REMINDER: The new "ISP Spy" policies go into effect TODAY, NOT July 12th.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

15 March 2012 - Technology
July 1, 2012: The Day ISPs Start Spying On Customers

By David K. Sutton 11:24pm

Correction: This story originally cited July 12, 2012 as the date ISPs start spying on customers as this was the date widely reported at the time of publishing. There are still conflicting reports but it appears the correct date is July 1, 2012. Regardless of which date is correct, if you use BitTorrent, my suggestion is to play it safe and assume they are starting July 1.



http://leftcall.com/2012/03/15/july-1-2012-the-day-isps-start-spying-on-customers/

If you are in the habit of downloading copyrighted media, including software, music and videos, be warned that beginning on Sunday July 1st your ISP will start spying on your activity. The Raw Story reports, “That’s the date when the nation’s largest ISPs will all voluntarily implement a new anti-piracy plan that will engage network operators in the largest digital spying scheme in history, and see some users’ bandwidth completely cut off until they sign an agreement saying they will not download copyrighted materials.”

Of course the usual suspects are behind this plan including the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of American (MPAA). The plan is backed by all major ISPs (Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, AT&T) and has the support of the Obama administration.

Penalties for offenders can include reduced bandwidth, access reduced to a limited number of websites, and complete internet service cut-off. ISPs can require customers to attend “an education course” if they want service restored. And of course offenders can be charged with copyright infringement by the studios.

A CNET News article quotes RIAA CEO Cary Sherman, “Each ISP has to develop their infrastructure for automating the system.” Sherman said ISPs are developing systems to keep track of repeat infringers which will allow them to send “first notice or the third notice.” CNET reports that ISPs will use a “graduated response” approach. This approach requires ISPs to “send out one or two educational notices to customers accused of downloading copyrighted content illegally. If the customer doesn’t stop, the ISP is then asked to send out ‘confirmation notices’ asking that they confirm they have received notice.” If accused customers continue to pirate material the ISP can then begin to impose the before mentioned restrictions. Welcome to the police state folks, previously home to the ‘land of the free’.

[Systematic Chaos]

1. I predict lots of revenue lost all over the place.

It makes me smile.

[permatex]

2. WTF??????

Is there no privacy anymore? Any way to counter this POS?

[Amerigo Vespucci]

3. No, the ISPs agreed to do this "voluntarily."

SOPA tanked, so the RIAA and MPAA concocted a "backdoor" approach, and every major ISP eagerly agreed to sign up for it.

This means VPN ("Virtual Private Network&quot providers will probably see a spike in revenue, as well as Usenet providers who offer SSL and do not keep logs.

[permatex]

4. Thanks

I don't do illegal downloads, it's just the thought that ISP's are kowtowing to these groups that pisses me off. Have to look into VPN and Usernet providers.

[kenny blankenship]

5. One cartel loves another.

They support each other gladly against you, the chump to be squeezed for rents to the full extent of your earning power and then some.

One cartel even has the right to extract rents from people based on nothing more than that they are breathing.

[EFerrari]

6. Jacob Appelbaum: TOR Project, Fight for Anonymity

[Poll_Blind]

7. About halfway through watching this- great video, EFerrari! nt

PB

[EFerrari]

19. Here he is on Amy's, with NSA whistleblower Wm Binney.

Whistleblower: The NSA is Lying–U.S. Government Has Copies of Most of Your Emails

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/whistleblower_the_nsa_is_lying_us

I'm a big fan of Jacob's. He loses me sometimes when he talks tech but I always learn something.

[Shankapotomus]

8. What about streaming content? (nt)

[Amerigo Vespucci]

16. They are basically looking for bittorrent users.

They will "monitor" bittorrent sites, make a list of all of the "peers," run a "whois" check on their IP address, and send out warning letters.

They're not going to spend the money to go after people viewing / downloading YouTube clips or watching Netflix movies. They're looking to shoot fish in a barrel.

I am assuming there will also be more than a few "false positives" on their list. For example, King Crimson sells complete live shows on their Website. I purchased one. You download it via a legal torrent file.

They are going t9o do whatever requires the least amount of effort and expense, so people who are uploading / downloading torrent files on a standard Internet connection are their primary target.

