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Sony Crime Piracy Security United Kingdom

UK MP Says ISPs Must Take Responsibility For Movie Leaks, Sony Eyes North Korea 216

An anonymous reader writes that the recent IP advisor to Prime Minister David Cameron has laid some of the blame for the recent Sony hack at the feet of ISPs. Meanwhile, it's reported that Sony is close to officially blaming North Korea. As the fallout from the Sony hack continues, who is to blame for the leak of movies including Fury, which has been downloaded a million times? According to the UK Prime Minister's former IP advisor, as 'facilitators' web-hosts and ISPs must step up and take some blame. Mike Weatherley MP, the recent IP advisor to Prime Minister David Cameron, has published several piracy reports including one earlier in the year examining the advertising revenue on pirate sites. He believes that companies with no direct connection to the hack or subsequent leaks should shoulder some blame. 'Piracy is a huge international problem. The recent cyber-attack on Sony and subsequent release of films to illegal websites is just one high-profile example of how criminals exploit others' Intellectual Property,' Weatherley writes in an email to TF. 'Unfortunately, the theft of these films – and their subsequent downloads – has been facilitated by web-hosting companies and, ultimately, ISPs who do have to step-up and take some responsibility.' Weatherley doesn't provide detail on precisely why web-hosts and ISPs should take responsibility for the work of malicious hackers (possibly state-sponsored) and all subsequent fall out from attacks. The theory is that 'something' should be done, but precisely what remains elusive."
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UK MP Says ISPs Must Take Responsibility For Movie Leaks, Sony Eyes North Korea

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 04, 2014 @02:59AM (#48520689)

    How typical of a politician, and ESPECIALLY one in an English-speaking nation, to insist that everyone, everywhere has to shoulder the responsibility for everything that ever goes wrong.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 04, 2014 @03:29AM (#48520783)

      How typical of a politician, and ESPECIALLY one in an English-speaking nation, to insist that everyone, everywhere has to shoulder the responsibility for everything that ever goes wrong.

      Except them.

      • by Adriax ( 746043 )

        ISPs should take partial responsibility if Mr. MP adviser takes partial responsibility for all the crime facilitated by the public roads and sidewalks.
        1% responsibility for movie hosting vs 1% responsibility for 600+ murders a year.

    • by LordLucless ( 582312 ) on Thursday December 04, 2014 @03:29AM (#48520787)

      How typical of a politician, and ESPECIALLY one in an English-speaking nation, to insist that everyone except him has to shoulder the responsibility for everything that ever goes wrong.

      FTFY

    • by stealth_finger ( 1809752 ) on Thursday December 04, 2014 @03:52AM (#48520867)
      Next he'll be saying the Highways Agency need to takes some responsibilities for bank jobs.
      • by Chrisq ( 894406 ) on Thursday December 04, 2014 @04:12AM (#48520931)

        Next he'll be saying the Highways Agency need to takes some responsibilities for bank jobs.

        I want the petrol station to be responsible for my speeding ticket!

        • by Mashiki ( 184564 ) <mashiki@gmail.cBALDWINom minus author> on Thursday December 04, 2014 @06:18AM (#48521327) Homepage

          I want politicians to be responsible for everything.

        • by arth1 ( 260657 ) on Thursday December 04, 2014 @08:01AM (#48521737) Homepage Journal

          I want the petrol station to be responsible for my speeding ticket!

          Don't give them any ideas. If they find out that it is possible to grade fuel based on how much energy it provides, and provide fuel so crappy that you cannot break the speed limit unless going downhill, I'm sure that at least one politician will demand just that, and another will pipe in with how it will make school children safer and bring jobs to the north.

          • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Thursday December 04, 2014 @08:26AM (#48521863) Homepage Journal

            If they find out that it is possible to grade fuel based on how much energy it provides,

            They already do that. Higher-octane fuel runs in higher-compression engines that produce more HP per liter. My first car was a 1960 Dodge Dart which came with a 318ci big block with, no shit, 12:1 compression. I had to run octane booster on top of premium fuel to feed it in California. It would run OK on just premium if you kept your foot out of it, though. That bad boy made 240hp and 340lb-ft... in 1960. That was pretty great for 5.2 liters, back then. Today you'd only expect 400 and 400, or so, but the engine would have to be able to do it on 91 octane gasohol.

