How to find out a previous connection IP Address

[kc_kyle]

I'm unjustly in a bit of trouble. To cut a long story short, I'm being accused of downloading a film illegally. I hadn't actually heard of the film in question until I got this stupid letter and the downloading software I allegedly used, bittorrent, is something I've had no experience with.

I have a feeling that the reason this has come back to me is because of a mistake made by my ISP matching the IP Address to the wrong person. Therefore I'm trying to figure how to disprove their accusations altogether.

Does anybody know how I can find out my IP Address from about two weeks ago? I tried using this method of finding an email I sent and looking at the message details. However this IP Address given here is the wrong type. Apparently this would be the network IP, but I need to determine the connection IP. I'm told there's a difference.

Ideas/suggestions/advice most welcome.

 

[kc_kyle]

Ignore it.

Not a good idea. I live in Germany and have already asked a couple of lawyers in this area and they say ignoring it is the worst thing you can do - they'll just come back again and again, raising the fine with each letter until I have to appear in court.

Who is sending you the letter? What options is it giving you to resolve it?

A lawyer sent me the letter on the behalf of Constantin Film Producer/Distributor. They say I owe them almost €1000 and have to pay it by 21st May. I've already sought legal advice and this sum can certainly be reduced. Obviously I don't want to pay them anything seeing that I did not download the film, so I'm looking to see if I can prove my innocence. This is just one way. The thing is, the law firm would have contacted my ISP in order to find out who the IP, that was used to download the file, actually belongs to. I think they've made a mistake and would rather find the evidence myself as contacting them might look bad, apparently (I read this on another forum).

 

[kc_kyle]

Should have used a VPN.


have fun in jail

Thanks for the advice but I'm guessing you didn't read my intro post. It states that I did not download the film and I hadn't actually heard of the film until I read the letter. Like I said, it's either a mistake by the ISP/Ipoque or someone hacked into my router. Even if I were guilty, it anyway wouldn't end in jail...

 

[kc_kyle]

Sounds like the usual trolls trying to intimidate people into coughing up to me. Have you googled the law firm who sent it and the content in question?

You might find plenty of people have been hit with the same tactic if it's as I suspect. The best thing to do with those cases is ignore it, when you're not in Germany anyway .

I understand what you mean, and you're not the only one to have said it. I have looked up the law firm and as I said, sought advice from lawyers. I have a friend who's a lawyer and specialises in this field and they all say that ignoring such letters are counter-productive and will undoubtedly make my case worse.

There however are many examples of these lawyers chancing their hand and trying to scare people into paying money. Sometimes they hit illegal downloaders, others not. You wouldn't believe some of the stories I've read - one case a 70 year old man was said to have illegally downloaded Iron Man 2. The problem is, you seem to be guilty until proven innocent. The fact is, this film was illegally download - that did happen. I just need to figure how to free myself of any blame, because it's 100% untrue what they claim.

Anyway, the point of the post is to find out the IP Address I was using at the time of this alleged misdemeanor.

 

[kc_kyle]

Send them this letter back.

Having subsequently checked, it would appear that I made a mistake in the configuration of my wireless router, leaving it accessible to anyone with a wireless card.

I can only imagine that someone accessed my broadband connection without my knowledge or consent to illegally download/share the copyright material mentioned in the letter.

I have now reconfigured my router to secure my network, thank you for bringing this to my attention.

That won't work either. As the owner of the router I am responsible for it, meaning failure to set up a secure network is an act of negligence, for which I unfortunately am responsible unless I can prove exactly who did hack my wifi.

 

[kc_kyle]

Stupid scam by retarded lawyers ignore it!

They have to prove you yourself downloaded the film, not you prove your innocence

It's a huge grey area in the law books and these lawyers are totally exploiting it. They're rats, but they are holding me responsible as owner of the internet connection over which the illegal download was made. Whether I physically clicked the buttons or not is irrelevant in this case.

Only your ISP will know for sure... however they will also be the ones who will have handed your details over to the lawyers.

Indeed...

 

[kc_kyle]

isnt it up to them to prove you HAVE downloaded the film, rather than you prove you havnt? an IP address isnt proof enough, as it can be changed.

tell them you want more proof!

I thought so to.

All I know is that the process goes as follows:

Ipoque detects a file are being illegally downloaded and goes to the law firm say, "Hey, look we got another one! Here's the connection details/IP address it was downloaded by."

Lawyer looks up IP address, find who the ISP is and contacts them, asking to put a name to the IP address at the time of the download. Sop whether the IP Address has changed since doesn't matter.

Someone gets a letter in the post.

 

[kc_kyle]

Quite a few games (i.e. eve online), email clients, etc. keep an activity log of logged in sessions that you can check your IP history on so worth looking at sites and online apps you use to see if they have that feature - if the IP its logged either side of the alleged offense is the same but different to the one they have logged then its a good indication it wasn't you.

Yeah I tried this by checking the message details of an email I sent on the same day. According to my lawyer though, the IP stated is just the network IP and not the connection IP, which is the one that counts. I would copy and past the messgae information, but it contains sensitive information - I wouldn't feel comfortable advertising it to the world...

