Sales of accounts and invites to invite-only sites

[shep]

Sales, distribution, or otherwise making available of access codes or credentials for accounts is illegal if the site owner or institution has not authorized such transfers. Doing so constitutes illegal access and theft of service.  It's illegal period, you can shout otherwise until you're blue in the face, but as previously conveyed most first world and third world nations have statutes covering access fraud, computer fraud, and theft of service.  Hell even sweden prosecuted theft of service complaint for prostitutes (i'm not joking).

You can keep repeating this over and over again. It doesn't make that right.

Since the accounts were created with a username and a password, they are the property of the creator. The creator can sell or trade them.

A lot of websites put special clauses in their Terms of Service for those very reasons. You can sell or trade them, and they can sue you for it.

vampire is either clueless, trolling,  or financially vested in this topic.  Either way, he's not responding in any rational manner and is frequently going off-topic.  I'm ignoring his posts from now on at least until he tries to control himself.

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[vampire]

A lot of websites put special clauses in their Terms of Service for those very reasons. You can sell or trade them, and they can sue you for it.

We aren't arguing if they can sue or not. The question: is this illegal.

Well, you would be going against a legally binding contract. I think that's enough to try and dissuade people from doing it.

Because it's the contract law, not the criminal law. Vastly two different thing.

In the first you can be sued for damages, in the second you go to jail.

[21after2]

A lot of websites put special clauses in their Terms of Service for those very reasons. You can sell or trade them, and they can sue you for it.

We aren't arguing if they can sue or not. The question: is this illegal.

Well, you would be going against a legally binding contract. I think that's enough to try and dissuade people from doing it.

Because it's the contract law, not the criminal law. Vastly two different thing.

In the first you can be sued for damages, in the second you go to jail.

That's true, but it's still breaking a form of law, which incurs a penalty. And I would say that makes it the kind of thing we shouldn't allow on the forum in the interest of not only helping promote a positive image for BitCoin as a currency, but also to just generally help people avoid legal issues.

[vampire]

That's true, but it's still breaking a form of law, which incurs a penalty. And I would say that makes it the kind of thing we shouldn't allow on the forum in the interest of not only helping promote a positive image for BitCoin as a currency, but also to just generally help people avoid legal issues.

Not breaking a law, it's breaking an agreement.

[vampire]

vampire is either clueless, trolling,  or financially vested in this topic.  Either way, he's not responding in any rational manner and is frequently going off-topic.  I'm ignoring his posts from now on at least until he tries to control himself.

Since now he accused me of being financially vested in this topic? I'd like know how a topic on bitcointalk can financially benefit me.

I am selling this topic: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=134779.0 50BTC

[MysteryMiner]

Stop being such moralfags! The seller must add that he is selling accounts he purchased or his own credit card numbers. It is perfectly legal to sell something you have purchased, right? The admin have no way to check is it true or not. If party wan arrives just restore backups or change hosting and proceed. The Pirate Bay would not made such a big deal if they were so concerned about legal/possibly illelgal/ legal but immoral issues. The history is made by people who fight not who obey!

[shep]

The proof of your trolling is that the thread topic pertains to a forum policy advocated by admin and staff that pertains to unauthorized and/or secondary sales of access codes ("invites") and account credentials.  You continue to target your focus away from that topic.   You can focus specifically on Torrent Trackers or NZB indexers, it makes no difference when any website with a login mechanism is included in this discussion.  It does not matter if it is amazon.com, newegg.com, ebay.com, stocktrade.com, fbi.gov (hopefully you wouldn't be stupid enough to buy or sell credentials for this), or any other website.  The argument is the same.

Additionally if you choose to focus on NZB indexers and torrents sites and if you want to claim that they are illegal, that only supports an argument that their sales should not be allowed on this forum as it could harm the reputation of the currency and the forum.

