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Aussie ISP Scans Downloads For Copyright Violation
Steve Nakhla writes: "According to this article, Excite@Home has begun snooping users' downloads in order to find copyrighted or pirated material. Violators have their access cut off. As an Excite@home user, this alarms me. What exactly is their definition of copyrighted? Doesn't the New York Times copyright their online articles? Can I not view them any more for fear of violating Excite's policies?"
(c) exi7, 2001. All rights reserved.
to watch the porn we download.
I want one of these jobs.
Je t'aime Stéphanie
it would be a bit of a pain, but nothing too bad. ftp servers would just contain the key when you log in, and irc people could just have the key displayed every min. or so.
nosy bastards oughtta leave me and my data alone!
Isn't this company in financial trouble? That sounds like a great way to make more money! Spend it on extra employment while cutting your customer base at the same time!
Berto
If Ma Bell was listening to my phone calls to see if I was committing a crime, I would simply get 2 cans and an extremely long string. There is no way this can be defended ethically: Because they provide you with a service, as a corporation, they can legally observe and log every detail of enery task you use the service to complete? While a nation's highways may belong to the federal government, they still need probable cause to stop you and "observe" what you have under the seat of your car, or in the trunk. This complete circumvention of probably cause is ludicrous. As stated above: Imagine if the phone company did this!
- If This Peace Is Fictious, I Shall Destroy It
The article says that this is Optus@Home, in Australia.
What ever happened to the rights of the people coming before the rights of companies? Has government become so weak that they cannot protect a company from being crushed by another because of those who use its services? Have companies become so much more powerful than the gorvernment that the word of the the people cannot be heard? Have the minds of the masses been so poisoned with anti-government claptrap that they cannot see that the government can set them free rather than imprison them?
Seems like they should have more important things to worry about that implementing stupid crap like this.
There is no way for them to tell if said copyrighted thing is actually allowed or not, such as the example of copyrighted documents, etc. Just cause it's copyrighted, doesn't mean you can't download it.
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
This post is copyrighted by the_other_one.
You must purchase the right to read my posts or be cut off by your ISP.
My current rate is $200.00 CDN per character. Please email me the cash prior to reading.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
They're doing this to merely keep themselves clear of copyright infringement lawsuits.
That's all fine and good, but the way they go around doing it is wrong. From the article:
The users added that if an individual is breaking the law on the Internet, it should be treated in a similar way to somebody abusing the telephone system.
"The police should have to apply for a warrant and then present that to the telco to authorise monitoring for a specific person for a specific period," the reader said.
The people are getting upset with the ISP. Their ire should be directed at the real source of the problem: the copyright industry. It's gotten so bad that even ISP's are driven to the point of paranoia about copyrgiht infringement.
My question: Is it all worth it?
Hear that? Thats the sound of a giant toilet flushing your privacy down the drain (counter-clockwise).
http://windows.scares.us
Oh yeah, and how can I capitalize on this?
I've never been one to feel paranoid, but this kind of stuff creeps me out!
They can monitor my computer use at work... and now they are monitoring my computer use when I'm at home.
This just sounds like another case of innocent until proven guilty... Not even the government can monitor this kind of stuff without the proper warrent, but this corporation can. When exactly did the big corporations get more powerful than the government??!?
What ever happened to the right to privacy? How have we let things get to this point?
All newspapers copyright their content. However if they have it on their web site you can assume that you can view it. After all if they didn't want you to view it they wouldn't put it online. You can even save a copy for later. And you probably can email it to a friend. In fact many papers have an "email this to a friend" icon. About the only time you could have problem is if you put it on your own web site. In that case you should ask, or post a link.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
If there are any lawyers in reading, we need a magic document that has the following two properties:
1) It is an illegal copy of a copyrighted work
2) Reading the document violates lawyer-client privelege, doctor-patient privelege, or the DMCA, preferably all three.
For instance, the document has a copyrighted non-illegal trailer and the entire document is zipped using the password "password". By detecting the copyrighted payload, we can sue them for accessing the non-illegal trailer which was protected by the "PkZip" anti-circumvention device.
If we can find this piece of data and get an Excite@HOME user terminated for downloading it, we can prosecute Excite for reading it, preferably under the DMCA.
Suggestions?
"I wouldn't call it policing, we're just trying to comply with the law and by highlighting the issue to customers, its putting us in a better position as acting as a responsible Netizen on the Internet," the spokesperson said.
Did anyone else read this and see the word Nazi-an? "Comply with the law! Schnell! "
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
First of all, this is Australia, which has, if it can be believed, even more draconian IT-related laws than the US.
:-)
Second of all, WHOMEVER@HOME is going to be out of business in about a week, so no worries, right?
Isn't this a MAJOR invasion of privacy? I can't remember exactly, but I seem to remember that ISPs were told they were NOT allowed to do that to modem users, as it violates several privacy issues. You're required to get a warrant prior to initiating any snooping whatsoever. Just like the Telephone, they can't do that!
And besides, HOW do you tell what's pirated and what's not, from random streams of data? If I download 2 movies at a time, it's going to seem like garbage (a raw stream that is). And HOW do they know that it's pirated? How can they distinguish a pirated movie from a non pirated one? Similarly with data or music, how can you tell? What are they going to do, scan for patterns that might match? Get someone to watch all movie streams and listen to all audio streams? Think about how hard it would be to figure that out. Or are they just going to scan what SITES you visit, and then ASSUME you're pirating? This is crazy!
If God gave us curiosity
What's the status of privacy protection in Australia? In the U.S., at least, a telco can't drop "we can listen in on your conversations at any time to see if you're using the lines to illegally play your grandson exchange tapes of Johnny Carson" into a AUP, and then get away with "occasionally sampling" communications. Violation of the Electronic Communications and Privacy Act of 1990, among other things -- and clearly criminal.
Does Australia have similar protections? Is this a bunch of arrogant sysadmins thinking they own anything on their machines? I'd love if this were a case where someone like the EFF could go after Excite@home with guns blazing...
"Doesn't the New York Times copyright their online articles? Can I not view them any more for fear of violating Excite's policies?"
In Denmark, whatever you produce (texts, images, lyrics) is automatically your copyright. You don't buy it, or have to specifically declare it copyrighted. Isn't it like this in the States?
-Kraft
Live and let live
spying on people doesn't revenue bring. then again, it seems with this kind of behavior, they deserve to go [down] under.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
...than my six-year-old daughter's school district. They came home from their first day of school yesterday with an "Internet Agreement". In part, it states that "students are prohibited from downloading any copyrighted material."
All about me
If they were really penalizing people for downloading all copyrighted materials, then you would get yanked for downloading GPL'd software, since it is, in fact, copyrighted.
Hey! Take a look at the bottom right corner of your page when you load slashdot! There is an OSDN copyright!
Really, I don't think any aussies who is doing anything legitimate (reading the NYTimes for example) has anything to worry about here.
I support any ISP for yanking connectivity of anyone for any reason. It's the ISPs right. Maybe they don't like you because you don't take baths (sorry RMS).
What is disturbing is that the ISP in question is actively monitoring it's user's online transactions and actions. That, in my OP is a violation of privacy.
Historically, US companies would have considered this an awful idea. US ISPs have often taken the line that they are simply access providers, and should not be expected to inspect everything that goes across their networks. This is what's usually referred to as "common carrier" status, and it's what prevents people from suing the Post Office for delivering a porn magazine to a child. (Note - IANAL, but I don't think the companies have been particularly successful in claiming common carrier status.)
The problem is that the second you start spot-checking clients data, you have essentially abandoned your status as a common carrier. In for a penny, in for a pound, as the saying goes: once you start checking, you're obligated to check just about everything to make sure it complies to the law.
This is in Australia, where I'm sure the law is quite different. But now that so many access providers are tied to media production companies, how long will it be until ISPs in the US start pulling the same kind of tricks?
Where I live, residential customers and businesses have two options for cable modem service, which is fabulous for a town of 20,000. The first option is provided by the city public utilities dept., which has run fiber rings throughout the town, and then coax to the curb. The city then contracts with local isps for residential service. The other option is the local cable company, which has contracted with @home to provide service. Each costs about $25 a month, although the bandwidth is with the city service, not surprisingly (I can look out my window and see the fiber node nearby).
:)
The biggest difference is less obvious: people I know who are using the @home get constant scans (not just one or two ports, either) from IP addresses which resolve themselves to something like portscan022.foo.home.com (obfuscated to avoid implicating the cable company, which I believe to be innocent to this activity). When I look at my logs, what do I get? A chron job from the city DHCP server polling every five minutes on port 68. And a bunch of port 80 requests from who knows where
What don't I get? Why on earth @home seems to think it's ok to portscan its customers like they do. The article seems indicative of just how paternalistic they are: "We are the arbitraters of what you can and can't download. If you are running open ports, we need to know why. What? You don't like it? Read the (revised) terms of service, dodo." I consider myself lucky to have the option of broadband without @home as a provider. It's apparent that most people don't have that choice. We all know what happens when a monopoly goes unchecked.
political_news.c: warning: comparison is always true due to limited range of data type
This is like mall security confiscating your car for shoplifting so you can't get to their mall anymore. When people are more and more expected to have internet access for various stuff that's possibly work related or of real-life importance, getting your Internet access cut off is a death sentence. This system needs some accountability for wrongful service termination fast.
So you no longer need a consent of one of the parties or a court order to intercept communication? Thats interesting news.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Now would be a good time to start using and donating to Freenet which provides anonymous communication and is immune to censorship.
If you're paying monthly, isn't that like renigging on a business contract...
I think the word you're looking for there is "reneging," from the same root as the word "renegade" and the verb "renege." "Renigging" isn't a word, and could potentially offend members of certain demographics.
That may be something you would want to keep in mind for the future... the word you used could get you into trouble (and with a little less justification than the teacher who used the actual legitimate word "niggardly" and got canned. Anyone know what happened to that teacher?)
Just thought I'd help you avoid any future legal trouble.
InigoMontoya(tm)
This signature is self-referential.
If they can -afford- to hire someone to read through the scans, they'd be lucky. If they can then afford any lawyer fees in suing anyone, tell the directors to stop borrowing off their moms.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
In short, there is no way Excite@Home can know if the copying is legal or illegal.
I work for (run) a small town ISP. We sometimes fear the large national ISPs with their advertising budgets. But things like this just make me feel good.
We care about our customers. We fought to get each one, and do our best to keep them. I remember what it was like to be a subscriber. So, I run things now as I would have liked them to be run when I was on the other side.
We log when you log on and when you log off and what IP you were assigned. That is about it. I don't care what you do out on the net. But if you cause trouble and someone complains to us, then we take action.
Of course broad band is a little different, you can cause a lot of trouble quicker than with dialup. We are just now deploying broad band fixed wireless. I would like to keep running things the way I do now. I hope my faith in our customers isn't misplaced.
I agree with the reader: if Excite@Home suspects that there is a copyright violation, they need to *go through the proper channels* -- not arrogate the law unto themselves. A corporation -- being comprised of unelected people, and, thus, being neither democratic nor representative -- is *not* the government, and shouldn't think of itself in that manner.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
The real issue that nobody is talking about is licensing. Yes, the New York Times and/or the original author holds copyright on all of that stuff. However, under the conditions for access to the NYT website they have granted you license to access that material online. They have not granted you license to download (read this as "save") and redistribute any of their IP.
It seems the real problem for Aussie ISPs is to identify the original source for anything served through them and to go after the account owners who allegedly violate copyright law.
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
The connection providers are increasingly the same company who create the content that's being pirated. You expect they should stand by doing nothing when they can take action?
