Does Your ISP Care About Protecting Your Privacy?

from the seems-like-a-marketing-opportunity dept

We recently wrote about how Swedish ISP Bahnhof had announced plans to use a VPN to encrypt all traffic running over its network, thus making any log files it was required to store under data retention rules useless. Slashdot points us to the news that ISP Review, over in the UK, has asked a bunch of UK ISPs their thoughts on encrypting all traffic, and questioning whether they would do the same to protect user privacy.

The answers are pretty interesting. None of them seem interested going as far as VPNing all traffic, with some suggesting that it's just too expensive. One ISP, AAISP, says that there's a better solution than VPN, which is to just switch to a carrier grade NAT, for which there are no requirements to log those sessions. IDNet suggested that it might consider making such a service "opt-in," since some people might want it, but it creates other downsides that not all customers appreciate. The one response that struck me as questionable was from Entanet, who seemed to indicate that the only reason to encrypt traffic was if you were doing something wrong:

As a responsible communications provider, we don't advocate any steps to proactively create the ability to avoid the identification of parties who are deliberately committing acts of data piracy.

The focus is not to "avoid identification" of people involved in "piracy," but to provide privacy in general. Given just how many examples we've seen of governments spying on users' data habits with very little legitimate purpose, it seems like an ISP that actually protects its users privacy should be seen as a good thing.

It makes me wonder if we'll start to see more ISPs like Bahnhof pop up, with a focus on promoting the fact that they protect your privacy. In an age when so many people flipped out about Google's WiFi sniffing, you would think that these same people would celebrate ISPs that automatically encrypt traffic, as that would solve such problems. Yet, instead, it seems like the very same people are suggesting that such encryption is only for bad purposes.

Of course, here in the US, there are almost no choices among ISPs, and the ones that are available all have strong and close relationships with the government (hi, AT&T!), so it's not like they have any interest in protecting customer privacy. Though, this also explains why there's nothing serious in any US-based broadband plan around increasing competition. If there were real competition, perhaps some providers would look at better ways to protect user privacy. So, as long as the government can keep competition limited to a few entities who rely on the government, the government knows it can always get the info it wants, no matter how dubious the legal rationale.

Filed Under: data retention, digital economy act, encryption, ipred, privacy, vpns

UK Gov't's Response To Petition Against Disconnections: We've Redefined Disconnection

from the it's-still-a-disconnection dept

Just as David Cameron has announced plans to review UK copyright laws (yet again) and the UK High Court announced the (somewhat surprising) news that it will do a judicial review of the Digital Economy Act, the UK government also responded to a petition that was filed by opponents of the Digital Economy Act. The petition asked for the repeal of the Digital Economy Act, claiming that it was not fair to have users disconnected from their internet connections. The government's response is a bit frustrating in its use of unsupported claims and what appears to be a willful misunderstanding of the complaint:

It is clear that online copyright infringement inflicts considerable damage on the UK's creative economy including music, TV and film, games, sports and software. Industry estimates place this harm at £400m pa.

The Digital Economy Act includes a number of measures to tackle the problem and we expect these to be successful in significantly reducing online copyright infringement. However this is an area of rapid technological change and developing consumer behaviour. The Act therefore includes a reserve power to introduce further "technical" measures if the initial measures do not succeed. These technical measures would limit or restrict an infringers' access to the internet. They do not include disconnection.

First off, that first sentence is silly. The government should never cite an industry's own stats when that industry is asking for protectionism -- especially when tons of independent studies have shown that such industry estimates are completely inaccurate. Second, pretending that "limiting or restricting infringers' access to the internet" does "not include disconnection" is playing a rather obnoxious game of semantics. If you're blocked from accessing the internet, you've lost your connection, and thus have been disconnected. This isn't the first time it's done so. During the run up to the vote on the bill, we noted that the politicians supporting it had decided to make sure not to call account suspensions disconnections. Effectively, they're trying to redefine "disconnection" to only mean a permanent disconnection. A "temporary suspension," is not a disconnection in their book of misleading propaganda.

Of course, to anyone who loses their internet connection, no matter what the length of time, it certainly is a disconnection. Calling it something different doesn't change that. It's pretty sad when the UK government officials can't even be intellectually honest on such a straightforward issue.

Filed Under: digital economy act, disconnection, petition, uk

UK High Court Announces Judicial Review Of The Digital Economy Act

from the review-up dept

Well, well, well. Even as the current UK leadership seeks to review UK copyright law, it appears that the most recent change, the infamous Digital Economy Act, will undergo a judicial review by the UK High Court. As you may recall, the Digital Economy Bill was "proposed by the unelected, debated by the ignorant and voted on by the absent." The whole process appeared to be pretty corrupt, right from the very beginning, so it's nice to see the court take an interest in the overall proceedings.

Filed Under: digital economy act, judicial review, uk

UK Judge Not Impressed By Mass Copyright Pre-Settlement Campaigns

from the cracking-a-nut dept

We recently wrote about yet another law firm in the UK jumping on the "pre-settlement" letter setup, which is designed to misuse the legal system to send "pay us or we'll sue you for copyright infringement" letters. However, it appears that a judge in the UK is not at all impressed with such a misuse of the legal system and has made that point clear to the law firm Gallant Macmillan. While the judge, Chief Master Winegarten, notes that he doesn't fully understand the technical issues, he does point out that he's concerned about the overall process -- and has heard plenty of complaints about such pre-settlement letters. According to TorrentFreak:

"There wouldn't be this hue and cry unless you were pursuing people who were innocent," he told the applicants.

