News Judge dismisses ISPs' challenge to Digital Economy Bill

BT and TalkTalk's appeal against the digital economy act has been thrown out.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2011/04/20/judge-dismisses-isp-challenge-to-digital-ec/1

 

In a word yes, they have enough trouble keeping tabs on failed asylum seekers, let alone millions of peoples pr0n digestion

 

I don't torrent or download illegally , but knowing that someone is potentially looking at exactly what I am all the time is quite frightening.

 

I never thought I'd say this, but, "Go TalkTalk!"

 

if it's OK to monitor all internet traffic then why can't they tap everyone's phone. The Euro Court will chuck this out as an infringement on privacy, regardless of the kick back the high court judge got.

 

"Hear, hear!"

 

Sounds daft, but will they be able to decipher SSL encryption? Also, how secure is the system going to be to stop someone taking advantage of it.

 

Well, its an amusing situation.

Users and ISP's dont want it, but the government does. But then nobody wants to pay for it...

 

If you're using an encrypted VPN connection, then no, they won't be able to see what you download. This is why encrypted VPN services in Sweden got really popular when Sweden got its new "anti piracy" laws in place last year. That said, there's no three strikes system in Sweden and the copyright holders have to prove the infringement in court, but is free to spy on people on the net which is quite scary and many ISPs in Sweden are trying to prevent this from happening as they're none too pleased with handing over user information to third parties that aren't the police.

 

Its absolutely idiotic of them to think they can ever manage control entire digital distribution networks like that. These people are either total hypocritical sellouts, or complete technoobs. Those claims reeks of communism if you ask me, what is this, China?

 

Doing about 10 minutes of research because I was curious, there do seem to be some commercial products that can supposedly defeat "common encryption". Little is mentioned specifically of SSL, but it seems like what it does, on an ISP level, is it intercepts the key exchange so that in the end, the ISP can read the contents as easily as either end user would.

Other than a potential ethical situation and customer relations nightmare, I think the biggest reason ISPs are against it is because it is expensive. Real time DPI of ALL of the data that passes through their routers would mean a lot of extra processing power. That is unless they don't mind slowing down speeds significantly.

I really don't know how much processing power it would take. I know that the most basic of DPI tasks can be handled on a "basic" NIC. My Intel NIC can look for SIP DOS attacks and prevent them. Now real DPI I don't know about. You'd have to scan all of every single packet and look for patterns against what you wanted to find. How many paterns, how complex, etc, etc, etc. I'd imagine all of this additional CPU overhead it would involve would at minimum of tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars for a large local ISP and maybe in to the tens of millions for a big ISP. Maybe much more.

I am with Enciem on this one. If it isn't okay to tap my phone without a warrant or open my mail without a warrant, it isn't okay to monitor every little thing I pass over the internet. It would make me glad that I am in the US and not Britain...but frankly I am suprised this hasn't happened in the US yet.

 

Welcome to The Internet... circa 1984

 

I could just imagine, say every reader, subscriber or even casual browser of CPC/Bit-Tech launching a lawsuit against the government for invasion of privacy. If everyone of us that sued can prove we don't illegally download copy-writed material, then I reckon we'd have a pretty cast-iron case.....just thinking it would be very interesting to see how it would play out...

 

Oh dear....

I do think that anyone with anything to hide will be able to do so quite well if this goes ahead but still this is not good.

 

Just patent each point in the act and sue the government for copyright breech. They won't be able to put it in the law without paying royalties which the ISP's simply don't give them.

Yes I realise that it would never work but I can dream

 

Big Brother is here in the uk so its nothing new id cards which i know were scrapped.
The uk has a history of watching and taking you info if for say you got done for drink Driving, your dna is add to the police computer system for future use or refence if there is a crime in the local area.

At the end of the day if the goverment wants to go-ahead with this bill they will but if you dont want it to happen tell your local mp that you dont want it.

So the internet will be policed by the uk nothing new

 

It is a bit crazy. No one checks my mail to see if I am posting pirate DVDs to all of my friends (which I'm not), and this is all a bit over the top for what is essentially petty crime. The problem is that there are so many people doing this particular crime, but brute forcing it can't be the best way to do it. I mean they could almost certainly wipe out cannabis possession if they had police strip searching people on every corner, but they don't do that do they?

 

it's down to the copyright holders to make a complaint to the isp, who must then compile a list of complaints per customer, when it reaches a threshold, the isp is obliged to warn the customer, no details are given to the copyright holder in the first instance, the copyright holder, can ask to see a list of ip addresses, but they are still not given customer details, they are only given customer details, after a court order, which can be obtained if the copyright has enough proof to justify it.

the biggest complaint against the act, that the isp's have is that they must pay 25% of the costs.

 

Good time to own a VPN/SSL service....

Anybody who is doing anything really illegal on the net is clever enough to hide there tracks better than most of theses methods would pick up.

More money pissed against a wall as far as I'm concerned.

 

HTTPS and enforced encryption, bitches.