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UK ISP Spots a File-Sharing Loophole, Implements It
An anonymous reader writes "As well as taking an active part in OFCOM's code of obligations in regards to the ill-conceived Digital Economy Act (the UK three-strikes law for filesharers), niche ISP Andrews & Arnold have identified various loopholes in the law, the main one being that a customer can be classified as a communications provider. They have now implemented measures so in your control panel you may register your legal status and be classed as such." Another of the loopholes this inventive ISP sussed out: "Operating more than one retail arm selling to customers and allowing customers to migrate freely with no change to service between those retail arms, thus bypassing copyright notice counting and any blocking orders."
Vote pirate, or green or yellow or something like that. Anyone who thought that this was a good idea doesn't deserve to win.
"Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
....that such a well planned and comprehensive peice of legislation would have loopholes. It's almost as if they rushed it through the legislative process, but I'm sure our politicians would never be so careless....
I hope that the ISP will earn enough money from this, so that they will be able to defend this when faced legal action.
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#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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The second one increases the number of offenses that go without consequence from 2 to 2*[branches of the ISP]
It's the ISP that has to cut off, and they count offenses per branch. So if they transfer you to another branch upon receiving a second notice, you have clean account with the new branch. (and you could have signed away the right to transfer your account like that in the contract)
Of course this won't work with very massive offenders, but suddenly a 3-strikes law becomes a 37-strikes law or something.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
2*[branches of the ISP]*[Family members/friends/dog]
Also the act says nothing about keeping a count for *ex* subscribers.. so pingponging between two may be enough.
Apparently those running the ISP - presumably geeks - know how to interpret the laws better than those who wrote the laws themselves.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
There shouldn't be any limits as I'd imagine once you switch to branch #2 then you are no longer a customer of branch #1 and so they can remove your details. Then there is no limit as you can do the reverse just as easily.
I see this as something a Judge will strike down as spurious rather than an actual loophole - Judges love to come down harshly on people they think are deliberately trying to circumvent the law.
I don't know if what I am saying is 100% correct. But people who might vote for Pirate, Green, ect ect. are mostly geeks or people directly involved in this.
True, and it is unfortunate that the "geek" vote is being split so badly. The LibDems are the only one of the three major parties that stood up to this law (voting against it and calling for its repeal). Whether someone's agreement with them on this issue outweighs any disagreements they may have with them on other issues is an open question.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
A communications provider is say someone that operates a free Wifi hot-spot and they are immune? And anyone can sign up? O_o Somebody has effectively neutered the entire law. You guys really vote some Pirate party to your parliament to properly put an end to this crap properly tho.
This legislation is wrong, poorly planned, and now it seems the implementation could well make it largely useless. This is a Good Thing.
I'd love to vote with my feet over this in the coming election. However, the lack of substance in the opposition makes this a very difficult thing to do. I fear that a vote for Labour would indicate my support on this matter, and it really isn't the case - I'm disgusted with the manner in which this legislation was rushed through at the end of their term, with no chance for the discussion it deserves.
Torn. :-(
Surely teams of experts would have been consulted, and this would have been debated several times in several houses, with considerable thought put into the criticisms of those opposing it! The only way we could have all these silly loopholes is if it was somehow rushed. But why would the government ever do that with such important legislation?
Just looking through the list, I'm not particularly excited by their loop-holes.
So, while I am impressed that at least one ISP has thoroughly read through the Act and is trying to work against it, I think their loop-holes aren't going to be that good in practice (with the one exception). Still, their draft Code seems to have highlighted many of the key points, and I hope that they will get heavily involved with the Code-drafting process.
The best way to get around this sort of thing is to either fight for repealing the Act (so vote Pirate or Green - while the Lib Dems have said they want to repeal it, that's due to the process by which it was passed, they still seem mostly in favour of the content) or making sure that the Code approved
Disclaimer: I am a happy A&A customer.
At least AAISP are attempting to bring to light the shortcomings of the law, as well as taking part in the OFCOM part of the regulatory process. Believe me that AAISP were also attempting early on to bring attention to this law and lobbying as much as they could themselves.
I've spoken to the owner. He does not believe in supporting pirates, but he does believe in due process and fairness. Things that the DEA is not.(to customers or the ISP's) If a court order is provided AAISP will happily process it, however someone randomly pointing at an IP and saying "they've downloaded something of mine, cut them off unless they can unequivocally prove otherwise" unfairly reverses the burden of proof.
AAISP just wants to be a neutral carrier, operating within the (sane) law and rightly so.
They particularly deserve mention on Slashdot as a geeks ISP. There aren't many ISP's that provide the following...
They aren't as cheap as the bucket providers, but then you get what you pay for....
... is that if we do it properly, we won't even need the whole 6460m of rope. We can probably reuse a few nooses.
I think suggesting that the LibDems "stood up" to this is giving them a little more credit than they deserve. They ended up supporting it in the Lords and even adding the controversial web-censoring clause
That was one Lord who supported it. It isn't party policy, nor is it the view of any MPs. The fact that the Lords act independently is both the blessing and the curse of the second house. But these is no sense in using the actions of Lords to decide your vote for MPs (whether you view it as voting for an MP, or voting for a party - in neither case do we vote for Lords).
Yes, that there weren't more Lib Dem MPs turning up to vote against it was a bit depressing. I guess it's a question of checking who your local candidate is, and also seeing if there a better option if they didn't vote against it (who are you voting for then, OOI?)
Most of the talk about the Digital Economy Act has been about catching file sharers. The media companies pose as file sharers, log your IP then complain to your ISP. But what about file hosting services like Rapidshare etc? Are ISPs required to do Deep Packet Inspection on everyone's traffic to catch them, or are they currently uncatchable? If so, there will surely be a massive move away from file-sharing over to file hosting services.
I said something along the lines of
No, you didn't. You wrote something so badly, that it is not even understandable.
Good day Janek. Janek are mine brother (sp?) neme alzo and mine daddy alzo. Me not speaketh that well in polish as smalli keed here. LOL, or me speaketh and me undersdant big (sp?). Bye and me hasz g to worg nof (sp?).
Yes. that's what you have written.
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#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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Sounds like Rimmer drinking "liver salts". A particularly unpleasant image. And quite memorable.
Which is why I remember hearing the name in the past, as an ISP recommended by several occasional contacts in the past, whose opinions I respect. (Daniel, Nikki ; you SlashDotting instead of VA-ing?)
Have to go and talk to these people.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"