UK Wants To Kick File Sharers Off The Net


eye of sauronOh my, it’s that stupid idea all over again. A new UK law in the making proposes that people who are caught (which probably assumes all users’ online activity is constantly monitored – a worrying proposition all by itself) illegally sharing files via P2P (bear in mind that the word “illegal” here can be stretched to cover a number of gray cases, as always) would be kicked off the internet after three offenses.

First time, you get a warning e-mail; second offense, and you’re “suspended;” third offense, and you’re banned. ISPs who do not enforce this regime would be prosecuted, and the “suspects” and their personal details would end up in court. Why do I suddenly have the word “1984″ somewhere in the back of my mind?

Instead of reiterating just how dumb this proposition is (we’ve talked about it before, when French government did it; my favorite blog for these types of subjects, TechDirt, also has a nice scoop on this,) let me say that should this law start being enforced in any country, I will devote a series of articles to using anonymizers, proxies, and various encryption techniques which will make anyone who tries to monitor your internet activity’s life a living hell. ‘Nuff said.

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Mashable! 12/02/2008 12:04 Stan Schroeder social networking web 2.0


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