City Of London Police Arrest Creator Of Anti-Censorship Proxy Service Based On Hollywood's Say So
from the out-of-control dept
We've been covering the extreme and misinformed attempts by the City of London Police to become Hollywood's personal police force online (despite only having jurisdiction for the one square mile known as the City of London). As we've noted, the City of London Police don't seem to understand internet technology at all, nor do they have any jurisdiction to pull down websites. Yet, despite the total lack of a court order, many clueless registrars see letterhead from a police department and assume everything must be legit, even though this completely violates ICANN policy for domain registrars. Much of this is done in "partnership" with legacy players from the industry, who the police seem to listen to without any skepticism at all. It would be like the NYPD giving control of banking fraud investigations to Goldman Sachs.As we were just pointing out, while the City of London Police seem to think it's "obvious" what is and what is not a "pirate site", oftentimes it's not at all easy to figure that out. That was made clear last week when the organization helping the City of London Police reposted an entire BBC article about their cooperation (soon after our post went up, that company's post disappeared quietly with no notice). And now, TorrentFreak is reporting the City of London Police have "seized" an open proxy service called Immunicity, that was set up as an anti-censorship tool. Not only that, but they've also arrested the operator. The site itself is engaged in no copyright infringement at all. But its entire website has been replaced thanks to a bogus claim by the City of London Police.
The police even seem to brag that they're in the bag for the legacy entertainment companies:
According to Chief Inspector Andy Fyfe, the arrest is a prime example of a successful partnership between the copyright industry and local law enforcement.So, yes, it's the police "partnering" with a legacy industry that has a long and demonstrated history of bogus attacks on new technologies that challenge its business model. And rather than actually view such claims with skepticism, the police lap it up and take down websites without anything even approaching a court order.
“This week’s operation highlights how PIPCU, working in partnership with the creative and advertising industries is targeting every aspect of how copyrighting material is illegally being made available to internet users,” Fyfe says.
And to show just how confused they are, the main "industry" representative helping the police here basically admits to the belief that any proxy service must be illegal, because the industry doesn't like it:
Commenting on the arrest, FACT Director Kieron Sharp argues that these proxy sites and services are just as illegal as the blocked sites themselves.Of course, based on that reasoning, the very same VPNs that many of us use to protect our internet surfing from surveillance would be equally considered "illegal." Basically anything that challenges the business model of these legacy companies must be illegal and the City of London Police seem to think they can arrest those associated with them. Talk about going way overboard and creating massive chilling effects...
“Internet users have sought ways to continue to access the sites by getting round the blocking put in place by the ISPs. One of the ways to do this is to use proxy servers. This operation is a major step in tackling those providing such services,” Sharp notes.
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Filed Under: andy fyfe, city of london police, copyright, kieron sharp, proxy
Companies: fact
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A distant relative of Barney Fife?
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Have they ever heard of commerce?
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Small enough to act quickly, not too big to bribe.
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Re: Have they ever heard of commerce?
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If accessing these sites were illegal then blocking access to these sites should be implented by every ISP in the UK and not just by a few them. It cannot be illegal to access these sites if there are still ISP's in the UK that does not block access to them and so accessing these sites cannot therefor be illegal.
Only a stupid fool would block access to the front of a building in stopping people from gaining access to the building but leaves the side and back entrances of that building free to still allow people to access the building.
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In particular, the court orders aren't binding on anyone other than the ISPs in question. Including VPN and proxy operators and end users. You're not breaching the order by accessing a blocked site, nor is any VPN or proxy you're using to do so.
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No circulars
Ni PIPCU
?
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He should sue them back to get his property, websites and domains back.
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Yo - City of London Police - Wake the fuck up
The copyright industry is one of the biggest bunch of U.S. Rico act violators in the world - they purposely lie to law enforcement around the globe. They publish known false data to support their lies - ie they lie to cover their lies which were lied about to cover other lies.
You yahoos are ignorant fucks that couldn't think your way out of a wet and decayed paper bag for falling for their outright lies and greed.
So - good job becoming the criminals here - hope you enjoy being Bobby's butt buddy in prison when you're all arrested and thrown in jail.
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Who polices the police?
If these frauds think they are above the law, where do we report them? What can we do to stop this little gang of criminals?
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In the UK you don't pay any money to get bail, either you're considered safe and it's granted - you can leave, or you're thought to be dangerous / a flight risk - it's not granted and you stay in the cells.
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Re: outside of their 1 square mile
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Wait! The "copyright Industry"? is that even a thing?
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What I think the bigger issue here is how the internet will be policed in the long run. The internet cannot be left as a lawless alternate universe, that would essentially destroy public order over time.