We arguing if selling is illegal or not. Don't care about ToS (it's a contract law issue).

a) Person A has a legal access to the system.
b) Person A sells the access to the system to the person B
c) Person B access the system

Which of the steps is illegal, shep? If we take all the posts you made, that would be step C right?

a) Person A --> granted provisional access to the system -> legal
b) Person A sells the access to the system to person B -> illegal, misuse of access by sale of credentials or access codes.  Can fall under access fraud. Also illegal if "making available of" (distributing) credentials without authorization of site owner per ToS (again provisional access requires that rules be followed hence why you don't see CIA analysts, investment bankers, or employees selling their access credentials.  If you do you face criminal and civil liability)
c) Person B accesses the system -> illegal, computer fraud, access fraud, and theft of service.

[21after2]

That's true, but it's still breaking a form of law, which incurs a penalty. And I would say that makes it the kind of thing we shouldn't allow on the forum in the interest of not only helping promote a positive image for BitCoin as a currency, but also to just generally help people avoid legal issues.

Not breaking a law, it's breaking an agreement.

Whether a law or legal agreement, my point still stands.

[vampire]

a) Person A --> granted provisional access to the system -> legal
b) Person A sells the access to the system to person B -> illegal, misuse of access by sale of credentials or access codes.  Can fall under access fraud. Also illegal if "making available of" (distributing) credentials without authorization of site owner per ToS (again provisional access requires that rules be followed)
c) Person B accesses the system -> illegal, computer fraud, access fraud, and theft of service.

I see it differently, since you're mixing in ToS. And that's contract law.

[shep]

a) Person A --> granted provisional access to the system -> legal
b) Person A sells the access to the system to person B -> illegal, misuse of access by sale of credentials or access codes.  Can fall under access fraud. Also illegal if "making available of" (distributing) credentials without authorization of site owner per ToS (again provisional access requires that rules be followed)
c) Person B accesses the system -> illegal, computer fraud, access fraud, and theft of service.

I see it differently, since you're mixing in ToS. And that's contract law.

Again provisional access requires that rules be followed hence why you don't see CIA analysts, investment bankers, or employees selling their access credentials.  If you do you face criminal and civil liability.  The law of most nations respects this and is codified as statutes under judicial law.  You can ignore it, that's fine by me, it doesn't mean you won't face criminal and civil penalties.

[vampire]

That's true, but it's still breaking a form of law, which incurs a penalty. And I would say that makes it the kind of thing we shouldn't allow on the forum in the interest of not only helping promote a positive image for BitCoin as a currency, but also to just generally help people avoid legal issues.

Not breaking a law, it's breaking an agreement.

Whether a law or legal agreement, my point still stands.

Then no one would ever talk here, that isn't a very good point. There are a lot of companies here, so you're proposing to ban them all?

[21after2]

That's true, but it's still breaking a form of law, which incurs a penalty. And I would say that makes it the kind of thing we shouldn't allow on the forum in the interest of not only helping promote a positive image for BitCoin as a currency, but also to just generally help people avoid legal issues.

Not breaking a law, it's breaking an agreement.

Whether a law or legal agreement, my point still stands.

Then no one would ever talk here, that isn't a very good point. There are a lot of companies here, so you're proposing to ban them all?

Why would we ban those companies? I thought this whole discussion rooted from the idea of stopping the sales of account information?

[shep]

That's true, but it's still breaking a form of law, which incurs a penalty. And I would say that makes it the kind of thing we shouldn't allow on the forum in the interest of not only helping promote a positive image for BitCoin as a currency, but also to just generally help people avoid legal issues.

Not breaking a law, it's breaking an agreement.

Whether a law or legal agreement, my point still stands.

Then no one would ever talk here, that isn't a very good point. There are a lot of companies here, so you're proposing to ban them all?

Why would we ban those companies? I thought this whole discussion rooted from the idea of stopping the sales of account information?

That is the topic of this thread.  vampire is trolling and going wildly off-topic.

[vampire]

Again provisional access requires that rules be followed hence why you don't see CIA analysts, investment bankers, or employees selling their access credentials.  If you do you face criminal and civil liability.  The law of most nations respects this and is codified as statutes under judicial law.  You can ignore it, that's fine by me, it doesn't meant you won't face criminal and civil penalties.

Let me give you a different example:

Is it illegal to share a Netflix account?

[vampire]

That is the topic of this thread.  vampire is trolling and going wildly off-topic.

