Copyright Infringement Notice

[OnMyWay]

Yesterday I received a strange notice from my Strong VPN service.  Sorry for the long post.

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Hello,

Please note we have received a DMCA notification regarding the IP your VPN account uses. File sharing of copyright material is a violation of our Policies and USA Federal law.

We understand that computers can be infected with a virus and cause these kinds of complaints to be generated.

Please check your system for any software that could be causing this problem. We would have to disable your account if the activity continues.

No action will be taken at this time, but if the DMCA complaints continue it will be with great regret on our part to deactivate your account.

If you would like more information on the complaints received, you can view the complaint in the customer area.

Best Regards,
StrongVPN / Reliablehosting Abuse Team 

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So I went to their website and looked at the complaint.

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Notice ID: 22-216390692
Notice Date: 17 Sep 2014 04:25:18 GMT

Reliablehosting.com - USA

Dear Sir or Madam:

Irdeto USA, Inc. (hereinafter referred to as "Irdeto") swears under penalty of perjury that Paramount Pictures Corporation ("Paramount") has authorized Irdeto to act as its non-exclusive agent for copyright infringement notification. Irdeto's search of the protocol listed below has detected infringements of Paramount's copyright interests on your IP addresses as detailed in the below report.

Irdeto has reasonable good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of in the below report is not authorized by Paramount, its agents, or the law. The information provided herein is accurate to the best of our knowledge. Therefore, this letter is an official notification to effect removal of the detected infringement listed in the below report. The below documentation specifies the exact location of the infringement.

We hereby request that you immediately remove or block access to the infringing material, as specified in the copyright laws, and insure the user refrains from using or sharing with others unauthorized Paramount's materials in the future (see, 17 U.S.C. 512).

Further, we believe that the entire Internet community benefits when these matters are resolved cooperatively. We urge you to take immediate action to stop this infringing activity and inform us of the results of your actions. We appreciate your efforts toward this common goal.

Please send us a prompt response indicating the actions you have taken to resolve this matter, making sure to reference the Notice ID number above in your response.

If you do not wish to reply by email, please use our Web Interface by clicking on the following link: http://webreply.copyright-compliance.com/WebReply?webreplyhash=289df851fd8ccd8ee234e653fe3f7f9a

Nothing in this letter shall serve as a waiver of any rights or remedies of Paramount with respect to the alleged infringement, all of which are expressly reserved. Should you need to contact me, I may be reached at the below address.

Regards,

Andrew Beck
Irdeto USA, Inc.
3255-3 Scott Blvd. Suite 101 Santa Clara, CA 95054
Phone: 408-492-8546 fax: 408-727-6743
paramount@copyright-compliance.com

*pgp public key is available on the key server at http://pgp.mit.edu

Note: The information transmitted in this Notice is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, reproduction, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from all computers.

This infringement notice contains an XML tag that can be used to automate the processing of this data. If you would like more information on how to use this tag please contact Irdeto.

Evidentiary Information:

Notice ID: 22-216390692
Initial Infringement Timestamp: 17 Sep 2014 01:25:22 GMT
Recent Infringement Timestamp: 17 Sep 2014 01:25:22 GMT
Infringers IP Address: 173.255.190.133
Protocol: BitTorrent
Infringed Work: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
Infringing File Name: Teenage.Mutant.Ninja.Turtles.2014.CAM.Xvid-CRYS torrent
Infringing File Size: 2290992983
Bay ID: 06756be608d28962c32a5357aadd96d33ef5e4ca|2290992983
Port ID: 30108
Infringer's User Name:

===============

So I tried to find out what is going on.

 

1.  I definitely have never knowingly had that file on my two computers and I can't find it now.

2.  For the past 2.5 weeks since we moved, I have only used my laptop for internet, with a stick.

Added by edit: 2a.  I had not used the laptop for a few months before we moved.

3.  My desktop was hooked up to the internet for the first time in the past 2.5 weeks yesterday, via the new DSL.  I received the notice from Strong about 3 hours later.

4.  I'm dumb on the ip addresses.  I'm not sure which computer that was for.  With the stick, I was getting different ips every time I used it.

5.  By coincidence, I had run a full boot scan on the laptop a few days ago.  It did find some stuff but I didn't looked at the details.  The timestamp above is after that.

 

I strongly suspect that I have a virus on the laptop, but Avast anti-virus is not finding it.

 

Any advice?  Other tools to try?

 

Thanks!

Edited September 18, 2014 by OnMyWay

[jpbago]

Someone may have hacked into your system. It should be password protected, if so, change the password.

[MikeB]

Infringers IP Address: 173.255.190.133

This is a StrongVPN IP address, says it's in Miami but not necessarily. From what you're saying it sounds like a mistake. They send out many thousands of these notifications. I would follow the link they provided and check Mistake and explain it in the space provided. 