In the old days of a few years ago, the internet was still a largely lawless frontier. Now that it's gone mainstream, some of that frontier conduct isn't going to work anymore.
Laws must be fitted to the society/culture they are intendted to govern. The internet needs to be a legal jurisdiction if the several hundred million people who use it regularly are to get along, conduct commerce, communicate, etc.
It's no longer the time to flaunt the existing laws by circumventing them with clever hacks. It is now the time to reform the law so that it works for the people.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
...I checked my browser settings.
Though I live in germany and have nothing to fear I have to got through my settings:
- Yes, I connect through a proxy, so the IP address is unuseable for the MPAA
- Yes, junkbuster is active and sending only the information I want to send
- Yes, the rest is filtered by my firewall
Best thing, really, that it will be very difficult to track my IP address. All tests state that my IP address is either 127.0.0.1 (haha) or the address of the proxy of my provider.
Maybe you should check imedeately if you ISP offers the same service to you...
You found a sword: +4 damage, +5 moderator points
If Excite@Home Australia is going to randomly snoop on downloads for copyright-infringing downloads, on the reason that they're trying to comply with the law, can I then assume they're also occasionally snooping to determine if someone is downloading or uploading child pornography to/from IP addresses they control?
If not, why does Excite claim it can take responsibility for actively halting one illegal activity while allowing another to continue? Or does Excite Australia decide to take action based on "pressure"?
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
and then they put pressure on ISP's to have the user cut off if the material isn't removed. This service is offered to the recording industry. Copyright.net browses the file sharing tools to harvest IP's, and report to ISP's. and I 'think' that DCMA forces ISP's to respond and take action. They're grabbing data from your hard drive to verify that it's copyrighted.
Having the ISP tap your line to snoop packets when you share your music collection on port 6346 seems silly.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
I hope you used a spill chuker.
Yup, so turn off those routers, kids, cuz they most certainly intercept and decode your packets.
Shut the fuck up, idiot. It's a PUBLIC Internet, and you have no more anonymity than you do handing a handwritten note to a passing person and asking them to 'give this to Bob if you happen to see him.'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Sure it's a massive problem. You need to find people willing to create a cloud with you. There have to be exit points in the cloud where people with less snoopy providers route packets in and out. The larger the cloud, the more difficult it would be to eradicate it through legal means. You could have services entirely inside the cloud that could not be reached from outside it.
I've been going on about building one of these for ages, but haven't seen much response here and haven't found many people willing to set one up. The backbone of the cloud needs to have high speed connections, and going through it WILL be slower than a direct connect. Having to trust the people running the cloud is another issue. Ideally the PGP "Web of Trust" would apply.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This seems a related idea to the case of Godfrey vs. Demon in the UK a while back?
That case raised a number of important questions in UK law for the first time, regarding an ISP's status as a publisher, and hence the extent of their responsibilty for content they carry. IIRC, the court found against Demon on the basis that Dr Godfrey had notified them of the offensive postings and they then still failed to remove them.
However, this immediately leads to the conclusion that an ISP must, for its own safety, immediately remove any posting about which it receives a similar complaint. This is obviously subject to abuse through false claims by parties upset by a genuine and legitimate post. If the original poster could then also sue, on the basis that an ISP removed their material without an appropriate reason (big question there), then an ISP is left in an untenable situation, where they have to decide immediately and without judicial support on the legality of any post about which they receive a complaint. Oops... :-(
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
They are going to look for and suspend the accounts of users who download "pirate software or copyright material."
Dude, all software under the GPL is copyrighted! As such, it sounds like Excite@Home is gonna start suspending your accounts if you download it. (Yeah, I know, not really, but these people have *got* to be more carefUl about how they state things. Copyrighted does not equal "illegal to copy". It depends on the license (never mind things like fair use).)
Does anybody know *how* they're going to decide if a given download is verboten? What are their algorithms?
The world has gotten out of hand.
