diff --git a/src/org/mcteam/factions/util/DiscUtil.java b/src/org/mcteam/factions/util/DiscUtil.java
index 4744238f..f8c3864a 100644
--- a/src/org/mcteam/factions/util/DiscUtil.java
+++ b/src/org/mcteam/factions/util/DiscUtil.java
@@ -3,30 +3,59 @@ package org.mcteam.factions.util;
 import java.io.*;
 
 /**
- * Harddisc related methods such as read and write.
+ * Hard disk related methods such as read and write.
  */
 public class DiscUtil {
 	/**
 	 * Convenience function for writing a string to a file.
 	 */
 	public static void write(File file, String content) throws IOException {
-		BufferedWriter out = new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(new FileOutputStream(file, false), "UTF8"));
+		BufferedWriter out = new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(new FileOutputStream(file, false), "UTF-8"));
 		out.write(content);
 		out.close();
 	}
-	
+
 	/**
 	 * Convenience function for reading a file as a string.
 	 */
 	public static String read(File file) throws IOException {
-		BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(new FileInputStream(file), "UTF-8"));
-		String ret = new String(new byte[0], "UTF-8");
-		 
+//		BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(new FileInputStream(file), "UTF-8"));
+		InputStream inStream = new FileInputStream(file);
+		BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(inputStreamToReader(inStream));
+		StringBuilder ret = new StringBuilder();
+
 		String line;
 		while ((line = in.readLine()) != null) {
-			ret += line;
+			ret.append(line);
+		}
+		in.close();
+
+		return ret.toString();
+	}
+
+	/**
+	 * Helper method for determining and using correct encoding when reading data,
+	 * since so many people/text editors seem to mess up the encoding; hopefully this will help
+	 * Adapted from: http://blog.publicobject.com/2010/08/handling-byte-order-mark-in-java.html
+	 */
+	public static Reader inputStreamToReader(InputStream in) throws IOException {
+		if (in.available() < 3)
+			return new InputStreamReader(in);
+		int byte1 = in.read();
+		int byte2 = in.read();
+		if (byte1 == 0xFF && byte2 == 0xFE) {
+			return new InputStreamReader(in, "UTF-16LE");
+		} else if (byte1 == 0xFF && byte2 == 0xFF) {
+			return new InputStreamReader(in, "UTF-16BE");
+		} else {
+			int byte3 = in.read();
+			if (byte1 == 0xEF && byte2 == 0xBB && byte3 == 0xBF) {
+				return new InputStreamReader(in, "UTF-8");
+			} else {
+				byte[] first3 = {(byte)byte1, (byte)byte2, (byte)byte3};
+				InputStream firstChars = new ByteArrayInputStream(first3);
+				return new InputStreamReader(new SequenceInputStream(firstChars, in));
+			}
 		}
-		
-		return ret;
 	}
 }