30,000 UK ISP Users Face Threat Letters For Suspected Illegal File Sharing 218
Mark.JUK writes with this excerpt from ISP Review: "Solicitors at ACS:Law have been granted approval by the Royal Courts of Justice in London to demand the private personal details of some 30,000 customers suspected of involvement with illegal file sharing from UK broadband ISPs. The customers concerned are 'suspected' of illegally file sharing (P2P) approximately 291 movie titles, they now face threatening demands for money (settlement) or risk the prospect of court action. It's noted that 25,000 of the IP addresses that have been collected belong to BT users."
It will never end (Score:5, Interesting)
We'll build a decentralized network before we allow you to dictate which information we may copy. We have the technology, we have the know how and you're giving us the motivation.
Something-Something Wants to be Free (Score:5, Funny)
We'll build a decentralized network before we allow you to dictate which information we may copy.
Information? I thought it was Hollywood movies that were being copied and distributed...?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It will never end (Score:4, Insightful)
We'll build a decentralized network before we allow you to dictate which information we may copy. We have the technology, we have the know how and you're giving us the motivation.
Actually it will end. When films become unprofitable to make then there won't be anything to pirate. Can't happen? Who makes films and who funds them. As everyone has noticed the businessmen have taken over so artists aren't doing it out of love. Also what are the big films everyone wants to see? 2012 and Avatar? They cost 250 to 350 million to make. Even the Twilight films cost a lot. Yes there will always be movies but one day the only Star Trek feature being made may be by a fan in his garage. I've heard people boast that fan films are superior but virtually all of them are knock offs of studio films or TV shows and few approach professional quality and the acting is uniformly bad. Theaters are struggling, that's why popcorn is $5+. Network TV is dying fast. Cable is mostly jam packed with commercials just trying to stay above water. Hey advertising will bring on a golden age where everything is free. Well back in the day we called that TV and it's dying. So far the ad based web content has faired poorly at being profitable and doesn't come close to covering the cost of even cheap productions. "But they'll find a way or they'll do it for free". So far no one has come up with an alternate way to fund movies, theatrical and DVD still cover all production costs and people like to eat so working for free isn't an option. Older viewers still mostly pay but Gen X'ers don't like to pay and Tweens feel they shouldn't have to pay. Gradually the older crowd dies off and what you are left with are a bunch of people demanding content but refuse to pay. Already average studio film budgets are 20X what they were 30 years ago and it keeps getting worse. I've been on the ground with it and theatrical releases of any size cost 15 to 25 million, hard numbers not creative accounting. That's prints and advertising. Even electronic distribution cost money. Hey just web release films? How do you return even the investment on a 250 million dollar film through web streaming? And I know everyone says "to hell with them for expecting profits" but who is going to put up 100 to 250 million without any profit? It's easy to say if we stick together we can win this one but what do you win if you kill off the very thing you are fighting over? I used to see 1 to 3 films every week in a theater. Now I've seen less than a dozen all year, probably far less. The drop in quality is partly caused by the drop in profitability of films. They are less likely to take a risk so now you get remakes of remakes and few original films. Most of the quasi original films are effects epics with little story. And television, name three good TV shows? I can't. I like one US TV show and watch a handful out of morbid curiousity but they just aren't getting any better. Piracy will end when there just isn't anything worth pirating. Who wins then?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
When films become unprofitable to make then there won't be anything to pirate. Can't happen?
Can't happen. What you're effectively saying is that people will stop expressing themselves. Sure, 250 million dollar movies may be a fluke, an aberration never to return, but people will keep making movies, and they will be interesting, funny, engaging, soothing, provoking and everything you can imagine, because that's human nature. There's an abundance of information out there. You couldn't possibly consume a percent of all music, not even a percent of all music you like. Even watching movies 24/7 would l
Re:It will never end (Score:4, Interesting)
So what's the difference between film ending because of piracy and film ending because nobody has any spare income to afford entertainment? You want to sell 100 Million tickets in the US, better have at least 100 Million people with enough income to reasonably afford it. Means is more basic than intent. You can (maybe) change the minds of people who have intent to watch without paying, you can (maybe) convince them to buy your formula blockbuster without clocking in that predictable thrill-ride is an oxymoron, but you absolutely can't provide them with the means to buy a ticket and still make a profit.
