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BT Ordered To Block Usenet Binaries Index
First time accepted submitter eyeoftheidol writes "A judge in the UK has ordered the ISP BT to block access to filesharing site Newzbin2 within 14 days. From the article: 'Wednesday's court order also allows for the blocking of any other IP or internet address that the operators of the Newzbin2 site might look to use to continue to offer copyrighted content to users. In addition the court said BT must foot the bill for the cost of implementing the web block on Newzbin2.'"
I give it five minutes.
Newzbin3!
So offering XML-files, which are useless on their own, is illegal now, check.
How to block "any other IP or internet address operators of the Newzbin2 site might look to use to continue to offer copyrighted content to users" ?
What if they change name? Or country? Or whatever?
Do that judge understand the meaning of this sentence?
And is it possible in the UK to head a bill in the name of someone because of a judge rule?
I definitely this is totally insane, unless this is another case of british humour!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
So, I am walking down the street, in the next block someone lifts a wallet and I have to pay for the wallet just because I'm on the same city?
Looks like someone's been breaking the first two rules of Usenet!
(Posting AC because I'm at work)
In addition the court said BT must foot the bill for the cost of implementing the web block on Newzbin2.
Sorry, did you mean to say "the court ordered BT's customers to foot the bill"?...
Has already been done. Effectively!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
They must be focused on getting their workaround in place. This news hasn't even hit the front page of their own site yet.
Blocking a website is fairly trivial to get around. But if only BT were more interested in blocking all the spam phone calls they pretend they can't block.. because they make lots of money from these spamming phone calls. I can block an IP in hosts, or ads with browser plugins, but BT claim they can't block phone calls even thought THEY know the number. Hypocrites who are only after money.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
Then must a mail deliverer like ups pay for copyright delivery prevention (after they, can can easily just send out discs with the stuff)? They services has no legal obligation to enforce the law, nor are they willingly or knowingly helping people break the law. Can a police officer force you to pay them in order to help them do their jobs? Even then, most of these laws (at least in the US) are civil laws, as in deputes between two entities rather then the government and a person. It's like punishing a witness because the main perpetrator can't be reached.
Because some people OR(speed, drive dangerously, fall asleep at the wheel, road rage, drive without insurance, drive without license).
The list here is quite long. Very few people, in fact, never break any laws on the UK highways.
Shame on the judge and/or law. Understanding the problem FAIL.
There, I fixed it for you.
-TheDawgLives suckitdown
Monkeys and keyboards... just in case an infinate number of monkeys recreate something
The end of the internet, as I used to prophesize on Slashdot over ten years ago. It will become cable TV and a wiretapped phone, along with the history of everything we access. And with IPV6, we will get assigned personal IPs - there will be enough for every amoeba on the planet to be tracked. And don't bother telling us about how we will hack around it- that will be an international felony, and they will show us what happens to people who think they're cute. Ask Kevin Mitnick or Assange.
There is plenty of choice of ISP in the UK, and switching is very easy.
BT is the noob ISP, so blocking usenet isn't a big deal for their demographic. This crap always hits "the big three", but NEVER filters down to the smaller, better ISPs.
Four bullet point overview:
Summary (with some of my opinions...):
Background: In July, BT was injuncted to block access to the Newzbin 2 website, which had previously been held to infringe copyright. The decision today related solely to the order itself, and procedural / cost aspects.
The order requires BT to block access to the Newzbin 2 website (including at any future addresses it uses, as notified by the studios to BT (para. 10)). It applies to any downstream services which BT provides which implement - whether as an option or not - BT's CleanFeed system, which allows certain traffic management and filtering capabilities. It does not apply to BT's access services and upstream divisions.
The court heard arguments as to the differences (or similarities) between a Norwich Pharmacal order and an Art. 8(3) injunction (which is the mechanism here). Whilst Arnold J ruled in favour of the studios, that there are differences, he ruled that the "intermediary has not committed any legal wrong." (para. 30)
BT was also found to be liable for the costs of implementing the solution. At para. 32, Arnold J held that: "BT is a commercial enterprise which makes a profit from the provision of the services which the operators and users of Newzbin2 use to infringe the Studios' copyright. As such, the costs of implementing the order can be regarded as a cost of carrying on that business."
In effect, the cost of bearing the outcome of the injunction is the cost of the shield provisions of Arts. 12-14, 2000/31/EC. BT was also effectively penalised for defending itself, per para. 54, with the court holding that defending itself against an order such as this - the first of its kind in the UK - was insufficiently neutral. I struggle with this, as it would seem to hold that access providers are unable to defend themselves against threats such as this for fear of not being "neutral" on an issue which, unsurprisingly, is contentious for an ISP.
