If you are in the vicinity of Washington, DC on February 9th, you might want to check out the Anti-Spyware Coalition Public Workshop: Defining the Problem, Developing Solutions. The folks at the Anti-Spyware Coalition have a great lineup of topics and presenters.

Registration is free for government, education, non-profit, and press. All others should be able to pay $250. I will be attending, and I hope to see many of our readers there. Feel free to drop me a note if you plan on attending.

What is an easy way to get a number of plain-clothes FBI agents to storm your home and confiscate your computer equipment? Uncapping one’s cable modem bandwidth limit is one way. DSL Reports has a story from Ohio where local ISPs employed FBI’s assistance in going after customers who have hacked their cable modem to obtain higher broadband speed.

Many broadband cable modem users do not know that the limit on their speed is actually in the modem. Hacking the cable modem to unlock a higher speed is illegal and is easy and likely to be detected by the service provider.

Here’s the Ohio story. Paul Shryock, a VP for information technology at Buckeye Cablesystem found out that 23 of his subscribers were getting more bandwidth than they had paid for. Shryock is quoted saying that one subscriber had "altered his modem to handle 100 megabits per second, up and downstream", though the company could never realistically even obtain such speeds. So, instead of disconnecting the 23 users who had violated their terms of service by uncapping their modems, Buckeye decided to call the local branch of the FBI. Of the 23, 17 actually received visits from the FBI and local law enforcement. Seven were indicted by local grand jury and currently face fifth degree felony charges.

Does the punishment fit the crime? Hacking is a serious offense. Bandwidth theft has economic consequences. Damages were incurred by the service provider (although the precise amount is unclear). And similar conduct should be deterred. But employing the powerful arm of the FBI to prosecute a handful of home users in need of a faster connection may be an overkill. [Also, a Toledo Blade article on this story.]