Condemning the actions as a "huge sledgehammer to crack a nut", CMW pondered, "I can't understand why in these thousands -- hundreds of thousands -- [of letters sent out] no-one has been sued."

An interesting side note, is that the judge also seemed to indicate that with the Digital Economy Act, these sorts of pre-settlement situations may no longer be reasonable, since the whole "three strikes" process may take over instead. I don't know enough about the DEA to know if it really precludes such lawsuits (or even threats of lawsuits), but it would surprise me if that were true.

Filed Under: copyright, digital economy act, judge, pre-settlements, uk
Companies: gallant macmillan

UK MPs Questioning Digital Economy Act: IP Address Does Not Identify Individual

from the oh,-now-they-notice? dept

We all know how the UK Parliament rushed through the Digital Economy Act with little debate (and few votes), and it appears that some MPs are finally realizing just how problematic the law is. Apparently MP Julian Huppert gave an interview where he claims that the Digital Economy Act "is deeply worrying." He's specifically concerned about the idea of kicking people offline, saying that the "blocking and disconnection issues" are part of what's so worrying. He's also quite concerned with the misguided idea that an IP address automatically identifies an individual:

"Firstly, there are people hacking into Wi-Fi -- what will the consequences be for open Wi-Fi? What do you do about a cafe that gives it away free? Realistically, they can't know what someone is doing on it," he says. "This may not be an issue though, as the latest proposals seems to suggest they'll be exempted if they're not too big. But it's the idea that you can simply identify who it is that's wrong."

It's great to see such concerns get attention, but will Parliament actually do anything?

Filed Under: copyright, digital economy act, ip addresses, julian huppert, uk

Why Must ISPs Pay To Be The Mandatory Copyright Cops Of The Entertainment Industry?

from the that-doesn't-seem-right dept

A bunch of folks have been submitting various versions of the story of how the UK government appears to have -- somewhat arbitrarily -- decided that copyright holders should pay 75% of the costs of tracking down those accused of file sharing, while ISPs should pay the remaining 25%. It's all meaningless, of course. The reality is that consumers will pay either way, via higher prices, which will then be used to kick them off the internet. How nice. Of course, even more ridiculous is that the recording industry is still complaining, saying that ISPs should have to pay even more. This is the entitlement mentality of the industry at work. They want everyone else to pay for everything. The artists "pay" via the recouping process. Radio stations need to "pay" to promote their songs. And, now, ISPs should have to "pay" for mandatory efforts to act as the record labels' copyright cops. The sense of entitlement from the industry is staggering. Along those lines, what's up with UK communications minister Ed Vaizey, as part of announcing these plans, making the blatantly false claim about "our valuable creative industries, which have already suffered significant losses as a result of people sharing digital content without paying for it." After all, as the music industry's own research shows, the industry has been growing. It seems blatantly and intellectually dishonest for Vaizey to claim otherwise.

Filed Under: digital economy act, isps, uk

UK ISPs Already Taking The Digital Economy Act To Court

from the is-it-legit? dept

BT and TalkTalk, two UK ISPs who had been critics of the Digital Economy Act all along, are now going to court to find out if it's legal, before they go through the hassle of implementing any of the provisions. They're apparently claiming that the law was passed with "insufficient scrutiny," and that the implementation rules coming out of Ofcom put them at a disadvantage competitively. While both of those things are true, it's not clear that this makes the law invalid. It would certainly be nice if the courts ruled it invalid, but it also seems like a long shot.

Filed Under: digital economy act, isps, uk
Companies: bt, talktalk

UK Politicians Looking To Repeal Digital Economy Act

from the good-for-them dept

With the new coalition government taking over in the UK, some had wondered if the Digital Economy Act might be up for repeal. The Liberal Democrats, who had at one time supported the DEA, but then, after public pressure, switched their position, now have a chance to act. Apparently, over the weekend, they've decided to include some of the worst aspects of the DEA to include in the list of laws to repeal. I'm not familiar enough with UK political process to understand how this works with the new government. The previous party in power, Labour, were the major backers of the Digital Economy Bill, but they got the Conservatives to vote for it as well. It's those Conservatives who won the most seats in the recent election, and then formed a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Could someone in the UK fill us in on the process for repealing legislation, especially if your party is only part of the government because you were dragged along by another party?

Filed Under: digital economy act, repeal, uk

UK Regulator Says Digital Economy Act Only Applies To Big Wireline ISPs

from the small-ISPs-about-to-get-bigger dept

UK's telco regulator Ofcom has apparently decided that the Digital Economy Act's provisions on suspending accounts of those accused of file sharing will only apply to wireline ISPs who have 400,000+ customers. I would imagine that this might create a bit of a boom in business for smaller ISPs -- though, that could be self-defeating if too many customers switch and push any particular smaller ISP over that 400,000 mark...

Filed Under: digital economy act, isps, uk, wireline