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Spoken like a true authoritarian.
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It would mean no longer having access, outside Britain to things like iPlayer, or online streams of British radio stations, but it will also shield them from prosecution in Britan.
A website owner outside Britain that has no servers in Britan, and no sssetts in Britain is NOT SUBJECT to Britiah law.
There is one VPN company run by a Chinese citizen living in China. That means he would be ONLY subject to CHINESE laws and IS NOT SUBJECT to arrest or prosecution in Britain, if he were to remove all his servers from datacenters he currently has in the UK.
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No Spiders or Visgoths Allowed.
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Why?
BT is my ISP so direct access to TPB is "blocked". However under UK law TPB is considered perfectly so no crime is being committed in me accessing it. Neither is a crime being committed by helping me to access it.
So the only issue exists in why the media cartels have been allowed to get these sites "blocked" in the first place.
(I keep using "" around blocked because the blocks are completely futile when used against a half competent torrent user)
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No problem, then, because it's not a lawless alternate universe in the first place.
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Re: Re: outside of their 1 square mile
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maybe a name change is coming up, republic of hollywood police.
does that make them a breakaway group, and therefore terrorists then?
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If these sites were *illegal* then access to these sites should/would have applied for all the ISP's in the UK to block access them.
By blocking access to some sites by some ISP's and allowing other ISP's to continue to allow access to the same sites is nothing but censorship and discrimanation in my book and that accessing these sites is NOT illegal whilst there are ISP's that continue to allow access to these sites.
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It doesn't work like that in the UK. All UK police officers have full jurisdiction and legal powers in the whole of the UK. UK police forces are not just responsible for a certain area. Just because a force is based in one area doesn't mean anything changes when elsewhere in the UK.
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That is not entirely true or established. If the company is actively offering service in the UK, and soliciting business in the UK, then they could very well be subject to UK law. It might be mind numbing hard to extradite someone, but moves to make the business unprofitable or unavailable in the UK could be taken.
Being offshore is no clear protection if you offer services in a country.
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Censoring an Anti-Censorship Proxy?
Congratulations.
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Re: Re: outside of their 1 square mile
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1. Request cooperation from the sovereign nation where the individual is located and hope that it is granted. (legal)
2. Try to capture the individual by force violating the nations sovereignty. (illegal)
3. Bitch about it. (legal)
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The interesting part is what he was arrested for when to be a lawful arrest they have to believe he has committed a crime. We don't know the full details of course but from what we can publicly see he did nothing unlawful.
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I found that a little hard to believe, so I fired up the old search engine... Oh dear! Not Cricket!
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Re: Censoring an Anti-Censorship Proxy?
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Re: Barney Fife
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Failing that, there's always the usual charges under the Ways and Means Act.
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Why? Come on, stop stating your half-considered opinions as if they were facts and start explaining yourself.
"What I think the bigger issue here is how the internet will be policed in the long run."
OK, then who do you think should be in charge. Do you support a small police force under the direction of a group of foreign corporations doing that policing in areas outside of their jurisdiction, or do you have enough of a shred of honesty left to admit that this is a problem?
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FTFY
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Progress is a relative concept
So far, they've been able to do whatever they want and not one action has been challenged legally.
That's pretty damn impressive PR graft work.
Pretty soon they'll have a bag of precedent procedures they can export to the US and elsewhere, for inclusion in laws that will end forever the horror of the Free Internet.
Another success story for the forces of Fascism!
There is no escaping the Grand Aquisition!!
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Seeking alternative proxy aggregator?
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Re: Progress is a relative concept
how wrong you are
http://torrentfreak.com/domain-registrars-deny-police-requests-suspend-pirate-sites-140808/
so no this is not working but its a good PR stunt tho
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Re: Re: Progress is a relative concept
I would assume that most the victims of these quasi-legal actions by CoLPolice would disagree with the actions do whatever they could to circumvent the restrictions being applied.
In the cases where victims have brought these actions by the CoLPolice to the courts' attention, have the courts generally sided with the victims or with the CoLPolice?
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City streets
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Re: City streets
Well, that's still illegal...
Besides, Hollywood isn't paying the City of London Police to clean up the streets of London, prevent crime, or arrest criminals.
Its only paying the CoL low-cost rental pigs to destroy as many of the web-sites Hollywood dislikes, as fast as possible, before legislation makes such activities illegal again.
I suppose if some other organized crime... er... organization was to offer the easily-purchased LEOs of the City Of London Police Force, money under the table to arrest druggies off the streets of London, that they probably would do so... in their spare time.
But it would have to be a big graft offer like the one that Hollywood is giving them currently, or better. Gotta think about retirement and all that you know.
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