Reply to: Tracing file sharers

[Incognito]

They'd go for the people who's IP's showed up. They will go on the net and look for torrents and other downloads being made available. They'll grab a few files, check they are copyrighted or not and then go after the person who's IP they go them from. Doesnt matter if you were acting as a proxy for someone else, unless you kept logs and hand them over to prove it wasn;t you, you will be assumed to be the guilty party.

You don't understand how TOR works. It's an 'Onion routing' network. You become one part in a link of relays and you have no idea what is travelling through your part of the chain. Plausible deniability. As long as you can prove that you have not downloaded the item in question (and that's as simple as providing mobile phone records showing you weren't at home or getting any IT professional to compile a report for you).

The worst that could happen is that you somehow breach your ISP's T&C's somehow.

However, at the moment it isn't practical or appreciated by the community to run any form of p2p through TOR. You drag the network to a grinding halt.

It's not a defence.

HTH

It most certainly is. If a hacker came and breached your network and proceeded to do nasty things, it may make your life hell for a period whilst you proved it was not you, but you certainly will not be liable for any of their actions. That includes running broadband without encryption. You point me to a single statue that dictates you will run WPA2 on your wireless router.

[threaded]

Thanks, I'm a dumb engineer not an IT expert and I have teenage kids at home. I'm not in the habit of downloading torrents but I can easily foresee a situation where the kids could reset the router without me knowing. That would be my defence!

It's not a defence.

HTH

[Fred Bloggs]

Thanks, I'm a dumb engineer not an IT expert and I have teenage kids at home. I'm not in the habit of downloading torrents but I can easily foresee a situation where the kids could reset the router without me knowing. That would be my defence!

[centurian]

So, if I swear on oath that I had done factory reset on the router and simply forgotten to switch the security back on, how could that be challenged by probability? Serious question, BTW.

On the basis that you are lying - and they need to show it is more of a possibility than not. They could show that if you are an IT expert, it would be quite unlikely that you would make such a mistake.

Whether they would be bothered to do this is another matter.

But the important point to remember is the "proof beyond reasonable doubt" applies to criminal cases.

If civil cases, it's not uncommon for the judge to look you in the eye, come to the conclusion you are a lying scroat and find against you.

[doodab]

I'd agree the attempts to tackle the issue so far have been heavy handed, but It's not clear to me that civil liberties are being eroded.

On the one hand, file sharers are ignoring and attempting to erode the rights of copyright holders, who in turn are simply defending their existing rights.

On the other hand, people are concerned about an erosion of the right to privacy. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance and all that, and we need to subject any regulations to scrutiny.

Ultimately the legislation being put forward needs to bring the internet in line with other communications mediums (and the real world), and that does mean an end to absolute freedom to do whatever we choose with total anonymity.

Anonymity is not the same thing as privacy, and it's never been a civil right as far as I am aware, but a lot of people don't seem to perceive the difference.

[NotAllThere]

In Switzerland it is legal to download illegal copies. Hosting the copies, or making them is not legal. I'm not particular concerned about protecting hosters or copiers. What I am concerned about is the erosion of our civil liberties caused by the efforts of inept legislators to manage "piracy".

fwiw, I don't download illegal stuff. ( I probably have the only licensed copy of winzip in the world ).

[doodab]

Ok. Fortunately I live in a country where (at the moment) we have a certain amount of freedom.

I'm not sure that a law that's easy to break and difficult to enforce is quite the same thing as freedom. Cconsidered as such, I'm free to commit murder. Which I suppose I am, if I am willing to face to consequences.

[NotAllThere]

Ok. Fortunately I live in a country where (at the moment) we have a certain amount of freedom.

[DaveB]

What would happen if everyone (i.e. a large number of people) used something like Tor. Then we'd all be proxies... (sorry if it's a dumb question).

They'd go for the people who's IP's showed up. They will go on the net and look for torrents and other downloads being made available. They'll grab a few files, check they are copyrighted or not and then go after the person who's IP they go them from. Doesnt matter if you were acting as a proxy for someone else, unless you kept logs and hand them over to prove it wasn;t you, you will be assumed to be the guilty party.