            Of course, fuel taxes take a gigantic shit on the whole concept when unevenly applied...

            • by arth1 ( 260657 )

              Thing is, with E10 (10% alcohol) they manage to increase the octane rating while providing less energy per volume of fuel.

              But why stop there? Find something other than ethanol that has even lower energy, and make it mandatory. Decreased risk of cars being able to exceed the speed limit, and everyone is happy... Well, except drivers and car manufacturers, but who cares about them as long as they pay their taxes!

              Speaking of speed limits ... I have noticed that they've dug down speed sensors in more and mor

              • Ethanol, by itself, has an octane rating of about 129. The octane rating isn't about the energy content of the fuel, but rather its tendency to ignite under compression ("detonate") as compared to iso-octane.

                Those tube-shaped sensors can probably measure a bit more than speed. I don't know what is used where you are, but I recently completed the design for a dozen automatic vehicle classification stations. They measure speed, count axles, and of course, count vehicles. I doubt that the sensors you're ta

                • by sabri ( 584428 )

                  I doubt that the sensors you're talking about are for speed enforcement: That's easily done with radar and photos.

                  In many countries fixed-base speed traps are built using inductive loop detectors (the pneumatic ones aren't that good). One of the reasons is that radar-detectors won't work...

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Or again typical of a politician - "Something needs to be done", "'This' is something, therefore THIS has to be done" never mind whether 'This' is the best thing to do, or even appropriate.

      • Always. All they can do is pass laws, and laws are generally restrictive in nature. One usually assumes something is legal until a law says you can't... or must.
        Whether or not the law accomplishes diddly squat, the politicians can then sit back and run their thumbs underneath their suspenders ("bracers" if you're British, bet you got a laugh out of that) and smugly say, "There, problem all fixed.. we did something about it". Which is also annoying because making legislation is often much easier then th
    • Their wielding of power requires that others are responsible. You can't pass a law against someone unless you've laid some blame at their feet. And it's not necessarily the goal to pass the law, either. Maybe just a friendly reminder that ISPs aren't making enough campaign contributions and might want to reconsider before the next legislative session comes around.

    • by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
      I think that shoe manufacturers must shoulder the responsibility for these leaks. Because it's pretty obvious that the perpetrators use shoes when they move about. And since this "crime" is committed on the backbone of shoe use, obviously those who make shoes must ensure that people who wear their shoes don't use them while breaking the law!
    • because, hey, the killers took them once.

      grow up, man. learn something. it's not too late.

  • Agreed! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 04, 2014 @03:05AM (#48520705)

    I agree totally, we should also make sure to hold the government responsible for every road used to commit a crime, as without those roads it would have been difficult or impossible to commit some of these crimes. When are we going to have the government and road transport departments step up and take responsibility for issues that are clearly caused by their roads!

    • Re:Agreed! (Score:5, Funny)

      by hedgemage ( 934558 ) on Thursday December 04, 2014 @03:22AM (#48520759)
      You're not thinking this through, we're talking about computers here.
      These crimes used computers, and these computer use software, the software companies are to blame for aiding and abetting these hackers and pirates!
      And those computers also use power which is generated by utility companies who need to step up and accept their responsibility for this criminal behavior!
      Heaven help the soft-drink company that makes whatever beverage these criminal masterminds used to quench their thirst during their reign of terror! Hopefully they will have the moral rectitude to admit that they must also shoulder the blame!
      • Re:Agreed! (Score:5, Funny)

        by mwvdlee ( 775178 ) on Thursday December 04, 2014 @03:50AM (#48520859) Homepage

        Look, without the movie companies making movies, we wouldn't have movie leaks.
        It's clear the movie companies themselves are to blame.

        • Look, without envy, people wouldn't be downloading movies illegally.
          It's clear God himself is to blame.

        • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

          It's clear the movie companies themselves are to blame.

          You joke, but IMO, they are largely responsible—a lot more so than ISPs who merely failed to prevent the normal use of their networks by people doing nefarious things. After all, these movies were stolen off of the movie studios' machines, which means they clearly didn't take security seriously enough.

      • I don't know how the monsters who make Mountain Dew can sleep at night.

    • Re:Agreed! (Score:5, Funny)

      by POPE Mad Mitch ( 73632 ) on Thursday December 04, 2014 @04:35AM (#48521029) Homepage

      More so, if a bank robbers getaway vehicle went on a toll road then the roads operator should be charged with profiting from the proceeds of crime, they clearly facilitated the crime.

      • More so, if a bank robbers getaway vehicle went on a toll road then the roads operator should be charged with profiting from the proceeds of crime, they clearly facilitated the crime.

        Actually, the QE2 bridge / Dartford tunnel in Essex, England are the perfect spot to catch criminals in a car and have been used that way. Close the toll booths and there is just no way to escape. Bit inconvenient for everyone else.

    • by Anonymous Brave Guy ( 457657 ) on Thursday December 04, 2014 @05:26AM (#48521167)

      You jest, but the police in this country created a massive surveillance network watching our major roads with image recognition cameras. Their favourite excuse for this not-at-all-creepy step? "Denying criminals the use of the roads." Because the criminals always use real licence plates on their getaway cars, you see.

      That operation was started without initial formal debate or authorisation from MPs, but has effectively been condoned since. In fact, it has been developed further, by co-opting cameras installed for other purposes despite explicit promises that this would not be done. Fortunately no innocent people have ever been issued with automated fines for something they didn't actually do, because it would probably cost those people more to fight such tickets in court than just paying up.

      Basically, looking at how the road network is handled, the people running the show here really do seem to think the way forward for our society is universal surveillance and automated mass penalties for minor infringements of laws based on dubious evidence with no cost-effective means of defending yourself if you are wrongfully accused.

    • Re:Agreed! (Score:5, Funny)

      by DoofusOfDeath ( 636671 ) on Thursday December 04, 2014 @07:06AM (#48521489)

      We should hold ISP's responsible for lies told by politicians. If a politician is caught lying three times, ISP's should refuse to carry any internet traffic involving their campaign ads.

  • Oooo... That will make them officially guilty... I bet they're officially peeing their pants..

  • Oh, no. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 04, 2014 @03:07AM (#48520713)

    The movies were stolen? Now they're going to have to film them all over again!

    • by ZeRu ( 1486391 )

      The movies were stolen? Now they're going to have to film them all over again!

      I wouldn't steal a car, but I would download it.

  • So, lets say... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rick in China ( 2934527 ) on Thursday December 04, 2014 @03:14AM (#48520723)

    I initiate a hack via social engineering over the telephone. I get ahold of some passwords and information which allows me to access super secret data, and leak it. I suppose the phone company is at fault, also?

    What kind of nonsense. Politicians should not directly talk about IT related issues - but rather, allow some representative who isn't ridiculously uninformed to do so on their behalf, save them lots of face.

    • by idji ( 984038 )
      Neither phone companies nor post offices can inspect every analog message coming through. but ISPs could inspect digital content, and that is the difference. You can make your analogies that ISPs are indenpendent conduits and hence not responsible for content - but you need to consider the analog/digital divide.
      • Re:So, lets say... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Rick in China ( 2934527 ) on Thursday December 04, 2014 @03:32AM (#48520803)

        Are you implying that phone companies don't have the capability to record or analyze phone calls?

      • Post offices and phone companies aren't even ALLOWED to inspect the content, bar a few very specific cases. For postal companies this means: undeliverable and without return adress.

        And neither should ISP's be. They are no different so why should they be allowed to inspect the contents of a package?

      • Are you suggesting it would be a *better* situation if the phone company and/or post office were inspecting all of your messages? Because I certainly don't want them inspecting mine without due process. And no, the analog/digital divide doesn't matter; I'm sure the Stasi could hire enough people to listen in *all* *day*.
  • ... Sony is about to declare war on North Korea. This should be interesting.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yes, but who is more evil?

