Dish Police back in action.

[charlesrshell]

Oh wow, I thought you were kidding when you said that Sylvia called you! Anyway, don't sweat it too bad, try to make sure you have the correct remotes when moving from receiver to receiver. Just be honest, if they act accusatory then you can give them a little attitude. Good luck, I'm sure you'll pass the test just fine. I bet charles will be getting this call very soon.

Teehar, am I the charles you think might get a call soon? I am glad 3HaloODST passed his test and he gave me a heads up to this thread. If Sylvia does call me, I hope I don't confuse her too much with the eight remote controls that are paired to my main Hopper! Also have two 20.0 remotes that I use for this same Hopper. I will use one of them if she calls and see what her thoughts are if the Police team can sniff out remote controls too. I don't think I will have any problems passing their test. My four Hoppers and Joey are all located within about 20 feet of each other. The only exception is a Hopper that is about 30 feet away because it is located upstairs in the kid's room. All units are connected to my home network. Also, all Hoppers are connected to the home phone line. Do you think it matters to Sylvia if my Hopper / Joey system is in Ethernet or MoCA home Network connection mode? Thanks for this thread and your inputs on what to expect. I am ready for Ms Sylvia.

 

[Hall]

They can't. You're ignoring the "if a device has WiFi or is connected to a network that has WiFi" part. And for what it's worth, the statement from 'jimdandyvi' isn't entirely accurate.

 

[Hall]

Teehar, am I the charles you think might get a call soon?

You are thinking way too hard about this.... How many remotes you have ? Connected via Ethernet or MoCA ?

 

[Teehar]

Teehar, am I the charles you think might get a call soon? I am glad 3HaloODST passed his test and he gave me a heads up to this thread. If Sylvia does call me, I hope I don't confuse her too much with the eight remote controls that are paired to my main Hopper! Also have two 20.0 remotes that I use for this same Hopper. I will use one of them if she calls and see what her thoughts are if the Police team can sniff out remote controls too. I don't think I will have any problems passing their test. My four Hoppers and Joey are all located within about 20 feet of each other. The only exception is a Hopper that is about 30 feet away because it is located upstairs in the kid's room. All units are connected to my home network. Also, all Hoppers are connected to the home phone line. Do you think it matters to Sylvia if my Hopper / Joey system is in Ethernet or MoCA home Network connection mode? Thanks for this thread and your inputs on what to expect. I am ready for Ms Sylvia.

Yes you are.I remembered you having quite the unique setup,hopefully they won't bother you.

 

[dishrich]

Aereo uses this WiFi technology to screen potential customers to determine if they are actually in their service area.

No, it actually just works off of the credit card billing address to determine eligibility...

 

[jimdandyvi]

I don't even understand that. Suppose (well it's true!) all my receivers are on Ethernet to my wireless router, and suppose (this is NOT true) I am account stacking via VPN with a 4th receiver (hardwired Ethernet) on the other side of the country. How can anybody determine via wifi that I am account stacking?

If your network has WiFi capabilities either as part of the router or as a wireless AP connected to your network, or perhaps just a device connected to your network such as a smartphone with WiFi capabilities, all someone has to do is force your wireless radio(s) do do a scan and listen for what SSIDs are being broadcast near enough your location to be received. It then looks up the received SSIDs in a database and finds out where they are located.

As I said previously Aereo uses this technique to determine where you are located when you request service. Made no difference that I was using a VPN with a IP address located in NYC.

My Kindle Fire's position can be located within a few hundred feet using WiFi only. I am not in a major metropolitan area. St. Croix is a small island in the Caribbean, 1,100 miles from Miami, but since several of my neighbors and a local deli have WiFi and their SSIDs have apparently have been logged by Google or someone else the position of my Kindle can be roughly triangulated. Th same technique is used to geo locate dumb phones with no GPS chips.

As for Dish paying attention to the IPs of where a receiver is, just for grins I took my receivers on a virtual around the world tour by changing the VPN servers I connect to. My receivers went from St. Croix to Miami to London to Stockholm to Athens to Singapore over a month's time. Never heard a peep from Dish. Maybe Dish didn't care because both my receivers traveled together. If I do it again I will only send one of them around the world while the other stays home.

 

[Hall]

...I took my receivers on a virtual around the world tour by changing the VPN servers I connect to. My receivers went from St. Croix to Miami to London to Stockholm to Athens to Singapore over a month's time. Never heard a peep from Dish. Maybe Dish didn't care because both my receivers traveled together. If I do it again I will only send one of them around the world while the other stays home.

Or, they know that your receivers are worthless outside of the conus footprint of Dish's satellites and could care less that they were apparently in those locations.

 

[charlesrshell]

You are thinking way too hard about this.... How many remotes you have ? Connected via Ethernet or MoCA ?

