[Jbad]

DL have sent me a letter and i am completely innocent of downloading/uploading or sharing the file in question. Although i was probably connected when they say i was.

My work involves monitoring the P2P networks (not for breach of copyright but other worthwhile causes) including Edonkey/Mule and the Torrents.
We have to go to great lengths to successfully bring a case to court and get a successful prosecution/conviction. This is just a brief comparison between how we gather or evidence and how Logistep gather theirs.
We use accredited software and we are fully accredited to operate and gather evidence using it. The software is operated manually, the time is continually synched and every step of the process is recorded from the screen ready to produce in evidence and play back in court (sounds lame but any judge/jury can understand the evidence when it is presented in this way)

Intelligence will give us a “hash” for a certain file that we have an interest in (hash is the unique value that is generated when a file is put on the P2P, this value will never change even if the file is renamed)

We connect to the P2P network with the software and search for the “hash”

Once found we start to download the file

We look in and record the contents of the “shared” folder

We identify a target and drop ALL other connections until we have the target on a “one to one” connection

We download the COMPLETE file from the target over this one to one connection

Now we look up the target IP and, in a timely fashion, (not a year or more) contact the relative ISP and request the targets details. In the case of VM we would also request the “UBR” (Universal Broadband router) as this will eliminate a cloned VM modem which plagues the VM network…ever wondered why you have to keep rebooting your VM modem?? ( IP indicates subscriber is Mr X living in Southend, UBR say subscriber on Tyne and Wear UBR = Possible cloned modem = investigation dropped.

UBR details are not gathered by DL

This is not how Logistep gather their “evidence”. They do not use accredited software. Their software is automated and they do not download the COMPLETE file, in fact they only try to download a few bytes, and this is NOT on a one to one connection. The way they gather their evidence even captures the IP’s of P2P users that don’t even have the file or did Logistep hash and make the original file available renamed as something that we would download?? Before we realized we would have downloaded their “copyrighted material”…..has anyone looked for the file they allegedly downloaded?? Don’t tell me you can no longer find it and I wouldn’t mind betting that it was never available complete….. This just wouldn’t stand up in a UK Criminal Court of Law but will it stand up in a UK Civil Court?? I believe DL now realizes this and this is why they haven’t taken anyone that will contest their evidence to court. They just rely on scaring people into paying them the odd £500 here and there to recoup their loses to the ISP’s that have charged them for releasing subscriber details…well they wont be getting my £500..