Right now, the film industry is reaping the 'benefits' of real wages having remained static for most since the 1970's as taxes rose, savings declines, and credit moved from something good customers paid off quickly to a lifetime of working for the credit companies. The industry is far from the only one, but they get to blame the problems on pirates instead of looking at the other factors.
Re:It will never end (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it fascinating and amusing that people fail to appreciate that people are quite naturally creative and expressive. That some fairly small group of people has effectively taken control of that and made it into an industry worshipped by the masses is something that happened after the fact. Creativity and expressiveness enabled the industry. The industry does more to control and limit creativity and expressiveness than it does to encourage it. In fact, many ideas and concepts (both good and bad) are kept silent by the industrialists. One only has to point to Firefly and a few others to see how it happens.
There will always be some people who will do it for fun instead of profit. Always.
The industrialists are simply too greedy and do not appreciate the peril they bring upon themselves. They have made lots of money over the past 20 years... their best years so far. The problem is that it is not enough for them. "Growth" is their metric for success. There is no perceived cap or saturation point in their business vision. If anything slows their growth, they will find a way to destroy it or use it as an excuse to get more legislation written in their favor.
Their foundation is their audience... their customers. They seek to weaken their foundation. What happens to their structure when the foundation is weakened? Nothing surprising about that.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:No, you won't (Score:4, Insightful)
Just so you know, a linebreak does not constitute an adequate chance to respond to your first question. Do you understand?
I'll take that as a yes.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
As a kid we also pulled lan cables with my brother from my room to his room. Every day, because it didn't fit under the doors and wasn't built-in to the house. Then we played Counter-Strike beta 6 and GTA 2.
And no government in our darknet!
Better in Italy (Score:4, Informative)
Strange to say, but in Italy we protect more our privacy than in UK: our Data Privacy Authority decided that it's against the law to provide a correspondence between IP Address and real person name if the suspected violation is only for copyright issues.
Re:Better in Italy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Better in Italy (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I take it you don't subscribe to the theory that fascism and Nazism are left-wing movements, then? [wikipedia.org] As in, a merger of corporate and government power that leaves the government in charge?
The leftist reason to oppose filesharing is the same as the leftist reason for opposing unauthorised typewriters and printing presses: if you control how people communicate, then you can control what people think. It just so happens that, once again, the needs of big business line up with the needs of Peter Mandelson. A bett
Re: (Score:2)
...Nazism...
Godwin!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Stop. Please, just... stop.
Re:Better in Italy (Score:5, Interesting)
Sadly the left-wing gov we have ...
Check your political compass... [politicalcompass.org] you can't talk about left/right with without also including the Authoritarian/Libertarian axis. Yeah, it requires slightly more effort than linear left/right thought... probably why you never hear it mentioned when the general population talk politics.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe instead of a "political compass" we can call it a "political OLAP cube"?, with many many dimensions, including the time dimension, and many different ways of presenting this cube.
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder how they found the 25000 BT users... (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder how they found the 25000 BT users - it seems odd that 25,000 out of 30,000 come from one ISP if they found them by any public means (i.e by joining swarms on public trackers and seeing which IPs are also operating in the swarm).
My guess is that while they were testing Phorm's targeted-advertising-based-on-snooping technology they were also did something very similar to what Virgin are planning (from the earlier story today "CView's deep packet inspection is the same technology that powered Phorm's advertising system" - CView being what Virgin plan to use to inspect P2P traffic).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope if BT turns over the personal details of these 25000 customers they all quit their contract the same day along with any sympathizers. That ought to show them customer privacy is in their best interest too.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
30,000? 25,000? 15,000? (Score:3, Interesting)
The numbers are already messed up, the article above says 30,000, 25,000 of which are BT. The BBC article says only 15,000:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8381097.stm [bbc.co.uk]
So how many people really are covered I wonder?