 

[kc_kyle]

You previously purchased the film in question, but wanted to have a backup of the film. As such you downloaded the film from the interwebs.

P.S. Don't know if this would actually work, but I heard before you are allowed to have a backup of your purchased/licensed media.

I didn't download the film... I hadn't even heard of it before this whole catastrophe. Plus, I would probably need a receipt that I did in fact buy the film. But thanks for the idea.

 

[kc_kyle]

So you have an email that you sent on the same day from your home computer to another address of your own? In this case the email headers on the received email should list the IP address of your connection. Depending on your client it different to do this but you want to look at the raw headers, in gmail you can do this by opening the mail then in the drop down to the right of the reply button clicking "show original". You should see some lines that start "Received:" they show the path that the email took to get from sender to receiver. If you sent it from an email client at your home (not webmail) one of these lines should include the IP address of your internet connection.
If you were using webmail you may find a header called "X-Originating-IP", although Google don't include this and it seems Hotmail no longer include it either.
If you want to post these lines they won't reveal any information about your emails and someone here will be able to point out if your external address is in there.

I think this is what you mean:

Received: from dub0-omc3-s34.dub0.hotmail.com (dub0-omc3-s34.dub0.hotmail.com
[157.55.2.43]) by mail.phorms.de with ESMTP id xlPSBGCWeojCoEXq for
<[email protected]>; Tue, 16 Apr 2013 22:27:54 +0200 (CEST)

(I've just taken this snippet from the message details and censored my email address. Would 157.55.2.43 have been my IP at the time then?

 

[kc_kyle]

This then maybe?

Received: from mail.phorms.de (192.168.99.12) by managex.PhormsSchool.net
(192.168.99.11) with Microsoft SMTP Server id 8.1.436.0; Tue, 16 Apr 2013
22:28:00 +0200

 

[kc_kyle]

their scaremongering is certainly working. you're ignoring all the sensible advice telling you to bin the letter and forget it. there's not really much hope for you at all.

Perhaps not. They kindly sent me a cease and desist form, which I know is a bad idea. It seems I should send a modified one and then do nothing. Apparently the lawyer just gives up after a few unanswered warnings.

 

[kc_kyle]

If you accessed these forums during this time period then we could do a check on which IPs are linked to your account?

Incidentally, I was. I posted here for example:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=24118861#post24118861

 

[kc_kyle]

You don't have Trust configured so I can't email you. My email is in the FAQ, drop me a message and ill reply with the details.

Done

 

[kc_kyle]

Do any of the legal eagles here telling him what to do have any decent appreciation of how the law differs in Germany?

Surely it's a bit of a dangerous game telling him to do things based on an understanding of UK law if in Germany things operate a bit differently.

Exactly. I'm not saying people saying to ignore it are wrong, but it's not always so simple. I think I've made up my mind now as to what I'm going to do:

- I won't sign the cease and desist form provided by the lawyer accusing me.

- I will however send a modified cease and desist form, which will safeguard me from any further problems of this nature.

- Then I do nothing. Any further warnings will be filed for my records, but ultimately ignored unless there is a concrete demand that I appear in court (most of the time a threat to take someone to court is their last move - an act of desperation to get someone to pay).

The fact after all is that I did not even download this file, so it sounds like they're chancing their arm a bit. To take something as small as this to court would be expensive for them and wouldn't be worth the money they would stand to win. Yet, when the evidence they do have is insufficient to stand up in court anyway (which it must be), then they won't pursue it. They are only interested in making money quickly so they send out masses of these letters (I read that in 2011 it was about 8,000 recorded cases) so if they are successful with just 25% of them, who just pay up immediately, then they've already made almost €2m - and that at the cost of a bit of their time and thousands of postal stamps.

No worries people. I'm not going to bow down to these unreasonable, uncompromising, immoral vultures. I just want to understand the situation I'm in as fully as possible. And proving my innocence is just a part of this.

 

[kc_kyle]

Fire your ISP. They shouldn't be handing over your details to these scum.

I think they received the lawsuit first. Obviously not wanting to take the blame, they deflected it on to me.

if it was not sent recorded i would ignore it totally....

If you have use bit torrent I would erase my PC and reinstall jsut to be safe, possibly also buy the film as well if you are paranoid (with cash not card).

if it comes to anything why would you pirate a film you own... where is the evidence you even used what ever torrent software they say you did...

I don't have bittorrent. Never have had it. I have used things like Kazaa (back in the day) and more recently utorrent, but never used bittorrent. Also the film in question isn't even out on DVD yet as far as I'm aware. It's called Parker and it was apparently at the cinema (at least here in Germany) not long ago. Like I said, I had never heard of it before this letter came.

 

[kc_kyle]

2) Films are/can be available on torrents before they are released.

Yeah I know. I was just referring to the "buy the DVD option" suggested before where I claim I was merely downloading a data back up to a film I'd already "bought the rights" to.