[permatex]

17. Off topic

but King Crimson was a great band, my two favorite songs were Court of the Crimson King and 21st Century Schizoid Man.

[bongbong]

32. The minors

The chords in Epitaph kill me every time.

When I saw Fripp solo in 1980, he came into the audience while the warm up band played, and danced with members of the audience.

[Logical]

9. Well, don't download pirated content and you should be ok. n-t

[permatex]

10. So you don't care for privacy?

The point is that these ISP's are kowtowing to these groups which is in my honest opinion. just fucked up. They couldn't get SOPA so now they're backdooring this.

Your post kinda sounds like what the cops say, "If you've got nothing to hide, you won't mind if we search your ____________.

[Logical]

11. Just listen to the talk, even on the DU about people saying "copying isn't stealing". It is......

pure 100% theft!!!

People want shit for free and then whine when they try to stop it.

[permatex]

12. I never said it isn't wrong

I said that the ISP's are caving to these groups and now we've lost more of our privacy.

And, as we all know, there is no way this won't be abused, right?

[ananda]

14. Count on it. It will be abused.

I don't download copyrighted material either, but this law bothers me.

[Logical]

22. I know it will be abused. But how do you propose solving it? People are stealing stuff.

[permatex]

24. I don't have the answer but getting ISP's to spy on it's customers is not the way.

2 wrongs don't make a right. And you seem to be ok with it being abused as long as it catches some people illegally downloading copyrighted material.
I'll wager that this is going to blow up in the ISP's faces and it's going to make people hate the RIAA and MPAA even more than before.

[Iterate]

15. Do you mean something like a Miles Davis tune from 1948?

Miles died in 1991. I believe his music (and our cultural heritage) is now owned by Sony, who of course had nothing to do with the creation or the performance.

I hope I never encounter any ballsy SOB who would ever have tried try to cheat Miles. I'm pretty sure he got paid.

So who's the thief?

[Logical]

23. Once again big business is always 100% evil......

Labels spend millions on bands that never make it. The artists are free to go the indie route all they want.

But many huge stars made millions off the evil labels. And the labels, who financed the artists early, deserve a payback.

Hell Michael Jackson bought the Beatles songs. Is he evil also?

[Iterate]

31. Not interested in cliche;it's simply that unjust and unreasonable laws are ultimately unenforcable.

The only thing the size of a company (or any organization, even any government) has to do with it is that they are the ones who tend to have the power and influence to fashion laws to suit their narrow self-interest and preserve their status. Eventually it gets to the point where even the legitimacy of reasonable law is undercut and the institutions themselves loose legitimacy.

That's a pretty narrow and safe historical argument. I don't think I need to expand it and go into the details of how the Roman Catholic church tried to control the printing press.

I don't really care if the RIAA is wed to an old business model of turning 14-year-old wannabees into 24-year-old drug-addled cashcows. Not my problem if they fail 90% of the time. They don't have the distribution, development, or promotion costs they once had. If they truly had the interests of talented artists at heart that would be obvious, and with reasonable laws they would have my support.

As it is, they seem intent on owning the culture, selling it back to us, and spying on us to make sure we comply.As it is, they are locking down 50 year-old symphony performances composed by artists dead for 200 years. Michael Jackson didn't get the laws changed to that state: Disney did, the RIAA did.

[EFerrari]

20. No, that isn't the point.

Secrecy breeds corruption and this capability is ripe for abuse. Remember the Republicans calling into CSPAN who say government spying is okay if you have nothing to hide when it's glaringly obvious the government abuses spying for political purposes.

[Logical]

21. I dislike the spying also and dont trust people to only look at music/video. But there is a huge....

piracy problem. And that forces them to deal with it.

[Aerows]

13. I have the feeling

That this is going to cause far more headaches for ISPs than it will ever solve for anyone else.

Can you imagine if you are downloading a game client, some of which are 8GBs +, and you get flagged as downloading copyrighted material?

I'm sure they will look for people downloading large files. I can only imagine what Blizzard Activision's response would be if suddenly large swaths of their customers can't get patches and Steam customers can no longer download games they have paid for and start complaining. Do you think behemoths like those two are going to just sit there and take it and deal with pissed off account holders?