[OnMyWay]

 

Infringers IP Address: 173.255.190.133

This is a StrongVPN IP address, says it's in Miami but not necessarily. From what you're saying it sounds like a mistake. They send out many thousands of these notifications. I would follow the link they provided and check Mistake and explain it in the space provided. 

 

 

I was using the Strong Miami server.

 

I did go to the website and just said I was puzzled by it and I did not have that file.

[MikeB]

I would switch to a different city and server just for the hell of it. I use San Francisco. I download a lot of stuff but don't use VPN for that because I don't think it's necessary in the Philippines. I use VPN mainly to get around the Globe routing problems.

[Gator]

Sounds to me like it could be some type of phishing scam. Note that the letter is not specifically addressed to you. What they might be trying to do is if you respond positively (even if you say sorry, I will delete the file) then they may try to get you to pay a "fine".

 

In addition, Strong does not keep logs of any specific websites you have visited, so Irdeto would have no idea if you visited or downloaded anything from the Bit Torrent web site. Whether you did or not is irrelevant. According to their Logkeeping Policy (http://strongvpn.cc/logkeeping.shtml) the only thing Strong does log is:

 

1. time, date and location vpn connection was made
2. duration of the vpn connection
3. bandwidth used during the connection

 

I would simply ignore the letter and not worry about it.

[Jollygoodfellow]

Personally I would just ignore it. A search for the file mentioned on google comes up with a few torrent results and page after page of 

 

 

In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org.

 

And if you read the complaint, https://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=1937448 then you will find about a million sites mentioned in the copyright infringement. 

[OnMyWay]

Sounds to me like it could be some type of phishing scam. Note that the letter is not specifically addressed to you. What they might be trying to do is if you respond positively (even if you say sorry, I will delete the file) then they may try to get you to pay a "fine".

 

In addition, Strong does not keep logs of any specific websites you have visited, so Irdeto would have no idea if you visited or downloaded anything from the Bit Torrent web site. Whether you did or not is irrelevant. According to their Logkeeping Policy (http://strongvpn.cc/logkeeping.shtml) the only thing Strong does log is:

 

1. time, date and location vpn connection was made

2. duration of the vpn connection

3. bandwidth used during the connection

 

I would simply ignore the letter and not worry about it.

 

I took my name off the letter before I posted it here and I believe it is not a phishing attempt.

 

Yes, I thought Strong would not be tracking but it appears the 3rd party used by Paramount might be tracing back to IP.

 

Strong has a DMCA policy here:

 

https://intranet.reliablehosting.com/services/intranet/policy/DMCA_policy.html

 

JGF, I'm still concerned I might have a worm or something and one of my computers might be acting as a host for torrents.  Is that possible?  I don't want to get shut down by Strong.  I ran another full scan on my laptop today and found nothing.  I will run it on the desktop now.

[MikeB]

I believe it is not a phishing attempt.

Agree

[i am bob]

Actually a lot of the answer is going to come from answering one other question...  What were you doing at precisely 17 Sep 2014 01:25:22 GMT?  Were you using your computer?  If so, depending on what you were doing could answer your question.  But what if you were not using your computer?  Could it be a worm?  Mistaken identity on your VPS's part?  (yes, it does happen!)  Or, what is happening more and more and is really stupid, was anybody using your internet - and VPN - to operate their phone via Wifi?  And possibly listen to a radio station via the internet?  Or even listen to music that has been downloaded via a torrent onto their phone?  Yup!  This is what is being picked up more and more as illegal distribution of music!  Pretty dumb, eh?  Many times people will download from a torrent and unwittingly allow others to download from their machines as well.  Normally this won't happen unless you select this as an option.  BUT if you then copy the song to a smartphone,  (depending on the method used by the torrent) there may be a tag on that copy that says "I'm this song and my hardware owner says it's ok to copy me"...  And, as soon as somebody does, the VPN picks this up.  VPNs that register and track (and thus report) your activities will send this back to the copyright owners.  Sounds hard to do, right?  It's all done by recognizing that tag.  Also built into the data is the copyright owners information.  VPN sees the tag, pulls up the copyright owner's address and sends them your IP and other information to allow them to send you the above letter.  Now the sad part is that, if a person is listening to a streaming radio, often the music is a downloaded copy and has this tag.  The VPN often does not care if it is data coming in or out, it is still an illegal copy and it still notifies the copyright owner that you have had access to an illegal copy.  Now, an even sadder fact.  If your Wifi router is not locked with a password - or your friends and neighbors have this password - they can download music, upload music, what ever they desire and you will wear the blame.

 

Solution?  The easiest is to just change your VPN to one that does not track your usage.  And lock down that router!

 

:tiphat:  :mocking: