Homeless People Lose Internet Access Over Illegal Downloads

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I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read this. I'm not one to judge, but you'd think everyone having internet access would be more important than downloading illegal content. :(

“We were notified by our Internet service provider that there were people downloading things illegally, and if we didn’t put an end to that, they would turn off Internet to the entire property, which would keep us from being able to do business and provide services,” DeCarmine says. Apparently the illegal downloading continued, as did the complaints. This resulted in the Village feeling under pressure to safeguard its Internet connection.
 
There are so many avenues for free internet these days I don't see this as a problem. If they were downloading illegal content they should have done so on another WiFi connection. This is why you can't give people nice things sometimes.
 
There are so many avenues for free internet these days I don't see this as a problem. If they were downloading illegal content they should have done so on another WiFi connection. This is why you can't give people nice things sometimes.

Considering the people doing it are homeless, I don't think they have other methods to get the content they want.

These notices often contain scary language which suggest that people can be on the hook for $150,000 in statutory damages if file-sharing continues.
$150k for a homeless shelter? Are they nuts?

Finally, while Dignity Village has to protect itself, the Internet service provider that dares to disconnect its service on a copyright infringement allegation would be a very brave one indeed. Furthermore, the entertainment industry companies making the copyright infringement claims Dignity Village’s ISP would be committing commercial suicide if it pursued any claim against a Village resident.
At least someone gets it.
 
This resource was invaluable for staying in touch with the outside world, attempting to find work and participate in training.
Well obviously it had more value for other reasons. Also I'm confused as to how the internet was accessed, was computers in a room, or do the homeless over in Florida have access to laptops/tablets/etc.

That said, yeah, human nature it seems, people will fuck it up for everyone as long as they get what they want first and foremost.
 
Sounds like they needed to install something to limit what people could access from the free WiFi.
 
Wait, so you're telling me that homeless people have portable devices that need internet, like laptops and tablets? Where are keeping them so they're not stolen and where do they charge them at? :confused:

As to the copyright nonsense, what do you expect? They're homeless and probably don't have money to pay for content legally vs. paying for something like food, which brings me back to wondering how they got the laptops and tablets in the first place.
 
Since these are homeless ppl, they would not have made any legal purchases any of the content they downloaded anyway. So tell me, how much $ did the studios lose from their downloading?
 
My brother is homeless. He refuses to stay off of drugs and I've paid for rehab for him more times than I have fingers. Wife and I decided that he'd get help when he really wanted it. I bought him a cell phone so I can always keep in touch and gps track him. It's amazing that it's the only thing he hasnt sold. I have data turned off on the phone except for the gps tracking. He gets his internet via that phone and wifi at the various shelters.
Quite a few homeless have this very similar thing going on, for a little peace of mind for the family.
 
How hard is it to purchase a content filtering device and block all bit torrent traffic? Their not that expensive and if you really knew what you were doing (Hired a guy who knew its stuff to implement the solution), it could be done on the cheap.
 
This is severly poor planning. Free internet access shouldn't be "wide open" enough to p2p anyways. If they truly want them to get a job, the internet experience should be more gated towards finding a job, not finding entertainment.
 
So free and open wifi = Must have been the hobos.

I know it makes better click bait when you can point at those worthless net-takers and their many ways of being worthless, but open wifi kind of inherently means it could have been anyone. That's what makes open wifi like that so stupid. There was a kid running terabytes of torrents over a public library's network in Toronto. They figured out how to limit access in a hurry once that came to light.

Why the hell wouldn't you limit access on an open wifi connection?
 
Sue the end user for a million trillion dollars. It only makes sense.
 
Limiting open Wifi shouldn't really be a solution. In fact, 'limited' and 'open' aren't exactly compatible. We're just buying in to the censorship of evil doing copyright law via torrents. P2P is a protocol, it's not piracy.

I get your damn movie made it's way on to the internet, go bust the guy that put it there. All of this restricted internet is censorship. It's too bad ISP's have had to endure the wrath of the AA's. :(
 
well if I was in charge of running something free for the homeless, if they were screwing around watching porn / streaming / downloading illegal stuff, I'd yank it away from them too.