Mind you, I'm sure they will be looking at protocols, as well, but there are PLENTY of legitimate uses for Bittorent, particularly for Linux distros, and many many other items.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

18. You're right, there are going to be some "false positives"...

...and once a few of them become news, the P.R. disaster will be more than the ISPs will want to handle. They KNOW how the public felt about SOPA. This is nothing more than "back door SOPA," not having to pass through any kind of legislative process.

When someone downloads large files via Usenet and a provider like Astraweb, the ISPs will be shit out of luck. The ISP will see SSL-encrypted data packets, and that's it. Astraweb does NOT keep logs of user activity. If the ISP were to demand to see logs, Astraweb's response would be "We don't keep logs, we are not legally required to do so." Now, if someone used a Usenet search engine like Binsearch and compiled NZB files which they downloaded and opened in their newsreader, the ISP would see that NZB file, and if they suspected illegal activity by virtue of the file name, could demand to see the Usenet logs, which Astraweb DOES NOT KEEP. This is the far end of the spectrum, the true tinfoil hat paranoia scenario. The ISPs are gonna be lazy. They're going after high-bandwidth bittorrent users. That will keep them far too busy to troll around Usenet for people hooked into a VPN and using a provider that doesn't keep logs.

[nc4bo]

25. Thanks for the reminder!

If no one has ever heard of or visited https://www.eff.org/ (Electronic Frontier Foundation), now would be a good time to familiarize yourself and others with this organization.

[RKP5637]

26. Fuck the Internet. I use it less and less each day. It's become a tool for

spying on the citizens, every activity. Alternatives will become available, eventually. This is a transitional stage and garbage like this will be circumvented.

[Fearless]

27. For those who say well just don't torrent...

You miss the point entirely. This is exactly the same as the PATRIOT ACT wanting your library book records because you "could be" checking out "subversive literature". Exactly the same as warrantless wiretapping your phone just because you know statistically you may be a terrorist because you use your phone to call internationally.

It's the traditional conservative view. If there "could" be an issue then carpet bomb everything! Like on welfare... Someone somewhere might be gaming the system? Then NO ONE should have welfare. They would rather ensure that no one gets around the law (the few that do) at the expense of the majority that won't. Rather than some few get around the law but far greater numbers benefit from net neutrality, welfare, privacy, etc.

It is a doctrine based on fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of "subversive behavior". Those in power are afraid of losing power and will do anything to ensure they maintain their authority. That is what the MIAA and RIAA is doing here. They are afraid of losing power. They are engaging in draconian methods of anti-American, unConstitutional spying on law-abiding Americans en masse to catch the few who may be breaking the law.

That is what is going on here.

They are spying on you.

Everyone.

Always.

[RKP5637]

29. Extremely well said IMO!!! Similar thought was my reason for my reply #26, but

you said it far better. The internet has turned into the choice for lemmings, clicking away, having their lives laid out and analyzed. Hitler and that ilk would have loved the new tools for spying on every citizen, from intimate to public, every detail, every financial transaction, every search, email, discussion, every phone conversation. The profiling is phenomenal, as is predictive analysis, arrested for something one never did, but based on profiling, just in case.

Meanwhile most Americans are asleep as to what is occurring. And then you get the ones that say, well, I do nothing wrong. Well, that is a relative statement. What is right or wrong depends on which regime is TPTB. Right today could be wrong tomorrow.

[permatex]

30. You nailed it Fearless.

Spot on.

[agentS]

28. I see potential lawsuit material here.

A company offering legal torrents will run afoul of this and may challenge the ISP in court.
I doubt an individual will succeed in a lawsuit but a class-action, especially if there are a lot of mistakes (cough cough *WIFI bandit thieves* cough cough).

That's probably why the admin signed off on the deal- the ISPs take the heat for any screwups and the Big Entertainment money will keep flowing to him since nothing's going to happen legislatively.

If I were stateside, I would consider a boycott of all MPAA affiliated products. If I can't watch it for free on my computer, I won't watch it at all; neither pay TV, theater movie, broadcast TV, or Youtube. There's plenty of indie and amateur stuff worth watching that WON'T bother the ISPs or copyright lawyers.