UK File-Sharing Laws Unenforceable On Mobile Networks

superglaze writes "UK mobile broadband providers currently have no way of telling which subscribers are file-sharing which copyrighted content, ZDNet UK reports. This represents something of a problem for new laws that have been proposed to crack down on unlawful file-sharing. According to the article, databases (tracking IP address mappings) could be built to make it possible to identify what specific users are downloading, but the industry is loathe to fund this sort of project itself. Also, as an analyst points out in the piece, users of prepaid phone cards are mostly anonymous in the UK, which creates another challenge for the government's plans. And if that isn't enough, connection-sharing apps like JoikuBoost would make identification pretty much impossible anyway."

Retarded

[BlackCreek]

Outright retarded article... Mobile data fees are so expensive that this whole story it makes no sense whatsoever

I've seen plenty of slow news days here where kdawson decided to publish non-sense, but this is a new low.

Re:Errr Radius Authentication

[Spad]

And lose a *huge* chunk of their revenue. According to Ofcom 55% of mobile phones in the UK are pre-paid or PAYG [ofcom.org.uk] (Look under the "Telecoms" section).

Re:The wonders of NAT

[Verdatum]

And this will stop being true for LTE (4g). Since the handset acts as a server for certain communications, it requires at least one dedicated IP address per active subscriber. Mobile File-sharing won't be a major issue until 4G proliferates anyway.

Re:Wow

[zapakh]

I guess I'm not sure what you want to talk to my printer about. Maybe you're alluding to some story I haven't haerd

If I may, I believe this is about some of the DMCA takedown notices received by University of Washington from the MPAA in the summer of 2008. A few of them were directed at laser printers because researchers at the university pulled some tricks with IP addresses in an attempt to prove that, no, they really don't tell you about identity and, no, the MPAA doesn't care.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/the-inexact-science-behind-dmca-takedown-notices/ [nytimes.com]
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/06/05/entertainment-indust-1.html [boingboing.net]

I don't know if any changes have been made in response to the embarrassment, nor whether the embarrassment has even been acknowledged as such.