"Three Strikes" To Go Ahead In Britain

David Gerard writes "Lord Peter Mandelson has carefully ignored the Gowers Report and the Carter Report, instead taking the advice of his good friend David Geffen and announcing that 'three strikes and you're out' will become law in Britain. The Open Rights Group has, of course, hit the roof. Oh, and never mind MI5 and the police pointing out that widespread encryption will become normal, hampering their efforts to keep up with little things like impending terrorist atrocities. Still, worth it to stop a few Lily Allen tracks being shared, right?"

Comments

Three Strikes on /.

[TheKidWho]

Can we also have a 3 strikes law on Slashdot for dupes??

Re:Three Strikes on /.

[mwvdlee]

Why 3? What's so magic about "3" that it's okay to do it twice, but a third time is just too much and should be punished. Why not a 4 strikes law, or 2 strikes? And if it's a reference to baseball, why not use references to other sports instead? Turn it into an icehockey-themed "timeout" law, a soccer-themed "yellow cards" law or a boxing-themed "knockout" law.

Re:Three Strikes on /.

[amias]

hes been caught telling porkies twice already so it had to be one more than that .

this as far as i'm concerned is his third strike , come the next election , hes outta there.

also since when where lords allowed in the commons ?

Seriously, write to them

[kazade84]

I've contacted my MP. The open rights group has a brief PDF to send to them so they are clued up. Ask them to back EDM 1997.

More info here: http://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/ask-your-mp-to-help-protect-our-freedoms-on-the-net

Re:Seriously, write to them

[erroneus]

Do you think they care at all what the people think? If anything proves that any form of democracy is not at work here, this does. Business interests are guiding, directing and even controlling government all over the world. The world may be pissed off at the U.S. government, but one only has to look to the "Military Industrial Complex" for why things are the way they are.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[DoofusOfDeath]

but one only has to look to the "Military Industrial Complex" for why things are the way they are.

I think the M-I complex is more complicated. Defense contractors in the U.S. are smart about creating jobs in the states of legislators whose votes they need. This in turn builds up public support in those states for the defense programs that might not be in the overall national interest (militarily and/or fiscally).

So one might argue that when the constituents are being parochial and myopic in their support for various spending, that is democracy in action. And it can lead to abysmal results.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[WinterSolstice]

I disagree - I happen to work for a massive piece of this 'M-I Complex', and we're dying here. All the major aerospace and defense companies are going through a seriously hard time and shedding people or outsourcing like mad.

If it were as simple as this, I wouldn't be looking for work :)

Re:Seriously, write to them

[Hadlock]

I think they're talking about schemes where projects like the B-2 bomber have parts manufactured in all 50 states, making projects like that hard to kill, since they employ someone in every congressional district.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely agree that the political establishment in the UK is not particularly democratic (though it tends to be reactionary I suggest that's not quite the same thing). I would advocate this is why we could benefit from proportional representation in the UK as it would lend power to pressure groups (though I am not blind to the drawbacks).

If our government were more democratic we would probably have a three strikes rule for traditional crimes (robbery, assault, sexual offences) but not for unlicensed content redistribution. As it is, you can have a dozen offences for robbery and minor assault and still not get a custodial sentence (at least not one more than a few weeks at most).[1]

It's true that people in the UK worry way too much about crime, but it's also true that the state is seen to be ineffective when it comes to punishment (commonly regarded as dealing it out ham-fistedly and at the wrong targets). Personally I would argue it works most of the time, but when it fails it does so spectacularly.

[1] Going off topic, but as an explanation, this is because our prisons are overcrowded (not as much as the US, but more than is typical in Europe) and this government (as well as in part the previous administration) have failed to provide adequate facilities.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[tomtomtom]

There's nothing special about the so-called military-industrial complex in this respect, and you don't have to assume that politicians or businesses are either inherently evil or particularly incompetent. It's more like a defect of the system and is explained by the Public choice theory of government. Lobbying happens in all sorts of policy areas and unfortunately it tends to be a case of those who shout loudest, get what they want. I think this also explains a lot about why three-strikes is apparently happening in the UK against almost every expert opinion and the wishes of the majority.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[JWW]

I'd have to agree. I think what we are seeing is the full taking of power of the Banking-Content complex with banks and entertainment industries calling almost all the shots in government.

Look, banks are getting Hundreds of Billions of dollars thrown at them and NASA can't even make a case of increasing funding by single billions of dollars.

The Military will eventually be cut back dramatically, the leading edge of this is the new weapons systems, which is whats putting the aerospace and defense contractors in a bind.

I know I've brought up before, but theres a hell of a lot of engineers and scientists being thrown out of the M-I complex right now, but the politicians are stressing 'science and engineering' education. My response to this is what the fuck are they doing this for? Specifically the Banking-Content complex has absolutely NO value for science and engineering (I count the quants as complete sellouts so they don't count and lord knows that the content industry has NO ONE who understands technology at all).

Look, banks are getting Hundreds of Billions of dollars thrown at them and NASA can't even make a case of increasing funding by single billions of dollars.

The Military will eventually be cut back dramatically, the leading edge of this is the new weapons systems, which is whats putting the aerospace and defense contractors in a bind.

I know I've brought up before, but theres a hell of a lot of engineers and scientists being thrown out of the M-I complex right now, but the politicians are stressing 'science and engineering' education. My response to this is what the fuck are they doing this for? Specifically the Banking-Content complex has absolutely NO value for science and engineering (I count the quants as complete sellouts so they don't count and lord knows that the content industry has NO ONE who understands technology at all).

We are in an age where those who handle the money and sell sight and sound think they're the only game in town. The Industrial part of the complex is completely gone.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Do you think they care at all what the people think?

Yes! We sign their cheques!

How friendly do you think that business interests would be if we put them out of a job?

Re:Seriously, write to them

[jimicus]

Do you think they care at all what the people think? If anything proves that any form of democracy is not at work here, this does. Business interests are guiding, directing and even controlling government all over the world. The world may be pissed off at the U.S. government, but one only has to look to the "Military Industrial Complex" for why things are the way they are.

Oh the leading party cares very much what people think - though usually more if "what people think" is dramatically at odds with "what they want to do". In such cases, they'll spend inordinate amounts of money (oh, and where does that money come from...?) to tell people what to think. See also: ID cards.

Furthermore, individual MPs are frequently so loyal to their party that no matter how braindead the idea, most will still fall into line and vote for it. My own MP is part of the incumbent party and I don't think she has ever said so much as a single word against any of the government's policies. There's no earthly way she's going to rock the boat over an issue like this.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[Smegly]

I disagree - I happen to work for a massive piece of this 'M-I Complex', and we're dying here. All the major aerospace and defense companies are going through a seriously hard time and shedding people or outsourcing like mad.

If it were as simple as this, I wouldn't be looking for work :)

Looks like you missed the parent posters point. You would most likely vote to keep your job in the Military Industrial Complex. Even if you say you would not, and claim to be one of the few that understands the big picture that the MIC is a very bad deal for everyone, it would be a hard stretch to imagine the majority of your suffering co-workers and all other dependent's in your state following your lead.

I doubt America will ever shake the shackles of the MIC - people are too motivated by self interest (as in, I want a Job, thanks), and things have only gone waaay downhill since Eisenhower warned how bad things could get, so its not like nobody didn't see it coming

Re:Seriously, write to them

[DoofusOfDeath]

I know I've brought up before,

...

I know I've brought up before,

Yeah, but damn...

Re:Seriously, write to them

[daybot]

Me too. I was going to paste my letter here, but since I have sent it now, I am frightened of peer review :)

Re:Seriously, write to them

[shutdown -p now]

We sign their cheques!

Given that this is politicians we're talking about, you don't - the cheques are pre-signed for you, the only thing that's yours in all this is the obligation to pay.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[WinterSolstice]

No, I just disagree. Most people seem to vote *against* defense companies coming to town, especially in places like California.

There is also a lot less funding going into it. Like it or not, it has been a major field employing highly educated people for a long time.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[commodore64_love]

>>>We are in an age where those who handle the money and sell sight and sound think they're the only game in town. The Industrial part of the complex is completely gone.
>>>

I'm watching a World War 2 movie right now, where German Rommel says "We need to take Africa before the industrial might of America arrives." If Rommel had been fighting the current American economy, which revolves around Walmart and movies/music, then he'd probably say, "America? Ha. The land of 'do you want some fries with that?' is not a threat." America has no industrial might.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[commodore64_love]

The M-I C actually was dramatically downsized during the Clinton/Republican Congress years, and according to the Bush's proposed budgets from 2001-to-2010 would have been downsized even further (with the surplus directed towards the SSA trust fund).

Then 9/11 happened, and like fools that respond to trolls on the internet, we responded to Bin Laden's baiting. Now things are out of control again. I had enough sense to say, "Ignore the Arab. Two skyscrapers are not worth starting a war over," but nobody listened. We should have continued along the original course.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[commodore64_love]

And then the People will sue.

And the case will rise to the level of the EU Court, which will declare these laws unconstitu..... uh, in violation of the Lisbon Treaty. Namely the EU Charter of Rights: "Article 48-1. Everyone who has been charged shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law." i.e. 3 strikes is invalid because it assumes guilt without trial.

This law can also be argued to violate Article 11 - "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers." And Article 14 - "Everyone has the right to education and to have access to vocational and continuing training." How can little Johnny do his homework if his internet has been cut, and he can't access wikipedia?

Re:Seriously, write to them

[samjam]

My labour MP in Loughborough (when I lived there) was proud of the fact that he was going to blindly follow the party leader. He was voted in on a party platform and felt that voters expected it of him. He didn't even seem to feel inclined to influence party policy.

Wretch!

Sam

Re:Seriously, write to them

[Smegly]

The M-I C actually was dramatically downsized during...

I don't know where you got that impression? The data looks anything but "dramatic".
Perhaps you mean GDP adjusted/as a percentage of the overall budget.
One would be hard pressed to call that downsizing though (unless your a politician, of course), especially given that much of the funds are just printed up to pay for it all out of our pockets.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the link, I'll be contacting my MP, who isn't a member of the incumbent party and is actually a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Parliamentary Committee.

Incidentally, from your link:

today Patrick Wintour, Political Editor of the Guardian, has written this piece, outlining the public's disquiet about Mandelson's plans to disconnect users without legal due process. It also shows that the public see this as a vote loser for any party that brings it in.

I'm still seething about the fact my kids will be paying off the massive debts they have amassed buying their banker friends out of trouble, so perhaps it would be better to let them have enough rope to hang themselves with. They can take the unelected Mr Mandelson with them into the political wilderness.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[jimicus]

Sounds familiar. You really can't reason with people like that because they've already made up their mind what they're going to do - or more accurately, someone else has made it up for them - and the only thing that will change that is an instruction from the top.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[hairyfeet]

Actually pre WWII he probably would have said "America? Where they have to make work because they have no jobs? they are not a threat.". You have to remember America wasn't some big super power then, IIRC our military was something like 58th because we had let so much just rot after WWI.

What made America a threat was the fact that we had enough raw materials we could make war without anyone else coming to our aid. If we wouldn't have brought supplies to Britain the wolf packs would have starved them out. of course whether we could do that again in a time of total war is debatable, as our oil fields have long since run dry and it would probably take a decade or more to get something like ANWR producing, even if we hurried it as part of the war effort.

So while I agree that our industrial might is gone, it wasn't very great then either. We were just able to convert existing businesses, such as having Ford cranking out tanks, and having the raw materials, that gave us an advantage once the Japs hit Pearl. Whether or not Pearl was a result of Roosevelt purposely stirring up shit with the Japs in the hopes of getting us in the war when many preferred neutrality is a debate for another day.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[aaandre]

Yes, important distinction. AND, they get fill out the amount themselves.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[commodore64_love]

>>>So while I agree that our industrial might is gone, it wasn't very great then either.

I disagree. Rommel and the other German generals knew quite well that 1920s America was an industrial power house that had dominated the world, and once America entered the war Germany would be outproduced and squashed - just as had happened in 1917 and 18.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[hairyfeet]

That wasn't because of some great military industrial complex, instead it all came down to raw materials. Germany had to import most of its war materials, especially oil, hence why Operation Barbarossa was so important to them, getting the Soviet oil fields was paramount to their war efforts. The Japanese had the same problem, hence their need to snatch as much of the Pacific as they could when the USA (which IIRC supplied more than 50% of their oil before they invaded China) and of course the UK required resupply or the wolf packs would have starved them to death.

Now compare that to the USA of the 1930s, hell even to a large extent the USA of today-coal, iron, steel mills, oil, lumber, cotton, the breadbasket. If the wolf pack joined with the imperial navy and completely blocked off all shipping to the USA, which in itself would be no easy feat, the United States would still be able to build impressive war weapons and crank them out like Ford cranked out cars. And THAT was why Yamamoto said "In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.". That was because he knew that with as much raw materials as the USA had access to once they cranked up production the excrement would hit the bladed cooling device.

So it wasn't the might of the USA, but the combination of men and materials available to the USA that made them a threat.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[Anonymous Coward]

i'll bet the cheque you sign is signicantly smaller to the given politician in charge then the ones he gets on the side from other less ethically driven sources...

Re:Seriously, write to them

[shutdown -p now]

i'll bet the cheque you sign is signicantly smaller to the given politician in charge then the ones he gets on the side from other less ethically driven sources...

Where do you think thuse "less ethically driven sources" get the money from in the first place?

