ISP slams Mandelson's 'anti-piracy' scheme
TALKTALK has carried out an experiment designed to illustrate the extent to which Lord Mandelson's 'anti-piracy' measures are ill thought out.
The UK Internet service provider is trying to prove that extreme measures designed to thwart file sharing could see innocent people accused of stealing music and other content just because they have left their wireless networks open.
Under current proposals, anyone accused of downloading stolen content could be cut off from the Internet.
"The Mandelson scheme is every bit as wrong-headed as it is naive," Andrew Heaney, director of strategy and regulation at TalkTalk, told the BBC.
"The lack of presumption of innocence, and the absence of judicial process combined with the prevalence of WiFi hacking, will result in innocent people being disconnected."
To show how this could happen, a TalkTalk security expert got in his car and roamed up and down a street in Middlesex looking for available networks.
He discovered 23 unsecured accounts and selected two to download a song by Barry Manilow - presumably in the hope of pleading insanity - in order to prove that web users can be just as much of a victim as the music industry.
In this instance, the 'victims' were asked for their consent and the material was downloaded legally.
TalkTalk has not responded to requests for further comment. µ
Share this:
ShareBusiness Intelligence Software
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Enterprise Accounting Software
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Enterprise Systems Management
government is insane, fascist and against freedom of speech and democracy. Much like the music industry. Death to them all.
""The lack of presumption of innocence, and the absence of judicial process"
EXCUSE ME???????
Is this the inquisition? Is the UK under some kind of martial law? What kind of dictator/despot/mad man is running this country? The SS? The Gestapo? Is the UK became a big gulag island? What's next? Barcode tattoo in the face, biometric electronic chip under the skin, a national denunciation system and live, public physical punishment?
Who elected this bunch of criminals who enacted those "laws"? And more important, why is the British parliament not assaulted by freedom fighters?
Wow... You people like to be dictated that your fundamental rights give way to corporate priorities? You actually accept that? Man, That's no less than a call for revolution!!!
Stealing is bad, period, no argument there. But superseding the absolute priority of basic access to fair trial AND the presumption of inconsonance for the sake of bloody corporations? That's profoundly devious and criminal for the People of UK and a major blow to civil liberties, civil rights and democracy.
Ramon Zarat
So, it's now 12 years in office,abusing the power that goes with the office & the slimy spineless indiginous Brits are too f****** lazy to get off their fat ar*** & kick this Stalinist cum Stasi bunch of cock suckers into oblivion.
You are watching the dying days of the worst government in English history, led by the dumbest prat ever to walk on this earth,why,just why, didn't AlQueda blow that shithouse called Westminster into smithereens,just as Guy Fawkes intended?
"worst government in English history"
Mate, get a history lesson, this government may have messed a lot of things up but worst English government ever?
You truly have no grasp of how badly our country has been run for HUNDREDS of years.
quote "Under current proposals, anyone accused of downloading stolen content could be cut off."
Does this mean anyone could point the finger at anyone and thus cut off all access?
Who comes up with such idiotic idea's. It looks like another IRAA written Bill. I wonder what would happen if we were able to check these puppets Swiss bank accounts just to see where these idea's come from.
Course, after the uproar. Everyone will be so grateful for whatever follows this neat idea Mandy has bought into. Not that I'm cynical about the dirtiness of Corporations, Politicians & lobbyists.
"worst government in English history"
Lol,you are absolutely correct,but give it time,even a bunch of political monkeys may eventually get it right & run the country as it should be & not run out of political,personal,or corrupt business motives.
When plain brown envelopes marked, "NO questions asked", or, "cash for questions" go out of fashion,or the modern equivalent,we may begin to get things on track.
Most wireless networks are indeed very easy to crack. 70 percent of the time the wireless device's internal default password was not changed. 25 percent of the time the wirless device was not configured correctly. THe other tiny 5 percent of wireless devices were actually secured in the correct fashion. On top of that, the wireless protocol itself can be cracked with slightly more sophisticated hacks.
So go change those default passwords. Eh?
Oh, and Mandelson is definitely talking out of his "backend" on those anti-paracy measures. And with that comment, we now have the literal meaning of the term "Brain Fart".
;) }:
You'll also get cable customers accused who have their modems cloned
...the only reasonable response I can see to this sort of law passing is to block, at the router level, any site allowing downloads of copyright material.
