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Internet users could be banned over illegal downloads

Quickly reading the comments I think two things stand out for me:

1. This will only encourage the dodgy street corner DVD sellers and increase drug and violence problems on the streets of the UK.

2. Why can't the government invest this money on stopping SPAM emails and help stop malware.

But that will benefit the consumer, not the fat cats in Hollywood!
 
I don't know about Britain, but this certainly wouldn't hold up under the U.S. constitution.

Users suspected of wrongly downloading films or music will receive a warning e-mail for the first offence, a suspension for the second infringement and the termination of their internet contract if caught a third time, under the most likely option to emerge from discussions about the new law.
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this is probably unworkable
the ISP wont like it because they have to police their own customers
and then cut them off
it ill be bad PR because sooner or later they'll make a mistake and cut of some old granny with an open wifi set up

just cant see this becoming law




.
 
I work for an ISP, and it's far, far easier than you could ever imagine for 'us' to see what you're doing.

Comcast use packet header sniffing already to mess with torrent seeding in the US, and I can see it being implemented quickly here, especially with the cheapo providers like Sky, Orange, O2 and the suchlike.

I reckon that ISPs will just implement better packet sniffing tools to filter more out, before being rather annoyed that they're being asked to kick off their users, and lose lots of money - P2P users generally seem to be happy to pay more for a connection with higher bandwidth limits, etc.

There's also the fact that home routers, and their users, are becoming more advanced. Many users now use https connections to download .torrent files, where the secure connection encrypts the download, meaning ISPs can't see it and block it. More and more routers are available with custom/homebrew firmware which will do it's own packet sniffing - and encrypt any P2P traffic before it hits the ISP.

The government and organisations like the record labels/film industry will always be a few steps behind.
 
Yeah, see, I don't even understand the logic of that. Time was, until very recently, the position of telecom companies of all stripes was that their business was to provide a pipe, not to control what was done with that pipe.

The reasoning there is that as soon as you admit to any responsibility for what your customers do over your equipment, you instantly assume all such responsibility, which is impossible to achieve and ruinously costly to pursue. Beyond physical resource usage concerns, to care what your customers are doing enough to look is simply bad for business.

Furthermore, as a customer, I suddenly find myself in the position of being concerned whether my own communications security is sufficient to prevent a rogue employee of your organization from sniffing my corporate communications and selling them to my competitors. People doing illegal things on the network are very crafty out of necessity, and if you've invented ways to spy on them, then you can probably spy on me as well. I can vet the people I hire, and can fire them for malfeasance. I have no such options with employees of your company.

The result is that I am forced to do business with companies I cannot trust, who seem hell bent upon coming up with new ways to brag to the government and to the relatively microscopic entertainment industry, who are not paying customers I might add, about all the ways they have come up with to violate my privacy. Frankly, I support suing AT&T into dust over the illegal wiretapping issue here in the U.S. for which our lawmakers want to grant them immunity, but I am forced to do business with them nevertheless unless I want to just go off the grid and open a bakery or something. This entire situation offends me in ways I cannot even begin to describe adequately.

Sorry to rant. I realize you only work there, but the course telecom companies worldwide are pursuing seems quite simply insane to me. I'm rapidly becoming a fairly extreme advocate of strong cryptography everywhere, and damn the consequences that law enforcement types will inevitably screech about.
 
Abstract said:
I wonder how much the total global internet usage would drop if people stopped illegal downloads. Surely it would result in a 90% drop in bandwidth usage.
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we're talking illegal downloads. not porn. :p


but in all seriousness: this will happen sooner or later, imo. comcast has packet sniffers, and are doing their best to stop it, its only a matter of time before more steps are taken. my only worry would be then: how does the isp know is an illegal download over something legit? torrents do have legal uses, albeit they're probably not mainly used for that these days.
 
The freedoms we once knew, the ones our fore fathers thought for, not only in the usa, but here in Britain and the rest of europe and slowly but carefully and tactfully being grinned down, our freedoms of speech forced to be politically correct and over ridden by laws of hate speech that actually let the true criminals run a mock, our freedom to not be spied upon waltzed over by telecommunications companies, banks and the governments.

Only a matter of time people before RFID ruins our lives...populace tagging, thats what the government and bankers and so fourth really want. We "commoners", us poorly "working class", us scum are merely live stock to those cowards scum who lurk in the shadows.
 
cyberjunky said:
The freedoms we once knew, the ones our fore fathers thought for, not only in the usa, but here in Britain and the rest of europe and slowly but carefully and tactfully being grinned down, our freedoms of speech forced to be politically correct and over ridden by laws of hate speech that actually let the true criminals run a mock, our freedom to not be spied upon waltzed over by telecommunications companies, banks and the governments.

