UK 3 strikes plan risks ’superhighway robbery’: ISP
p2pnet news view P2P | Politics:- Britain’s apparent determination to at all costs follow the dictates of the corporate entertainment cartels by instituting their anti-consumer, anti-P2P ‘Three Strikes’ business plan, is generating increasing concern.
Put forward on behalf of Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music, and Time-Warner, Fox, Disney, Columbia, Paramount and MGM, by Lord Peter Mandelson, it would turn governments around the world into corporate enforcement agencies, and local ISPs into copyright cops.
Their targets would be anyone and everyone alleged to have improperly shared files online.
Britain’s Carphone Warehouse, the operator of the TalkTalk broadband network, wants parents to censor their kids’ online activities with a U, 14 or 18 certificate, or unclassified rating system, p2pnet posted recently, going on, “Parents ‘choosing’ the U or 14 options, ‘would be able to block computers in the household from accessing certain filesharing sites such as the Pirate Bay, as well as pornography and gambling, without having to install extra software on the computer,’ the Financial Times has Carphone Warehouse boss Charles Dunstone (right) stating.”
But that doesn’t mean it’s in favour of the Three Strikes plan.
In fact, says Dunstone in a post on the company’s blog, “the proposals mean the Government has done a U-turn and rejected the largely sensible and considered ideas put forward in Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report, going on, “It would put in place a principle of ‘guilty until proven innocent’ that contradicts fundamental human rights. But moreover the proposals will be totally unworkable — and today we’ve proved why.”
How did TalkTalk manage that?
One of its internet security pople visited The Highway, a residential road in Stanmore, Middlesex, it says, continuing »»»
Within a couple of hours he had identified 23 wireless connections on the street – more than one-third of the total – which are vulnerable to Wi-Fi hijacking. These connections are either completely unsecured (6%) or use WEP technology (28%) which many users think is secure but is in fact easily hackable by anyone with a laptop computer.
To show how vulnerable people are to unauthorised filesharing, our expert downloaded legal music files from two connections, including Barry Manilow’s hit Mandy and the soundtrack from the 1992 film Peter’s Friends.
Of the 68 Wi-Fi connections on the road only one used the strongest available security (WPA2). The majority (65%) used WPA security which may become hackable in the future. Indeed a vulnerability has already been discovered.
Scarily, The Highway is actually comparatively well protected. Our expert conducted a Wi-Fi survey of central Ealing in West London on 11th October and found that 41% of 1,083 Wi-Fi networks were vulnerable to unauthorised use.
Connecting to a Wi-Fi network is just one way that illegal filesharers can use other people’s internet connections, leaving innocent people vulnerable to disconnection. PC hijacking is another.
The clear implication is that millions of people would be at risk of ‘superhighway robbery’ under Mandelson’s plans.
The risk of innocent people being disconnected is not hypothetical. Consumer organisations such as Which? have been contacted by hundreds of people who have been wrongly accused of filesharing using a similar method to the one Mandelson is suggesting.
This is why we think the Mandelson scheme is wrong-headed and naïve. The lack of presumption of innocence and the absence of judicial process combined with the prevalence of Wi-Fi hijacking will result in innocent people being disconnected.
And the plan won’t work in practice. It will actually encourage offenders to use Wi-Fi and PC hijacking more frequently and so increase the chances of innocent users being falsely accused and disconnected.
It is absurd to make people, in effect, legally responsible for the traffic on their internet connections and require them to prevent any unauthorised traffic.
TalkTalk acknowledges that there is a problem with illegal filesharing and that solutions must be found. First and foremost the content industry must develop new business models to make content more easily available and more affordable.
Great! Thank heavens people in the UK have TalkTalk on their side.
“We are happy to play our role alongside this [ he problem with illegal filesharing] – we’re currently developing a series of controls which will give parents the ability to block access to certain filesharing sites through their connections, for instance,” says Dunstone, failing to explain precisely what the censorware is, or how it’ll work
And in the same breath, “we will continue to strongly resist any approach that does not protect the innocent,” he says.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
corporate enforcement agencies – Mandelson: shying away from 3 strikes deal?, September 25, 2009
wants parents to censor – TalkTalk to launch parent-run censor scheme, September 29, 2009
blog – Why Mandelson’s plan leaves millions at risk of ’superhighway robbery’, October 13, 2009
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October 16th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
It’s about time people rid themselves of the peculiar brainwashing that persuades people that they need to protect the Internet from ‘unauthorised’ access and so should ’secure’ their WiFi access point against use by anyone else in range.
Duh? The whole point of wireless security was to prevent drive-by access to corporate intranets, not the Internet. The Internet is supposedly meant to be available to every single member of the public still in possession of a right to free speech.
By all means, people should secure their own intranets, or PCs, etc., but that doesn’t mean they should try and prevent Joe Public getting a wifi connection to the Internet, nor does it mean they should join some cockamamie scheme to sell their wifi access such that passers by have to pay for it.
WAP manufacturers should have provided two standard connections, one bandwidth-limited for public use, and a default, unlimited one for the device owner. It’s a great pity they’re now defaulting to ’secured’, i.e. no free Internet for passers by.
October 16th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
@Crosbie
I’m not too sure I agree with you – what is then to stop me from using my neighbours wireless internet instead of purchasing my own?
October 18th, 2009 at 11:11 am
@crosbie , youre living in a naive dreamworld , its a utopia for people using other peoples connections as noted above for free and the implications for downloading the wrong sort of porn using anothers connection is massive – and before you naively point out , that you can just point to someone else as your wifi isnt secure and couldnt have been you , you can try telling that to all your neighbours who think you are now a pedo . This site seems to attract people who live in naive arrogant worlds , fight the Wrongs with facts not naive utopianisms .
October 18th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Rabbit80, that’s the same argument used against file-sharing. Why purchase a copy if my neighbour can give me one?
Why pay for my own room to be lit to read a book if I can sit underneath a street lamp and do so?
You’re missing something…
Rty56, it’s possible you may be mistaking naivety for enlightenment. It is fear bred from the darkness of ignorance that makes the world a nightmare to live in, not naivety.
If you attempt to prevent people communicating their thoughts you end up persuading them to resort to violence as a means of expression instead. The true perversion of our times is to believe that the exchange of ideas is not only dangerous, but causes violence. Why even now I’m downloading GTA IV and thus accelerating my descent into depravity, both in terms of illegal file-sharing and an indulgence in violent fantasy. At least, this is how you appear to prefer such activity to be seen.
October 19th, 2009 at 2:53 am
(Careful, Crosbie, Sony or Rockstar North might be listening in.)