The vicious circle of modern politics is: lobbying -> laws favoring corporations (such as the one in TFA) -> more money extracted from consumers -> lobbying.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[Anonymous Coward]

Oil-wise, we'd still be able to fight. Our wells aren't "dry" so much as "more expensive than importing from the Saudis"; we're in minimal production mode, pumping just enough to keep the equipment working, but we're able to ramp up on short notice - as happened during the last price spike. Additionally, a huge percent of our imports are from within the western hemisphere, and a huge percentage of that is from our immediate neighbors Canada and Mexico - who we'd still be allied with in any war likely to happen any time soon. We also have stockpiles. We'd basically be able to fight at a world war level (assuming of course we used world war level rationing to make up the difference in lost cheap oil imports).

Miliary-industrial-wise, we still have the stuff we need in place for military production; guns, ammo, tanks, planes, ships, uniforms, tools, food, that sort of stuff. It's still produced here and can still be ramped up. (And the current high unemployment even means plentiful available workforce if we did have to ramp up). And we have a surplus of guns, tanks, and planes in reserve. The only severe shortage we'd have militarily is if we took heavy warship losses... supercarriers currently take like five years each to build, and even if we both tripled production and halved assembly time, that'd still mean a three year wait for three new ones to be ready; that's a long time for any modern war, a long time even compared to WW2.

Then again, we also still have engineers, so it might turn out that we could convert supertanker construction into gas-powered carrier production and manage to keep up that way. My point in general is that we still have people, knowledge, resources, and local industries that could be converted to wartime production. And we're *still* in a position where, as long as a war doesn't go nuclear, no one can plausibly come bomb our factories.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Was I being too subtle?

I'm not so much talking about pay, as I am about employment. We may not personally sign our names on their cheques, but without us, they wouldn't have their jobs. And without their jobs, they wouldn't receive any benefits from corporations.

Re:Seriously, write to them

[Builder]

It's true that people in the UK worry way too much about crime, but it's also true that the state is seen to be ineffective when it comes to punishment (commonly regarded as dealing it out ham-fistedly and at the wrong targets). Personally I would argue it works most of the time, but when it fails it does so spectacularly.

I'd stop worrying about crime if the following two conditions were met.

1. I stopped being a victim of crime

2. The police gave a shit on any of the 3 occasions that I was a victim of crime

So far, I'm out of pocket to the tune of about £3000 pounds in extra insurance premiums, gaps between what the insurers paid out and what I had to pay to replace things and medical bills.

Add this to the Tony Martin farce (man defends his home against a burglar with over 25 convictions and goes to jail for it), and I worry a lot. The police won't defend me. I'm not allowed to defend myself.

But if I download some music, I lose my job? Niiiiice!

Re:Seriously, write to them

[jez9999]

As has been said by others, you'll almost certainly get the good old form letter and the MP being written to won't even see your words. Want to really hit them where it hurts? Vote for someone else. And join a party that isn't one of the big three... we need to make sure their time is passed.

I'd suggest the Pirate Party UK. All new members welcome. :-)

Encryption is a bad thing?

[xtal]

Not sure if this place has changed over the years, but I'm all for encryption becoming the norm.

For legitimate law enforcement needs, search warrants and traffic analysis are not impeded.

In fact, draconian enforcement of copyright would be the best thing ever - it would illustrate the absurdity of the status quo.

Re:Encryption is a bad thing?

[conureman]

Draconian enforcement is so wonderful, see how stirred up everyone is getting about the routine Police Riots at the various and divers New World Order Summits &c.

Re:Encryption is a bad thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I said a similar thing when TorrentFreak announced that TPB was ordered to delete torrents and access to the Dutch was blocked:

http://santiance.com/2009/10/pirate-bay-court-ordered-to-delete-torrents/

Re:Encryption is a bad thing?

[sakdoctor]

Absolutely.

Whilst mentioning encryption causes people to post that f'ing cartoon with the $5 wrench adnauseum, the fact is, even fairly weak encryption whilst data transits though your ISP goes a long long way.

For example, a certain bone-headed ISP which one of my relatives uses, enforces using their outgoing mail server for "anti-spam reasons".
Do they log all outgoing emails? You can bet they do. SMTP over SSL raises the bar just high enough that they don't bother any more.

Re:Encryption is a bad thing?

[tlhIngan]

Whilst mentioning encryption causes people to post that f'ing cartoon with the $5 wrench adnauseum, the fact is, even fairly weak encryption whilst data transits though your ISP goes a long long way.

That's why the spy agencies are against it. The best way to avoid an arms race is to simply avoid raising the stakes so the other side remains blissfully ignorant. If things are good now, not rocking the boat is the best solution.

For example, a certain bone-headed ISP which one of my relatives uses, enforces using their outgoing mail server for "anti-spam reasons".
Do they log all outgoing emails? You can bet they do. SMTP over SSL raises the bar just high enough that they don't bother any more.

MOst ISPs block outgoing SMTP, for spam reasons. Despite this, an annoyingly large amount of spam still comes from outgoing SMTP connections, enough so that sending email from a dynamic connection is mostly useless anyhow because of the dynamic IP blocklists.

The solution is to either use the ISP's mailserver, or your own mailserver at your hosting provider using stuff like Authenticated SMTP, which, surprise, uses a different port. It's an intentional workaround, because either your mail is going through your ISP (who can detect if you're sending 1000 emails a day 24/7), or your hosting provider (ditto, if the spambot is smart enough to steal your SMTP authetication details). Since all modern email clients support this standard, it's just a setup issue. And Authenticated SMTP can use SSL (to protect login credentials) if you're inclined.

Re:Encryption is a bad thing?

[Thanshin]

The UK! Nice.

If it had started on a computer wise under-developped country. All it's population would have to wait until the law reached the UK, France, USA, etc. to have any chance of a working full network encryption.

Anyway, as I've often stated in slashdot, the arms race will keep going, and the corporation lobbied laws will fail to keep up with the technologists.

In little more than a decade the americans will start a war on piracy that will work about as well as the current unwinnable wars. i.e.: A secure, illegal, connection will cost several times more than it's lawful price and a huge percentage of the population will pay them and access the contents anyway.

Re:Encryption is a bad thing?

[LandDolphin]

So it's a win win situation for corperations.

Re:Encryption is a bad thing?

[commodore64_love]

Question

- How will encryption stop a rights-holder, like Warner Bros, downloading a torrent of Dark Knight and simply recording all the IP addresses they see down/uploading the content? As far as I can tell they can do that, will report it, and thus you'll get a strike.

Re:Encryption is a bad thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

You miss the point. It doesn't prevent them from doing that; it makes them do that. Forcing your opponent to take active steps instead of getting everything they want by passively watching (especially stuff like mandated ISP filters, where the users would end up having to pay for it), is a good thing.

Re:Encryption is a bad thing?

[computational super]

I'm all for encryption becoming the norm. For legitimate law enforcement needs, search warrants and traffic analysis are not impeded.

Umm... yeah, actually I think they are - if Big Content can't snoop on your communications, neither can Big Brother (whether you think this is good or bad is another matter entirely).

Actually, what they're talking about isn't widespread encryption (that's already in place, e.g. SSL), but widespread anonymity. P2P over SSL is no more secure from a record label sniffer than P2P over cleartext - they just attack the P2P network (that's what they do today - they're not actually doing network monitoring). What the British are afraid of is widespread anonymity (like Freenet, for example) - and with that, neither law enforcement nor Geffen records can see what you're downloading or uploading.

That said, they have nothing to worry about. Widespread anonymity will never become the norm. Any truly censorship-resistant scheme, whatever it may be, will be resistant against ALL censorship, not just selective censorship. So if you believe that .mp3's and scientology documents should not be censored, but porn should, you're out of luck if you want a technical solution. And the (sad, IMHO) fact is that most people support censorship of at least some things and will never buy into a system that makes this impossible.

Re:Encryption is a bad thing?

[Mia'cova]

"For legitimate law enforcement needs, search warrants and traffic analysis are not impeded."

No clue how you got +5 insightful. Of course encryption impede those tasks. How exactly does a wiretap do any good when the traffic is encrypted.

"In fact, draconian enforcement of copyright would be the best thing ever"

Draconian enforcement is horrible. It greatly abuses the users and infringes on their rights/privacy. Nothing you say makes any sense.

Re:Encryption is a bad thing?

[Znork]

And the (sad, IMHO) fact is that most people support censorship of at least some things

Many people support censorship until they're the ones getting censored. Once that happens the priorities may change.

With the emergence of social networking and f2f darknets widespread anonymity becomes a function of the easiest way to 'connect and share' things with your friends online. Three strikes legislation will certainly be incentive enough and more to drive the rapid adoption of such cell structured networks; they've always been a common occurrence, whether instantiated as IRL sneakernet sharing or as ftp/ssh sites in closed friend circles. Now they're just becoming more organized, standardized and interlinked.

So personally I think MI5 and MI6 are right on. Adoption of three strikes legislation pretty much guarantees the rapid evolution of communications into totally opaque topologies. For better or worse it's the end of the snooping business as we know it.

Re:Encryption is a bad thing?

[commodore64_love]

Whatever. Either way you still get caught, and lose ISP access. Encryption is not going to protect you from this law.

Re:Encryption is a bad thing?

[computational super]

Adoption of three strikes legislation pretty much guarantees the rapid evolution of communications into totally opaque topologies.

Well, I wish I could share your optimism - here's hoping that you're right and I'm wrong.

they need something based on the rules of cricket

[ffflala]

The US 3-strikes rule is based on a concept from baseball, and as a result probably makes little sense in the UK. I'm surprised they didn't go with something more appropriate, like a "bowled, leg-before-wicket, or hit-wicket" and you're out rule.

Agreed - ban encryption.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed - ban encryption.

Re:Agreed - ban encryption.

[killmenow]

Sure this is an attempt to be funny, but don't be surprised. When this 3 strikes thing doesn't prop up profits for the copyright regime like they expect, and the cops start yammering about the crypto tech used by the bad guys making it harder for them to do their job, banning encryption WILL be the next step. Remember the "hey, let's force back doors in all encryption schemes" the US government was trying to pass not too long ago? Clipper chip ring a bell? Skipjack? Key escrow? It will be done.

Re:Agreed - ban encryption.

[David Gerard]

RIPA already allows the UK police to rubber-hose your password out of you.

The interesting thing will be SSL and Tor-based stuff, which doesn't require you to even have a password to use.

Re:Agreed - ban encryption.

[JackDW]

They can try, but I don't believe they will get very far, because encryption is so deeply entrenched into everyday technology. It's no longer just a matter of banning PGP. Now, they would have to come up with some way to add escrow features to (at least) SSL and WPA, as well as banning all other non-approved forms of encryption such as SSH... which is very widely used.

Any attempt to enforce escrow would impact a huge number of businesses, universities and individuals. They could expect widespread protests at the expense of replacing perfectly good software and hardware, not just from supporters of civil liberties, but from major corporations and institutions.

Re:Agreed - ban encryption.

[@madeus]

The dealt with this already (sadly). The RIP Act allows the state to send you for jail for 5 years if you can't (or won't) supply the means (i.e. passpharse / key) to decrypt content in your possession.

The legislation was drafted so poorly that it is to the extent that if someone gives you some encrypted data on a disk and you don't know the key and the police demand it, then you fall foul of it and can go to jail.

Anecdote:

Someone actually performed a stunt at a press conference at the time and confronted a minister supporting the bill as I recall, but handing them over a floppy disk with the confession to a real crime they had committed (most likely something real but trivial, like theft I presume) and informed her they had burned the disk containing the key and that as such she was now withholding evidence of a crime and so had fallen foul of the law.

For dramatic flair, they had a video of them burning the disk with the decryption key.

The minister responded "that's not what the legislation says". The protagonist responded it was to which the minster replied "well, that's not what it means".

Would be great if anyone could remember who was involved.

Re:Agreed - ban encryption.

[thisnamestoolong]

Damn -- that is amazing. I would love it if someone could come up with some sources so I can read more into this.

Re:Agreed - ban encryption.

[Djupblue]

I love the idea of an escrow. We just need to create a communication system that uses rapidly changing keys and feed their escrow an enormous amount of worthless keys. Time to by stocks in Seagate..

Re:Agreed - ban encryption.

[jimicus]

The protagonist responded it was to which the minster replied "well, that's not what it means".

Would be great if anyone could remember who was involved.

IIRC that was Jack Straw, then Home Secretary.

I also wrote to my MP at the time who basically said "well, yes it may say that but it'll never be enforced in that way, so what's the concern?". My argument to that has always been "if you don't want it enforced in that way, don't write it so it can be".

Lo and behold, we now have councils using this legislation to spy on people for all sorts of petty reasons. The original plan was it would be used to spy on potential benefit cheats (some benefits are administered by local government), but instead we have this:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article4036231.ece

Re:Agreed - ban encryption.

[JackDW]

That's true - but I think this means that RIPA is useless against systems like SSH that destroy the keys at the end of the session. No law can compel you to reveal your SSH session keys, because it's impossible for you to do so.

The only way for Big Brother to deal with this is to either outlaw SSH, or insist that SSH includes a back door for key recovery. Such changes would be resisted by every user of SSH, and if not for civil liberties reasons, then at least because of the cost and security risk.

Re:Agreed - ban encryption.

[TheRaven64]

Correct. RIPA does allow not knowing the key to be used as a defence but, unconstitutionally[1], places the balance of proof on the defendant. To use this defence, you must prove that you do not know the key. In the general case, this is impossible, but with a protocol like SSH you can easily demonstrate that you were never aware of the session key.

[1] Before idiots reply to this saying 'Britain does not have a constitution' we have a written constitution, but not a codified constitution. The constitution is drawn from several written documents, including the Bill of Rights, the Magna Carta and (more recently) the ECHR.

Re:Agreed - ban encryption.

[spacedoggy]

...and the cops start yammering about the crypto tech used by the bad guys making it harder for them to do their job...

They Already Have... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq2PK2W-vVI

Re:Agreed - ban encryption.