Re: (Score:2)
..simple Most people are BT Customers, or Customer of BT Wholesale via a third party
BT is the Commercial version of the old Government run monopoly that existed before it was sold off ...So naturally most people stayed with them, and since BT Wholesale is by far the largest Broadband provider (for the same reasons) they supply broadband to most of the resellers
Re: (Score:2)
Time to get a Relakks account (Score:5, Interesting)
Guess it's time to get a Relakks [relakks.com] account. Basically you use a VPN account which gives you some random Swedish IP address. This will keep you off the radar of those collecting IP addresses for a while.
Not related to them or anything, I was just a satisfied customer for a few months. I gave it up when I realized I almost never downloaded movies and music anymore.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, wait... I haven't downloaded anything either. Guess that means that all of the new stuff sucks. Who would have thought it could get so bad that people didn't want it for free?
Re: (Score:2)
"you and cerberusss" != "people"
Clearly, there are lots of people who do want this stuff, for free or not.
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure; I think the real deal is to stay low-profile, if you want to do something that is illegal - or even quit doing it. A bit like growing cannabis - if you grow a plant or two in your garden, you will probably get off with a warning, if the police go as far as intervening, which they may well not do, since they have far more important things to do, but if you grow a major crop of the stuff, they will of course come after you, and you will have a longish holiday.
Politicians (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone who's been observing politicians knows how to react to such allegations: "I do not remember doing that" (you don't deny, so you can't get caught in a lie).
Re:Politicians (Score:5, Funny)
"I did not have bittorrential relations with that tracker"
Re:Politicians (Score:5, Funny)
"I connected, but I didn't download."
Re:Politicians (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Until they bring in brain scanners (or people who read body language) that can tell when you're lying. At that point you need to start wiping your memory of downloading copyrighted content, leaving you with the wonderful situation of going "ooo, where did that come from?" :D
Re: (Score:2)
But then we bring it back to the politicians and they'll realize in how much trouble they are. All in all, it'll be worth it ;-).
Re: (Score:2)
"Suspected" (Score:2)
In other words, they can prove that the person uses BitTorrent but not what they're using it for.
Re: (Score:2)
It may be optimistic to presume that the relevant parties have actually confirmed "what" is being transfered.
Re: (Score:2)
well, they're suspected of hosting/seeding copyrighted material. The evidence is being pointed to by a torrent tracker for a file with the same name as a copyrighted work. Odds are, it's the copyrighted work in question, but it might not be. Odds are, you actually had the file shared on your harddrive at the time, but you might not have (it could have been a 'glitch' or erroneous pointer). Odds are, there was no legitimate grounds for you to provide broad access to and distribution for the material that is
BT / Virgin Media / etc (Score:5, Insightful)
From the summary, one might draw the conclusion that "be a BT customer, and you're more of a target", but I seem to remember BT being the biggest ISP in the UK by quite a big margin*. Virgin Media (aka. NTL / Telewest) are the second largest*, and so it goes on. So I suppose it's reasonable that BT would account for the majority of the infractions. Conversely, BT have amongst the shittiest networks of all, so you'd imagine that the file sharers weren't actually sharing that much after all. But I suppose that would mean BT won't mind 25,000 people getting cut off, because it'll save them having to upgrade their network (like they say they're doing on the TV ads they're running at the moment).
So the real take-away here is that if you're at a small ISP, you're less likely to be targeted (at least until the big ones tumble). Meanwhile, the utter incompetence of the BPI and their friends should keep this from being anything more than an annoyance for 30,000 people. If even 5000 of them follow up and challenge their accusers, it'll tie the whole system up for months, if not years.
