You're right that most of this is covered in the user-agreement, which is why we need to switch to ISPs with better user-agreements.

The problem with the C&D (as I pointed out in the post): They're not alleging that he violated the EULA -- that he shared his connection. They're saying that he created a situation where he *might* share his connection. Surely you see the difference.

As to the particulars of the EULA, as cited in the nastygram, they seem to me to exclude sharing your connection on two computers that you own and with friends who drop in at your house. I think that most people who accepted those terms believed that Time-Warner wouldn't enforce this stuff, but it appears that TW is serious about it. Therefore, it's time to get the word out to TW subscribers that TW wants to enforce these draconian EULA clauses, time to switch providers.

But your analogy fails in another way. This isn't like sharing your cable with your neighbors; I think it's more like sharing your phone service. If I got a cordless base-station and two handsets and put one in your apartment and one in mine and we shared the line, do you think the phone company would have the right to say boo about it?

At the end of the day, we have a (slightly) competitive market for broadband (except those places where TW has forced out its competition or secured a monopoly from a city). Many providers have decided that their value-proposition comes from providing a pipe, period. Not content. Not a jack in a house. Not a connection for one user. Just an end-to-end packet-faucet. We can and should seek out those providers and give them our business.

The security issue is, I think, a real *potential* liability, but I've yet to see any indication that it's a widespread *actual* liability (another way to think about this: if you're a criminal mastermind doing something nefarious on someone's network, do you want some arbitrary braodband subscriber sniffing *your* packets?).

The assumption that your LAN isn't being sniffed is a bad one in general. In a TW cablemodem world, your packets are scattered across your neighborhood and possibly farther. There's no guarantee that your ISP is keeping your secrets, either. The default assumption should be that all comms are being intercepted, and so cleartext is never acceptable for sensitive material. Increasingly, OSes and apps operate under this assumption. I always tunnel my mail over ssh, I always use SSL when I buy things, and I assume that everything not SSLed or sshed is subject to interception.

As much as I hate to defend Time Warner, doesn't the clause of the User Agreement they cite cover them? I don't see what this guy is doing is anything different from me splitting my cable and running it to the building across the street and giving them all free basic cable. It would violate my agreement with the cable company. I am surprised they are even giving a three day warning.

You spend $49 a month, you get Internet access for you and (maybe) all the other computers in your house. Period.

If you want to provide a connection to people outside your house, all you need to do is get a business class connection of your own dropped to your house. This, of course, will cost a lot more than $49 a month.

Doesn't the security risk argument hold water as well? Do you really want people you don't know on your network surfing for who knows what? You are leaving yourself open to a whole lot of malicious prosecution, given the current political climate.

When there's an alternative to Time Warner here I'll use it.
The only other viable broadband in Austin is "Grande" and they don't seem quantifiably different.

Everybody Poops. That is the core message of the Net. We all ingest content and we all create it.

I just want to point out that Speakeasy, from whom we get our DSL, isn't limited to your coast. In fact, they sell DSL all over the place, and while they're not perfect, they seem to grasp very firmly that broadband customers don't just want to suck on "content", they also want to make content and spray it all over the infosphere.

You're right; however, I make all my SMTP connections over an SSH tunnel, so I've never had any problem with it.

Earthlink DSL isn't Real Internet because they filter outbound connections on port 25. (Which is a whole different debate, I know.)

Meer.net has a 2nd office in Elkins, WV. My mom lives in Davis, WV & is a meer.net user. Cool!