[NotAllThere]

What would happen if everyone (i.e. a large number of people) used something like Tor. Then we'd all be proxies... (sorry if it's a dumb question).

[doodab]

Not really that misguided due to two factors

a) For the artist/record company to "lose out" it would have to mean the downloader would buy the product if it was not available for free. But if that is not the case then no one actually loses anything. And in many (most) of these cases the downloader would not buy the product if they had to pay, hence the creative industries have continued to grow despite the massive increase of torrenting. All the reports of downloading costing industrys millions/billions are a load of codswallop based on the misconcention/outright lie that "every download = lost sale"

b) These industry "collection/enforcement associations/agencies" are notorious for paying nothing back to content creators. Basically nearly every penny they earn just goes either into their pockets or into funding for chasing more people, what little remains goes to the record companies, nothing ever makes it to the actual artist

If you look at download + CD sales now .vs. CD sales in the late 90s before downloading caught on, there is a noticable drop. Those who argue otherwise tend to look at figures showing a recovery from 2004-2005 and onwards by which point illegal downloading was well established and the bulk of the damage had been done.

I agree a proportion of downloaders wouldn't actually buy the products but I don't think it's most. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many people who used to download illegaly have switched to pay services such as iTunes now they can get what they want legally, and if illegal downloading weren't actually possible I would expect a fair proportion of those left would buy things rather than go without.

We are talking about more than just record companies & artists, there is an entire ecosystem of studios, hire companies and studio musicians who are struggling more than ever to make a living. Soemthing like 80-90% of the major recording studios in the UK have closed in the last few years, and studio rates are way down. The film industry is another kettle of fish, here I think less people bother with downloads because the quality is so crap.

I agree their tactics have been unnecessarily agressive, and not all of the money goes to artists directly, but the fact of the matter is that industry risk taking and investment in new talent has declined considerably.

[Not So Wise]

or rationalize that the artists themselves aren't losing out, although this view is somewhat misguided I think.

Not really that misguided due to two factors

a) For the artist/record company to "lose out" it would have to mean the downloader would buy the product if it was not available for free. But if that is not the case then no one actually loses anything. And in many (most) of these cases the downloader would not buy the product if they had to pay, hence the creative industries have continued to grow despite the massive increase of torrenting. All the reports of downloading costing industrys millions/billions are a load of codswallop based on the misconcention/outright lie that "every download = lost sale"

b) These industry "collection/enforcement associations/agencies" are notorious for paying nothing back to content creators. Basically nearly every penny they earn just goes either into their pockets or into funding for chasing more people, what little remains goes to the record companies, nothing ever makes it to the actual artist

[DaveB]

Questionable services???

I get all my linux distro's using torrents, also ID releases all linux server binaries through torrent these days.

It is not a questionable service, it is a perfectly legitimate service that the record labels are trying to spin as questionable.

As for the proxy thing, who said it had to be a free anon proxy? If people who are downloading dodgy stuff really are looking to protect themselves they could quite happily pay for a service based in say China, Russia, etc Would be perfectly legal and the record labels will have problems getting the information out of those countries.

The not so legal route, hackers with botnets selling off the ability to proxy through compromised machines (which will only lead to innocent people getting accused of downloading stuff)

It's like trying to scan brainwaves to see if somebody is thinking the wrong thing...

Questionable from their perspective. They need to keep a low profile in order to avoid pressure being brought to bear on their ISP's. Not permitting filesharing is a good way to do that. Any anonymous proxy service that allows filesharing will be jumped on by the recording industry as soon as they find it and it takes deep pockets and very good lawyers to fend them off.

[Fred Bloggs]

Remember that this is a civil court, not a criminal one. They don't need to prove anything.

They just need to show that their version of events is more likely than yours ("balance of probabilities").

So, if I swear on oath that I had done factory reset on the router and simply forgotten to switch the security back on, how could that be challenged by probability? Serious question, BTW.

[doodab]

If you are just downloading linux distro's you have nothing to worry about and don't need to use a proxy do you?