[Mattsson]

But the "encryption will make it difficult for us to monitor terrorists" argument is fundamentally flawed.
The people who does hard crimes over the internet already uses encryption, unless their stupid.
If they're stupid, they'll keep going without encryption even if non-criminal people start using it.

makes sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

-anything- is worth it to stop folk listening to Lily Allen

New rule

[T Murphy]

I propose the three strikes law three strikes law. A politician gets a strike for mentioning the three strikes law in a non-derisive manner, and gets banned from government after three strikes.

Re:New rule

[commodoresloat]

Seriously. WTF were they thinking? Oh, let's try this, it's working so well in America!

Re:New rule

[Anonymous Coward]

That's one.

Re:New rule

[Anonymous Coward]

I propose the three strikes law three strikes law. A politician gets a strike for mentioning the three strikes law in a non-derisive manner, and gets banned from government after three strikes.

How about: a polititian gets a strike for declaring that mortgage on his second home in london is wholly exclusively, and unavoidably for the good of his constituants?

3 strikes and you're disconnected from the global financial economy.

Can't Wait

[whisper_jeff]

I can't wait for some motivated group to deliver a clear message to politicians through a concerted effort to get politicians and their employees cut off from the internet simply by accusing them, three times, of copyright violations. Perhaps, once politicians and their staff are cut off from the online world, they'll begin to realize just how moronic this law is. When a simple accusation carries the weight of punishment, the possibilities of abuse are egregious.

Ah, the days of "innocent until proven guilty" seem like a distant memory now...

Re:Can't Wait

[kalirion]

All that would accomplish is immunity for politicians and their staff from this law.

Re:Can't Wait

[Jaysyn]

I'm betting they are excluded from this law a in typical neo-fascist fashion.

Re:Can't Wait

[wizardforce]

yeah they already know how absurd the law is; hence they'll make sure to include an exemption for themselves.

Re:Can't Wait

[dkf]

All that would accomplish is immunity for politicians and their staff from this law.

Unlikely. The UK doesn't go in for granting politicians legal immunity, even when this would be of great benefit for the party in power. I don't know if there are any formal rules in this area though.

Of course, if anyone does decide to use the three-strikes approach, could they please use it against some media types too? Might as well get some benefit out of a bad law...

Re:Can't Wait

[Jaysyn]

BTW, the UK has never had "innocent until proven guilty". I'm pretty sure it's the other way around there.

Re:Can't Wait

[Marcika]

All that would accomplish is immunity for politicians and their staff from this law.

Unlikely. The UK doesn't go in for granting politicians legal immunity, even when this would be of great benefit for the party in power. I don't know if there are any formal rules in this area though.

Of course, if anyone does decide to use the three-strikes approach, could they please use it against some media types too? Might as well get some benefit out of a bad law...

They don't have formal legal immunity, but if anything like this would happen, the police chiefs and the attorney general would likely determine that it is not 'in the public interest' to prosecute or punish politicians or other powerful people. (Just like it happens when an MP or minister falsifies expenses or commits other kinds of fraud.)

Re:Can't Wait

[bloobloo]

European Convention on Human Rights, Article 6.2

"2.Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law."

The ECHR is part of British law.

Re:Can't Wait

[pastafazou]

cutting a politician off from the internet is like banning blind people from driving.

Re:Can't Wait

[Jaysyn]

Another part that they ignore whenever they feel like it apparently.

Re:Can't Wait

[lordandmaker]

And what did Europe ever do for us?

Re:Can't Wait

[mitgib]

So when your ISP cans you, with no trial, no conviction, simply waive the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 6.2 at them and demand your connection back, if/when they decline, start running it up the legal flagpole, the court system, and get the law stricken from the books.

Re:Can't Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

For the time being. The tabloids have been running a hate campaign ever since it was introduced, only ever highlighting negative uses (criminals using it to challenge sentences and the like.) Sickeningly, "human rights" has become a phrase usually heard with a negative sneer in the UK.

Re:Can't Wait

[VShael]

They'd just make themselves exempt. Anyone could predict that. It's not like they haven't done it before. (The RIPA laws, see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/11/ripa_iii_figures )

What you need to do is target their kids, spouses, partners or loved ones.

Re:Can't Wait

[tomtomtom]

They don't have formal legal immunity, but if anything like this would happen, the police chiefs and the attorney general would likely determine that it is not 'in the public interest' to prosecute or punish politicians or other powerful people. (Just like it happens when an MP or minister falsifies expenses or commits other kinds of fraud.)

There are numerous examples of this. My favourites are Harriet Harman, the solicitor-general, who was caught speeding. The police officer in question claimed she was doing 99mph. Coincidentally, 1mph faster would have earned her an automatic 1-year driving ban and a much more serious criminal record likely resulting in her sacking from government.

Another good one is the recent case of Baroness Scotland, who was caught breaking a law which she herself was partly responsible for the creation of (she employed an illegal immigrant as her housekeeper then later claimed she'd seen documents giving the housekeeper the right to work in the UK but failed to keep copies so there was no evidence as to whether this was actually true or not).

Re:Can't Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, for that it has to be a criminal offence. They will make sure this is classified as a "misdemeanor" or some such, that puts it outside the scope of the ECHR.

Re:Can't Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait for some motivated group to deliver a clear message to politicians through a concerted effort to get politicians and their employees cut off from the internet simply by accusing them, three times, of copyright violations. Perhaps, once politicians and their staff are cut off from the online world, they'll begin to realize just how moronic this law is. When a simple accusation carries the weight of punishment, the possibilities of abuse are egregious.

Ah, the days of "innocent until proven guilty" seem like a distant memory now...

All that will happen from that is people who make these deliberately false accusations will go to jail. For you know, terrorism. Attacking the government and all.

So I'd suggest declining to engage in such behavior. The only person who would be punished is yourself.

Re:Can't Wait

[Gandalf_the_Beardy]

Innocent until proven guilt has been around for a long time - in fact the right to it in English Common Law and by extent in US law descends from the same place - the meadow in Runnymede in 1215AD where King John impressed his seal onto and issued Magna Carta.. "NO Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right"

Re:Can't Wait

[jimicus]

So when your ISP cans you, with no trial, no conviction, simply waive the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 6.2 at them and demand your connection back, if/when they decline, start running it up the legal flagpole, the court system, and get the law stricken from the books.

Which is great and all that but these things take months, if not years to sort out. Meantime you've got no Internet access.

Lots of people work from home some or all of the time. Join the dots...

Re:Can't Wait

[wvmarle]

As we always say here on /.: copyright infringement is civil law. Not criminal law. Now I don't know how the current UK laws are, IANAL and so and not British on top of that, but it's possible that this three-strike thing does not fall under criminal laws. In that case it is not a criminal offence and your statement would be moot.

Re:Can't Wait

[shutdown -p now]

As we always say here on /.: copyright infringement is civil law. Not criminal law.

Oh, so you're that guy who keeps spreading this misinformation in every copyright-related Slashdot story.

FYI, in U.S., copyright infringement was always criminal if done for profit; since 1997, even that is no longer true, and even simply giving someone a copy for free can be a criminal offense.

In UK, apparently, it can also be a criminal offense to merely distribute " large enough number of copies to have a noticeable effect on the business of the copyright owner". Considering how number of copies made, and consequent damages, has been counted so far in P2P cases that went to trial, I'd say it's something that would be trivial to run into just by running BT.

Re:Can't Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

In which case it makes them so tied up with the beauracracy of fighting these claims (and keeping themselves on the internet) that they are forced to repeal the law.
 
Either that, or the ISPs simply start refusing to honour the thousands of requests they have each week to disconnect their (paying) customers.
 
This could hit big business in the wallets; Something no politician ever wants to do.

Re:Can't Wait

[L4t3r4lu5]

Woo woo! Here comes the clue train!

Copyright infringement is still a civil offence in the United Kingdom! ECHR covers criminal offences.

Once again, people, illegal doesn't mean criminal!

Re:Can't Wait

[Homburg]

If by "never" you mean "since the 13th century."

Re:Can't Wait

[commodore64_love]

Jailed for refusing to provide a key? Interesting. That violates the EU Charter of Rights:

Article 8-1. Everyone has the right to the protection of personal data concerning him or her.
Article 48-1. Everyone who has been charged shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.

If the data was not cracked, how could the state declare guilt? The person should be released. It's too bad the EU neglected to include the right to not self-incriminate. In the U.S. you are not required to turn-over an encryption key, because of the Constitutional right to remain silent.

Re:Can't Wait

[fotbr]

They end up jailed for breaking the law that says "you have to turn over your encryption keys". They're not jailed for the original offense. I would imagine that the investigation continues, but by not revealing their encryption keys they then break a different law.

Re:Can't Wait

[Marcika]

Woo woo! Here comes the clue train! Copyright infringement is still a civil offence in the United Kingdom! ECHR covers criminal offences. Once again, people, illegal doesn't mean criminal!

But wouldn't they have to make it a criminal offense in order to push this measure through? Otherwise, what means would the rightsholder have to force a third party to the infringement (the ISP) to forgo business and profits by blocking the user?

Re:Can't Wait

[wvmarle]

Pretty much all those law suits we read about on /. related to file sharing are civil cases, not criminal cases. At least the RIAA et.al. initiated cases are.

So while there certainly are criminal copyright cases, what we hear about primarily are civil cases.

Furthermore it seems to me that in these three-strike-law cases the complainant is normally a civil party (copyright holder), not the government. Again it may be that indeed the UK government starts policing the Internet for file sharing activities.

Re:Can't Wait

[DrVxD]

Unlikely. The UK doesn't go in for granting politicians legal immunity

You didn't watch Question Time the other night did you? Jack "Boots" Straw offered Nick the Nazi immuity from prosecution - right there on my TV. (Aside from the fact I'm not entirely convinced an EX-Home Secretary actually has that power, he certainly shouldn't be making the offer on the spur of the moment - and in a very public forum - just to score some political points)

Re:Can't Wait

[DrVxD]

The ECHR is part of British law.

Although the powers that be have ruled that the whole section on no self-encrimination can be ignored whenever it suits them...

Re:Can't Wait

[DrVxD]

If they banned blind people from driving, could the get rid of the braille instructions/keypads on drive-through ATMs?

Re:Can't Wait

[TheRaven64]

police officer in question claimed she was doing 99mph. Coincidentally, 1mph faster would have earned her an automatic 1-year driving ban and a much more serious criminal record likely resulting in her sacking from government.

And do you have any evidence that she was going faster? My father was stopped doing, according to the police speed sensor, 99 2/3mph. He was about to leave the country for a few weeks, so he asked the police officer if he could delay the paperwork slightly so that he could pay the fine on time when he got back. The officer, apparently, never filed the paperwork, so he got away without even any points on his license, while he would have had his license confiscated on the spot if he'd been going slightly faster. He is not an MP, so the assertion that this kind of thing would only happen for those in government is not true.

Re:Can't Wait

[TheRaven64]

Actually, he didn't. I did watch the program, and he stated that:

• Holocaust denial is not a crime in the UK.
• The UK has, in the past, refused extradition of holocaust deniers to countries where it is illegal.
• This same courtesy would be extended to Nick Griffin.

He did not, at any point, offer Griffin immunity from prosecution under UK laws, only the same protection that any other UK citizen enjoys against prosecution by foreign governments for crimes that are committed in the UK and are not illegal in the UK.

Re:Can't Wait

[mitgib]

Nobody ever said it would be easy or quick, but testing laws in the courts may be one of the quickest ways to make bad law go away. Giving up is much easier though, so I see you side as well.

Re:Can't Wait

[commodore64_love]

>>"you have to turn over your encryption keys".

Which violates Article 8-1. I just said that.

Re:Can't Wait

[jimicus]

It's not that I think it's something to give up, it's that I think the ramifications of this are so great that you really need some way of resolving it that's a heck of a lot quicker than due process.

Re:Can't Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't have formal legal immunity, but if anything like this would happen, the police chiefs and the attorney general would likely determine that it is not 'in the public interest' to prosecute or punish politicians or other powerful people.

Unless they're opposition politicans, in which case their houses[1] and offices[2] get raided

[1] including searching through love-letters, and terrorising his kid daughter.

[2] despite this being illegal

Re:Can't Wait

[fotbr]

I was addressing the 2nd part of your comment. They can find you guilty without breaking the encryption, or ever decrypting your files, because they're finding you guilty and jailing you for breaking a different law.

Re:Can't Wait

[benedictaddis]

Illegal does mean criminal. The word you're looking for is 'unlawful' - as I pointed out on Monday to the Tory MEP who is working to weaken amendment 138 and thereby allow three-strikes rules across Europe.

Re:Can't Wait

[IBBoard]

Interestingly, someone has info that disagrees.

At the end of the day a three-strikes system could be good because it'd clear the pipes of all the heavy users (for now, until people find some other high-bandwidth usage), but I really don't like the "without a judge or judicial review" part.

Re:Can't Wait

[mitgib]

I think that is a whole other mess to fix, both in the US and EU. With voter turnouts under 50% of the registered voters, and registered voters making up the minority of the population, Politicians are herding the sheeple that are left and doing as they please for the past 100 or so years at least. The things going on in the EU I find simply appalling, and do not see how they think it can make themselves economically viable when the work week is near nil and add in 6 weeks of holiday a year. How could they expect any outcome other then their jobs leaving for other locations.

Re:Can't Wait

[lordandmaker]

Troll? I meant that in humour!

And one for Mandleson?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "minister" resposible for this was forced out of office twice for misconduct, he has no place even being in public office.

Re:And one for Mandleson?

[Smegly]

Some misconduct links for the unelected Mandleson: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Mandelson#Recent_controversies
but wikipedia is missing some other controversy:
From Lord Mandelson: Whitehall's Emperor, or just a team player?

