Stolen: half a month's bandwidth at $65/month!!
Sarah, Audrey and I keep trying to find easier ways to stay in touch. We bought webcams and have tried Yahoo!, Google Talk and then Skype. Then Tom got the monthly cable bill and we were charged for a humungous amount of usage. We went looking and found that the day I downloaded Skype, our bandwidth was maxed out. Not by the download or usage, but because they routed their traffic through our router & computers!!
Theft is what I call it, plain and simple and stupid me for letting it happen. I knew Skype's reputation (bad) but had been reading about all those free calls (free because Tom is paying for our bandwidth - which they steal and give away!)
I had no idea that their business operation was funded on stolen bandwidth! The jerks! I don't support P2P, pirating music, copyright theft and now I don't support bandwidth theft either.
Link to research #1 Link to article #2 Link to article #3
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13 comments:
Thanks for the head's up - will definitely scrutinze my next bill and I have removed Skype from my computer.
That's terrible!! Do you have any recourse? Can you use your web cams with AOL Instant messenger??
I have a built in web cam on my Mac, but I have never used it to talk to people. Once I was playing with my computer and clicked on something to see what it would do. I scared myself seeing myself on the screen. ;o)
Hi Laura, I guess that there are ways around it (see article #3) but I was *so angry* that I just deleted the whole thing. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got (mostly at myself for falling for this "Nigerian Free Calling" service. I should have read up more before installing!
Amy, once I figured out what had happened, I told Tom I would pay for the excess bandwidth myself but he said no - lesson learned :) We will pay the bill but be so very careful in the future with downloading anything like it.
Back to Yahoo! and grateful to have it!! :)
I remember the first time I used a chat room - -I did the same thing!! Someone unknown to me sent a chat message and I looked around the room, scared outta my pants, and then shut the computer off completely! LOL
I have never used Skype, only Yahoo so I am just glad you warned me early. But I will still check my bill. I noticed that my connection had been slower in the evening and I have HIGH HIGH speed internet with max capacity so I never understood why it was slowing up - thought it was due to the storms we had in Jan. Things me slow here in KY and I thought maybe the lines were still having issues. I will definitely check that next bill. Thanks for the articles. Why do some companies have to ruin it for us?
Hi Laura,
Oh good! I thought you already had it. Tom says he notices that our connection seems to slow down every day at 3pm - - just when the kids get home from school :)
Why aren't they at the kitchen table doing their homework in paper & pencil? LOL :)
We started doing research on how we get our bandwidth, how the cable company splits the signals, how DLS works - -everything - -before I figured out what had happened. It's pretty interesting - more info than I really wanted to know. Now I can get back to quilting :)
By they way, I am glad your blogging here again. I like this format better.
LOL - -I waste more time creating worthless blogs! If I spent that much time quilting, I would have 2,000 quilts done. Oh well, it was fun to learn wordpress anyway.
What do you think of Quilt News new format? or the Videos for Quilters format? I'm looking for feedback on those two. They are the only ones (of the 20 or so I've made) getting any hits.
"What do you think of Quilt News new format? or the Videos for Quilters format?"
Ummm....Where are these blogs? May I see them??
Hi Amy, sure! Take a look - Quilt News is a blog I started a long time ago and just moved to Wordpress. It's where I try and help out quilt designers (the not-yet-famous ones:) by posting about their new patterns/books/fabrics http://www.quiltnews.loosefibers.com/
And the videos one is new - -I am still trying to think that one through on what its purpose is supposed to be, how I want to use it, stuff like that.
http://www.quilt-video.com
I would be thrilled to hear your impression on either one or both!
My friend just dropped in...I'll email you when I get a chance. :o)
Marguerita,
So sorry. My hub is a cable tech, so I never download anything without asking because he gets the headache if I get a virus. I am much like you, I would have projects completed if I didn't spend so much time blogging! But I enjoy it!
That royally stinks! So sorry you got taken...
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