In my experiences it has always been recieved well. But then again I dont break many laws much past J walking so maybe I dont have the proper perspective.

I like the advise about talking to your parents though. I think thats always best. Together you, will come up with a solution that will best suit you.


Will


LOL, I have to laugh that the guys who said "Admit nothing" is named Disgusted By Humanity! This is probably the same kind of person that would have a Darwin fish and a Mean people suck sticker on their bumper!

Will

[edit on 3-8-2008 by William Marshal]

[edit on 3-8-2008 by William Marshal]

reply to post by William Marshal


Perhaps you should take your own advice and turn yourself in for j-walking and every other crime you have committed no matter how minor.

Then you could be fined and have the privilege of paying those fines and contributing your hard earned cash towards the community.

18 years military experience? Do you actually think that increases your credibility?

Perhaps are you are just acting all 'Big Man' to try and get this kid to ruin his academic career? Perhaps your sadistic tendencies have followed you into civilian life - ever think of that?

Police State Advocate- Party Gaulighter. You took an oath.

Originally posted by TruthTellist
reply to post by William Marshal

 

Perhaps you should take your own advice and turn yourself in for j-walking and every other crime you have committed no matter how minor.

Then you could be fined and have the privilege of paying those fines and contributing your hard earned cash towards the community.

18 years military experience? Do you actually think that increases your credibility?

Perhaps are you are just acting all 'Big Man' to try and get this kid to ruin his academic career? Perhaps your sadistic tendencies have followed you into civilian life - ever think of that?

Police State Advocate- Party Gaulighter. You took an oath.

Nope none of that ever crossed my mind.

If I get a notice that I was caught by City camera's J walking and I would no longer be able to walk the streets unless I explain myself then yes I would turn myself in and pay the fine. Until then I make every attempt to cross at a signal. Doing the right thing isnt really that hard. Try it!

To Some people my 18 years of service is relevant to my credibility. In a matter of fact I have been treated quite well by most citizens when I'm out and about in my uniform. Most American have showed my uniform a large amount of appreciation when I wear it and all that it represents. I have been bought Lunch and I've had my hand shook by numerous Americans when I'm out in the community. Does that upset you? Sounds like it would if you think the military has or would give me sadistic tendancies. I think I'm a rather positive fellow.

Acting Big man? Wow, I guess you know me! I'm busted! lol, Get over yourself. There is more to an individual than the accomplishments written upon a diploma. While that is important, you forget the importance of having a high moral fiber, integrity, high standards and fostering good Karma. These things can go together.

I dont really know why your getting angry over my advice. It's what I would do and it is what I have done. I face the music when I'm wrong. He asked advice and a lot of us gave it. If you dont like mine, you can kiss my rear. Follow it, or don't. I dont really care.

Will

Originally posted by William Marshal


Integrity means doing whats right, Even when no one is watching.

So when are you turning yourself in for your past misdemeanors?

You are an admitted J-Walker. So 'fess up. 'Big Man'

Turn yourself in at the nearest Precinct/Police Station. Man up dawg. Be honourable - like you!

Originally posted by TruthTellist
reply to post by William Marshal

 

Police State Advocate- Party Gaulighter. You took an oath.

Gaulighter? man why get rude? I have to admit I had no clue as to what this meant. You have educated me. But man that was harsh (once I found out what you meant). I guess you would not be one of the people to shake my hand eh?

lol

Oh well

I dont want to monopolize this thread so I'm done with responding. Thank you for your insight.



Will

[edit on 3-8-2008 by William Marshal]

You need to overwrite your hard drive at least 7 times. Deleting the stuff is recoverable.

Did any of you even read this thread? He's not going to get kicked out of school, he just needs to take a class. Nothing even legal happening here.

reply to post by Johnmike


So are you going to offer this young man any advice or are you just here to add your 2 cents? Go ahead, you are entitled to it, but this young fellow needs help and I have no doubt he would appreciate any you might be willing to give him. Please read the whole thread before posting.

Originally posted by Johnmike
ACLU won't do anything. This is him violating the T&C of his university, so it's not really a legal issue as much as a disciplinary one.

This is important. Back up everything you've downloaded. Delete it. Give the backups to someone. Unless you want to just delete it. You'll have to keep it off of anything they may want to search until this dies down.