The BPI, Mandleson, and their ilk have an idealised view that file sharing should be super-illegal and so almost entirely eradicated. The problem is, best estimates suggest 7 million people in the UK share files*, so even if half give up from fear of prosecution, that's still 3.5 million people they've got to prosecute. I don't imagine there's a lawyer in the UK who's capable of executing that many cases in a decade, let alone simultaneously.
(* No, I can't substantiate this with a link right now - you know how to use a search engine though, right?)
Re:BT / Virgin Media / etc (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, which is exactly why they're trying to bypass the courts and make it possible for mere accusation to be enough to be punished.
Re:BT / Virgin Media / etc (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, which is why it is *urgent* that all 30,000 of those people, upon receiving notice, contact a lawyer and file an immediate suit for harassment, thus removing the industry's ability to pick and choose who to actually fight in court. There is strength in numbers.
Further, it is also essential that those people send letters to their MPs demanding that they fix the law to prevent these abuses. Ignoring the plight of 30,000 organized people would be career suicide.
Re: (Score:2)
I can't work out if this is a parody, or whether you're actually serious.
First, in what possible way, shape, manner or form is accessing publicly available information and then using it to file in court for discovery "harassment"? Cite the English / Scots statute under which you'd file a civil suit.
Even if you could "organize"(sic) 30,000 people - which you can't - that's 46 people in each of the UK's 646 Parliamentary constituencies. It's an insignificant number.
Opponents of anti-piracy laws might
Re:BT / Virgin Media / etc (Score:4, Informative)
It's also a correct spelling in British English. Please see this page [askoxford.com].
Re: (Score:2)
I don't disagree.
The problem is I believe a good portion of those 30,000 (although the BBC article only says 15,000 by the way) will be completely unaware of any campaign or what to do and will just pay up regardless.
For what it's worth though, the BBC article also states the company ACS:law is under investigation by the law society and some solicitors grouping, I don't know what standing they have, but it may be that they will not be practicing too much longer anyway with any luck. Lawyers and solicitors i
BT's Statement (Score:5, Informative)
I am very impressed by the statement from BT:
A BT Spokesperson told ISPreview in September:
"BT and other ISPs agreed to send 1,000 notifications alleging copyright infringement a week for a 12-week trial period, with BT picking up the bill for this activity for our own customers as an act of goodwill. However, it was understood that at the end of this period, we would need to take stock and have further discussions with the rights holders about costs etc.
During this period, the BPI sent us around 21,000 alleged cases, but less than two-thirds proved to be properly matched to an IP address of a BT customer and not a duplicate, so this could indicate that the true extent of this activity is much lower than the 100,000 number the BPI claim since February. In addition since none of the customers we wrote to during the trial were subsequently taken to court by the BPI, we don't know whether they were actually guilty of infringement."
I never knew BT could actually sound reasonable. What a shame governments are still left trailing behind on common sense and decency.
Why, oh why, oh why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I visit the cinema on average once a week and every time the copyright warning is displayed and mentions 10 years in prison for recording a movie in a cinema I cringe. That's more than people get for killing and maiming people, robbing banks and committing other violent crimes. The MP's are in the pockets of the media companies. I'm not talking about small indie film studios, but the distributors and those who own them like Sony, etc. They've been persuaded that if the penalties are high enough people will not perform actions that are trivial to execute and have no visible consequences. This has been shown not to be true time and time again.
I buy lots of DVDs and DVD boxsets. I probably spent about £500 a year on these. I pay for the cinema one a week. I buy music on iTunes and only search elsewhere online if I can't find what I want. As a kid I pirated every virtual computer game in existence in the 8/16 bit eras. Now I rarely play games, apart from on my iPhone which I pay for. I don't have TV at home, so *sometimes* I get TV shows I like online before going out and buying the full season boxset as soon as it becomes available. I might consider buying them on iTunes or similar if they were available at a reasonable price, but they're not. Most episodes of TV shows cost far more than the equivalent DVD for lower quality and no physical media to keep and store and are non-transferable to other machines, etc. I hope I'm not one of the people discovered in this haul of IP addresses, but I do not download movies, only a little bit of TV. Fingers crossed.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Mob mentality doesn't always apply (Score:2, Informative)
if millions of people find a particular type of behaviour acceptable that it should be legalised?
