Internet Monitoring to Happen July 1st

[Belated]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/15/american-isps-to-launch-massive-copyright-spying-scheme-on-july-12/

The content industries calls this scheme a ?graduated response? plan, which will see Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and others spying on users? Internet activities and watching for potential copyright infringement. Users who are ?caught? infringing on a creator?s protected work can then be interrupted with a notice that piracy is forbidden by law and carries penalties of up to $150,000 per infringement, requiring the user to click through saying they understand the consequences before bandwidth is restored, and they could still be subject to copyright infringement lawsuits.

So yeah. I'm surprised there hasn't been an article on this already. Or a protest. Am I missing something? Is it a joke? It looks like a big deal to me. (Although the article changed the date from July 12th to July 1st. Don't know if this hurts its credibility or not.)

 

[Rednog]

Sounds like tin foil hat conspiracy nonsense. ISPs are the last ones who want to do this because it requires obscene amounts of resources on their end, and even then the legality is shaky at best. Seriously, can you fathom the amount of work, time, and money it would take to go through the data of several hundred million people?

 

[Rastien]

Sounds like tin foil hat conspiracy nonsense. ISPs are the last ones who want to do this because it requires obscene amounts of resources on their end, and even then the legality is shaky at best. Seriously, can you fathom the amount of work, time, and money it would take to go through the data of several hundred million people?

Pretty much this bro,
Basically the goverment thinks this law is fantastic, in reality your ISPs regardless of country cannot police the internet in the way that the law dictates. For them to be able to do this they will need to invest some serious money into the hardware and have dedicated teams for monitoring. This is not something ISPs have any intrest in.

Whilst the music industry has managed to have this law passed, they cannot make ISPs invest in the kit needed to properly do what the law has asked. Still the law itself is scary without a doubt but right now i wouldn't worry to much.

 

[Rainmaker77]

Indeed, not only would the ISP's not want to do this, even if they had all the money in the world I don't think real time monitoring of millions of people's internet connections for illegal activities is even possible.

I assume they'd simply flag certain websites with a warning when visiting it, instead of monitoring everyone's internet, however even with doing that there will be websites they miss.

 

[Quaxar]

Quick, everybody pirate now while we're still untraceable by the Cyber Police!

 

[DoPo]

To add to that - not only do the resources needed are, quite frankly, unimaginable, but let's also add the fact that the ISP shout further invest in knowing what is a legitimate download from piracy. Not every video of South Park is piracy (you can hit YouTube for example) and not every torrent out there is illegal (there is even a website called LegitTorrrents). Seriously, can you imagine how hard is to distinguish if a stream of 1s and 0s is illegal or not?

 

[lRookiel]

This is quite funny and I can imagine it going something like this...

Government: "Yeah we got the bastards now"

All the ISP's: "Well if you can provide the equipment which will costs millions of pounds then we MIGHT be able to do it."

Government: "DO WHAT YOU WANT CAUSE A PIRATE LIVES FREE!..."

 

[Sean Hollyman]

Does this mean I can get arrested for watching dirty videos online?

 

[Bertylicious]

Does this mean I can get arrested for watching dirty videos online?

"Sean Hollyman, we have evidence that have been watching videos of large women sitting on birthday cakes so we are putting your name on this list and you will need to speak to your neighbours."

 

[Wintermoot]

I honestly doubt this will happen people have a constitutional right for privacy.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

Does this mean I can get arrested for watching dirty videos online?

"Sean Hollyman, we have evidence that have been watching videos of large women sitting on birthday cakes so we are putting your name on this list and you will need to speak to your neighbours."

Oh shit, I've been rumbled.

Need to get away need to make a dash!

 

[Bertylicious]

Does this mean I can get arrested for watching dirty videos online?

"Sean Hollyman, we have evidence that have been watching videos of large women sitting on birthday cakes so we are putting your name on this list and you will need to speak to your neighbours."

Oh shit, I've been rumbled.

Need to get away need to make a dash!

Now hold your horses there son. This could be good for you if you have any large lady neighbours. They'll open the door and there you'll be with a sheet cake, a knowing smile and a letter from the government.

Outrageously erotic.

 

[Rastien]

Does this mean I can get arrested for watching dirty videos online?

"Sean Hollyman, we have evidence that have been watching videos of large women sitting on birthday cakes so we are putting your name on this list and you will need to speak to your neighbours."

Oh shit, I've been rumbled.

Need to get away need to make a dash!

Now hold your horses there son. This could be good for you if you have any large lady neighbours. They'll open the door and there you'll be with a sheet cake, a knowing smile and a letter from the government.

Outrageously erotic.

what is this, i don't even.

 

[teqrevisited]

They'll scrap the idea as soon as it specifically incriminates any government officials or executives high up in the entertainment industry.

 

[DoPo]

Does this mean I can get arrested for watching dirty videos online?

Well, it depends. Mainly the question is - are the videos copyrighted? Because, if they are, you're done for, better start saving those $150 000. But otherwise it seems fine - the MPAA and RIAA don't seem to be concerned with petty trivialities such as "porn", "extreme videos", "child pornography" and the rest - people watching those aren't pirates, after all - they aren't doing anything wrong.

 

[5ilver]

They'll scrap the idea as soon as it specifically incriminates any government officials or executives high up in the entertainment industry.

Would it not be easier to just not mention their names to the public?

 

[Volstag9]

Although I don't know where the article is, Comcast has basically stated that they don't want to become the movie industries' ***** and they are refusing to go after copyright criminals. I'm paraphrasing there of course.

I don't believe you have much to worry about. Time will tell I guess.

 

[RagTagBand]

Don't care. July 1st is Planetside day and I will be playing Planetside.

 

[Fractral]

So, back to TOR then? Seriously, not only is this never going to be enforced, even if it was there are so many ways to bypass it, meaning that in the end the 'hardcore' piraters- who know how to avoid it- won't get caught, while the people who accidentally watch copyrighted material will.