The full wording of the order appears at the end the judgment (para. 56), in the following terms:
...Consumers.
And I think a really, really good way would be the price increase on all their services if they were to install a top-of-the-line filtering system with all the requirements by those greedy media companies and the like.
Of course, make it a "gotcha!" afterwards, then have the official statement after it, in addition to an explanation for it all, informing the general public just how stupid it is and to get in touch with their MPs and so on.
This sort of nonsense is just getting a bit too stupid now.
Good to see it has already been bypassed by the guys there.
How come the studio's get to become judge if something could be possibly related to this newsbin2 site? What if they decide that slashdot.org is in fact a front for newsbin2? Does BT have to close access to slashdot.org then? I see plenty of reasons for BT to not obey this court order and wait for the trial that follows when they disobey.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
"But nonsense decisions like this are usually caused by simple bribery."
If only, then these judges could be put out to pasture where they belong. Unfortunately its down to simple ignorance. Most people in the UK legal industry including the judiciary are utterly fecking clueless when it comes to technology but they assume because they've got law qualifications (which in their eyes are the acme of intellectual achievment) this means they can become an instant expert in every field of human endeavour.
They can't, and boy does it show.
I have nothing constructive I can say that won't get me locked up for life.
This sig intentionally left blank.
The more they pull crap like this, the more people move to darknets making actually monitoring harder.
the IP industry doesn't respect those laws. That's why they keep expanding their scope.
Why aren't you complaining to them?
Or are you an apologist for them?
What happens if the operators of Newsbin2 decide to use a domain that is also used by other people? The new DDOS might be impersonating Newsbin2.
Korma: Good
Or are you "one of the 99%". But to get that figure, you'd need to know about 10,000 people of whom ~9,900 pirate at least.
Or you're talking bollocks.
Oh, PS, about 100% of people on the roads break the speed limits at one time or another. Sometimes to overtake. Sometimes because when you're going near enough the speed limit to stop someone tailgating you, a momentary change in the wind speed will put you over the limit before you can notice it and correct.
It'd be interesting for the sake of spicing things up if all these services, and the groups behind them, used "free speech" and similar terms as part of their names. The mainstream media would have a field day spreading news about an UK judge banning a site called "FreeSpeechNews" by "Team Combatants of Liberty", much more so at least than about him banning something as esoteric-sounding as "newzbin" by some guys who cal themselves dogs. Just imagine the headlines!
Even pirates should lean the value of marketing. Use it for your own advantage. It might not be glamorous, but it's worth the effort.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
1.> If the studios hand in an ip address purported to be newzbin they will block it no questions asked? Here comes unmitigated studio controlled filtering.
2.> If newzbin were to offer an "opt out" to them selling your information, due to lets say a change in the EULA, no one in the UK could get to it to opt out?
Double bummer.
BT must foot the bill for the cost of implementing the web block
If you use BT as your ISP, guess who's bill is about to go up?
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
If I were them I would just turn out the light and let the court take the heat.
No, it will become a network of VPN's sharing encrypted traffic, and you will never find out about the good sites because you're not invited.
The motion picture and recording industry can live with that.
The client apps for the licensed services are on hundreds of millions of systems and devices.
20% of prime time Internet traffic in the states was a licensed Netflix stream before Netflix offered a streaming only service.
The Dark Net is slow.
The Dark Net client is arcane and clumsy, pure geek.
The masses fled Usenet and IRC chat for perfectly intelligible reasons.
The Dark Net can be exposed.
Anonymous will attempt to break it open on a whim --- or in an attempt to gain credibility elsewhere.
"There is no honor among thieves. The chain is only as strong as its weakest link."
Shouldn't this really be "BT forced to try to block access to a single website"?
Ahh, so that's what 'Cleanfeed' was for. What a surprise!
To go around the internet, to make a new, untraceable communications network that no one can listen in to, may require quantum-entanglement communications systems that act at a distance without any physical interaction. More like a telegraph system or a CB/Ham radio like comm system. Very limited, but untraceable. Could only work if people physically trade comm boxes that have cascades of particles that are pre-entangled. By collapsing wave functions in order, one could send binary information, Y/N, which could encode whatever you like. I can imagine it, but cannot begin to think of how one would be built. The pieces aren't here yet.
Wow.
They should immediately one-off send their data to multiple networks who would look for mirror candidates. Someone somewhere should always preserve the Usenet archive. No censorship allowed, only redundant preservation across distributed networks.
Buy your next Linux PC at eightvirtues.com
Fast flux DNS. It's not just for botnets any more.