*straight face*
The entire "anti-piracy" movement is very much like the "drug war" and the "war on terrorism". It's an excuse to punish the innocent and limit their freedom because there might be guilty hiding among them.
Fascism in the name of protecting moneyed interests is the very definition of tyranny, and sane people are tired of it.
Think the second two aren't fascism in the name of protecting moneyed interests? Think again. When you can't (or won't) punish the truly guilty, the next best thing is to punish a scapegoat.
where i turn back to posted mail (no matter how late!), text messaging and free newspapers left by others on the tube - honestly!
I am still rational enough to know the difference between a NEED and a WANT, and having the internet in my life in the shape and form and fashion that these RIAA c*!nts would rather i have it is not an internet i NEED!
Just like the TV license people assume because you live in a home located on their postcode grid you MUST be watching TV until you prove your innocence, the RIAA are persuading the government to assume that because we have internet connections we MUST be downloading something illegal with it until proven otherwise!
WTFFFFFFFFFFF?!?!?!
Solution - withdraw my precious monthly contributions of money from the services nagging the hell out of me!!!
Shaft the ISP! Screw HMV! Only use the internet where it has been provided to me!
I'll be walking along, WHISTLING my songs, living in a lovely wonderland!
I'm not one for all of this nonsense of cutting off people's internet but the vast majority of people who illegally download content do so on their own connection.
I don't agree with the solution, but at the end of the day it is still stealing, just from the comfort of your own home.
Something will get done but instead of flaming how about some sensible suggestions?
But is it stealing? not in the moral sense I don't think it is. If I (for arguments sake) download material that I would have no intention of buying if it weren't available for download - then what exactly am I stealing from whom?
Its not stealing at all, its is merely breaking a much lesser moral principle of breaching someone's rights over their intellectual property (copyright).
The problem is that the law is wrong-headed about this and the law needs to be changed, stealing should only apply to physically depriving someone of something of material value.
Stealing is taking something that is not yours and not paying for it either. The songs (whether digital format or on a cd) are still being stolen.
Here's a dictionary definition for you:
Steal (verb) Take (something not belonging to you) without permission.
I would love to hear you argument in a court of law where it wouldn't be accepted. How can you be so naive that you think you are doing nothing wrong?
Defining theft in that manner always brings up the whole debate about why they're stealing, cost of the music, ease of access blah blah. It doesn't resolve the main issue in the article here.
ISPs know they will lose valuable business (for which their shareholders keep them in work and the gov't receives substantial taxes) if they suddenly start disconnecting people for doing something that has been popular online for over a decade and a half.
The music industry needs to take a radically different approach together with the rest of the digital entertainment delivery media associations, and work together to bring a solution that is both palpable to the people, and to their shareholders.
Most people i know will downgrade their internet connections if they no longer need to get the latest album in 60 seconds - the opinion is "if i can only browse with my connection, where's the need for speed?"
As i said in a few connections above, the internet is largely a WANT rather than a NEED, and alienating the money source in a capitalist society amounts to suicide..
Ah yes, the actus reus of theft. There’s theft by conversion, theft by larceny, theft by taking, theft based on intent, and etc.
Maybe before one begins to make comments about theft, one might want to fully understand the salient terms and how they are applied. If one doesn’t do that, one might be considered a blithering idiot.
mandelson is a NAZI with intentions to destroy this country from within!
if the MPs in westminster who stole money from the public, get charged with theft then i'm sure many pirates will cease their acts of piracy.
until that date, the government have no right to punish people for theft.
at least pirates are 'robin hood' types and not directly stealing cash/goods/services indiscriminately.
scum.
If I had his (Mandys) massive income then maybe I would buy every piece of music legally. For those living on benefits below the poverty line the only little pleasure we get is to download a music track. Surely it is better for the unemployed to do that than look to what I call real crime like robbery and vandalism.
What about all the years the music industry has ripped off the legal buyer?? In the good old days of vinyl you got a B side of a single totally different track to the A side, now on most CD singles, all you get is the A side with the other tracks being different versions for example the radio mix, the Dj mix and the uncut mix all variations of the single. If you are to regulate file sharing in music the least you can do is force music companies to put totally different tracks on their CD singles.