"Unelected yet holding a raft of political positions, including that of cabinet minister, Mandelson is the TV executive who learned to play both the Labour party and the UK system. Previously forced out of Blair's cabinet office twice, once for mortgage fraud and once for abusing his power to help chums get passports, Blair nevertheless then gifted Mandelson the job of Britain's European Commissioner for Trade in 2004 where he hob nobbed on yachts with Microsoft executives and Russian oligarths wanting favours, and then inexplicably returned to the UK in 2008 a very rich man.... Who says the public sector doesn't pay?!! Even the UK citizenship of Mandelson's Brazilian boyfriend stinks of favourtism and misconduct. Reinaldo Avila da Silva came to Britain in 1996 aged 22 on a student visa and was picked up by the then 43 year old Mandelson pretty much on his first night out. Da Silva had no right to British citizenship in 2005, indeed it was apparent that he had overstayed his visa and as such was an illegal immigrant. No worries, a few phone calls from Mandelson and da Silva was safely clutching a shiny new British passport. "

Re:And one for Mandleson?

[duguk]

Agreed. Email your local MP (http://www.writetothem.com/) I've created a petition too, but it's not live yet. I'll reply when it is.

Text:
Sith Peter Mandelson has carefully ignored the Gowers Report and the Carter Report, instead taking the advice of his good friend David Geffen (Dreamworks, Geffen Records, previously Warner too) - announcing that 'three strikes and you're out' will become law in Britain.

This is the same "minister" who was forced out of office twice for misconduct, he has no place even being in public office, especially if his views are not unbiased; especially given two Governmental reports to the contrary.

This law is unconstitutional and doesn't account for users with insecure internet connections who are abused and requires no court intervention. European has even considered this a abuse of human rights if it goes forward. It would not be surprising to hear of DCMA style complaints being made, even wrongly, and ISPs would be forced to disconnect users without any proof.

The Open Rights Group has, of course, hit the roof. Oh, and never mind MI5 and the police pointing out that widespread encryption will become normal, hampering their efforts to keep up with little things like impending terrorist atrocities. Still, it's worth it to stop a few Lily Allen tracks being shared, right?

Re:And one for Mandleson?

[Anonymous Coward]

Censorship on Wikipedia sucks.

Re:And one for Mandleson?

[shic]

Don't worry, he's only had two strikes - he's in the clear until he gets a third.

Re:And one for Mandleson?

[Meski]

The "minister" resposible for this was forced out of office twice for misconduct, he has no place even being in public office.

Well, he has one strike left.

Re:And one for Mandleson?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sith Peter Mandelson is right.

Re:And one for Mandleson?

[IBBoard]

You never know - maybe he'll be forced out of office once more for misconduct and then it'll be "three strikes and you're out - we're taking your political access away from you"!

Re:And one for Mandleson?

[somersault]

It's easier to just type "Darth Mandelson"

Re:And one for Mandleson?

[Anonymous Coward]

'Tis nothing more than the latest money/power grab over people's rights

Re:And one for Mandleson?

[duguk]

They never accepted my petition (surprised?)

but I have recording a audio Twitumm describing what the hell is going on here, as have a few others.

It's all listenable/downloadable/streamable on Twitumm.com

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[Spad]

Not a good idea, it'd take 5 days to make a decision and probably end in a draw.

Three strikes in Politics..

[malkavian]

Well, considering "Mandy" has already been forced to resign from Labour twice already for scandals (involving borrowing money from someone he was supposed to be investigating to buy a lovely house in central london among other activities), one wonders if he's caught with his hand in the cookie jar yet again, will this third strike resignation force his exclusion from Politics?
Allegedly, he'd shown no interest in this whatsoever before going for a meal at a lovely retreat owned by a movie producer, and a few days holiday.. On his return, this was basically mandated with no consultation.
Yay for unelected politicians who keep coming back despite being forced to resign in shame.

Re:Three strikes in Politics..

[njj]

Yay for unelected politicians who keep coming back despite being forced to resign in shame.

I think his unelected status is a bit of a red herring, to be honest. The unelected Lord Mandelson of Hartlepool and Foy is pretty much exactly as dodgy as the duly elected Rt Hon Peter Mandelson MP was. Plus there are plenty of other very dodgy elected politicians (as the recent expenses furore demonstrated), and lots of entirely sensible and honest unelected peers (especially the non-party-affiliated cross-benchers) who do very good work, are acknowledged experts in their fields, and who are definitely worth having involved in the legislature. But yes, there does seem to have been a bit of a tradition of "two strikes and you get a peerage" in British politics over the last few decades: the novelist and convicted liar Jeffrey Archer is a prime example, and it can only be a matter of time before David Blunkett gets kicked upstairs too.

Re:Three strikes in Politics..

[DrVxD]

On his return, this was basically mandated with no consultation.

Surely you're not suggesting that His Imperial Emperorship dates with man? Still, you've got to tick those diversity boxes....

Welcome To The

[Anonymous Coward]

New World Order.

British colonialism at work: conflicts for the last 200 years in the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia.

Yours In Yaznogorsk,
K. Trout

Re:Welcome To The

[Richard Steiner]

Those regions have had their own internal conflicts for far longer than the British Empire has existed.

Re:Welcome To The

[TheDugong]

Indeed. The BE was only able to exist as a result of the conflicts. Divide and conquer anyway?

Except for Govt of course.

[TaoPhoenix]

Amazing it gleefully says "file sharing" and not "music sharing". So let him grab one graphic he swipes because his office can't be bothered to cleanroom it, grab one little shareware snip that he can ignore even the postcard-terms on, and then let the last one be one of the Britain's Got Talent winning songs. Poof!

 

Re:Except for Govt of course.

[Nerdfest]

The image search engine TinEye will become very handy.

Lily Allen wikipedia article

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW, there's an editor on wikipedia who keeps on moving the detail about Lily Allen's stance on copyright infringement into a subsection labelled "Social Activism' on her page. Hardly social activism I would think to speak out about something that is in her own financial interest.

Re:Lily Allen wikipedia article

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod++ and InformWikiEditors(this)!

Re:Lily Allen wikipedia article

[rohan972]

Hardly social activism I would think to speak out about something that is in her own financial interest.

Do people engage in social activism for causes that aren't in their interest (financial or otherwise)? It might be cynical money-grabbing social activism but activist!=altruist. I would say that many social activists have been working directly for their own benefit, for example the black civil rights movement whose members certainly would benefit from equal rights and not being lynched. We don't judge the cause by the benefit they hope for but by whether their it is just and reasonable.

Lily Allen is certainly a social activist on copyright infringement. Those of us who feel that she picked the wrong side of the debate would still feel that way if she did not stand to profit from it. Also consider that many people have never been exposed to a serious argument against copyright or the continual extension of copyright terms etc, the only thing they've seen is the FBI notice and "You wouldn't steal a handbag" clips. Put such a person in an industry where all the people who pay them confirm and add to that propaganda and I think we can safely say that musicians and others who are horrified at the thought of bits being copied are quite genuine even if misguided. They really do believe that teenagers listening to songs without paying will be the end of civilisation as we know it.

Re:Lily Allen wikipedia article

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't bother editing wikipedia. Boys create content, girl editors destroy it.

Re:Lily Allen wikipedia article

[commodoresloat]

Hmmm... Is it considered "social activism" to use slashdot to get people to swarm-edit Wikipedia pages?

Don't call him "Lord"

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no legal penalty for failing to refer to him by his "proper" title. Don't defer respect to this appalling man because Mister Mandelson is utterly undeserving of it.

Re:Don't call him "Lord"

[Anonymous Cowpat]

or Comrade Lord Mandelson, as he is known to the readers of the great journal of the nation's affairs

Re:Don't call him "Lord"

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I prefer Sith Lord Mandelson.

Capcha: Tremble. How appropriate...

Re:Don't call him "Lord"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Lord" Fondlebum of Boy.

Re:Don't call him "Lord"

[TheRaven64]

Why not? We refer to all the other Sith as Lord...

Govt does this all the time

[Alain Williams]

Appoint a knowledgable committee to look into something and the do something else based on what a mate told them on the golf course, or some well funded pressure group said (party donations help).

The UK parliament is in enough trouble through them dishonestly claiming too much expenses -- time for a real reform. Men of honour don't seem to exist in politics (in large enough numbers), so we need real transparency and accountability.

Guy Fawkes night is soon -- maybe a real reenactment is about due!

Re:Govt does this all the time

[mistralol]

And the last committee the goverment setup was tasks with coming up with a new design of a horse. They called there new prototype a camel

Re:Govt does this all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

Guy Fawkes night is soon -- maybe a real reenactment is about due!

You may recall that Fawkes targeted the House of Lords not the Commons. Which house is Mandelson currently in?

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[Sockatume]

And that old favourite, "ban quashed due to bad light".

Why would anyone pirate Lily Allen anyway?

[twoshortplanks]

If you're in the UK you can play her album for free on Spotify anyway...

(I'm being silly. Of course I'll be contacting my MP about this.)

Re:Why would anyone pirate Lily Allen anyway?

[slim]

Spotify isn't free, as long as you count listening to adverts as a payment method.

I pay for GMail by seeing ads.
I pay for Spotify by hearing ads.
I pay for X Factor by fast-forwarding through ads...

Re:Why would anyone pirate Lily Allen anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep downloading it, over and over, in an attempt to bankrupt the recording industry.

Re:Why would anyone pirate Lily Allen anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

Parliament isn't doing enough to prevent people being exposed to Lilly Allen.

Re:Why would anyone pirate Lily Allen anyway?

[isorox]

I pay for X Factor by fast-forwarding through ads

Despite never watching xfactor, I pay for it by buying products that are advertised.

Re:Why would anyone pirate Lily Allen anyway?

[asdf7890]

I pay for X Factor by fast-forwarding through ads...

You pay for X Factor through continuing mental degradation as a result of sitting through trash like X Factor. You'd be better off watching the ads and fast-forwarding through the rest.

Re:Why would anyone pirate Lily Allen anyway?

[slim]

continuing mental degradation as a result of sitting through trash like X Factor.

You clearly don't enjoy it on as many levels as I do ;)

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, there should be something to make sure that people do not consider this rule to be in the same ballpark as the rule prevalent in the criminal laws of the states in the U.S. Yes, that pun was intended.

But more seriously, being punished with the loss of the use of the internet for continuing to do something that they have twice told you to stop doing is hardly the draconian rule that in America has lead to people serving 25 years for stealing three golf clubs because they had previously committed 2 felonies. See Ewing v. California, 123 S.Ct. 1179 (2003).

I don't mind this....

[yargnad]

as long as I can still find nude pics of Lily Allen on google images.

Re:I don't mind this....

[David Gerard]

The hard part is finding images of her that aren't nude. I think her nipples must repel clothes or something.

ITS QUITE OVIOUS

Re:I don't mind this....

[conureman]

Thanks for the heads up. I dursn't google for images, then. I was noticing a Godwin-like meme, where that name kept popping up, (Who the hell...)so I went to a site that hosted a couple of songs. I can think of lots of things to say, but words can't convey the extent of the horror I felt. I hope THAT'll pass. So a meme would be the worst possible thing.

Re:I don't mind this....

[TheRaven64]

In the interest of scientific enquiry, I did a google image search for her name with safesearch off. No nude (or topless) pictures on the first five pages and I didn't bother looking any further. Still no idea who she is or why we should care though.

Mandelson is waiting for his third strike

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

In other news, serial resigner, unelected jobsworth, and general insult to the democratic process "Lord" Peter Mandelson, having been appointed to high government office on a technicality by serial bad decision maker, unelected jobsworth, and general insult to the democractic process Gordon Brown, will shortly be resigning, again, having demonstrated a stunning lack of competence in public office, again.

Sorry, we've got an update: the Labour Party are going to get hammered so badly in the general election next year that they might actually come third, the current administration is already in lame duck mode, and Mandelson's views are all but irrelevant.

Frankly, I'm more worried about what David Cameron and his crew are going to do when they get in. If memory serves, they have publicly backed screwing the people in favour of Big Media pretty much any time the question has come up, also directly contravening overwhelming public sentiment expressed to Gowers et al.

Re:Mandelson is waiting for his third strike

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always looked at government and politics from a common-sense perspective. The people who seek power over others are, naturally, NOT those who intend to mind their own business and live in peace among equals. The people who seek power over others are, naturally, those who intend to use it for personal gain, not as an equal, but as a superior. After all, if these people truly wanted to be equal, then they wouldn't enter the business of government.

Voting can't change this basic law of human nature. No amount of sugar-coating will ever change this. Looking from the outside in, it's easy to see what really goes on in the business of government. It's not so easy looking from the inside out (for those who have faith in government and politics).

Re:Mandelson is waiting for his third strike

[u38cg]

I suspect the Conservatives are sufficiently pragmatic to make soothing noise to Big Meeja, take their campaign money, and then do nothing about it once they get in. One of my main reasons for favouring the Tories this time around is they seem not to have the Labour approach of knee-jerk legislation for any given problem.

Re:Mandelson is waiting for his third strike

[JAlexoi]

FFS Brits. Do us all a favour, just draft a constitution that ban those unelected sponges from holding offices. You do know, that you don't have that most simple defining document? Is there anything your parliament can't pass as a law?
In the words of David Mitchell: You don't take active interest in how your country is run for 40 years, and look what happens.

Re:Mandelson is waiting for his third strike

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

That's a lovely idea. Unfortunately, short of violent overthrow of the existing government, it's unlikely to happen in the immediate future.

Political pressure is bringing about changes, slowly but surely: as of a few days ago, we have complete separation of the judiciary from the legislature, for example, and most of the hereditary peers have gone from the Lords, so at least you have to suck up yourself to get in there instead of being given a place just because some ancestor of yours once did.