-Rob
WHY are they wasting money doing this? Also, this kind of activity SCREAMS security hole, ripe for abuse.
Not good. And this getting out among the enthusiast, who are the EXACT people to buy broadband, can't help their chances of avoiding File 13.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
They are in trouble in the US not in australia - in australia they belong to Optus@Home - Cable and Wireless Optus - the second largest carrier in the region who are owned by singtel - one of the regions biggest telcos - they have plenty of money and a massive userbase - they are the only reliable cable service - i use them and get speeds approaching 6mb/sec - so please i ask you check facts before posting.
Amreican companies are not the only ones in the world - our economy is not in the toilet - the US's is.
I refuse to argue with Anonymous Cowards - if you want a discussion get an account....
I'd be seriously referring this case to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) because this represents a violation of my privacy. Your own ISP is collecting information about your internet access without your prior knowledge or permission (granted the more technically adept have already guessed it by now by looking at their access logs, but I'm also talking about the people who don't know). Yes, I know that other services have doing the same thing for years but it is easier to prevent an external company, that exercises no influence over your ISP (eg. Gator), from collecting personal information without permission.
Now IANAL, but unfortunately there is no specific legal protection for this kind of activity (at least not in NSW) under the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 (NSW), as the principles in the Act that must be applied in the collection and use of personal information (see Section 10) only apply to the public sector and are still subject to exemptions.
Your best bet would be the Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000 (which amends the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth)), as this adds conditions under which the private sector can collect personal information. It's also a Commonwealth Law, so that the Act can be applied to cases all over the country (although in most cases, the courts tend to follow the lead of NSW). One big caveat of this amendment is that this still could possibly allow Excite@home to collect information if "the collection is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of a legal or equitable claim" (see Schedule 3, 10.1(e)). But the way things are going for Excite@home at the moment, lawyers would probably be the last thing on their minds.
If you're serious about putting a stop to this, then try your government privacy body (in my state, it's the Office of the NSW Privacy Commissioner). More letters to these people (particularly now as it's close to an election) would help all of us stand up for our collective rights.
----------
When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend.
Good Post but a few errors
You Said:
Mobile communications required the construction of parallel infrastructures. Ditto for cable infrastructures which was constructed over the last 3 years. No cable existed prior to that time. (Frankly we didn't miss it all that much.)
I say :
Nope under privatisation Telstra had to allow usage of the network infrastructure for most systems - this was before cable was thought of so each vendor ran their own (and fibre links and mobile etc)
You Said:
Since they're a duopoly, there's nothing to stop them from pulling any stunt they want. Their 'unlimited' broadband connections are simply fast pipes for web browsing, nothing more. Download on the Optus network are capped at 10 times the average daily download.
So you can download 400Mbytes/day on Optus@Home.
I say:
I am an optus at home customer and i pull down 600-800 mb a day without problems - they average it out over a 14 day period - so if you have a light day or 2 your are covered - i have gone over 1gb a day and never got chipped - they work an average cutting out the top and bottom 5% - it not as bad as non customers point out.
you Said:
Oh, at around $100/month too. Roughly US$50/month. This is on a 12 month contract after paying setup fees of $350.
I say:
Optus@home - Contract Rate - 18 Months @ $75AU a month (if you have cable tv and phone thru them its less - i pay $53 month - Non Contract rate - $65Au month
Installation is $199 or less if you buy your won cable modem
Telstra( my brother is an ADSL Customer) $75AU/Mnth and a $250 Install fee - plus their service does not work (he hasnt paid for it in 6 months and they havent asked him too until they get it right)
You Said:
This latest move by Optus is a stunt designed to try and cap their broadband expenses. Basically the company is going down and is trimming costs prior to looking for a buyer.
I say:
They have a buyer (see below) and thats not the reason - they are doing this stuff to appear like a nice corporate citizen to the Singaporean Govt - you know they have a major stakeholding in SingTel and they are a right wing and repressive gov
You Said:
Currently they're trying to sell themselves to SingTel, but one of their satellites is also used by the Australian Defence Force for signal intelligence. Naturally we're rather concerned about the Singapore government spying on us should they get their hands on Optus.
