Not really a technical question, but I'd like to know how does the riaa/mpaa go after file swappers behind a firewall (i.e. university dorms)? With regular ISPs, all they have to do is point the gun and make them hand over the dhcp logs, but if you're ip is being overloaded by the router, how do they identify you? My best guess is that each router is shared by only a few people, so they can do a manual investigation.

Thanks for any help.

The interesting thing about the RIAA and MPAA, is they are corporations/organizations. They are not law enforcement agencies, so they have no legal jurisdiction. They can, however, just as any other org. can, call law enforcement if they choose.

Just remember. On your private property, nobody looks at anything without a warrant, even if you've nothing to hide. They don't need to investigate your property if they don't have a warrant, they could be criminals themselves. If a cop comes to your door and wants to search, but doesn't have that warrant, you have every right to say no.

Never make any statements that could be construed as a confession. Stupid things people do at routine traffic stops are an example
COP: "Do you know why I stopped you?"
Driver: "I was speeding?"

When cops ask those questions, they may be trying to weasel a confession out of you. In the case of the traffic stop, a better way would be to answer like so,
Cop: "Do you know why I stopped you?"
Driver: "Not really sir."
Cop: "Do you know how fast you were going?"
Driver: "Yes sir, I do."
Cop: "How fast were you going then?"
Driver: "Speed limit unless you can prove otherwise."

Basically, my point is, you are best able to defend yourself legally in any situation by simply knowing your rights. And one of those rights is the right to remain silent. Always remember that anything you say can and will be used against you, so never answer a question giving any more information than is absolutely required.

If a cop doesn't have a warrant, don't give him permission to search. Because if he had your permission, anything he finds is now legitemate evidence in a case. If he forces himself in, against your will, don't stop him either, you've already said no. In that case, anything he might find as evidence will not be admissable in court.

By the way, save yourself a lot of trouble, and do things the legal way. Then you have nothing to worry about, and a clean conscience to boot.


Incidently, in answer to your question. You can still be detected even if you are behind a firewall. NAT firewalls can masquerade IP addresses, but I don't think they can masquerade MAC addresses, which are unique to any piece of network hardware.

Wow! I thought reading Miranda rights was a really dumb thing, but the way you portray cops as being out to get you, I'd definitely change my opinion.

Now, I'm also seeing why some universities might be so unwilling to bow to RIAA/MPAA demands by what you're saying. As for doing anything illegal, I doubt I do. The only problem I have is running over my university's 750Mb/day bandwidth limitation from downloading tv shows.

Are there any other ways they can find you besides by mac address since mac addresses can be spoofed (i.e. could find a public computer's mac and hijack its connection to your computer), not to mention that some hardware manufacturers are careless enough to produce devices with the same mac address?

Well, the MAC addresses don't actually even get out through the NAT, so if you're on a LAN behind a NAT'd gateway, there's no way for anyone on the outside to know which traffic is yours.

I think the RIAA/MPAA could file for permission to set up a sniffer on the LAN, if they had evidence that people were hosting illegal stuff from behind it. I don't think it'd actually be legal, though, because they'd be "wiretapping" hundreds of people to get at one or two. Usually it's left up to the discretion of the university, and they make their own internal policies depending on how much they care about fileswapping, and how scared they are of acronyms.