I think things will continue to improve, because trust in politicians is at an all-time low, and merely getting elected will probably require some significant concessions now. We have the mess of the expenses scandal, which has effectively cost about 20% of MPs their jobs or senior positions (not to mention actual cash in many cases). Worse, it has cost the entire political class a lot of credibility, compounding things like the Iraq war (over the obvious objections of literally millions of citizens taking to the streets), numerous heavy-handed actions on the part of the police in recent years, the surveillance state, and the way the Brown administration took over running the country on the back of an extremely dubious mandate. It's hard to see any part getting to the general election next year without promising significant action on many of these points (or at least backtracking quietly, in the case of Labour).

Re:Mandelson is waiting for his third strike

[MightyDrunken]

The likely view of the Conservative party regarding copyright and other things will certainly align themselves with Rupert Murdoch's views. The parties covet the support of certain parts of the media, especially The Sun.
Expect a hard time for the BBC and anything else which may mean less profit for Sky and News Corporation.

Politician's quest to get themselves elected into power so often seems to mean they lose their perspective (think of the children) and sacrifice any principle they may have had.

Whoever wrote TFS is retarded

[thisnamestoolong]

They start off good, railing against the absurd 3 strikes law, but then continue on to rail against encryption as hampering the ability of law enforcement to fight terrorism? It seems you missed the grape Kool-Aid, but ended up drinking the blue raspberry just the same...

Re:Whoever wrote TFS is retarded

[Spad]

It wasn't railing against encryption, it was pointing out that both the police & the intelligence services have voiced their disapproval over the "Three Strikes" idea because it's likely to increase the use of encryption and therefore make their lives more difficult. i.e. It's not just a load of pirates that Mandy's ignored on this one.

Re:Whoever wrote TFS is retarded

[Anonymous Coward]

err... TFS mirrors TFA... not that you read it or anything...

Re:Whoever wrote TFS is retarded

[thisnamestoolong]

Yes it is. That last sentence is clearly implying that the possible increased use of encryption will hamper law enforcement in their prevention of terrorism. This is, for many obvious reasons, laughably retarded.

TOR

[MBGMorden]

I know that TOR can already have P2P data streamed across it at the expense of the network, but honestly, I wonder how long it is before someone comes up with a purpose built anonymizing P2P system.

I really think the government is chasing it's tail on this one. "The Internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it."

Re:TOR

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been done, although there are questions about exactly how secure PD is (closed source, performance-orientated.) There's also Freenet which aims to be considerably more secure/anonymous, but is slower and still under heavy development.

Re:TOR

[u38cg]

Academically, it's done, it just needs sufficient incentive for users to switch. How to create effective P2P networks is an interesting area of academic research, and there's been quite a lot done on it over the last few years (eMule and BitTorrent both started life as academic works).

Re:TOR

[DrVxD]

I wonder how long it is before someone comes up with a purpose built anonymizing P2P system.

You mean like I2P?

Tagging

[Jaysyn]

The airstripone tag seems more appropriate every day.

So I can ban anyone I want?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean I can declare any content I want my copyright and accuse anyone I want of stealng it until they get cut off without anyone looking over my shoulder?

Widespread Encryption

[DanMelks]

...And I say we need to be encrypting our traffic anyway. The average computer contains more than enough processing power, and the average 'pipe' width can easily handle the extra resources needed for widespread use of encryption in day-to-day use.

In addition, the recent trend in government is towards snooping and perv-ish behavior: China with its "great" firewall, USA with its unwarranted spying and packet sniffing, and now the UK with its new "three-strikes" policies. I pay my ISP a significant sum of money to deliver me 1s and 0s as fast as they can, and there are very, very few exceptions in which they have a need to know what those 1s and 0s add up to.

I call upon the open source community to lead the way -- while I would love to see the big leagues (Microsoft, Apple, etc) apply their tonnage behind such a problem, pigs are more likely to fly first. How hard would it be for a browser to automatically attempt to negotiate a secure connection for every visited web page and only use normal, unencrypted access when a secure connection fails or cannot be completed in a secure amount of time? People running web servers would not have to make major modifications, only implement a new protocol.

Tempting...

[BumpyCarrot]

"Still, worth it to stop a few Lily Allen tracks being shared, right?" Truly, the cost is too dear, even for that.

Hey Britons

[parlancex]

Thanks for allowing this to happen. I expect it will be only a few months before someone stands up in Canadian parliament to make a speech that includes the phrase "3 strikes laws have already been enacted in other nations, such as Britain...". There comes a point where you should realize that angry letters aren't going to get it done, you're going to have to accept your responsibility to take more aggressive action when your government does not stand up for its people.

Re:Hey Britons

[kevinNCSU]

Wow Britain, you just got told to take "more aggressive action" by CANADIANS. Talk about called out.

Re:Hey Britons

[Metasquares]

These things seem like they're only a matter of time. Everyone thought this was dead in France when ruled unconstitutional, then a week or two ago it was suddenly opened again. Sheer persistence ends up getting these things passed, regardless of the opposition and regardless of due process. It's almost inevitable.

In other words, politicians do what they want to do (or what other people convince them they want to do), whether or not it serves the interest of their constituents. And they'll keep trying until they get what they want. That persistence is probably one of the traits that got them elected in the first place, after all.

Re:Hey Britons

[Vanderhoth]

this is a serious issue for everyone. I'm Canadian and I disagree with this being the fault of Britons, it's the fault of politicians. Before you know it this "Three strikes" rule will spread to Canada and to the US, especially if it "appears" to work in France and Briton.

Before I was able to download music, movies and other information I was locked into what was locally distributed. Someone else was deciding what I should have access to. I've discovered all kinds of new things I would have never even known existed. My policy is download to try, if I like it I try to buy it. And I have bought several movies and albums that weren't available here.

I don't want to go back to only having access to what someone else thinks I should like.

So, what I can the rest of us do to help stop this before it gets too out of hand?

Re:Hey Britons

[Nerdfest]

Sheer persistence ends up getting these things passed,

You've spelled "corruption" wrong.

Re:Hey Britons

[Anonymous Coward]

You spelt 'spelled' wrongly, and 'wrong' wrongly ;-)

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[pastafazou]

If you haven't learned to be a law abiding citizen after being punished twice already for breaking the law, then you should be spending a long time in prison for a third offense. Punishment for a fourth offense should be exile.

Level of Responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

If one person in a family is accused of pirating, the whole household gets cut off?

If one person in a company is accused of pirating while at work, the whole company gets cut off?

If one person in a ministry is accused of pirating while at work, the whole ministry gets cut off?

Who is _allowed_ to accuse?

Re:Level of Responsibility

[purpledinoz]

You know the answer. The large media corporations.

Re:Level of Responsibility

[DrVxD]

If one person in a family is accused of pirating, the whole household gets cut off?

Yes.

If one person in a company is accused of pirating while at work, the whole company gets cut off?

Yes.

If one person in a ministry is accused of pirating while at work, the whole ministry gets cut off?

No. Governments interpret laws as inconvenient when applied to themselves, and find routes around them...

Re:Level of Responsibility

[TheRaven64]

Presumably there will be no (or irrelevantly small) penalties for filing incorrect complaints. As such, the best course of action will be to inundate the ISPs of the relevant politicians with notices requesting their disconnection. For added fun, send them from a different country so the penalties can't be enforced even if they do exist.

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[stewbacca]

I was thinking something along the line of red card analgoies, but you normally don't get three "strikes" before the red card.

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh ho ho. Contrary to popular belief most of us don't really care about cricket, football (soccer) is the national sport.

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[DoofusOfDeath]

Not a good idea, it'd take 5 days to make a decision and probably end in a draw.

Sounds good to me.

Dear Lily Allen,

[AP31R0N]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL9-esIM2CY

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[Kozz]

I'd been trying to make this joke all week, but despite reading the wiki page on Cricket, I couldn't write the joke to make it sound like I knew what I was talking about. Three strikes and I suppose now *I'm* out.

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[JustOK]

I got two strikers on the same red card once.

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[Fjodor42]

Because long prison terms create nicely-behaved perfect citizens after time served? Got any research material to that effect lying around?

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[stewbacca]

"Three strikes" laws -- particularly the California version that allows petty crimes to trigger the third strike -- are problematic. There are varying levels of severity for felonies, some that deserve life sentences, some that deserve probation, and everything in between.

One guy commits two two heinous felonies, somehow lawyers his way out of long prison terms, and another guy, a) steals a purse, b) hits a parked car and runs away, and c) steals bubble gum from the store goes to prison for life. I'm not sure how any sane, thinking person on this planet can't see the glaring flaw with this system.

Do not be optimistic...

[tanveer1979]

There is something called T20 now, which ends in a few hours, and never ever results in a draw, unless it rains, and even then a draw is not certain :)

Re:Do not be optimistic...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is something called T20 now, which ends in a few hours, and never ever results in a draw, unless it rains, and even then a draw is not certain :)

No, T20 could conceivably end in a tie (unless they have a local rule in place for the game to provide for silly schemes to force a result).... but that's not at all the same as a draw, which occurs only in Test matches and is essentially due to the game running out of time. I mean, they only have five days in Test matches, so of course they need a way to deal with running out of time.

Why would P2P switch to encryption?

[will_die]

If encryption becomes popular then I can see the point the police are making but why would people using P2P start using encryption to start the cycle?

If everyone on P2P started encrypting the transportation it would make no difference because the arrests and letters to pay or else have not been caused by MITM sniffing.
If P2Pers start encrypting all files you have to have some method of getting the password out to everyone and that would require some club or private site and once you have that it is easier to get a legal right to inspect and copy all infomation on that site. Such a site would have email address and other information about the users, so if anything this is something that P2Pers would avoid.
The only place P2P where encryption would work is with blocking the IP address of the people sharing but that would require some central site that routes the traffic so it is not really P2P anymore.
I don't really understand in depth how P2P works so what am I missing here?

Re:Why would P2P switch to encryption?

[scoobertron]

I agree. As I understood it, the RIAA etc just got themselves some torrents and read the IP addresses of their peers - Im assuming encryption would not stop this (but I invite correction). I suspect that the safest and easiest way to avoid detection is to crack someone else's wifi. I imagine someone with better script-fu would find it pretty straightforward to automate aircrack so it just runs down the list of available networks hadopi-router-style. This is why the legislation is really dumb. I don't see any serious torrenter getting caught. But I see lots of regular folk who don't know much about network security getting disconnected because they live next door to a university hall of residence (for example) and only have WEP security on their wifi.

Re:Why would P2P switch to encryption?

[maxwell demon]

With encryption, they cannot see whether you are illegally sharing copyrighted material or transferring legal data. And I guess even with current legislation, "they have copied a large amount of data, but we have no clue what it was" would not be enough for legal action. Of course if the site they connected to contained only illegal content, it would probably enough. However, it probably isn't too hard to also put up torrents for all sorts of free material (Open Source material, Creative Commons stuff, etc.) besides the illegal stuff.

Another option would be to combine cryptography with steganography. Hide the encrypted illegal material inside larger, legal material. I think if done right, unless you know the password to decrypt, you shouldn't even have a chance to detect that there is encrypted material inside (but then, I'm not an expert in cryptography or steganography). The disadvantage of that method is, of course, that your files would have to get much larger (AFAIU it has to offer enough noise to be replaced by your data).

Re:Why would P2P switch to encryption?

[jimicus]

Encryption itself won't help much here, but things like tor and freenet would. If someone were to apply the ideas behind tor to something like BitTorrent, it'd be impossible to tell whether any given node in a torrent were actually using the material it were distributing or simply sitting there passing it on.

Re:Why would P2P switch to encryption?

[will_die]

Reading the reports on the various lawsuits the *IAA groups would find people sharing a large number of files with names of songs, movies, etc then download a few to very they are files the sharer is not authorized to share. For P2P to work there has to be some common way that people can find are download/upload files and if that happens then the *IAA would also be able to get the method to decrypt the data and see the names of the items.
Be it steganography or passwords somehow original picture or password would have to be distributed and easy to access. If a large amount of people cannot access the music, movies,etc then P2P is dead which is just want *IAA wants.

Re:Why would P2P switch to encryption?

[gilgongo]

Your wish is my command

I don't really know if it's a very good solution technically, but I proxy all my tracker communications through I2P (and encrypt my transport). I tried using I2P's native BitTorrent client, but the network is pretty slow (about the half the speed of normal BT).

Re:Why would P2P switch to encryption?

[jimicus]

And you know what happens next? Outlawing any software which attempts to hide the origin or ultimate destination of network traffic.

So next some basic stenography principles are applied and bingo! Can't tell the difference between that and HTTP.

And so begins the arms race that the spooks are so afraid of starting. What's particularly amusing/concerning (depending on how paranoid you are) is that technology moves so much faster than legislation that it's an arms race that legislation is doomed to lose unless such broadly written legislation is passed that they can get you for more-or-less anything.

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[stewbacca]

Nice! As a striker myself, I can appreciate your brutal form of defense, but still don't like it ;-)

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[tlhIngan]

Because long prison terms create nicely-behaved perfect citizens after time served? Got any research material to that effect lying around?

Less that, and more "just put away repeat offenders" so they can't commit anymore crimes. Here (Vancouver, Canada), it's reported that 10% of criminals commit 90% of the offenses (we're talking property crime and such). So it's less rehabilitation, and more lock them up so they can't commit crimes aspect. (Especially since bleeding-heart judges often just let them off with a slap on the wrist, so they'll commit their next robbery or mugging fresh from court - revolving door justice).

Of course, this should be more than 3 offenses...

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[tomtomtom]

Not a good idea, it'd take 5 days to make a decision and probably end in a draw.