Only a matter of time people before RFID ruins our lives...populace tagging, thats what the government and bankers and so fourth really want. We "commoners", us poorly "working class", us scum are merely live stock to those cowards scum who lurk in the shadows.
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Seriously, what?

Oh, thats right, the government shouldn't stop illegal downloading. It is completely fair to the copyright owners.

/sarcasm.
 
cyberjunky said:
The freedoms we once knew, the ones our fore fathers thought for, not only in the usa, but here in Britain and the rest of europe and slowly but carefully and tactfully being grinned down, our freedoms of speech forced to be politically correct and over ridden by laws of hate speech that actually let the true criminals run a mock, our freedom to not be spied upon waltzed over by telecommunications companies, banks and the governments.

Only a matter of time people before RFID ruins our lives...populace tagging, thats what the government and bankers and so fourth really want. We "commoners", us poorly "working class", us scum are merely live stock to those cowards scum who lurk in the shadows.
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have you though about switching to decaf ;)
 
Regardless of your 'use' - security & prying eyes should always be of concern.

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cyberjunky said:
The freedoms we once knew, the ones our fore fathers thought for, not only in the usa, but here in Britain and the rest of europe and slowly but carefully and tactfully being grinned down, our freedoms of speech forced to be politically correct and over ridden by laws of hate speech that actually let the true criminals run a mock, our freedom to not be spied upon waltzed over by telecommunications companies, banks and the governments.

Only a matter of time people before RFID ruins our lives...populace tagging, thats what the government and bankers and so fourth really want. We "commoners", us poorly "working class", us scum are merely live stock to those cowards scum who lurk in the shadows.
Click to expand...

I agree largely with what you've said. But I think this is just everyday policing. Sure it's motivated by supplication to The Combine but what isn't? Sarko has floated this idea a while ago in France. Once you travel around a bit, you see that the political class are bereft of ideas and trawl the world for somebody else's. Zero tolerance, New Deal etc blah .

I don't know if "fathers thought for" was a typo but it's got a nice lyrical power to it. Liberty being "grinned down" is equally poetically dark. Nice one.
 
I don't like the precedent, but this isn't a horrible thing- I mean, the downloads ARE illegal. I just hope they don't overtrivialize it (i.e., sometimes I get on BitTorrent to download discontinued TV shows that are not sold on DVD or aired on TV, or ripped unreleased soundtracks from old games).

I wonder about the effect on corporations though! What happens if a large organization has a single member downloading MP3s on the corporate internet account? Losing internet could cost some companies millions, even for a day.
DAC47 said:
this is probably unworkable
the ISP wont like it because they have to police their own customers
and then cut them off
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Comcast is already sort of doing this in some regions. Look up Sandvine- they're using it to send packets that reset BitTorrent connections.

I can't upload anything over a bittorrent connection, nor can anyone in my area.
 
GFLPraxis said:
I don't like the precedent, but this isn't a horrible thing- I mean, the downloads ARE illegal. I just hope they don't overtrivialize it (i.e., sometimes I get on BitTorrent to download discontinued TV shows that are not sold on DVD or aired on TV, or ripped unreleased soundtracks from old games).

I wonder about the effect on corporations though! What happens if a large organization has a single member downloading MP3s on the corporate internet account? Losing internet could cost some companies millions, even for a day.


Comcast is already sort of doing this in some regions. Look up Sandvine- they're using it to send packets that reset BitTorrent connections.

I can't upload anything over a bittorrent connection, nor can anyone in my area.
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No, the downloads are SUSPECTED to be illegal. Here in the U.S. we are innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. Just because I use a torrent doesn't mean I'm downloading illegal stuff. Give me my day in court before you "punish" me. Thanks.
 
"People who illegally download films and music will be cut off from the internet"

So I can still download software!? WOOOO!!!

... Not that I download software in the first place, since a large amount of Mac software is dirt cheap anyway.

Well, I guess it's time to convince my family into buying a better router which can actually be password protected because I don't want my internet cut off. Without it, I'm nothing... Oh well... I know there are a couple of other people in my neighborhood who have unsecured routers as my PC's Wifi Dongle's software would auto-connect to whichever one was nearest - which was bloody annoying. Thank God my iMac knows how to stay where it's put! Was incredibly annoying when I was uploading videos to the internet, and so on...
 
Everyone in the UK who was against this could 'forget' to put the passwords into their routers then your ISP and the police couldn't say it was you doing the P2P. It might be your neighbour.

Actually my neighbour is a Windows techhead and I'm sure he piggybacks my connection anyway.
 
Poncho said:
Everyone in the UK who was against this could 'forget' to put the passwords into their routers then your ISP and the police couldn't say it was you doing the P2P. It might be your neighbour.

Actually my neighbour is a Windows techhead and I'm sure he piggybacks my connection anyway.
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While it would be harder to file criminal charges against you, it would make no difference in canceling your service.
 
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