Net providers begin warning of illegal downloads

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Internet users who illegally share music, movies or television shows online could soon receive warning notices from the nation's five major Internet service providers.
The Copyright Alert System, organized by the recording and film industry, is being activated this week to target consumers using peer-to-peer software.
Under the new system, complaints will prompt an Internet service provider — such as Verizon or AT&T — to notify a customer whose Internet address has been detected sharing files illegally. A person will be given up to six opportunities to stop before the Internet provider will take more drastic steps, such as temporarily slowing their connection, or redirecting Internet traffic until they acknowledge they received a notice or review educational materials about copyright law.
Consumers who maintain they have been wrongly accused would be forced to pay $35 to appeal the decision. The fee would be reimbursed if they prevail.
Proponents say the focus is on deterring the average consumer rather than chronic violators. The director of the organization behind the system, Jill Lesser of the Center for Copyright Infringement, said in a blog post Monday that the program is "meant to educate rather than punish, and direct (users) to legal alternatives."
Each Internet provider is expected to implement their own system. The other providers expected to participate are Cablevision, Time Warner Cable and Comcast. (NBC News is part of NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast, a provider of cable TV and broadband Internet access.)
The program gives each customer five or six "strikes" after a music or film company has detected illegal file-sharing and lodged a complaint. The first alerts are expected to be educational, while the third and fourth would require the customer to acknowledge that they have received the warnings and understand their behavior is illegal. The final warnings are expected to lead to "mitigation measures," such as slowing a person's Internet connection speeds.
Officials involved in the effort acknowledge it's unlikely to stop the biggest violators. There are ways to disguise an IP address or use a neighbor's connection that is unlocked. Public wireless connections, such as those offered at coffee shops, also won't be monitored.

How to Generate Credit Card Numbers

How to Generate Credit Card Numbers

by Chad Upton

First of all, I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea; although the credit card numbers you generate are valid, they’re not active and aren’t for making (fraudulent) purchases.
So, what’s the point?

Just like you may use a junk email address to sign up for special offers, you may want a junk credit card number too. That’s because free things are rarely ever free and that’s especially true of free trials.
Companies frequently offer “free” trials in exchange for your billing info. They’re betting against you — hoping you’ll forget to cancel your subscription so they can get some money out of you for at least one month, maybe a couple months if it’s only a few bucks and you’re too busy to cancel at the moment you notice the charge. Then you’ll probably forget about it until you see it again next month.
There are lots of great websites out there that require subscriptions and I think you should pay for and support the ones you use and enjoy. But, before you know if it’s a newspaper you enjoy, you may want to test drive their free trial and a generated credit card number can help you cut the strings and keep you safe from fake sites looking to capture your personal info.

I know what you’re thinking, “How can I generate a credit card number, isn’t that something only the credit card company can do?”
Credit card numbers are generated based on a formula. A valid number is simply a number that conforms to a validation algorithm; they use check digits like we saw with UPC Barcodes.
An active number is a card number that conforms to this algorithm and is currently issued to a customer. While it’s technically possible that you could generate a number that is currently issued to a customer, it’s very unlikely since there are trillions of possible numbers. The odds are far greater that you’d win the lottery and of course those odds are very slim to begin with. Also, you don’t have the correct billing info for the customer, so a charge would never be approved anyway.
For free trials, you don’t need an active number since it never needs to be charged during the free trial period. You just need a number that is valid according to the algorithm so you can create a trial account at the new website you want to try.
You won’t be able to use these numbers for purchases because you’re missing critical information such as the: expiration date, CVV number, billing name, address and phone number. If a site is asking for this info for your generated card, you can make it up. The site won’t know it’s invalid unless they attempt to charge the card, and then a generated number is of no use to you anyway.
If you google around, you can find lists of “test credit card numbers” but chances are really good that these numbers have been used on most popular sites and they’re not going to work for you. To generate your own number, my favorite site is: http://www.getcreditcardnumbers.com/