Vaguely Accused

rant.pngThis afternoon I wasn’t feeling well at all, and I felt worse when I discovered I couldn’t log on from my apartment.

I spent a good half hour to forty-five minutes trying to figure out what had happened – my router could ping places, but nothing else.

It turned out that’s because RoadRunner’s MPAA warning page will only come up with Internet Explorer… I program I rarely use. What was I accused of downloading?

The message didn’t say.

The customer service folks were very patient with me (thanks again, Holly, Joe, and Rudy) as I explained that I wasn’t going to click on something that was admitting wrongdoing. They double checked and eventually were able to reassure me that clicking the “I agree” merely meant that I agreed that I’d been presented with the info.

Another hour on the phone and three levels of customer service (who, to their credit, were all nice folks) followed. I repeatedly explained that yes, I do have torrents running and that yes, they are legal torrents of linux distributions, GNU software, and stuff from clear-bits.

So I wanted to know if the problem was bandwidth (or other types of network-shaping), or if there was a specific accusation.

It’s not bandwidth, they told me. But what was I accused of downloading?

None of us know.

The original message (similar ones here) claims that I should have gotten an e-mail with the specifics. All the customer reps know (and I managed to make my way up to a level 3 person – they were aware of the blanket accusations by the MPAA/RIAA in the past) is that it came from corporate offices.

Nobody outside of “corporate offices” knows what – if anything – I’m specifically being accused of.

I figure someone got past my wifi (yeah, I’ve changed passwords). But it bothers me – a lot – that I don’t know what the hell it is I’m supposed to have done.

Two things to note here:

1) RoadRunner goes by the “three strikes” rule.
2) Apparently nobody knows what the accusation was about – not specifically. If it was such a clear case, then why can’t they tell me what it was I was accused of downloading?
3) I asked – as a content producer – if the reverse would happen as well. If an MPAA member (who was with Time Warner) got three accusations from, say, three authors, would that member’s access get cut? They said yes – but I’m not sure I believe it.

All in all, a frustrating experience on a day I already felt like crap and already have way too much to do.