No. To use the often recycled example, the majority of people once thought that slavery was an acceptable practice, but that doesn't mean it should have been. This isn't to say that downloading and slavery are immediately comparable, but rather that a thing isn't necessarily right because "a lot of people are doing/supporting it."
On the other hand, the huge amount of torrent users shows a fundamental lack of su
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't the logical conclusion that if millions of people find a particular type of behaviour acceptable that it should be legalised? Otherwise it's socially unjust.
Millions of people found slavery acceptable. That doesn't mean it should ever have been legal.
Millions of people currently find all sorts of horrible practices acceptable. See, for example, the way women are treated in various parts of the world. That doesn't mean that it should be legal.
A huge number of people believing something is acceptable does not mean that it is, in fact, acceptable.
Please note that I'm not making a judgment on the issue of copyright law one way or another; I'm merely pointing out th
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I would love to see the content owners hit with a massive fine for environmental damage. I currently watch most films by renting the DVDs. These are plastic disks which are posted to me, put in a machine, and posted back. This involves them travelling several hundred miles in a fossil-fuel-powerd machine. The only reason that I do this is because the copyright owners do not allow network delivery under the same terms. If I could download the DVD image, for example (or, ideally, something with more effi
So BT are even worse (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Narrow Definition of Infringement? (Score:5, Informative)
If you go to the ACS web site thier definition of infringement seems to only apply to P2P traffic and even then seems to be limited to uploads.
Anyone with half a brain-cell would not use P2P networks for piracy anyway!
If you are really worried, the article has a link to http://www.beingthreatened.com/ [beingthreatened.com] - they seem to have some genuine advice.
By the way if you decide to pay the fine, it means you have admitted to guilt and will not be able to contest it or get your money back!
If you recieve a letter asking for payment under NO circumstances pay it!
Also, reply to the letter as soon as you can - you have a limited time to respond to it (cannot remember how long).
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
That's because that's all that's illegal in the UK - you can read the act..
http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?LegType=All+Legislation&searchEnacted=0&extentMatchOnly=0&confersPower=0&blanketAmendment=0&sortAlpha=0&PageNumber=0&NavFrom=0&parentActiveTextDocId=0&activetextdocid=2250425&versionNumber=3
Downloading for private use is legal.
Uploading to people (especially outside the country)
It's something that they keep very, very quiet.
Take action (Score:2, Insightful)
Everyone who thinks this is a bad idea should sign this government petition, get everyone they know to sign the petition, and generally cause a ruckus
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/dontdisconnectus/ [number10.gov.uk]
Then install Tor, because you have to look out for yourself when you don't live in a democracy any more.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, because getting sent a letter saying "we believe you were committing a crime" ends your nation's ability to vote on who controls their nation...
Re: (Score:2)
Go find me a nation where you have full democracy - I'm betting it is nigh-on impossible. Get beyond a few hundred people in your population and you can't adequately poll everyone, so you need to bring in some kind of leadership who do the majority of ruling for the people. Is it perfect? No, but then the anarchy of everyone trying to vote on every issue wouldn't be either (true and full democracy). Does it work? Yes, it seems to for most of the world. Granted the corporations have pushed the main parties i
That's criminal extortion. Period. (Score:3, Interesting)
The customers concerned are 'suspected' of illegally file sharing (P2P) approximately 291 movie titles, they now face threatening demands for money (settlement) or risk the prospect of court action.
The emphasized part is bullshit fearmongering to get them to pay. Expect the “charges” to be dropped as soon as you refuse and tell them to go fuck themselves. I’ve already seen it twice. You don’t pay, and nothing happens.