Hall, that is what the Mrs says too! LOL. For ten TVs I have 21 remotes that are in my system counting two Dish 20.0s, one 21.0, and two universals. I hardly ever use the two universals. There are 8 remotes paired to the main Hopper that gets the most use. If I could pair two more to it I would be able to eliminate two 20.0s. The reason so many remotes is five TVs receive Modulated signal from three Hoppers, several his/her remotes, numerous TVs, and a couple of other reasons. Also, another big reason is because the remotes have to be paired to Hoppers. With my previous four VIP722s system, I could get by with less remotes because the RF address could be changed when I wanted to view a different 722. But, with Hoppers you have to dedicate one remote for each Hopper you want to view because of the Hopper's pairing system. Now that I have more experience the with Hopper/Joey system, I probably could cut down a couple of remotes. Also, if the Hoppers could sync recordings to other TVs I would be able to cut down several more remotes.

Presently my system is in MoCA mode. Going to switch back to Ethernet mode whenever the Dish Software team is complete reading one of my Hoppers for an Ethernet Top/Bottom port issue they are investigating.

 

[charlesrshell]

Yes you are.I remembered you having quite the unique setup,hopefully they won't bother you.

Thank you and 3HaloODST too for remembering me. I primarily park myself in The Hopper Zone and hardly ever check out The Dish Forum section so I would have missed your important thread if 3HaloODST hadn't sent me a PM. I don't care if they call me on not. I am not doing anything wrong that I know of. It is just nice to be kinda prepared for the questions they might ask thanks to you sharing your experience and the other posters too.

 

[king3pj]

My Kindle Fire's position can be located within a few hundred feet using WiFi only. I am not in a major metropolitan area. St. Croix is a small island in the Caribbean, 1,100 miles from Miami, but since several of my neighbors and a local deli have WiFi and their SSIDs have apparently have been logged by Google or someone else the position of my Kindle can be roughly triangulated. Th same technique is used to geo locate dumb phones with no GPS chips.

I think you are thinking of cell tower triangulation not WiFi triangulation. I would guess that there are few, if any, dumb phones on the market that have WiFi but do not have GPS. Even if you can't use GPS apps on your dumb phone there is a 99% chance that it has some form of GPS radio in it for 911 purposes unless it is over 10 years old. This is from the Verizon Wireless website.

http://support.verizonwireless.com/faqs/Wireless Issues/faq_e911_compliance.html

Can I activate a phone that is not GPS (Note: Following this link will open a new window with the glossary page, anchored to the definition for GPS.)-compatible?

No, because the FCC requires that carriers convert nearly all of their handsets to GPS capability, Verizon Wireless will no longer allow non-GPS-capable phones to be activated (Note: Following this link will open a new window with the glossary page, anchored to the definition for activated.) onto the network. Older phones that are not GPS-capable cannot assist in estimating their location. If a non-GPS-capable phone that is currently active is disconnected for any reason, it will not be reactivated. If you purchased your handset in 2001 or earlier, it will not be GPS-capable and you should upgrade (Note: Following this link will open a new window with the glossary page, anchored to the definition for upgrade.) it. Even if you bought your phone in 2002 or later, it may not be GPS-capable and if so you should upgrade it.

If you currently have a non-GPS-capable device, you can continue to use it. However, once the device has been de-activated it will not be allowed back onto the Verizon Wireless network.

Certain web services on smartphones do try to approximate location based on WiFi, but like others have said it's not always very accurate. For example, I have an iPhone 5. Here inside my office building it gets spotty GPS reception. If I try to google search for Pizza or open up the Weather Channel app it often gives me Holly MI results even though I am in Fenton MI. When it is able to get a GPS lock I get the correct Fenton listings when it figures my location by our office WiFi or cell tower information (I'm not sure which it is using) I get the Holly listings. This isn't terribly far away. Holly is about 12 miles away from my office. It definitely wouldn't be close enough to be certain someone wasn't account stacking though.

 

[Hall]

You can locate ("triangulate" may be too strong of a word here) by WiFi as well, although it's a LOT less accurate.

I just turned off "VZW location services" and "Standalone GPS services" but left "Google location services" on. That is where they've mapped out probably millions of WiFi APs (when they do Street View mapping). Opened up Maps on my phone, tapped the "GPS" symbol and it zoomed in dead-on to where I am. My phone sees (5) WiFi APs sitting here so that definitely helps Google narrow down where I am.

When I'm at home, it will put me within a couple of houses, a half-block away, and sometimes 2-3 blocks away. No idea why it varies.

 

[king3pj]

You can locate ("triangulate" may be too strong of a word here) by WiFi as well, although it's a LOT less accurate.

Yes I'm sure you can. He said they triangulate using WiFi to get dumb phone location data on phones without GPS. I was just pointing out that I don't think that's true. Most dumb phones don't even have WiFi and the ones that do most likely have GPS as well. Even when they do use my internet connection to figure out my location, like in my office example, it isn't all that accurate.

I don't think they could actually rely on WiFi triangulation to determine whether we are account stacking on a national basis. Hell, many Satellite customers live in rural areas. Their own WiFi signal is likely the only one their devices can see. It seems like it would be hard to triangulate using WiFi with only one signal.