It would have been pretty easy to prevent this... outside of filtering, make it so no single user gets more than 25Kb/sec allocated to their MAC. You can read the news apply for jobs, look at pictures of your working family on facebook/whatever. But no movies.

It usually happens this way one selfish hobo fuck ruins it for the rest of them. If this were the old days, hobo code would dictate they beat his ass, and bar him from the center so the other (good) hobos can try to better themselves with a free resource.


To me it's just further proof that no matter what you do to try and help people, someone will always take advantage of it and fuck around on you. I'm willing to bet whoever did it is the type that's no matter how much you do for them, they will always take a little more than they should.
 
my company runs a very large number of wifi hotspots (both paid & free) for a large number of clients, and in some cases, we even provide the ISP connection for those hotspots....as such, we get these types of notices all the time, and we do what we can to curb illegal downloading.....but as most here already know, where there's a will, there's a way....there's always a way around whatever blocks are put in place.

illegal downloading will never be eradicated 100%, just like software/DVD/bluray cracking will never be eradicated 100%.

but typically, as long as you can show that you're making an honest effort to thwart the illegal activities as much as possible, they won't turn off your service. i'm not 100% sure, but i don't think we've had a single ISP account permanently closed due to illegal downloading, and we have literally hundreds of ISP accounts across the world.
 
Why do homeless people deserve internet? How about, I don't know, getting a job. Do they deserve to freeze in the cold or starve or die of thirst? No. Do they deserve luxuries without contributing? No.
 
So let me see if I get it: the powers that be thought that giving homeless people internet where they can access things they cannot afford anyways will not access them. :confused:
 
Why do homeless people deserve internet? How about, I don't know, getting a job. Do they deserve to freeze in the cold or starve or die of thirst? No. Do they deserve luxuries without contributing? No.

That's a very large brush you're painting them with. Most homeless people are vets with PTSD or felons who aren't capable of integrating with society again. We need to fix those underlying issues that caused them to be there in the first place.
 
That's a very large brush you're painting them with. Most homeless people are vets with PTSD or felons who aren't capable of integrating with society again. We need to fix those underlying issues that caused them to be there in the first place.

Vets yes, we do need to help them and that is society's greatest shame that we leave the people who served our country in such dire circumstances. However, society's responsibility for the mentally ill and convicted felons is minimal. If they can't reintegrate, then we need to incarcerate them for their protection and society's protection (and that is the extent of society's obligation to make sure that there are sufficient prisons and asylums to contain them safely).
 
Since these are homeless ppl, they would not have made any legal purchases any of the content they downloaded anyway. So tell me, how much $ did the studios lose from their downloading?

2 Billion.
 
Since these are homeless ppl, they would not have made any legal purchases any of the content they downloaded anyway. So tell me, how much $ did the studios lose from their downloading?
Billions, just ask 'em. :eek:
 
That's a very large brush you're painting them with. Most homeless people are vets with PTSD or felons who aren't capable of integrating with society again. We need to fix those underlying issues that caused them to be there in the first place.

Yep and I would also add kids/young people to that list. There are over a million homeless children in the US alone. This attitude of "They aren't contributing so let them suffer" is pretty heartless. No wonder Donald Trump is doing so well. Those vets and children are just LOSERS right?

Of course there are some people who are homeless because of their choices in life (drugs, alcohol, etc) but there are also a lot of homeless people who are homeless through no fault of their own. I think a great society would help those people and help fix the things that caused them to become homeless in the first place, not shun them.
 
Cool. Let's turn off the military internet, too. Those military folk pirate tons of shit....

It's so easy to install a web filter. Filter out those sites, close down ports, etc.. It's not that difficult.

But, of course these are all LOST SALES! Should sue them for a $500,000. Good luck getting paid on that judgement.
 
Cool. Let's turn off the military internet, too. Those military folk pirate tons of shit....

It's so easy to install a web filter. Filter out those sites, close down ports, etc.. It's not that difficult.

