Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
typodupeerror delete not in
  • Preferences

Comments: 130 +-   UK File-Sharing Laws Unenforceable On Mobile Networks on Tuesday November 24, @04:42PM

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday November 24, @04:42PM
from the p2p-ringtones dept.
privacy
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."
story

Related Stories

Submission: Filesharing laws unenforceable on mobile networks by superglaze (1112971)
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

UK File-Sharing Laws Unenforceable On Mobile Networks 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Wow (Score:2, Insightful)

    by taucross (1330311)
    They have no way of telling which subscribers are file sharing on any network - ask your local laser printer. I guess they'll just have to make do...

    • ask your local laser printer

      I'm sorry, I don't speak astromech.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mea37 (1201159)

      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, but taking it at face value...

      1) The network traffic associated with a printer doesn't look much like the network traffic associated with file-sharing clients.

      2) I rarely print mp3's.

      3) Which networks' admins is this going to confuse, anyway? The LAN admin can see the network address of the printer and sift that out as noise pretty easily. If the LAN is connected (say, via a NAT router) to

    • The agenda probably goes something more like this: They don't care who is on the other end because soon they'll phase out that pesky anonymity because, you know, them terrrrrissts could use it! Yes thats it! Lets kill another Civil Liberty because we can! *Cackles-Evily-As-They-Stuff-Their-Pockets-Full-Of-Money*

  • Of Course... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fuzzyfuzzyfungus (1223518) on Tuesday November 24, @04:47PM (#30219216) Journal
    Anybody who plans on running bittorrent over a prepaid mobile connection is either going to pirate very small files, or end up paying rather more than retail for them...

    • Re:Of Course... (Score:5, Funny)

      by RobVB (1566105) on Tuesday November 24, @04:49PM (#30219236)

      end up paying rather more than retail for them...

      You can't put a price on freedom!

    • Or you could just do it over "stolen" wifi instead, giving you the bonus of further concealing your tracks.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by commodore64_love (1445365)

      Back in the 1980s people used to charge their long-distance calls for downloading pirated games to other people's calling cards. Perhaps something similar is being done with downloading over cellular dialup/phones?

  • Or it would go the other way (Score:5, Insightful)

    by plover (150551) * on Tuesday November 24, @04:49PM (#30219238) Homepage Journal

    Sharing your connection using Joiku with a file-sharing felon might tar you with the same brush. 3 strikes and you're all out.

    Due process? We flushed that crap down the toilet years ago.

    • Re:Or it would go the other way (Score:4, Insightful)

      by denis-The-menace (471988) on Tuesday November 24, @04:57PM (#30219358)

      All bow to the outdated business model that is the music business of the 50-90s.

      Profits from this *MUST* be protected at the cost of freedom, privacy and progress. /sarcasm (in case of "whoosh")

      Amazing what bribes from robber barons can do to otherwise respectable politicians.

      • Re:Or it would go the other way (Score:4, Insightful)

        by PitaBred (632671) <slashdot&pitabred,dyndns,org> on Tuesday November 24, @05:26PM (#30219744) Homepage
        Otherwise respectable? Wasn't the guy who pushed this shit through removed from two elected positions for corruption, and now only holds an appointed position?
        • That is respectable from me for a politician! His peers snub him!

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by julesh (229690)

          Wasn't the guy who pushed this shit through removed from two elected positions for corruption, and now only holds an appointed position?

          "Removed for corruption" is perhaps overstating the matter. The first time he resigned because he'd failed to declare an interest that should have been on the public record (although he hadn't actually been personally involved in any decisions where there would be a conflict of interest, his department was handling such a decision). The second time he resigned again, but

    • Sharing your connection using Joiku with a file-sharing felon might tar you with the same brush. 3 strikes and you're all out.

      Well you're the one deciding to share your connection. Shouldn't it then be your own responsibility to check just exactly -who- you're sharing the thing with?

      If you decide to share your gun - which you only use for plinking - with some random stranger, they shoot somebody, and the ballistics end up matching a gun that's registered to you, you'd have some explaining to do, too.