Not if they use the Duckworth-Lewis scoring method.

Why would they care about hampering terrorism?

[Anonymous Coward]

Terrorist attacks typically affect normal people. Copyright violations typically affect rich people. Guess which one they're more concerned with? Besides, increased terrorism means the plebs are more willing to give away whatever liberties they may have left in exchange for reassurances of safety.

Mandelscum

[AdmV0rl0n]

These bastards, and that slimy scumbag Mandelson have spend the past 13 years utterly ruining everything, every institution, way of life, habitat, hobby, social fabric and this?

Basically, people are slowly concluding a few things, some are less than good, but for every action, there is a reaction, clearly 13 years too late. Vote anyone but these bastards, and tell them why at every moment they bang on your door or come to your doorstep. Vote BNP, UKIP, Con, Lib - ANYONE but these slimy dark forces shits.

Their brand of nanny state 1984 insanity, and mass persecution of population, drivers, and all the rest, and their enforced political correctness and multiculturalism, and devolution, and EU fanatisism, and the rest is DEAD. OVER. FINISHED.

Its the worst government the UK has had in any modern times, and people cannot wait to be rid of them.

Re:Mandelscum

[Vanderhoth]

It's not going to matter who you vote for. A politician is a politician, they can be bought by anyone with enough money and they only have to be elected once in order to A) screw things up and B) reap the benefits of being in power. It seems to me at least that it doesn't matter what "Democratic" society you're from the government is showing more and more interest in absolute control over everything everyone does. Sure we need laws and protection from "stuff", but what stuff do we need to be protected from?

Someone breaking into my car and steeling my CD's... Yeah.

Me willingly sharing my music collection with other... ?

Maybe it's time for a global movement where "The people" decide what the limits of government should be, but how do we effect the system so that government listens to us? Elections are only held so often and by the time they roll around "The people" have forgotten who is screwing them over, and again, you get rid of one politician that screwing you only to elect another with a bigger ****

Re:Mandelscum

[u38cg]

Democracy isn't about choosing a government, it's about being able to dispose of the one you have. That is its real power.

Re:Mandelscum

[Vanderhoth]

but the government decides when you get to get rid if it.

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[pastafazou]

don't care if long prison terms create nicely-behaved perfect citizens. Long prison terms keep poorly-behaved flawed citizens from F*ing with the nicely behaved perfect citizens. Where the hell did people get the notion that prison is meant to reform criminals? It's meant to keep them away from society for a set period of time. After that, they're given another chance to be a normal citizen. If they screw up again, they go back again, this time for longer. Human lifespan is finite. If they choose to spend most of theirs in a prison because they don't like the laws society has made, then so be it.

One more reason why Labour will not be re-elected

[tebee]

I can't help wondering why it has not occurred to this government, that if there are as many filesharers as they say, then being nasty to them is not going to exactly encourage them to vote Labour at the next election.

Obviously a Government with a suicide wish.

not again

[Anonymous Coward]

Rear shafted by the UK Labour Government again...Bring on the General election...time to show these twats that we have had enough.

I did contact my MP, but seeing as he is standing down at the next General election due to the expenses scandal I ain't holding my breath...

Jumping the gun

[Zoxed]

The title ' "Three Strikes" To Go Ahead In Britain ' is, err, a little misleading (what, on /. ? never).

My understanding is that the policy is being proposed form inclusion in a new bill. AFAIK this then has to be bounced between The House of Commons and the Lords and finally signed by HRM before it is law. And this assumes it is not removed and/or amended in this process.

3 strikes

[naeone]

so p2p is now like the post office ???

Pointing out the obvious

[oDDmON oUT]

This is a direct corollary to politicians being in bed with media and both parties fisting away like rabid hamsters.

No need for TOR, encryption, or any other technological fix, *if* we approach this problem politically. It can be cured by term limits [in *any* democratically elected government], enforcement of existing laws, restrictions on lobbying, and public support of governmental transparency.

Of course the chances for this rank right up there with the second coming of a certain Nazarene, so I'm getting out my tin foil hat and battening down the hatches.

Lily Allen - hypocrite?

[fahrbot-bot]

From the Lily Allen, Social Activism page and section:

Lily Allen came out in strong support for disconnecting offenders. Creating a blog entitled "It's Not Alright" against file sharing, it subsequently came to light that she had copied text directly from the Techdirt website of an interview with 50 Cent. This led to an exchange on the internet, which culminated in accusations being made that Ms. Allen had infringed on other artists' copyrights by creating mix tapes early in her career, that she then made available via her website.

Pot? Kettle is on the phone...

Re:Lily Allen - hypocrite?

[1s44c]

Pot? Kettle is on the phone...

It's only wrong when other people do it.

No matter what it is it's only wrong when other people do it.

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[pastafazou]

having been warned twice already that failure to abide by the law will result in a lengthy prison sentence, stealing bubble gum as the third offense would reveal a complete lack of any wisdom. This person has no risk assessment skills whatsoever, and is obviously a threat to his fellow citizens simply by the damage that he could do out of sheer stupidity. Lock him up for his own as well as everyone else's good.

Simple Solution

[Bob9113]

Oh, and never mind MI5 and the police pointing out that widespread encryption will become normal, hampering their efforts to keep up with little things like impending terrorist atrocities.

If that's the only objection from accredited members of the oligarchy, it's easy to fix. Just require all encryption to use published certs from approved corporations. Then you can apply the three strikes law to anyone who is using encryption for evil purposes, like doing anything other than shopping at approved online merchants. Frankly, if you're not using the Internet to give your money back to the accredited members of the regime, you're probably a terrorist anyway. I don't see why we would want to cripple our ability to channel additional money to the senior establishments in the oligarchy in order to let terrorists use the Internet.

David Geffen? Feh!

[Anonymous Coward]

This would of course be the same David Geffen who spent a quarter of a century trying to keep the unwashed masses from using the publicly-owned beach in front of his house in Malibu.

Some speculations on the motives

[zuki]

I am struggling to understand the deep disconnect at work here...
These people in government have advisors, technical experts and all sorts of qualified people to tell them how worthless this will be.

It boggles the imagination to not even contemplate the number of false positives this will generate, besides encryption, it has been pointed out
many times that all this may do is drive more people to hack their neighbors' wireless networks, using Kismet or other trivial password sniffers.
If up to 10% of all PCs worldwide can be hacked into botnets, it doesn't take a genius to see doing similar things from other people's machines
and let them take the fall for it....

The only explanation I can come up with is that either:

• This is just a public rehearsal for a forthcoming Monty Python skit... but a really bad one at that.
• Or maybe someone in government volunteering a really Kafka-esque script for Brazil 2, a sequel to one of the already
  widely-acknowledged cinematic references in truly depressing thoughts, to first be tested on the public for 'authenticity' on how to
  best persecute innocent people with maximum effect?
• That such a situation amply demonstrates the obstinate nature of that famous British stiff upper-lip in the face of common
  sense, but also cunningly facilitates implementing surveillance and further counter-measures against 'criminalization'. (see above)

Regardless of the answer to these silly questions, one can only wonder what the endgame will be. Enforcement or not, the major content holders
cannot keep going the way they have been, and with ever-dwindling revenue, (especially in the music divisions) will eventually have their assets
ultimately disposed of at the auction block for pennies on the dollar to people like Google, who will love nothing better than to practically give
it away for free, in trying to lure customers to purchase other things, rather than to keep suing them for not buying physical goods in formats
that were once popular during the previous century, and still demanding to charge the same price for it without the old expenses.

And what will this grand adventure have accomplished? There is a name for that special moment in the hunt, when the game is barely walking,
bleeding profusely, surrounded by a pack of growling dogs, but still trying to gore one of them on their way out....In French "La Curée"

That's pretty much what it feels like.... Really!
Scorched Earth Policy..... This too will come to pass.

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[tsm_sf]

Where the hell did people get the notion that prison is meant to reform criminals?

You mean the Department of Corrections, incarcerating someone at a correctional facility?

easy answer

[Anonymous Coward]

An effective decentralized anonymity service will use encryption to mask contents and traffic destinations of communications across a network. Think TOR or Freenet.

Anonymity systems become much more difficult for eavesdroppers to deal with as (a) more people use them, and (b) the contents of the networks diversify. That is why this ruling is great news for anonymity services and privacy in general. It will push more file sharers onto existing anonymity networks, and lead to the development of better systems.

Far too polite

[Kupfernigk]

The Labour Party - you know, the social democrats - have behaved like the Newcastle Government of the pre-reform era in putting unelected and unelectable nonentities into power. (the Attorney General is another unelectable, "Baroness" Scotland.) Mandelson has too much time in which to make this stuff actually happen. This is the guy who suppressed any attempt by the British Press to mention his Brazilian boyfriend - he is hardly an advertisement for freedom of information - and who is trying to privatise the Royal Mail against the views of the great majority including many in his own party. My suspicion is that he is actually a long-term deep penetration Conservative mole whose job is to make labour unelectable. He's even managed to make Labour give him a peerage so that the Conservatives won't be seen to do it. He is the best argument for abolishing the House of Lords imaginable.

We need a new Reform Bill. Actually, we need a new Glorious Revolution.

Re:Far too polite

[The Archon V2.0]

My suspicion is that he is actually a long-term deep penetration Conservative mole whose job is to make labour unelectable.

That would require an epic amount of Conservative cleverness that - to my limited ignorant North American knowledge - they've not often demonstrated.

Also, even if he is the most evil and clever Conservative in the world, then why does the Labour party keep letting him do it? His core motives are irrelevant - his VISIBLE motives would, in a better world, see him so far out of a position of trust that shopkeepers would follow him through their stores to make sure he didn't nick something.

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[Davey McDave]

Believe it or not, we know what baseball is in the UK and how it works. It was derived from Rounders which is very popular with school children.

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[pastafazou]

Exactly my point. Instead of calling a spade a spade, ie a prison a prison, they now call it a "correctional facility". A correctional facility that features a death row, incidentally. But you didn't actually answer my question. Who decided, and when, that prisons weren't for incarceration, but instead were meant to reform criminals?

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[Homburg]

Lock him up for his own as well as everyone else's good.

Yeah, three strikes laws are really working out for everyone's good in California.

Free filesharing

[zoeblade]

If you're in the UK and you want to show politicians you're against this, feel free to sign a petition saying so. Thank you.

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[Anonymous Coward]

You are the weakest link. Goodbye.

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[metacell]

If they choose to spend most of theirs in a prison because they don't like the laws society has made, then so be it.

I would agree if committing a crime was a rational choice. But a lot of crimes are committed in the heat of the moment, or are influenced by a psychiatric disorder.

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[commodore64_love]

I hate the 5th Doctor episode where he spends a big chunk of time doing nothing but playing cricket. Rather than waste time with that nonsense, they should have simply consolidated the 2-part story downto 1 part.

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[pastafazou]

yeah, California experiencing budget problems are proof that three strikes laws won't work.

expect the rhetoric

[jDeepbeep]

Agreed - ban encryption.

Anyone using encryption must have something to hide.

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[CrimsonAvenger]

There are varying levels of severity for felonies, some that deserve life sentences, some that deserve probation, and everything in between.

True.

But any felony that deserves probation should be downgraded to a misdemeanor.

DMCA

[Anonymous Coward]

DMCA makes it a criminal offence to break encryption protecting a copyrighted work.

I don't remember seeing "a protection by the copyright owner of that work" being in there...

So who takes up the slack?

[Anonymous Coward]

When those 10% are in for a long time, who takes up the slack?

It doesn't seem as though the crime rate drops, does it.

Maybe they're repeat offending the bubble gum wrapper thieves.

So which P2P to use now ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The day the 3-strike-and-you-are-out law came to my country I fired up OneSwarm in defiance. I haven't been using gnutella or BitTorrent much in the last year or so because of fear, yes, but also because it was getting increasingly inefficient: my ADSL modem would slow down and then disconnect after less than an hour. I'd tried OneSwarm before, to find it very slow and with a rather poor interface. So on that day I fired it up and I was astounded to be able to download 6Gb in one night ! Needless to say, I consider that this law made great improvements to P2P technology !!!

What about leaked government data

[MtlDty]

I loved this section, as found on the BBC:

The pay-off for tough penalties against persistent file-sharers would be a more relaxed copyright regime, Mr Mandelson said. The details of it would need to be hammered out at European level but it would take account of the use of copyright material "at home and between friends", he said. It would mean that, for example, someone who has bought a CD would be able to copy it to their iPod or share it with family members without acting unlawfully.

So now we just need to find three instances that an MP shared any copyright material with a friend or colleague. Presumably accidentaly leaking millions of instances of personal details held in government databases doesnt count?

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[Homburg]

The massive increase in prison spending which makes a negligible difference in crime rates compared to other states is pretty good evidence that three-strikes laws don't work, yes.

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[stewbacca]

Lacking wisdom and risk assessments are hardly grounds for locking somebody up for life. Something about the penalty fitting the crime comes to mind. If you want to go around locking up people that lack judgment, we'd have more people in prison than not.

And I fail to see how stealing golf clubs constitutes a threat against fellow citizens on the magnitude of "we must lock this guy up to protect everyone around him".

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[stewbacca]

That would be a good first step. Unfortunately for my ex-girlfriend's ex-boyfriend, he's a felon for punching me in the head for sleeping with his ex-girlfriend. He got 8 years of probation he assaulted me, and evidently I'm special since I work (worked, at the time) for the feds. Note to jealous boyfriends--don't punch federal agents in the head.

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[SleazyRidr]

I think it was around the time we decided that we were slightly better than the other animals and thought we might give this whole 'civilisation' thing a crack.

USA will be next

[aaandre]

Just a reminder.