Which is obvious, since they have no proof, no legal anything, and were it not for the changes they pressed into law, they would not even be listened to by the courts.
If you got such a letter, tell them to go fuck themselves, because they don’t even know what “proof” is in computers, because they know shit about how computers work.
Insurance. (Score:2)
Insurance is the key.
There is no way those 30,000 people can be all sued; if those pool, say 10£ each, that’s 300,000£ available to pay for sollicitors to defend those who are sued.
Seen ACS:Law's 5 point plan? (Score:2)
This is to reduce piracy. Seems reasonable.
"Introduce fixed fines of £750.00 minimum
Introduce statutory damages of £750.00 as a minimum for each act of copyright infringement (such provision exists presently in the United States);
ISPs to provide names of internet account holders
Make all Internet Service Providers produce, on request of a copyright owner or licensee, the identities of the account holders of the internet connection used for illegal file sharing of their copyrighted material. The
'suspected' (Score:2)
So you can be fined in the UK just for *suspicion*? And who is sending these letters, the industry of the court? If its the industry as the story suggests, id say there some legal issues with making threats with no proof.
Re: (Score:2)
V for Vendetta (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Flamebait (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it 1984 on that motherfucking island of yours yet?
It's worse than 1984! It's 2009!!! (It would have been Orwell's sequel)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
They could hide from the telescreens and meet in the countryside for illicit encounters in the book, you'd never get away with that in 2009.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Check back in 3 years and 1 month. :)
Re: (Score:2)
It's like Orwell's vision, except people do it voluntarily.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not Nineteen Eighty-Four (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it's the real 1980s' vision of the future, only instead of OCP, it's the media industry that's gone on a power-mad rampage.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Is it 1984 on that motherfucking island of yours yet?
Actually I think that in almost every country, some company is harvesting IP addresses on the P2P networks. Just in case this stuff gets valuable.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
That's why this is not about companies looking for IPs in P2P networks.
It's about a court actually granting discovery on 30.000 IP addresses, a political elite valuing perceived security over freedom and a populace that doesn't appear to care whatsoever, welcoming it even.
It's certainly not 1984, but equally abominable nonetheless.
Re: (Score:2)
That's why this is not about companies looking for IPs in P2P networks. It's about a court actually granting discovery on 30.000 IP addresses
Yeah, but that time will come in most countries. There is too much at stake to ignore the P2P issue. In fact there is so much at stake that I expect the record companies to harvest IP addresses on P2P network, "just in case" the time suddenly is ripe in country X to get a discovery granted.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Most people posting about 1984 and making "Orwellian" references are talking about the Ingsoc nanny state. It doesn't matter that the book isn't actually about about that nanny state, or that it's just a plot device for the story/message that Orwell was trying to convey: what matters is that people understand what you're talking about when you make the reference. Specifically, a totalitarian society that constantly monitors its people, that assumes that everybody outside of the Party is a criminal, and that
Re: (Score:2)
That's 'Landing Strip One' to you, bub.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Thank gawd I use FTP (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes. Unfortunatly it is more easy to track P2P users than FTP users. Now what I don't understand is that they don't seed the tracked with some false IPs like the one of the Queen and some institutions for letting them receive these letters too.
That's the Ticket!! Implicate the Royal Family! (Score:2)
The pirates won't just get nasty threatening letters, they'll be arrested, drawn, quartered, and their ancestral lands salted with the dust of their ground-up bones. Good thinking!
For one, it's easy to get around (Score:2)
Now what I don't understand is that they don't seed the tracked with some false IPs
Under the assumption that the party sending out the letters is doing the due diligence thing, they'd connect to the IP claiming to seed and ask it for a chunk of the torrented bit sequence. If the client doesn't get one, there's no infringement going no.
Now, we can discuss whether the due diligence assumption is realistic, of course, but if I were them and I was genuine about preventing piracy (as opposed to going scaremongering), that's what I'd do. (fwiw...)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually I think you have hit upon an interesting idea.