      Due pr

  • Does this mean the ISP can look into my cd-collection and see that I don't own the right to use a mp3? If so, how? And better yet, how can we stop them.
    • Here in Canada, you can borrow a friends original cd and copy it to a blank cd for your own use. This is legal because of the levy placed on blank media. However, if you own a cd and download a song from that cd from a peer-to-peer network that is illegal as infringement. Someday they'll tie themselves into enough knots that hopefully they'll cut off the blood to their brains.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by santax (1541065)
        In the Netherlands (for now) it's legal to copy music to your cd's (due to levy indeed), it is also still legal to download music/movies from the internet. We can't share it online. But it is legal to borrow a cd to a friend for him to copy on a blanc cd. But after they (music-mafia) have reaped the millions and millions of euro's for many years in a time no-one uses blanc cd's for music anymore they wanted to change the rules. And they did. Lol. There is only 1 explanation for this. The lobby is paying the
      • So i can access them from my work of course. :) (because there is absolutely no reason not to let me do with my music that I purchased or even made that I want to)It's the record-companies and governments who are the criminals here. Not me, the honest buyer of music. Lots of music.

  • Bill the record industry (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Hatta (162192) on Tuesday November 24, @04:53PM (#30219302) Journal

    If the record industry wants this data, they can pay for its collection.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by BSAtHome (455370)

      So, you are willing to give them investigatory powers. Time to make encryption mandatory then.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by BSAtHome (455370)

          But then, who will be next in line with a big pocket to pay for data and ask the gov for policing some communication. Remember Phorm? Do we /want/ a society where your communication is eavesdropped? That is a trademark of oppressive regimes. It really does not matter whether the ISP is the middleman. No data should be intercepted unless a court-order is provided.

  • Retarded (Score:4, Informative)

    by BlackCreek (1004083) on Tuesday November 24, @04:54PM (#30219320)

    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.

    • There's nothing wrong with forward thinking. As mobile broadband becomes faster and cheaper, which it inevitably will, this will become more and more of an issue. Potentially, people can and will use their mobile provider as their sole ISP. Meaning, if they want to do file-sharing, it will be over their mobile network.

      • By the time it becomes affordable to run torrents on mobile broadband, there will be NO issue with law enforcement of file sharing restrictions. So I really don't see the point.

    • Well there's mobile (netbook/notebook USB things) plans...
      http://mobile.broadbandgenie.co.uk/3g-broadband [broadbandgenie.co.uk]

      Neither of which seem to be 'so expensive' or have ridiculous limits. Granted, I haven't read the fineprint.

      It might not be -cellphone- mobile, but it's certainly using the cellular networks.

      I'd dig up a cellphone plan, but as in the U.S. and NL, finding details on plans on operators' sites is next-to-impossible. I'd imagine T-Mobile offers their web-and-walk plan in the UK as well, though.

      • I have an official limit of 1GB per month on my mobile phone, on O2 UK. I don't get anywhere near it - you can't make much of a dent in it by means of Opera Mini, and even hooking my mobile up to my netbook from time to time when I'm out and about doesn't add that much.

        I might actually go ahead and fire up a torrent next time I'm bored on a train. Just out of sheer perversity.

  • Telling users how to get away with piracy? (Score:3, Funny)

    by syousef (465911) on Tuesday November 24, @04:57PM (#30219364) Journal

    Who hijacked slashdot for this "story"? Is the slashdot torrent tracker next? I guess it's not too far a stretch. Instead of 100 inane "frist post" comments they're all be converted to "Please seed" instead. Instead of flamewars about Apple, Microsoft, or Google, we can all start flames about the torrents containing viruses or whose torrent of the latest 0 dayz warez is better than whose. Welcome to the new slashdot. Not so different to the old!

      • Please see this: Thread [slashdot.org] for some suitable outrage yay! But also, please see this: Book [thepublicdomain.org] (its a free download) for facts.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by mdwh2 (535323)

          Citation where GPL authors have behaved in a manner like the OP talked about, please?

          And even if we did return to 14 years for copyright, including for GPL, I don't see why that's a problem. Yeah, it means that someone will be able to use and modify a 1995 Linux without distributing the source - OMG!

  • The solution to the problem of file sharing is very simple. All they need do is put a government program on the computer that monitors everything the user does and reports to the people assigned to monitor the citizens. Better yet would be to build this into the government mandated operating system or even better, government mandated hardware dongle. Problem solved. After all, no one's under the delusion that they have a right to privacy anymore, right?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dan667 (564390)
      and if you could not turn the government propaganda sound off, even better.
    • Don't get ahead of yourself! Thats only in tentative planning for now! Need more bribes, er.. campaign donations, before it moves further than that!

