I officially have Teh Fear
A mate of mine, who is a prolific downloader of stuffs off of the internets has just recieved a letter from lawyers acting on behalf of a software company regarding a D.S. game.

They want 665 quids off him or else!!

What course of action should he take?

I told hime someone has obviously hacked his wireless connection, but he's not so sure........
*EDIT* They have the application used, the date, the IP address, MAC etc etc...
(never-right -getting it wrong since '78, Thu 7 May 2009, 15:54, 8 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

MAC addresses
are a good one to log on their point of view, but they can be spoofed.

"My wireless connection is set up for MAC address authentication, but as someone has accessed my router without my knowledge, they must have sniffed my packets (fnarr) and spoofed it.

Can he prove his whereabouts on that day?

Can he change his harddrive? As that'll be the main point of proof due to forensics.
(Ethelred is watching cheese grow, Thu 7 May 2009, 15:59, Reply)

I think he should shit himself
then find software that changes your mac and ip address every time you log in.
( fuck shit up the best you never had, Thu 7 May 2009, 16:00, Reply)

That's probably the best answer:
Someone clearly hacked his wireless.

I bet if we checked in, say, 10 minutes we'd find no WEP/WPA password on it... And the aerial isn't near a top window, by any chance, affording good reception all the way down the road to any passing laptop in a van? Tsk, he should be more careful.
(MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Thu 7 May 2009, 16:02, Reply)

Yea yeah
We told him to buy a new HDD etc, But he really has teh fear...he can probably prove where he was at work due to the tracker systems we have on the vans... Good point. I will put it him now.

*EDIT* Mr Oli thats too true, I mean what sort of half wit idiot FAILS to secure a wireless internet connection. Tsk......
(never-right -getting it wrong since '78, Thu 7 May 2009, 16:03, Reply)

Can I also recommend this
www.dban.org/

Start it NOW, it will take a while.
(MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Thu 7 May 2009, 16:03, Reply)

Mostly scams...
...google some of the key words to confirm.

Does this 'friend' use torrents?
(Tugnut Ex of this parish, Thu 7 May 2009, 16:04, Reply)

And without getting their hands on his computer, they have nothing.
Almost every detail to do with computers can be faked. I can tell my router to present a different MAC address that it's real one if asked. It's not so hard to get a network card to do the same. Anyone who can get in to a secured wireless network shouldn't have an issue doing that.

My gist is, the lawyers can't really prove much. May I ask who the lawyers are? If it's who I think it is, they do this a lot - just fire out the letters and scare people in to paying. A decent letter back to them written by his soliciter will generally get them to go away, if he's willing to risk the fight. Otherwise, just pay up.

And shame on him for not using secure BitTorrent to share... very hard to catch you that way.
(Potty Jag har smör i min rumpspringa, Thu 7 May 2009, 16:08, Reply)

He does use Bit torrent now
But it was recorded last year using teh emule
(never-right -getting it wrong since '78, Thu 7 May 2009, 16:24, Reply)