The UK government is planning to ban people who pirate movies and music from the Internet. The previous plan was to restrict the connection speeds of those who have been found to have illegally downloaded content, but the government believes this did not go far enough to prevent illegal online file sharing.
The plan will force ISPs to monitor everything a user downloads and reads on the Internet, to scan for possible acts of piracy. IP addresses will be recorded and users warned before a ban takes place, although IP addresses are easily spoofed and no attempt will be made to distinguish between attempted piracy (downloads that fail to complete or turn out to be not illegal) and actual piracy.
Despite these privacy destroying measure, it will be unable to stop piracy since there are many existing techniques that will allow file sharing to occur, but for the IP addresses to be masked or to ensure the downloaded content cannot be monitored (so ISPs have no idea what users are downloading). Once again, excessive action to combat piracy may in fact drive new piracy technology that makes it harder and harder to prevent illegal downloads.
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The plan will force ISPs to monitor everything a user downloads and reads on the Internet, to scan for possible acts of piracy. IP addresses will be recorded and users warned before a ban takes place, although IP addresses are easily spoofed and no attempt will be made to distinguish between attempted piracy (downloads that fail to complete or turn out to be not illegal) and actual piracy.
Despite these privacy destroying measure, it will be unable to stop piracy since there are many existing techniques that will allow file sharing to occur, but for the IP addresses to be masked or to ensure the downloaded content cannot be monitored (so ISPs have no idea what users are downloading). Once again, excessive action to combat piracy may in fact drive new piracy technology that makes it harder and harder to prevent illegal downloads.
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