 

[Teehar]

Thank you and 3HaloODST too for remembering me. I primarily park myself in The Hopper Zone and hardly ever check out The Dish Forum section so I would have missed your important thread if 3HaloODST hadn't sent me a PM. I don't care if they call me on not. I am not doing anything wrong that I know of. It is just nice to be kinda prepared for the questions they might ask thanks to you sharing your experience and the other posters too.

No I didn't mean to insinuate you were doing anything wrong at all.I just remembered you had multiple hoppers.Again,I hope they don't call on you.It's a pain in the butt imo.

 

[Hall]

I went back and re-read and yes, he did say triangulate via WiFi on dumb phones. Yeap, that's not gonna happen.... They would triangulate via the CELL towers though, if possible, though.

As I said, in some cases, triangulate is too strong of a word, but they can roughly locate you with just one WiFi location. When Google maps all of our streets, they were recording the location and identifier info from access points (SSID, MAC address, etc). If my home is out in the middle of nowhere, connected to my WiFi AP that Google mapped previously, they've got a match.

 

[king3pj]

I went back and re-read and yes, he did say triangulate via WiFi on dumb phones. Yeap, that's not gonna happen.... They would triangulate via the CELL towers though, if possible, though.

As I said, in some cases, triangulate is too strong of a word, but they can roughly locate you with just one WiFi location. When Google maps all of our streets, they were recording the location and identifier info from access points (SSID, MAC address, etc). If my home is out in the middle of nowhere, connected to my WiFi AP that Google mapped previously, they've got a match.

Maybe, but my office isn't in the middle of nowhere and google consistently gives me Holly listings instead of the correct Fenton listings when it can't get a GPS lock in doors. I do connect to the office WiFi. If they can't consistently lock me down to the right town based on my internet connection how are they ever going to know if a Dish box is in the right house.

They are only about 12 miles off on my location so most of my search results are still somewhat relevant but 12 miles is a lot when you are trying to determine whether I have 1 box in my house and 1 in my office. I don't. I'm not a stacker, but I think the current system where they want to see if all the boxes are on the same IP or phone line is about as accurate as they can get for right now. The likelihood that most stackers are using work-arounds mentioned, such as VPN and multiple VOIP boxes, is probably pretty low.

 

[charlesrshell]

No I didn't mean to insinuate you were doing anything wrong at all.I just remembered you had multiple hoppers.Again,I hope they don't call on you.It's a pain in the butt imo.

I know that you didn't insinuate that I was doing something wrong. I can see too why they may want to check me out. I doubt I will ever hear from them.

 

[AntiMoz]

A couple of general questions. How long do they give someone to call them back without taking the next step and deactivating the receivers? I have a 722K and a 211K installed at our cottage which is about 70 miles away from my main home. We are there mainly on weekends during the summer and less so in the winter. It's not a big deal for me to travel there to run the checks assuming that I'm in town (I travel a lot for work) or the place is snowed in (heavy lake effect snow).

If one were not able to call back within the required time and they deactivate the second receiver, what does it take to get it turned back on?

 

[TheKrell]

If your network has WiFi capabilities either as part of the router or as a wireless AP connected to your network, or perhaps just a device connected to your network such as a smartphone with WiFi capabilities, all someone has to do is force your wireless radio(s) do do a scan and listen for what SSIDs are being broadcast near enough your location to be received. It then looks up the received SSIDs in a database and finds out where they are located.

Note that, in my hypothetical scenario, I said all receivers were connected via hardwired Ethernet. Are you saying that Dish has some way of figuring out my SSID without any access to the wireless portion of my router at all?

Also, how can Dish "force" a "wireless radio" to do a scan of my neighborhood? I think they would have to have control of a wireless device, which they do not, since none of my Dish receivers have a wireless connection.

 

[GaryPen]

Note that, in my hypothetical scenario, I said all receivers were connected via hardwired Ethernet. Are you saying that Dish has some way of figuring out my SSID without any access to the wireless portion of my router at all?

Also, how can Dish "force" a "wireless radio" to do a scan of my neighborhood? I think they would have to have control of a wireless device, which they do not, since none of my Dish receivers have a wireless connection.

Stop making sense.

 

[Teehar]

A couple of general questions. How long do they give someone to call them back without taking the next step and deactivating the receivers? I have a 722K and a 211K installed at our cottage which is about 70 miles away from my main home. We are there mainly on weekends during the summer and less so in the winter. It's not a big deal for me to travel there to run the checks assuming that I'm in town (I travel a lot for work) or the place is snowed in (heavy lake effect snow).

If one were not able to call back within the required time and they deactivate the second receiver, what does it take to get it turned back on?

I can't give you a definitive answer on that.They just said to call back when it was convenient.Now back in 05,I must have missed the calls,came home from work one evening and all receivers were shut off except one.As far as getting them turned back on,it's simple pass the tests.