I say:
Watch the news or read a paper - this has been resolved and the sale will go ahead - the spying thing is bullshit as the Defense Department uses encyrpted code - they 'control' it in that they maintain orbit and data transfers - its a sealed system - they have the equipment for satellite monitoring and the govt contracted the service to save money - it is a contract that can be pulled so this is non issue
You Said:
Since privatisation, quality of service has declined, prices have risen and rural areas have suffered.
I say:
Grew up in the country and my family lives in the far west of QLD - this is load of crap the oppostion parties and vested interests would love you to listen to - prices have not risen that much but they have a bit as the GOVERNMENT no longer subsidises the services and it costs money to provide them (shock horror). Alternative carriers wont go in there as it does not make economic sense without govt help - we are talking about small numbers of people with huge infrastructre costs - whos going to pay for it - no company will spend billions on a commercially unviable system (think about what happend to iridium) Do you live in the country ?
You Said:
Essentially we're in broadband hell. Just be thankful you're not us.
I say:
Optus at home customer here and i dont live in hell, i have an excellent service and its fast - the fact is that in life you get what you pay for - this is a country with a 18 million population spread across a large land mass, these services are expensive to provide and thus it costs money - you can point at the US and say they have cheap access - they have 350+ million people - thats a lot more customers.
And dont forget the other vendors out there with cable and ADSL - I-hug, Burst net, etc (do a web search)
In closing i offer this comment (lifted from whirlpool)
Why is broadband so damn expensive?
While the price could come down a bit further, it's not really all that expensive. Given our exchange rate, we pay similar prices for broadband as people in America.
Australian users have to absorb the cost of building cross-pacific pipelines like the Southern Cross Cable (http://www.southerncrosscables.com/), which is in itself over 30 thousand kilometres of multi-core fibre optic cable. Even after the pipeline is built, Australian companies have to pay American networks for the ability to "plug in" to the internet.
Dial-up internet can be more costly than you think. You could be paying anywhere between 20 cents to one dollar per day in phone calls (that's between $6 and $30 per month), not to mention the cost of line rental for a second phone line, something that most regular internet users need when using dial-up.
I suspect you are a dial up customer who cannot afford broadband but check your facts OK - other than that i think you made some good points.
I refuse to argue with Anonymous Cowards - if you want a discussion get an account....
Surely to prove copyright violation the company holding the copyright would have to prove in court that a particular file was in violation of its copyright.
So I don't see where the ISP comes in to all of this.
Section 1 is called "illegal activity":
1. Illegal Activity1.1. You must not use the Service for any activity that violates any local, state, federal or international law, order or regulation. Prohibited activities include, but are not limited to:
Posting, disseminating or in some cases accessing material which is unlawful. This includes material that is or would be classified RC or X and includes material that is or would be classified R where a restricted access system is not in place. Such content includes but is not limited to: material containing detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use; child pornography; bestiality; excessively violent or sexually violent material; real depictions of actual sexual activity; obscene material; and content hosted in Australia which is classified R and not subject to a restricted access system which complies with criteria determined by the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA). For more information about the regulatory regime applying to online content go to www.aba.gov.au
Disseminating material which violates the copyright or other intellectual property rights of others. You assume all risks regarding the determination of whether material is in the public domain.
Pyramid or other illegal soliciting schemes.
Any fraudulent activities, including impersonating any person or entity or forging anyone else's digital or manual signature. If you do violate it
9.1. Optus is not obligated to regularly monitor your usage of the Service. However, in its efforts to promote good citizenship within the Internet community, it will respond appropriately if it becomes aware that you or someone with access to your Service has violated this Acceptable Use Policy or the Customer Terms or you or someone with access to your Service, has used the Service in an inappropriate manner. Although Optus has no obligation to monitor the Service, Optus reserves the right to monitor (and request Excite@Home to monitor) your bandwidth, usage or content, to identify violations of this Acceptable Use Policy; and to protect the Optus@Home Network and other users of this Service.
