My husband just got a notice from our Internet provider that someone in our home illegally downloaded a movie. By process of elimination we know it is the guest who is staying until Sunday. 
How do I approach. His computer is in the room. Part of me wants to check his latest download activity but the other part of me knows that is such an invasion of privacy! If he downloads one more this week I am sure we are going to be in legal trouble. At least fined if not worse. So bummed!
Well in my country if you check his computer without his consent he can sue the pants off you if he finds out so I wouldn’t do that. I would probably ask him about it and mention you got a letter from your isp. You can also download an Internet nanny and it might be able to take care of the problem
Print the notice and show it to the guest and see how he wants to deal with it.
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Thanks for the tip on the Internet nanny…I will need to check into that, I’ve not heard of it. Is that software for the router? I am doing a quick search on it and it seems as if you have to put it on a device.
Is there are reason you wouldn’t knock on the door, show him the notice, and tell him that on no uncertain terms he is not permitted to do it again. Then, get on the platform and send him a message “just to confirm our earlier conversation…”
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When this happened with a guest of ours, we simply sent an email to the guest that noted that we’d received an alert from our internet provider about the possibility of copyrighted material being downloaded from our connection. Without accusing the guest (or their family members) of having done anything wrong, we asked if they could avoid any activity that might violate our internet provider’s terms of service. Definitely do not touch your guest’s computer. And, lastly, I couldn’t find a hardware or software solution because services like bit torrent can run on many different ports which makes it hard to block at the router level and you can’t install software on your guest’s computer.
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We have one that is network wide. Here is a website I found that explains it better.
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Went back and found the message I wrote before:
Hi -Guest Name-,
I hope all is well and you’re enjoying your stay. I’m writing because we received a notice from our internet provider that someone was sharing copyrighted material (The Revenent) on our internet connection at about midnight last night. It’s not a big deal but perhaps you could ask any of the younger folks staying in the house to refrain from using file sharing services as Verizon tracks such usage.
Warmly,
-My name-
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The notices don’t mean crap. ISPs have to send them.
But yeah just confront them if you definitely know it’s them and say not to do it.
Change the wifi password and have a talk with them. Reiterate that the privilege of using the wi-fi is contingent on sticking to legal activity.
I have this in my house rules so I can fall back on it if I ever need to.
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He is a returning guest who is here on and off for 8 months a year. I like him and want to prevent everyone from downloading more than putting him on the defense.
That’s good to know. My husband says they sometimes fine you and other times they don’t.
Maybe it’s different in the UK Paul, but here we have to take those entices seriously. My neighbor got busted recently with too many trips into Pirate Bay. :
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