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Joined 7 months ago
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Cake day: March 11th, 2024

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  • It was more than just the phone books. Back before smart phones, if you needed to look up a phone number you’d call information (411) and they’d look it up for you. For instance, if you were stuck on the side of the road and needed a tow truck.

    Information would be able to look up businesses close to where you were using the NPA/NXX of the phone number you were calling from (the first six digits of the number including the area code) and then give you a couple options in alphabetical order.

    I had a client who had a phone number in every exchange in NYC and had a name like “AAA Towing” so no matter where in NYC you called information for a tow truck from, they’d usually be the first option given to you.











  • That’s not how it would work for us. We’d receive a report from the MPAA/RIAA that showed the torrent they were downloading, the IP address involved, if they were seeding or leeching and an affidavit saying that all the information was correct to the best of their knowledge.

    The letter we sent basically was a notification that we received that letter (with a copy) and that if we received two more for the same IP (three in total) we would have to release their information to the reporting body and that they could be open to legal action. It also included some information on how to secure their network and check for viruses in case that was the cause.

    In my 15 years working there, we never once released information about a client. Because this was business accounts, most clients had multiple IPs (at least a /29) and would cycle what IPs they showed up as on the public Internet to keep them from getting multiple notices on the same IP. The music venue I mentioned had an entire /24.




  • I had to process these requests at a company I used to work for. They do send “proof” (proof in quotes because you have to believe in good faith they didn’t just make it up, which I have to believe they didn’t).

    We never shut anyone off though. We worked with business exclusively and only ever sent “scary” letters. Though we had one client that was a major music venue (a very known venue that’s pretty famous) who would get these letters all the time. The irony was too much for me. I ended up calling them personally most of the time because it was too funny.