Who asked them to begin monitering?
There's no indication of whether this is a responsibility under law or whether they have chosen to do this. I note that the policy has not changed since September 2000.
James
They confirmed they will not be actively monitoring customer internet traffic. They're just handling complaints about their users, just like every other ISP already does. They are not scanning downloads for copyright violations as the article title suggests.
Im not a telstra or optus stooge - i have never spoken to you before i simply disagreed with some of your comments or offered other explanations - i dont comment on Telstra mainy as i have to deal with them at work and they suck - whilst i have optus at my home but they dont - the choice of carrier is up to you. This argument pisses me off more than i can say - if you dont knock something then you must work for them - its used everytime someone defends MS in any way and its an invalid and irrantional argument.
Dail up - lets see why i poke it in the eye (and i had it for 5 years previous to this) it sucks - 56k is a pathetic speed for anyting more than basic web surfing and email.
This country runs 3 years behind in Broadband and high speed access (mainly due to Telstra) and if we start accepting 56k as OK then we will never get change
As for the narrowband - Bandwidth costs money - if you think you know it in this area work in corporates - I am and MIS manager for a global company and run a Win2k AD worldwide lan link, every mb we send costs money -(i am also responsible for Voice Comms by the way and have just renegotiated contracts on Mobile and fixed line costs - i can comment on this area) -whether this is an oncharge or not is irrelevant - the owner of the cable (southern cross) has to recoup the cost so they sell the usage on to the carriers - they can then charge what the market will bear (i think 19c a MB is bullshit but i dont use Telstra at home so i wont comment on your choice)
ADSL in this country is a mess - Telstra cant deliver a working service and we at work contract with another company for DSL for our remote sites and homew workers - this is a constant and painfull headache.
Mobile prices have nothing to do with connectivity in rural areas - you have to run transmission towers every 10-15km to maintain service and they need cabling into them and power etc - forget mobiles (and do some research actually we have some of the cheapest mobile rates in the world and handset costs are on par with a population as small as ours is)
And as for running broadband to remote areas - OK i dont know what it costs per mile to run Broadband trunks (and it has to fiber optic as the current links WONT support the dream of ADSL) but i think you could safely say its more that $10000AU per KM when you take in manpower, digging cable lines, legal costs, surveys, etc etc not to mention all of the equipment and exchange upgrades, servers etc to end on it, so you think about this - my family lives 800km from Brisbane where i am, thats by road, but if you take that and work it out thats Au$8 Million for that one stretch alone - not you wold be running it into a population base of 8000 people - thats a cost per person of $1000 per customer NOT counting the last mile to the home and the installation of service etc etc - and that covers them only - not the regionals - so how do you ever make it a viable financial concern ? tell me as i and many others would love to know.
The government spends $300 million a year on 290 pollies - well that works out to AU$1 million per Electorate per year - it has to cover wages, staffing, admin costs, travel, etc etc - thats a non issue and it obfuscates an issue - thats the sot of crap we see here all the time - and it means that people can just attack the pollies and not even make a suggestion to fix it.
Delivery of service costs money - someone has to pay the bill - when you talk rural australia that means delivery of service across a huge territory - you can do phone service with sattelite (as Telstra does) but its not cost effective - you cant deliver broadband cheaply this way however (latency etc etc)
No more expensive to wire - yep thats maybe true (its not but i wont waste time pointing out why) Do some research on city areas and population sizes in the US and here and densities - australian cities are more spread out and this requires more cost per mile - thats why the argument is fallacious - and the urban areas in australia are the only ones with sufficient population density to support it - 95% of the australian population lives within a 1 hour drive of the coast and over 80% on the eastern seaboard.
