UK to disconnect "pirates" from the internet | The Coffeehouse

GoddersUK
I CAN has cheezburger and you CAN'T has stop me!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8328820.stm

I guess it was inevitable but the UK government has now announced that it expects ISPs to spy on their users and then act as judge, jury and executioner by cutting them off when they start downloading all that "Ubuntu" from bit torrent.

I'm not quite sure how the government expects to force unwilling ISPs to do this and it seems that at least one (Talk Talk) intends to fight this in court if they're made to do it.

I guess this is what happens when you let the deparment for business have authority over the internet. In case you hadn't notice, government, the internet is neither a bussiness nor for bussiness nor provided by bussiness.

The internet can fight back and, I hope, it will. Not because I pirate but because I truly believe that the internet is none of the governments bussiness. IMHO the only thing the government should investigate/remove on the internet is child pr0n. I really believe that everything else should be up to the various organisations that wield "power" on the internet (such as ICANN) who are able to, and do, take action against the technical abilities and activities of criminals such as phishers and the conficker writers and where a "real world" crime (including filesharing) has been comitted they can notify the nesecary legal authorities. Why? Because governments around the world have repeatidly shown they are technically ignorant and don't know what can and can't be pragmatically enforced.

I really think that the internet is no more the business of the government than a conversation I hold with one of my friends is.

bureX
Always a step ahead in stupidity.

Once again: laptop + car + a bit of free time = whole neighborhood offline and in big trouble. I doubt anybody is stupid enough to enforce such a law and not get burned.

Bass
www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/

These record companies have a hugely inflated self worth. They want to destroy a good thing because it messes with their dinosaur business model. And they seem to have enough political power (probably from 100+ years of circle jerking the government) to accomplish what they want. They keep crying about the death of music, blah blah..

Personally if I had to pick between the death of music and the death of the Internet, I'd pick the death of music.

Bass
www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/

There is also another important fact in this. The only government that can properly enforce copyright law as it is, is a fascist government with deep and constant surveillance on it's entire populace. The kind of people who want to make 1984 a non-fiction work have a powerful tool in their hands.

figuerres
???

In reply to Bass

#Oct 29th @ 6:41 PM

funy sounds a lot like where the brits and the EU are headed ... and i hate to say it but the US seems to be going that way to.

ManipUni
Proving QQ for 5 years!

How to fix this:

Step 1) Create a piece of copyright material (e.g. Happy Face in MS Paint)

Step 2) E-Mail an MP.

Step 3) Claim that the MP's IP address breached your copyright without proof

Step 4) Repeat #3 until disconnect

Step 5) Repeat steps #2, #3, and #4 until all of the labour party has been disconnected

Since the law allows anyone to make claims of copyright infringment and since the ISP has to respond in a certain way this seems like a great time to disconnect anyone we don't like from the internet.

giovanni
...

France just implemented a similar law; the difference is that the constitutional court mandates that it is a judge who must rule the disconnection (the first draft wanted the ISP to do the disconnecting part).

The problem seems to be that there are so many illegal downloads that this law can hardly be enforces without slowing the justice department to a halt.

I am not against the principle of punishing people who illegally downloads copyrighted material, but I am very concerned how this will be enforced.

ManipUni
Proving QQ for 5 years!

It is completely unenforceable and will result in a ton of false-positives.

The BBC article talks about them banning BitTorrent entirely which I honestly hope they attempt to do. Blizzard (World of Warcraft) and Linux are both BIG legitimate users of BT and there are a ton of others, so the lawsuits will be coming in faster than they can processs them.

Sabot
My name is Dave Oliver. I'm a Technical Architect.

I feel very let down by the UK Government right now because of the 'Expenses debarkle' and spending so much money on bailing out the Banks only to watch them the following year dish out large bonuses.

I'm not confident in their ability to lead and make reasoned decisions. Until such time as they can prove they can I think that letting another large industry influcence Government wouldn't be wise.

Lets remind them again that it's the people that vote ... not businesses! Yes there is a balance ... but it's gone far to one way!

figuerres
???

In reply to ManipUni

#Oct 30th @ 12:51 AM

while i would like to see this kind of thing stopped the sending stuff and crying is not the way to fix it... that will just show up as a childish prank and make it look bad.

no this is a time where we need to get folks like the inventors of tcp/ip and http and html at work on this.

as much as i often dislike him get RMS on this - after all his thing is "free software" and this is a problem with freedom and with software.

got the top 20 or 30 computer scientists and developers and business execs who started internet companies together and have them all giving press statements about why it's wrong etc.... then we have a chance at getting it halted.

when they speak up then have others like indi-music types and others join in and then common folk. make it to big of an issue to ignore.

ScanIAm
On a scale of 1 to 10, people are stupid.

In reply to Sabot

#Oct 30th @ 5:50 AM

I found a thread today on the daily WTF that lead me to a similar discussion from the US point of view. The idea that people will leave the banks in droves if they aren't given bonuses SOUNDS like a bonus. These are the same jerkoffs that screwed up the system in the first place.

Oh, and tax all income above $1million at 90%.

CannotResolveSymbol
{insert caption here}

In reply to figuerres

#Oct 30th @ 5:55 AM

The Free Software Foundation actually is involved in campaigning against this stuff. No one listens to them, though (except the GNU extremists).

Dovella
Go Microsoft !!!!!!!

bye bye blowdart

GoddersUK
I CAN has cheezburger and you CAN'T has stop me!

In reply to figuerres

#Oct 29th @ 7:23 PM

Interestingly the EU very nearly made these kind of laws illegal, but the clause was removed from the bill at the very last minute Sad

Dodo
I'm your creativity creator™ :)

In reply to GoddersUK

#Oct 30th @ 2:58 PM

You can still sue them. First install an automated network analysis system like NEWS once you collected enough evidence of speed throttling or delays/blocking of specific packets, sue them for violation of network neutrality. Monitoring your internet traffic violates your privacy, and performing actions based on information collected from the data passed through is evidence of such monitoring. This would make you eligible for indemnification.

Also, if you are torrenting, literally waste your unused bandwidth with downloading and uploading of explicitly random torrents you collect from various piracy sites. This gives you plausible deniability with the excuse it's just a network test where you have no control over the actual data being transferred. Your ISP will love you for that, because as said, they're not allowed to block it, or you would notice. Smiley