But, of course these are all LOST SALES! Should sue them for a $500,000. Good luck getting paid on that judgement.

Oh, official government connections like the NIPRNet are pretty heavily filtered, and the military will burn you in a heartbeat if you get caught messing around.

It's all the unsecured crap in the barracks where all the piracy takes place, and that's just like any college dorm in America.
 
Oh, official government connections like the NIPRNet are pretty heavily filtered, and the military will burn you in a heartbeat if you get caught messing around.

It's all the unsecured crap in the barracks where all the piracy takes place, and that's just like any college dorm in America.

Yea, I should have been more specific. :D
 
I grew up in East Dallas. We had homeless people all over the area. At the time, we called them bums or wino's.

This was the late 70's and early 80's before we moved to Kansas in Dec of 83.

For me, it's a sad part of my life. While I had a good childhood, the homelessness of these people have stuck with me. To this day I will hand out a few dollars here and there. I don't care what they do with the money. Even if my money buys them a drink or a smoke, it's better than nothing.

My first trip to Vegas back in the mid 90's we got lost just off the strip. We rounded a corner and I came face to face with a guy in a trash-bag as his clothes in a wheelchair. He had no legs, a dirty face and arms. He wasn't even asking for money, he was just existing as best he could keeping out of the wind. I instinctively gave him a $100 dollar bill. His reaction wasn't one of a scammer. There was no smile or even a thank you. I remember his black tired eyes, the weakness in his arm and hand as he took the money.

To me this is a terrible subject and it makes me sad.

I would encourage all of you the next time you come into contact with someone who is homeless .... to find a way to be giving to them, even if it's just a polite hello. This is someones Mother, Father, Brother or Sister.
 
Why do homeless people deserve internet? How about, I don't know, getting a job. Do they deserve to freeze in the cold or starve or die of thirst? No. Do they deserve luxuries without contributing? No.

really?

That's a very large brush you're painting them with. Most homeless people are vets with PTSD or felons who aren't capable of integrating with society again. We need to fix those underlying issues that caused them to be there in the first place.

+1 @ ^^^^^ this.

Ducman69:
just because someone is homeless doesn't mean that they're a lazy bum that just doesn't want to work. if you really think that, you need to turn the fucking TV off for a minute & stop believing the HIGHLY stereotyped image that they use to portray the homeless, and maybe actually do some research before you go spouting off ignorant shit.

a large portion of homeless people would absolutely "get a job and contribute to society" if given a chance, but for whatever reason (veterans w/PTSD, mental disorders, physical disability, or even just living in a town/city that has gone bankrupt, like Detroit), they are unable to find a job. and a lot of the felons that Azhar mentioned are small-timers & not hardened criminals like murderers, rapists, or big-time drug dealers, who just made 1 mistake like having a bag of weed, and now they're fucked for life because of it. they've had their entire life ruined because they made a mistake...and don't tell me you haven't made mistakes, we all do. but most people deserve to have a second chance.

a lot of them obviously have no one else to turn to, no family/friends, or else they likely would have already done so. and before you say "well, just move somewhere else", i say "how?". if you have no money, no transportation, and no one to help you, just how do you think you'd even be able to move? it's not as easy as it sounds.

i'm not saying that there aren't lazy pieces of shit that have absolutely no business suckling off the teat of society, but don't group all homeless people together because of the "bad apples", which are actually a relatively small percentage of homeless people. i mean, think about it...how many people do you think actually WANT to live without a roof over their head, scrounging/begging for food?

as for homeless people getting "luxuries" like the internet for free, i'd say that the internet should not even be considered a luxury at this point. it's so pervasive in today's society, that it really should be considered a utility like electricity, running water, etc. think about it, when was the last time anyone here got a job that they didn't find out about online? every job i've had over the last 20+ years has been found online. and yes, i know that jobs can be found in other ways, but having the global reach of the internet makes it vastly easier to locate a decent job.

so you want these "lazy bums" to go get a job and "start contributing to society", but you want to take away one of the primary means of them even finding a job that they are qualified for? because THAT makes fucking sense.... :rolleyes:
 
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