Now for how you do the next part, do you have a home internet connection, or one not affiliated with the school that you can borrow? If there is, download a data wiper (I'm not sure of a good one off hand. I can look later, or someone can help me), put it on some kind of removable drive (CD/USB, etc), and wipe your free space using some kind of algorithm. If its convenient, you can use this program to also delete the pirated files in the first place.

Now you've just deleted the hard evidence against you, and it's nearly impossible for them to see the deleted files since you deleted it with an algorithm and then wiped for free space. Reason being that when you delete a file, it deletes the file record, but not the actual file - when you write to the hard drive, it just writes over the file like there's nothing there. Then the file's actually gone. A free space wiper, and a secure file deleter, writes random data to your free space and deletes it several times so that the remnants of the file you deleted are gone.

At this point, the only thing they have against you is your network logs, which is probably how they got you in the first place. Probably looking at the port and protocol, it's very unlikely that they're actually data sniffing to see what you're downloading. You can take it from here as you choose - if you have to admit or deny something, ask around to see what exactly they use as evidence against you. When in doubt, play dumb, but I don't know what they can do.

Course, from what you said, it's not so bad anyway. So no worries, yes?

[edit on 3-8-2008 by Johnmike]

Hmmm

reply to post by TruthTellist


I'm the first post on page 2, which apparently you failed to read. Please read the whole thread before posting. Thanks to William Marshal for quoting it.

This all happens at Ohio University a lot. I remember it being the RIAA behind the sueing and basically they havent won a case in about 8 years!!! The problem is people just settle out of court for much smaller amounts out of fear. It is sad that the RIAA has made their new business model sueing their customers. They need to adapt and overcome or they will die off.

There is even evidence that internet downloading can increase CD sales because it gives people a free taste of groups/genres that they never would have heard before. We also have Radiohead, who cut out the RIAA and gave their music away for free (just accepting donations); they made over $1 million.


My point is downloading really shouldn't be such a controversial thing. There is tons of ways to still profit from it (as artists). The RIAA are the real pirates. They never give @#$% to the artists from cd sales. Artists get one inadequate amount of money right away then they rely on promo stuff, commercials, and live performances for income.

People should also realize that you can delete anything you possibly downloaded . Also files could have been mislabelled. BitTorrents sure are pretty impossible to tell what your downloading, it is also random little bits from everywhere and in no order. Just erase everything, empty recycle bin, then try a software that can view all "undeleted" data that remains imaged on your hard drive. This is important to truely remove the evidence.

dude that really sucks, but what'd you expect man? You took a risk, now you have to pay the consequences...I hope this strictly stays within a school, hopefully the RIAA won't get involved, or that would be a whole lot worse.

my only advice is just be honest, and hope the school administrator are sympathetic. you can just say, you weren't really informed of this school code and unaware that such activities are illegal. The thing is while it may be it the school honor code, most of the time a student really aren't told these codes (like read out loud to them) or may have not read the rules properly.

Don't point fingers at other people, it'll just make the other situation a whole lot worse.

I think at worse you might be suspended or lose Internet privileges. I know some kids who was caught managing DC++ protocol (i hope i'm using the right term, its similar to P2P) using the school network connection, anyways the worse they got was a slap on the wrist, they were told shut it down and never do it again.

reply to post by Alexander_Supertramp


Ask them questions. Are you in contract with them? What losses they can claim in this case? Because you obviously can claim losses after being out of the "university business".

Speaking from personal experience, if it is a decent sized university, they've likely dealt with this many times. While I was in school I had a similar thing happen. The letter I received told me I had to schedule a meeting to discuss it with the university or risk getting kicked out. I assumed the worst going into the meeting, but really they were pretty cool about it. Basically told me to remove file sharing software(he even told me I didn't have to get rid of any downloaded material as long as it wasn't somewhere accessible by others). I also had to write a letter basically stating that I had removed all file sharing software from my computer. It has been over two years since then and I've never heard anything about it again. So I would suggest cooperating without an admission of guilt and try to judge the university's position. Remember, they'd prefer you stay enrolled there.

the riaa/ifpi/mpaa or whoever go after anyone they can find sharing music and issue them a notice. heres a recent example of a blogger who sharred some music and got a cease and desist notice when the original artist did not care he was sharing the music track
Travis Defends Fan from IFPI Threats