      • by Cederic ( 9623 )

        We can only hope it turns nuclear.

        Back on topic: As noted by another poster, Mike Weatherley has a conflict of interest on this topic.

        I would say that he's corrupt, taking bribes and betraying his constituents but as that could be libellous I shall merely state that he's a Conservative MP.

  • Roads (Score:4, Insightful)

    by darkain ( 749283 ) on Thursday December 04, 2014 @03:15AM (#48520727) Homepage

    In other news: construction workers building and maintaining city streets and highways are now held responsible for high speed chases.

  • by ArithonUK ( 3916515 ) on Thursday December 04, 2014 @03:17AM (#48520733)
    Members of Parliament and their corporate-owned hirelings shouting from the rooftops how technically ignorant and ill-advised they are, yet again. Let's lock up every bus driver, train operator staff and all the directors of London Transport, as every thief, murderer and rapist in the last 100 years used public transport at some point to "facilitate" their illegal activities!! I swear if we filled government with trained monkeys, you'd see an improvement in the way the country was run within days.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 04, 2014 @03:30AM (#48520791)

    Bare in mind this MP has a massive conflict of interests on this subject so anything he says should be ignored as it is not anything close to impartial

    Look at his parliamentary declared interests http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/24889/mike_weatherley/hove#register

  • by Que_Ball ( 44131 ) on Thursday December 04, 2014 @03:31AM (#48520799)
    So, when a bank is robbed and the thieves use a getaway car then he should obviously be blaming the roads, or the car companies, maybe the gas station for allowing them to be transported to the bank and away from the scene of the crime.

    Why is it that the method of transport is suddenly to blame here?  If we always use the car analogy to describe technology concepts then should the roadways be inspecting the contents and destination of all travellers to prevent or detect crimes?

    So in this analogy we have criminals who committed the crime and the bank (Sony) where the locks were found to be insufficient and the guards were not watching the right doors.  Why does the blame need to extend beyond those parties?

    Of course the governments would probably jump at the chance to inspect all traffic and the contents of all vehicles on the road if they thought they could get away with it.  To protect the people of course, no other reason.

  • Think of all the getaway drivers they've assisted. Christ.
  • WTF? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Who honestly cares who is responsible for a large company not having adequate security measures in place. They are externalising the underlying problem of them being slack. Don't want your movies leaked before release, don't put them on the Internet. Problem solved. I've very little sympathy for Sony here and simply do not trust the "officials" who are going to allocate blame to another country.

    Sony could have easily avoided this -- send only physical media around and make sure everyone has a non-networ

    • by dwpro ( 520418 )
      I agree with nearly all of your comment, but I take issue with the North Korean bit, particularly the statement "aren't a nice government." That is a tremendous understatement and an injustice to the human rights travesty that is North Korea. I _hate_ Sony and have little tolerance for this sort of governmental overreach, if this helps the plight of the average North Korean it would give me pause.
  • ISPs are to blame to the degree that they facilitate the transfer of data between individuals, which is about the same level of involvement that oxygen has in the ignition of gunpowder. In other words, blaming ISPs for file sharing is about as sensible as blaming oxygen in shooting deaths.

  • That this is just politiquese to get gov taxes (us paying) to the "poor" media companies, to create a body to regulate this to employ more of their cronies, that they are peeing on their pants the old and new generations, dont give a shit to TV and cable, and to pass draconian laws regulating computer usage, and thus create a new feudal digital age, right?
    • by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      it wouldn't be so sad if in living in the west already didn't mean paying taxes to the media companies on stuff like recordable media based on the assumption that you're going to do something illegal with it. like, in some western countries there's an assumption that a photocopier is used to copy pages from books so you need to pay per page if the copier is in an institution. it's fucking ridiculous. if I'm living in the west I'm already shilling out so much to whoever is the top radio play for the year tha