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[fishbowl]

>One guy commits two two heinous felonies, somehow lawyers his way out of long prison terms, and another guy, a) steals a purse, b) hits a parked car
>and runs away, and c) steals bubble gum from the store goes to prison for life. I'm not sure how any sane, thinking person on this planet can't see
>the glaring flaw with this system.

If California prisons were just overflowing with bubblegum theives, maybe more people would see the flaw. Since it hasn't really manifested as a problem in practice, just a hypothetical one, people who choose their fights choose other ones.

Frankie Boyle on Mandelson

[sa1lnr]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-NAZcgHNoA

Some light relief. :)

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[jmac_the_man]

The second guy in your example probably didn't commit any felonies. (On the off chance that there was enough money in the purse to count as grand larceny, that would be a felony.) I don;t know any ladies who keep that much money in their purse. (cue "typical Slashdotter" joke)

The first guy (the two time felon) is hopefully going to keep his nose clean.

Yea Right

[Anonymous Coward]

If this stupid darn government in this country spent a lot more time thinking about the indiginous population of the country and less about the goings on elsewhere we would be in far better shape than we are now , Copyright AND Patents both need putting firmly in the trashcan then maybe we can all get on with life .

The big problem we have is the the biggest ISP in the country is far too closley linked to Yahoo and M$ Corp for their own good so when someone says in the US says jump idiotic jerks here ask how high instead of turning round and tekking them get stuffed son shine .

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[TheRaven64]

If they're not reformed, and are likely to reoffend, then why are they let out at all? If you're not aiming for rehabilitation in your prisons then prison sentence shorter than life don't make any sense - as soon as they're up you are releasing someone exactly as likely to commit a crime as they were when they went in.

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[TheRaven64]

Unlike baseball, rounders is not designed around advert breaks.

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[stewbacca]

This thread alone has identified two such cases in California alone. Two people going away for life for stealing golf clubs and bubble gum (forget what the second case was) concerns me. NO people going away for life (the potential alone) concerns me.

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[stewbacca]

But in the second case, it is stupid and arbitrary to count the "third strike" even if it's only a misdemeanor. If the law says "3 felonies and your out", I think I could support that, but it doesn't. It says if you get three strikes (and we'll change the rules whenever we want about what counts as a strike, but as of right now strikes one and two have to be felonies, but strike three can be a minor-in-possession), you are out. Put it this way. A guy gets a felony, a misdemeanor, then a felony, and he only has two "strikes", but if he gets a felony, felony, misdemeanor, he goes away for 25-to-life. Or, a guy gets, felony, misdeanor, misdemeanor, misdemeanor, misdemeanor, misdeanor, misdemeanor, misdemeanor, misdemeanor, and then felony #2 and he's better off than the guy who commits a third strike misdemeanor. That makes exactly 0% sense.

The Lords won't approve this

[Anonymous Coward]

The house of Lords will not approve this bill because it goes directly against information brought to light in the digital Britain report, is against the advice of British intelligence agencies and also the Police.

Trying to set unpopular policy and laws into motion like this, so close to an election is political suicide.
This will be the final straw to break the "Camel's back" So to speak as far as re-election is concerned.

I live in England and this bill simply means another stealth tax, which no one can afford to pay because the recession is already stretching everyone.

I don't share any copyrighted content over the internet. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Re:The Lords won't approve this

[Doches]

I'm astounded, AC -- you claim to live in England and yet don't realize that Labour has pretty much a free hand to do what they like, since they know they're going to get slaughtered come next election. This isn't the last straw, not by far -- that would be the expense scandal, which not only broke the camel's back but ground the splintered vertebrae into tiny indistinguishable bits of chalk.

You also suggest that it won't get approved because the Lords have been given some very good reasons not to do so, which implies your belief that they're even capable of making rational, non-self-serving decisions. Baffling.

Rant

[Dogtanian]

They can take the unelected Mr Mandelson with them into the political wilderness.

Frankly, even "mister" is too much of an honorific for that sleazy, undemocratic worthless piece of Tory-in-all-but-name shit that represents everything that was wrong with the Blair era (well, apart from that prick Blair himself).

The fact that he's still around is proof that shit floats; the fact that the phony, egotistical, smarmy prick Blair is up for the European Council presidency? The same guy who spent years kissing Bush's backside even long after anyone with an ounce of realpolitikal competence could see that his toadyish whoring of Britain's influence bought nothing in return? Proof that diarrhea floats.

Sorry, heading offtopic. But seriously, Labour and their deluded, smug chums can fuck off and die. I like the way that the unions are so wedded to Labour that over 12 years after they were elected to power, they're only *just* beginning to consider not bankrolling a party that's as bad as Thatcher's Tories in some respects, and worse in others. Fuckwitted, blinkered tossers with self-interested leadership.

Nomenclature

[JesseBHolmes]

Do they call it 'three strikes' in Britain? They don't play baseball, and cricket has different rules in this respect.

Re:Nomenclature

[dugeen]

New Labour always take the opportunity to import American terminology. Like our new 'Supreme Court'.

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[Valdrax]

don't care if long prison terms create nicely-behaved perfect citizens. Long prison terms keep poorly-behaved flawed citizens from F*ing with the nicely behaved perfect citizens. Where the hell did people get the notion that prison is meant to reform criminals?

Deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitance are three dominant theories of criminal punishment in the legal system and have been for a very long time. You seem to have a strong opinion on which of the three matters, but you're somewhat outside of the mainstream on that.

It's meant to keep them away from society for a set period of time. After that, they're given another chance to be a normal citizen. If they screw up again, they go back again, this time for longer. Human lifespan is finite. If they choose to spend most of theirs in a prison because they don't like the laws society has made, then so be it.

What's the point of that? First, if you can prevent them from becoming a repeat offender, then you save taxpayer money babysitting them AND you save the victims of future crimes from having to experience those crimes AND you get a productive citizen.

Rehabilitation is simply the best possible solution to criminal behavior, and the only reason we don't pursue it as our #1 goal is that it's really freaking hard and previous reform efforts seems to fail. We only put up with incapacitance due to the fact that some people *don't* learn and need to be separated, not because incapacitance is a superior outcome to having a functional person again. A system that just breaks people without regard for their potential to learn from their mistakes is just pointless and sadistic.

I mean, look how many people's lives are ruined just because they got caught smoking a lot of pot. I'm anti-legalization, but if we fined those people instead of throwing them in the slammer, they'd be more likely to be productive citizens in 20 years than under the current system. Long-term incapacitance is pointless there like it is for many other non-violent offenses.

The US is unique among democracies in the length and frequency of its prison sentences. The US has 22% of the entire world's prison population (and only 4% of the total world population) and more than quadruple the average percentage of our population in prison. We spend $37 billion/year on prisons, which is about the GDP of Guatemala (only #77 on the list of countries by GDP!), and is about twice what we spend on NASA. Do you really think that just locking up people and neglecting what they're going to be like when they come out is good fiscal policy? Seems to me like we're wasting a lot of taxpayer dollars that could be saved if we helped the prisoners that can be helped.

this will just result in

[Archfeld]

encryption being declared illegal in GB, or worse, having to register your encryption key with the government or risk being classified as a terrorist. MI5/6 and the other law enforcement agencies are doing the 'not our idea' dance right now, but they know in the long run the Nanny-State that is the GB will not allow somthing like a persons privacy to stand in the way of spreading fear and mis-information under the guise of protecting the nation.
If they criminalize encryption, only criminals will have it...

Wide Spread Encryption

[nurb432]

Good.

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[moogsynth]

I'd been trying to make this joke all week, but despite reading the wiki page on Cricket, I couldn't write the joke to make it sound like I knew what I was talking about. Three strikes and I suppose now *I'm* out.

Don't feel so bad about it. The OP got it wrong too. If you get bowled leg-before-wicket (LBW), then you're already out.

Wont work

[nurb432]

The only group that will be allowed to 'accuse' will be the media, and why would they incriminate their own paid for law makers?

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[fabs64]

There's a 2 (or maybe 3) strikes rule for a head-high full toss.

Also there's a limit on the number of bouncers bowled in an over for an ODI.

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[Falconhell]

Indeed, some of the best Test matches I have seen have been 5 day draws. Dont bother trying to explain to USians though, it is tooo subtle for them.

I am now encrypting my tracker comms

[gilgongo]

Not that I'm a BitTorrent guru in any way, but it strikes me that as I live in the UK, I need to proxy all my trackers communications through I2P. As far as I understand, that won't hurt my download speeds, but will present a non-traceable IP address to anyone who looks at my communications with the tracker. And if I turn on transport encryption as well, the contents of my P2P communications are at least obscured, even though my use of BitTorrent isn't.

Perhaps a BitTorrent guru can put me straight on this, but if I'm right, then a one-click install of I2P, and a couple of easy config changes in Azereus, seemed to do the trick for me.

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[Stray7Xi]

Where the hell did people get the notion that prison is meant to reform criminals? It's meant to keep them away from society for a set period of time.

Four philosophies to imprisonment:
-Revenge ("He deserves to get pounded in ass in prison")
-Rehabilitation ("He needs some discipline to straighten up his life")
-Prevention ("He needs to be kept behind bars where he can't do more harm" )
-Deterrent ("He needs to be made an example of, so others will learn")

If you really don't believe in rehabilitation, then really you shouldn't want to release prisoners ever. If you're going to release criminals, you have to prepare them for return to normal society. Revenge to me is just stupid but the other three all have merit (though arguable in priority). Who would you rather have getting out of prison and moving next to you:

1. A 20yr old drug offender who spent 2 years in prison, living in fear, who learned from guards/inmates that threats and force is the solution to minor problems. Someone who had no positive outlets in their life. No work experience, no High School diploma. His resume consists of his time in prison.
2. A 20yr old mugger, who spent 3 years in prison, finished their GED and took vocational classes. A local church allowed him to get work experience by volunteering his time building houses for the homeless during supervised day passes.

I believe the best way to reform criminals is to give them opportunities for a stable life with employment opportunities coming out of prison. Our prisons are more effective at making nonviolent convicts violent then making convicts hirable. The sad thing is people glorify the violent conditions of our prisons: "He won't last a day in prison before being made someone's bitch"... and the guards condone it.

Good

[sn00pers]

I suppose I may be the only one here that thinks protecting the rights of the people who's work is being stolen is a good thing? The whole point of the 3 strikes is in case mistakes are made and there are plenty of points to appeal etc. Is it really that unfair for their to be at least some sort of protection for people to prevent their worked from being stolen and to prevent them from being put out of business by theives? Of is the mentality that anyone who creates content that is digital has no rights to make a living? Perhaps if people who are against these protections would simply come up with a better way to protect digital content from rampant theft, then this wouldn't be an issue. If someone did, they would be rich. So there's plenty of incentive, yet no one does. Why? The people creating the content certainly have been trying. So is everyone really against this because they really think it's against the law, or is it because many people simply enjoy the ability to steal anything they want and have no regard for the people who are being put out of work?

Re:Good

[Osinoche]

You sir are a troll.

Re:Good

[Vanderhoth]

I use to have to pay $30 for a CD that would have ONE song on it I liked, which I would have herd on the radio for the first time. I didn't have the ability to just pick and chose which songs I wanted. Using CDs I could only have ONE in my diskman at a time meaning I had to constantly swap them in and out.

When I hear a song I like I now have the ability to go and listen to other songs by an artist to see if I like what else they have. That allows me to make an informed decision about whether I should buy them or not. I get ALL the information rather then just what the radio thinks I should have. With an MP3 player I can put only songs I like on and just have a random shuffle.

If the music industry hadn't of been so anti-change, they might have been the ones to come up with an idea like the iTunes store. If they had I bet things would have turned out very different. Because they were making so much profit... Sorry, they were making so much "living" off CDs they didn't want to change.

I'm a developer, I love what I do. Sure I get paid, but it's pennies compared to what the software I write A) Saves my company and B) earns them in the end. Kind of funny since my software is for research and is given away instead of sold. You should love what you do and do it because you love it, not because you make tons of money for it.

Why should an "artist" make more money then a doctor or a teacher. I think they've been making a "living" for a very long time. They're just bitter because now they can't waste hundreds of thousands on diamond encrusted watches anymore.

Re:Good

[sn00pers]

Yes I suppose anyone who doesn't go along with your opinion is a troll right? I seem to recall Hitler having the same mentality. Anyone who doesn't support piracy is ranted down, and labeled as a troll. Does anyone really care about the people being ripped off? Would you have the same opinion if it was you who's work was being stolen?

Re:Good

[sn00pers]

I have never paid $30 for a CD. Perhaps you should have gone to a cheaper store? And while iTunes is not financially successful, it demonstrates that your argument of wanting only certain songs is nor an excuse for stealing. You can do it legally. But most choose not to. And it seems the argument is that people now still steal because it took too long for an industry to provide content online. Yet now that they do, most people still steal. Does that really sound logical? I steal because of how things once were and that it took too long for someone to change something 10 years ago. So you think that everyone should have a cap on how much money they can make? That someone should say that at a certain point no one is allowed to make any more money? What if someone decided that you make too much money now. Someone who made less money than you decided that it's unfair that you make more than them. Would you agree? Most artist don't make more than doctors. Most people make more than teachers. Does that mean we should all be able to steal from anyone who makes more money than teachers? If you make more money than a teacher, is it OK for me to steal from you? And yes, I am not in favor of piracy, so here come all the negative scores because I don't share the same opinion and I dare support the artists who are being ripped off, the majority of which are poor. And let's not forget about the millions of people who all work to make the music possible, most of which make minimum wage and just want to put food on their table. But are now being put out of work.

Re:Good

[Vanderhoth]

I have never paid $30 for a CD. Perhaps you should have gone to a cheaper store?

You’re assuming 1) there was a cheaper store in my area and 2) whatever you pay in your area is the norm.