Optus at home is a good service - check their customer satisfaction ratings then ask a few people in the industry who know what they are talking about - Telstra screwed up ADSL and cant be bothered fixing it (i suspect an announcment on something else soon)
Southern Cross cable can charge what they want as they own the lines - This is a business NOT a charity - and unfortantely so can Telstra - and dont start with the PSA or Allan Fels - they seem to have staff of 3 blind mice and an aged labrador so i dont expect much from them.
The duopoly is crap - the reason most of the other ISP's dont have coverage is backing - it costs money to do this stuff and they dont have it - thank the Dot.com feeding frenzy - no one wants to invest in telcos and isp's (and not to mention the way ISP's go broke so often) and on the back of One Tel and 3G who can blame them
I was trying to be nice till you called me a stooge - thats a weak argument - check your facts and then think about it next time you lower it to that level - i dont dismiss things beacuse they dont fit with me - i take them in and look at them.
I refuse to argue with Anonymous Cowards - if you want a discussion get an account....
If they intercept the images that a person downloads from a pay service - or the text articles or whathaveyou, does that mean they are illegally accessing that service?
I mean if I pay good money to access a porn^H^H^H^H^H pay news service and receive the benefit of that service, how can they legallly be allowed to (presumably) gain the same benefit from that service without paying for it?
Why, that ought to be illegal...
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
I'd love to see someone like you say that to, say, Congress or the Senate in public hearings. "This is not what I spent 20 years in the military defending". Do you realise the power of that statement viewed as a PR weapon? Talk about a sound bite.
Anyone? I imagine the easiest way would be to scan their proxy server logs, so don't use their proxy servers.
:wq
the phone-lines are privately owned. a private network. the phonecompany is NOT allowed to listen in on each and every call which I may use to prepare an assassination. I have a right to privacy.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I live in fear that @Home Seattle will kill 80 and 25. I have become totally dependent on my servers, run in violation of the AUP.
As a matter of fact, I am switching to Speakeasy DSL. Did the research, talked to the (clueful) sales guy for 20 minutes today... calling back soon and setting it up. Slower download, faster upload, and servers explicitly OK. Cool.
Very simple. They would not. You will be the one to prove you did nothing wrong. As it was shown in the DMCA case, current society is OK with passing a law that allows to prosecute a person because Copyright Mafia wants so. And there are real stories of people with their internet access terminated because RIAA sent the ISP a letter that stated that their IP was noted in trafficking "illegal" content. No questions asked, no person contacted, just immediate access cutoff. If you want to have your internet access alive, you would be the one to sweat and get all the proofs that your content is legal. Internet is a nice place, full of freedom and new possibilities, isn't it?
Alternatively, you can just terminate your relationship with that ISP. If there is any other ISPs that are yet sane, of course. And if they won't be sued out of existance by the RIAA.
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
...are belong to us?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Are you talking about US copyright law there, or Australian? Australian copyright lasts for fifty years after the death of the author.
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
It is, but remember: all along, you have had to assume that it's happening anyway. There's never any telling who is listening in on your connections, and you should never trust The Internet. You've never been able to take privacy for granted. That's one of the reasons stuff like https, ssh, etc were invented. And if you're using these things (correctly), it is virtually impossible for your ISP or anyone else to snoop your traffic.
So use crypto if you don't like this. I say again: this has been a risk all along. It's just that someone is admitting it this time.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
This would actually be illegal in the UK under the data protection Act 1980, which makes it a criminal offence to pass on or receive any personalised data to a third party without the data subjects (your) permission.
Also as an aside most Internet download's because they are for personal use are covered by fair use and are perfectly legal and proper, in any country.
So if this was to happen in the UK the ISP and the RIAA would be breaking the law.
Tunneling PPP over SSH is pretty straight forward, and it doesn't seem to generate any chatter unless the connection is actually in use. SSL on all web servers would be a big step in the right direction , too and is damned easy to set up. Generating and signing your own certificate is pretty easy too, though web browsers need a more granular trust mechanism in order for that to work really well.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?