  • Filesharing is "the perfect crime" in any situation which doesn't involve horrible crippling of networks. There has NEVER been a solid mapping between "person" and "network route", and there never will be on any sane network architecture.

  • Root Conflict (Score:3, Interesting)

    by headkase (533448) <pickett.bill@gmail.com> on Tuesday November 24, @05:24PM (#30219708)
    There is a book called, The Public Domain [thepublicdomain.org] written by a professor of law from the Duke Law School. You can download an electronic version legally and for free from that link. It outlines the conflicts facing areas of creativity like the arts and sciences and explains the history of how it came to be so enclosed. It also does not pull any punches, it supports industry where deserved and advocates Citizen interests where right. It certainly is a lot better than my rants and raves when I scream: I Want My Public Domain [slashdot.org] ! Although he has more reasons to be tactful than I. Inform yourself, read the free book. I am and once I'm done I'm going to go read some Pirate Party propaganda to see if it is compatible with the good professor.

  • Ban anonymous prepaid (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nurb432 (527695) on Tuesday November 24, @05:26PM (#30219736) Homepage Journal

    And require all devices to be registered, with clients shimmed into your ip stack being required to access anything online. This is where it will end up. Everyone will be running something like the old netzero client .. ack.

    Remember only terrorists and pirates want to be anonymous... You have nothing to hide.. do you ?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Spad (470073)

      As I posted above, over 50% of the UK mobile phone market is made up of pre-paid phones; it would be utterly devastating to the industry to do away with PAYG phones.

      • I didn't say ban prepaid. I said ban *anonymous* prepaid. I can see them requiring ID to buy a device, and then track additional minutes you buy back to a particular device.

  • >According to the article, databases (tracking IP address mappings) could be built to make it possible to identify what specific users are downloading

    Exactly how is knowing an IP address mapping going to tell anyone which SPECIFIC USER is doing anything? It might tell you which account is doing something. But last I checked, that doesn't tie to a person. Any number of people might use a single IP address. At work, we have 150+ users behind a single IP address.

    So, an account holder will be guilty, reg

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Spad (470073)

      Unfortunately, it's a long-standing tradition that IP addresses should be used as a unique identifier; we've got 1.3 million people [www.nhs.uk] behind a handful of IP addresses at work and it causes no end of fun when people like Microsoft decide to blacklist them within Live Mail for sending too high a volume of email and therefore being a spam bot, which they've done twice this year so far..

    • Heh, should start a cooperative-run ISP connected to the bone which all it does is route traffic through network address translation! Would that work?

  • Lord Mandelson's response (Score:3, Funny)

    by Kupfernigk (1190345) on Wednesday November 25, @05:40AM (#30224424)
    The Government loves Rupert Murdoch and the media companies - I must kill filesharers! But the Government loves Vodafone, O2 and Three - I must protect the revenue of the telephone companies! There is a conflict in my Prime Directive!

    Head explodes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ledow (319597)

      £1 on any boot sale, pound shop, major booksellers, buys you a brand new, completely anonymous (i.e. not requiring activation or any personal details *AT ALL*, even to "top-up") pre-pay SIM card that will work with data products too.

    • And now record EVERY single connection. And I don't mean every time someone logs in with you, the ISP, but I mean EVERY connection, http, ftp, telnet and otherwise, ever done by every single customer, and record source IP, destination IP, time and a few other tidbits. You know how many entries a single webpage, given all the ads, google trackers and other crap littering them, creates? Now extrapolate by the number of your customers and let's be conservative and say they open one page every 5 minutes (creati

    • Yes it is. I can go into my local Three shop, hand over £19.99 in cash for a pay as you go modem, and another £15 for a one month access voucher. They have no idea who I am.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Verdatum (1257828)
      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.
    • Instead of hiding under whatever is the closest rock, how about checking out an organization such as the Pirate Party. I hear their doing relatively well over in Euro-Land.
Search
It doesn't much signify whom one marries, for one is sure to find out next morning it was someone else. -- Will Rogers

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2010 Geeknet, Inc.