And while iTunes is not financially successful, it demonstrates that your argument of wanting only certain songs is nor an excuse for stealing.

I’m pretty sure I said if I like something I buy it. When did paying for something become stealing? They use this concept in grocery stores; I had a mini-pizza the other day and bought a whole box of them.

And it seems the argument is that people now still steal because it took too long for an industry to provide content online.

I’m conceding this point to you. All we have here is speculation that IF Napster hadn’t made file sharing popular and IF the XYZ industry had of been the one to kick the snowball instead of the one trying to stop the avalanche things might have been different.

Yet now that they do, most people still steal. Does that really sound logical?

Yes it does, people have gotten use to doing something easy, doing things the “hard” way is illogical. Alienating them by imposing DRMs, ridiculous EULAs and making laws that will most likely only affect “innocent” people only makes things worse. Sorry the box is open you can’t put the bad things back in

So you think that everyone should have a cap on how much money they can make?

The cap is what the market is willing to pay.

That someone should say that at a certain point no one is allowed to make any more money?

The music industry makes an initial investment to record something, and then makes money indefinitely off distribution of the product. They recover the cost and then make profit hand over foot only having to pay for the media the product is distributed on. If only there was a magical way to distribute a product over a large “digital” network using other peoples machines as a place to store it.

What if someone decided that you make too much money now.

I picked a good profession, went to university and worked hard for the money I make. No one else has to decide for me that I make too much money, because I do. I’d do my job for free if I didn’t need to eat and live somewhere. Seems to me actors and musicians living in Hollywood live in Multi-million dollar homes and spend close to if not more what I make in a year on a dress/suit and jewellery for a night at an award ceremony.

Someone who made less money than you decided that it's unfair that you make more than them. Would you agree?

I worked my way through university at a fast-food restraint, I’m telling you, they have a right to complain about how much I make. Their jobs have to be 100 times more stressful then mine, they work harder hours and don’t get nearly the respect they deserve. Hopefully they will make as much as me eventually. Can I ever hope to make as much as Jessica Simpson, Our Lady Peace, Three doors down, etc!! No. What did they do to get where they are? Sure they must have worked hard, but harder then me It’s kind of an apples and oranges comparison.

Most artist don't make more than doctors.

Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha oh, you’re serious.

Does that mean we should all be able to steal from anyone who makes more money than teachers?

If by steal you mean make a copy of something they have without degrading it in anyway and leave them with the original so they can continue to use it sure.

If you make more money than a teacher, is it OK for me to steal from you?

It’s not stealing if I give it to you.

Re:Good

[sn00pers]

You’re assuming 1) there was a cheaper store in my area and 2) whatever you pay in your area is the norm.

Well then the problem is the area you live in. That is an absurdly high price which in no way is indicative of the market. I don't recall seeing any prices over $12 except in high profile shopping malls which jack up the prices of everything. But having traveled around a lot, I am can say that that's not the usual cost.

I’m pretty sure I said if I like something I buy it. When did paying for something become stealing? They use this concept in grocery stores; I had a mini-pizza the other day and bought a whole box of them.

Yes I understand. But I meant to yous "You" in a proverbial sense, and not you personally. In fact I have never met anyone on the internet that actually steals music from torrents. everyone just does it to later buy the same material. And the other 99.999% are just other people. But your position is anything but the norm. But in your example, the store had the choice of offering a small sample, just like is the case with music. And you aren't able to take an unlimited number of samples, thus removing the need to buy the product.

I’m conceding this point to you. All we have here is speculation that IF Napster hadn’t made file sharing popular and IF the XYZ industry had of been the one to kick the snowball instead of the one trying to stop the avalanche things might have been different.

But this is simply how business works. Any large business is not going to be able to be the first to jump on a new technology. The machine in any area of large business is simply too big to make sudden changes. And had they been there first it would not change the fact that someone can still get their products for free and not pay. The issue isn't about who came out first, it's that no one can compete with free. Not even itunes who make their profit on ipod sales.

Yes it does, people have gotten use to doing something easy, doing things the “hard” way is illogical. Alienating them by imposing DRMs, ridiculous EULAs and making laws that will most likely only affect “innocent” people only makes things worse. Sorry the box is open you can’t put the bad things back in

Most people that steal from torrents now were not old enough to have been downloading when the Napster issue happened. Many don't even know what the issue was. They only know that they can download a simply program and have any song they want and never have to pay for it. Again, no one can compete with free. Nothing can be easier than free. And DRM was not implemented from the start. It was added after it was realized how rampant theft was. But it was still a failure, because no one can compete with free. So they can not use copy protection and people will steal. Or they can use copy protection and peal will steal AND complain about copy protection. Either way, they have no means to protect their business.

The cap is what the market is willing to pay.

Now that's a contradiction to your previous statement. They should be able to make what the market will bear, but when they do you have a problem with it. Isn't that a bit unfair?

The music industry makes an initial investment to record something, and then makes money indefinitely off distribution of the product. They recover the cost and then make profit hand over foot only having to pay for the media the product is distributed on. If only there was a magical way to distribute a product over a large “digital” network using other peoples machines as a place to store it.

This is a misconception. Because what you may not be aware of is that for every successful album that sells well, there are 20 that lose money. Music is an art and there is no way to predict what will and won't be a commerc

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm really enjoying the banter. I'm sorry I don't have a lot of time to write the proper response your argument deserves. You bring many good points to the table. However, I still feel you can't be stealing if the person you're receiving the item from isn't losing the original and they are willingly giving it to you.
Your Doctor example can't apply here because the Doctor is charging you for his time, so if you left without paying then you would be stealing his time. Sure musicians put time into recording, but once recorded they collect indefinitely. Live shows are where it's at, when a person goes to a show they're paying to see the artist preform, they're paying for the artist time. People who break into shows are stealing.

Now that's a contradiction to your previous statement.

No it's not. If the market determined something should be free then that is the price the market has determined.

I work in much the same way as many of these "artist". I develop for a company, not individual clients. The company then uses my product to gain income. Not directly form my product, but from the supplemental activity like data collection, analysis and research. Think of it like giving away CD's to build a base of fans, but raking in the money for a concert and other merchandise. You ever gone to a concert and seen what they charge for a bottle of water, snacks, T-shirts and other nick-knacks.
If the market determined my skills aren't worth anything, then I'd be out of a job or I would create demand or I would develop new skills. When artists stop making music because there is no benefit to them and there is a shortage of entertainment, people will start to pay for it
I have friends in smaller bands. I went to university with one of the guys in the band Squid he quit university because he made more money in the band then he figured he'd ever make as a Computer Scientist. Good thing too, he's a much better drummer then a programmer *I kid*. Sure he's not living in a million dollar house, but he is doing very well for himself. The band makes almost nothing off of CD sales, but they can make a few thousand each off of a show. Squid toured with Drum for a while and made a killing off of it.
As for your "Can't compete with free" statement. I do agree with you that it's difficult to compete with free, but it's not impossible. Look at Windows vs. Linux., MS Office vs. Open office. Despite the fact that many people on /. are very anti windows, MS doesn't make a half bad product, it's certainly better then I could do on my own. Ubuntu, which I personally like, is picking up steam, but I doubt it will ever be on all the computers in my office.

Yes the "three strikes" law will penalize people who are sharing music and movies, innocent or not, but what's really happening is the government is taking away a tool people are using to change an over priced over saturated market. I'm sure you can agree with me on the fact that entertainment, while not directly necessary to life, is essential, we need it like a drug. without file sharing the options are pay what company's set the price at or go without. File sharing provides a third options where a person can say "I want your product, but I'm not paying xxx dollars for it". There was a time a long time ago where music and other forms of entertainment were free. The issue these days is the entertainment industry is coming out of a "golden age" where they produced something people needed AND they decided how much to charge for it, because if they all charged the same price people only had the option to buy or not buy. Because people need entertainment that's not much of an option. Then along comes file sharing and the "golden age" ends. It's an adjustment for the industry that they are doing everything in their power to stop, while still making a fortune I might add, but you can't stop an avalanche. All their doing is digging a deeper

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[Anonymous Coward]

'6 and out' is a common rule in backyard cricket

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't feel bad, if you come from a non-commonwealth country. I once tried to explain test cricket to a German friend, while we watched it on TV, and after more than an hour he was still non the wiser. He did like the bit where the fast bowler hit a batsman on the head though.

Crypt-o-rama

[Anonymous Coward]

Military grade encryption here we come. Users can use encryption too, and really if the government tries to seize equipment and then break the encryption, the government then can be charged for violating something like the DMCA, can't it? Its interesting how vested interests are winning over common sense, common law and the best interests of the public. Geffen of course has billions to gain from this. But there would be no bribe, no 'gift in kind', noooo, nothing like that. They talk about corruption in 3rd world countries with finger wagging disdain. Now Robert Mugabe can say, with the biggest grin, "My Lord Peter Mandelson, what a fine example you set!".

pathetic

[mrdtr]

Why do the citizens of the UK put up with this shit from their government? How are they going to know what you're downloading without invading your privacy? Oh wait, that's right, the right to privacy doesn't exist in the UK.
It is time for every single person who values privacy to start encrypting everything thing they send or share.

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[ryzvonusef]

The closest we have to that concept is perhaps the Hat-trick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hat-trick#Cricket

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[Fjodor42]

Wow, I sure hope you lose your temper and punch someone in the face someday :-S

Not going to say much more, since people below seem to have pointed out a lot of good sentiments...

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[Anonymous Coward]

The Rules of Cricket: You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he is out. When they are all out, the side that's been out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out. When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out, he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who are all out all the time, and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game.

Freenet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Time for more people to use Freenet! I just downloaded the film Up from it today and it would be difficult to find out that I did. Safe p2p.

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I love the english language. In a word, ambiguity!

Fantastic stuff!

No evidence, charge or trial

[dugeen]

That's how New Labour like to do things. If the accused in these cases actually got a fair trial in a properly constituted court, it might be possible to see some faint gleam of sense in this idea. But no.

Re:they need something based on the rules of crick

[catbertscousin]

I hate the 5th Doctor episode where he spends a big chunk of time doing nothing but playing cricket. Rather than waste time with that nonsense, they should have simply consolidated the 2-part story downto 1 part.

Now now, don't disparage the first man who's lived long enough to actually understand the game.

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[jmac_the_man]

A "minor in possession?"

/checks Wikipedia

OK, so a "minor in posession OF ALCOHOL" is the kind of thing that should be a misdemeanor. If it's a felony, that's a problem, but that has nothing to do with three strikes laws. According to Wikipedia, the penalty for "Minor in Possession" in California "carries a punishment of $250 and a mandatory revocation of driving privileges for one year" if there's no aggravating factors (drunk driving, drunk and disorderly, etc.) Minor in Possession is not a felony on its own.

In most states, all three strikes have to be felonies. (In fact, some states only count violent felonies.) I'm not sure where your anecdote about someone whose third strike was for Minor in Possession comes from, but it sounds to me like there were aggravating factors. (Also, if they had two felonies before the age of 21, they probably shouldn't have been on the street for w while anyway.)

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[stewbacca]

I guess you haven't been following the entire thread, because the Supreme Court case cited somewhere above clearly shows that the third strike (in California law) does not have to be a felony, and indeed can be as petty as Minor in Possession or shoplifting golf-clubs. That's the ENTIRE point I'm trying to make, that the arbitrary application of the third strike (but not the first or second) is really, well, arbitrary. Why should a guy with a felony, misdemeanor, felony be free, but a guy with a felony, felony, misdemeanor has to have mandatory minimum sentencing under three strikes?

Brits!

[twoHats]

Have you ever seen a vid called V for Vendetta - I mean ...Cameras everywhere - people being disgraced (and more) for pointing out inconvenient truths... Ah hem - i think it may be time to snap out of it before it's too late.

Hope everything else is well.

Best Wishes!

Wireless Networks

[Anonymous Coward]

If people in the UK do not want to be conscripted as soldiers of the
occupation government, they need to keep their wireless networks open.

Bad Eggs

[Anonymous Coward]

UK goveerment pay 'experts' a lot of money to advise them and then ignore what they are told. That is why we are 42nd in the world for broadband and why BT stopped fiber optic roll outs.

As far a file sharing MP3's, the music laws are draconian and should be put in line with other copyrights. Protected for 70 years after the death seems exessive to me! Expecailly when a tune is often inspired by another piece of music. I say when you go, your music should be up for anyone to copy or use.

Re: 25 years for three golf clubs

[BranMan]

Does the phrase "Paid his debt to society" ring any bells? You can think of it as a 'time out' for adults - put in a place they really don't want (or should not want, at any rate) to be, for a time period proportional to the crime they committed.

A smart person will learn from that and not do anything to get sent back. That's the theory anyway.

Based on "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" (which was actually an argument against ESCALATION in retaliation for wrongs done to you - do the same back to them, no more, no less, and call it even. Otherwise you end up with blood feuds like the Hatfields and McCoys).

Textual Changes

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea of using textual changes as watermarks presupposes that
companies force book purchasers to identify themselves, so the company
knows what books any person has bought. This is what Amazon does now,
and it is dangerous in itself.

See DefectiveByDesign.org for other reasons why the Amazon Swindle
("Kindle") is bad for your freedom.

- RMS

Keep wireless networks open

[Anonymous Coward]

If people in the UK do not want to be conscripted as soldiers of the occupation government, they need to keep their wireless networks open.

Reply by Richard M Stallman

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea of using textual changes as watermarks presupposes that companies force book purchasers to identify themselves, so the company knows what books any person has bought. This is what Amazon does now, and it is dangerous in itself.

See DefectiveByDesign.org for other reasons why the Amazon Swindle ("Kindle") is bad for your freedom.

rms