The lawsuits are based on the idea that the people at those IP address were downloading copyrighted content. And for this reason their private information is being released.
But what if you could muddy the waters? Make it so that there are lots of IP addresses from people who are not involved in piracy? If 10% of the IP addresses resolved to people who were not involved in piracy, then releasing the private information would not go through because it is
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:go on, complain, I dare you (Score:5, Funny)
right there in 5.3(a): ... download ... any material that is ...pornographic.
Boom. no porn. if people followed that, half of the IP space on the net would be freed up immediately. IPV6 adoption could be pushed off for another few decades.
Re: (Score:2)
Seen from the outside, it is quite remarkable how anti-pr0n / prudish most of the Commonwealth (still) is... at least officially. Yet most sex scandals involve their law makers, ministers etc. That's just... weird.
Re: (Score:2)
There's a difference between you explicitly allowing someone to use your connection for those purposes, and someone using the connection for those purposes against your knowledge.
If your connection is used without your knowledge due to open wifi or a compromised PC then they are sharing against your will and you most certainly did not allow that person to do it- they did it without such permission and you are therefore not liable.
As Slashdot requires a car analogy, it's like someone breaking into your car a
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure what country you're referring to but that's not the case in the UK. Many tickets have been overturned because the cameras didn't manage to get a clear image of the driver.
This leads to a similar situation because then effectively the driver can choose to contest it in the courts and if he does the police can choose to accept the challenge in the courts or drop the charge, in many cases they simply drop the charge because they know they don't have a leg to stand on.
What you certainly don't have
What the f*ck? (Score:2)
5.3 You shall not use, nor allow any other(s) to use, the service to:
(a) store, send, knowingly receive, upload, download or distribute any material that is unsolicited, defamatory, offensive, abusive, obscene, pornographic or menacing, or in breach of copyright, confidence, privacy or any other rights;
Hmm...
Your post^W^H contract advocates a
( ) technical (X) legislative (X) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. [...]
The way I read the legalese, you're not allowed to download (via POP3) and not delete (that is, store) spam. I'm not sure whether the "knowingly" only applies to the things between the same commas it itself is between or whether it also applies to the "download" part, but if it's the latter, how the f...
Are they deliberately phrasing the contract such that everyone is violating the contract (unless they don't use email)?
(Probably not, it's just my tin foil hat that's malfunctioning again.)
Re:Need a way to encrypt Limewire now (Score:4, Informative)
Just turn on encryption in your favorite torrent client, and only allow encrypted connections. In combination with the Distributed Hash Table [wikipedia.org], Magnet Links [wikipedia.org], and Peer Exchange [wikipedia.org], an entirely decentralized file sharing system will work
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
yes, you can find them here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BitTorrent_clients#Features_I [wikipedia.org]
Sort according to Encryption setting. note you won't see LimeWire on the list. Don't be scared.
Re: (Score:2)
I stand corrected, there it is, supposedly with encryption. Is that just the Pro version?
Re: (Score:2)
There are a few networks like OneSwarm [washington.edu] and GNUnet [gnunet.org] and you can run a Gnutella network [i2p2.de] or BitTorrent [i2p2.de] on top of I2P [i2p2.de]. Don't expect to find much, though.
You can also sign up for an anonymous VPN service like Relakks [relakks.com] and continue to use whatever you are used to.
Re: (Score:2)
Encryption only hides it from your ISP noticing what you're doing. If you're hosting shit on Gnutella, your ass is going to get canned.
Re: (Score:2)
His goal is to piggyback on search indexing.
Re: (Score:2)
>It is our internet after all. We built it.
The internet was build primarily by various universities, governments, and the US military, and it basically remained their toy for about twenty years. In the early 1990s a clever piece of software came along that allowed people without deep computer knowledge (well beyond that of the typical BBS/Fidonet user of the time) to use it easily.
Re: (Score:2)