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Crime | Article published
Thursday, June 27, 2002
Searches by
police, FBI target bandits of bandwidth
(THE BLADE/ANDY MORRISON)
Detective Bart Beavers
loads a modem and other computer equipment confiscated during
the raids into a police van. Police and FBI agents served
search warrants at 13 residences.
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By CHRISTINA HALL and
MARK REITER
BLADE
STAFF WRITERS
Authorities investigating the theft of
high-speed Internet cable service yesterday seized modems and other
computer equipment from homes in Toledo and surrounding
suburbs.
Members of the Toledo police computer crimes task
force and FBI agents served search warrants at 13 residences,
including an apartment, a condominium, and single-family houses.
Investigators believe cable modems that connect Buckeye Express
customers to the Internet were altered, allowing computer users
unauthorized access to excessive amounts of bandwidth.
Bart
Beavers, a member of the task force based out of the FBI office in
Toledo, said search warrants obtained for six other residences were
not served because the occupants were not home or for various other
reasons.
Task force members, assisted by area police
departments, had search warrants for six residences in Sylvania
Township, four each in Toledo and Sylvania, three in Oregon, and one
each in Monclova Township and Perrysburg.
They searched all
but three residences in Sylvania Township, two in Toledo, and the
one in Monclova Township.
Buckeye Express is operated by
Buckeye CableSystem, which is owned by Block Communications Inc.,
parent company of The Blade.
Bandwidth is the capacity of a
medium to convey data. The amount of capacity in the bandwidth in
the network affects the amount of information that can be downloaded
or uploaded through a computer.
Paul Shryock, director of
information services at Buckeye CableSystem, estimated the loss from
the illegal use of the bandwidth at $250,000. "Some were using a
little bit, and others were using a lot," he said.
Detective
Beavers said cable officials became aware of the situation in
February. Authorities got involved in April. The case started when
they searched a Sylvania Township residence about three weeks ago
and took about a dozen computers.
In all, they seized 23
computers, including three laptops; three hard drives, and 13 cable
modems. No charges were filed and no arrests were made. "To the best
of my knowledge, there have been no similar search warrants executed
or investigations in the country," Detective Beavers
said.
Mr. Shryock said he was unaware of an Internet cable
provider taking steps to have illegal bandwidth users prosecuted.
"Most of the broadband providers are really just beginning to learn
how the networks perform, what the possibilities are, and how they
deal with theft," he said.
Detective Beavers said the users
are tricking the cable company into thinking they are entitled to
more bandwidth than they are.
"It’s against the law. It’s a
crime we are going to enforce," the detective said.
Mr.
Shryock said changing the modem to use more bandwidth is a violation
of the customer service agreement. He said using more bandwidth than
what one is entitled to receive affects Internet service for other
customers.
"The use of excessive bandwidth is something that
Buckeye does not condone or will not stand. The clear distinction
between this type of theft and the theft of cable services is that
there is a finite amount of resource. The more the customer uses,
the less there is to go around for other customers. These customers
were impacting the performance of all our other customers," Mr.
Shryock said.
Detective Beavers said the users under
investigation are a mix of high school students and adults. Some of
the users communicated with each other and shared their knowledge on
how to hack the system to enhance their personal computer use, he
said.
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