  • and Borat, hack the fuckers at Sony again. Please. They do not deserve to have any customers at all.
    • I saw the bits of "The Interview" that were on the news because apparently NK are upset about it. "intellectual property" seems a bit strong ;-)

  • by Peter Simpson ( 112887 ) on Thursday December 04, 2014 @07:28AM (#48521583)
    Politicians aren't the right people to be handling this. You can legislate all the laws you want, but they don't fix the problem. It's illegal to burgle houses, but it happens all the time. Sony got burgled. Better luck next time. Buy better locks, build a more secure IT infrastructure, and be thankful that nobody died. Nobody even lost real money, as I read it, except, of course, for the costs of the cleanup.

    Although the thought of all those Sony employees filling out paper forms with typewriters is kinda humorous...
    • It's okay though - GCHQ watched the whole thing happening, and have totally figured out who did it. Those people will be rounded up and dealt with very soon. Yeah right.

  • by Chas ( 5144 ) on Thursday December 04, 2014 @07:58AM (#48521729) Homepage Journal

    He doesn't understand how the Internet actually works.

    CAN ISPs use technology and root out more casual piracy? Probably. But this kind of inspection doesn't STOP the piracy, it just makes discovery easier. It ALSO slows down their networks and requires a substantial investment in equipment and software that IN NO WAY contributes to the company's bottom line.

    As such, why should the ISPs be forced to foot the bill? Especially when we get down to brass tacks, they pass it along to the customer and now people are essentially paying to be spied upon.

    Had this been a PHYSICAL theft, he'd be blaming everyone who'd seen the criminal for not making an arrest, without knowing that something had been done in the first place. Every cabby, bus driver, friend or random pedestrian on the street.

    The only way to get RID of piracy is to eliminate the desire to actually consume that media. But that's like trying to outlaw water because it contributes to drowning. If you eliminate the desire to consume said media, you've just cut your own throat.

    As long as there's a desire to consume this content, and there's ANY form of price or availability barrier, there is GOING to be piracy. FLAT OUT. Anyone who doesn't understand this, and that trying to pursue this sort of imbecillic goal of "stamping out piracy" is chasing a fantasy.

    The best that can be done is to increase viewer options until piracy becomes too much of a hassle for the majority. The best bet for that right now are streaming services like iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, and Netflix.

    And we can get there all the faster without mentally stunted individuals like Cameron stirring the pot and injecting idiocy after idiocy into the debate.

    • by asylumx ( 881307 )

      a substantial investment in equipment and software that IN NO WAY contributes to the company's bottom line.

      I agree with your post, however this line is probably not true -- if the ISP does this at the behest of a politician (or any government TLA) then there is probably either a tax break or some other kind of financial boon for doing so, if not a penalty for not cooperating -- which means this almost certainly will hit their bottom line one way or another.

      Also, the ISP cooperating here could give them

      • by Chas ( 5144 )

        Basically this structure is all finacial-penalty for the the ISP.

        It's in their interests to minimize their cost outlays.

        In this case, it's cheaper to grease political palms to be left alone than actually invest in a surveillance system.

  • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

    Why would someone at his level be making comments on such a trivial issue? Why would he even care? Please tell me that the British system isn't as money driven as ours, and that this isn't being driven by some lobbyist?!?

  • That's like blaming the phone network for telemarketers.

  • .. blaming the telephone companies for scams like where "microsoft technical support" calls you about some alleged problems on your computer.
  • The postal office still transports anonymous ransom and blackmail notes.
    And those are real crimes not invented ones.

  • All I know about this story is "blah blah blah Sony blah blah something bad happened to Sony" and my reaction is, good, fuck Sony, anything bad that happens to Sony is good for the world. I won't be paying attention any more. Call me back when a person or company who isn't evil has something bad happen to them.

  • I'm no lover of Sony (even though I do play EQ2), but if this B-grade flick is so annoying to the Dear Butterball, the widest possible distribution of the film certainly seems worthwhile. Like Spengler said about the Nazis, "When one has the opportunity to annoy these people, one should do so."

Keep up the good work! But please don't ask me to help.

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