You're trolling and making baseless accusations against this forum and against me personally.

Also you need to learn to quote properly.

[vampire]

And here is the answer, Shep is wrong for about 98%. Only one state forbids sale of username/passwords it's TN:

http://money.msn.com/saving-money-tips/post.aspx?post=233ad531-5543-4fdd-b50d-b6abc7d58f0b

[shep]

Again provisional access requires that rules be followed hence why you don't see CIA analysts, investment bankers, or employees selling their access credentials.  If you do you face criminal and civil liability.  The law of most nations respects this and is codified as statutes under judicial law.  You can ignore it, that's fine by me, it doesn't meant you won't face criminal and civil penalties.

Let me give you a different example:

Is it illegal to share a Netflix account?

It is illegal to share account credentials if Netflix's ToS do not permit it and it would be considered theft of service. They may allow for you to use access credentials across multiple devices and IP as long as your subscription account is used by the primary registered user that is the subscriber (account holder).

I do believe though if Netflix observes an account logging in from multiple in different regions that they will limit your logins,  restrict simultaneous connections from different regions, and suspend your account for abuse of service if those controls fail to remedy the site abuse.  No business wants to lose a legitimate paying customer to churn, if that customer is a good customer (again this is for a different discussion in another topic), but some customer that abuse services will see their account services terminated and may be prosecuted if the abuse is considered so extreme that it would harm the business.   A perfect example would be a company re-selling netflix services via proxy (assume a netflix account wasn't limited).

[drakahn]

has a websites ToS ever been used to sue a user?

if yes, did anyone ever use said site again?

--

edit: Also has a websites ToS ever been used to criminally convict a user that broke it?

[shep]

And here is the answer, Shep is wrong for about 98%. Only one state forbids sale of username/passwords it's TN:

http://money.msn.com/saving-money-tips/post.aspx?post=233ad531-5543-4fdd-b50d-b6abc7d58f0b

If you believe that you're highly mistaken. Anyone that believes you better get ready for some jail time..

It sure took all of 5 seconds to find and list a search hit covering this topic. I suppose I could search for more cases in EU nations.


United States Attorney, District of Massachusetts

http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2012/June/MillerAndrewJames.html

Pennsylvania Man Charged with Computer Hacking and Password Trafficking
June 14, 2012

BOSTON - Charges were unsealed this morning against a Pennsylvania man, alleging that he hacked into computer networks in Massachusetts and around the country and then sold unauthorized access to those networks.

Andrew James Miller, 23, of Devon, Pa., was arrested this morning and charged in a four-count indictment with committing conspiracy, computer fraud and access device fraud.

According to the Indictment, between 2008-2011, Miller and others remotely hacked into computer networks belonging to Massachusetts company RNK Telecommunications, Inc., Colorado advertising agency Crispin Porter and Bogusky, Inc., the University of Massachusetts, the United States Department of Energy, and other institutions and companies. By hacking into these computer networks, Miller obtained other users’ access credentials to the compromised computers. It is alleged that he and his co-conspirators then offered to sell, and sold, access to these computer networks as well as other access credentials.

If convicted, Miller faces up to five years in prison for the conspiracy count and one of the computer fraud counts, and up to 10 years in prison on one of the computer fraud counts and the access device fraud count, to be followed by three years of supervised release, a $250,000 fine and restitution.

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer, of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Richard DesLauriers, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation - Boston Field in Boston made the announcement today. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Adam J. Bookbinder, of Ortiz’s Cybercrime Unit, and by Mona Sedky, a trial attorney with the Department of Justice’s Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section.

The details contained in the Indictment are allegations. The defendant is presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

[vampire]

And here is the answer, Shep is wrong for about 98%. Only one state forbids sale of username/passwords it's TN:

http://money.msn.com/saving-money-tips/post.aspx?post=233ad531-5543-4fdd-b50d-b6abc7d58f0b

If you believe that you're highly mistaken. Anyone that believes you better get ready for some jail time..

Of course making a silly statement again. We're talking about selling OWNED account, not STOLEN ones. Don't go offtopic.

No prove to us that sharing a netflix account is illegal in every state in USA.