
"Six strikes" Internet warning system will come to US this year - mtgx
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/six-strikes-internet-warning-system-really-truly-coming-to-us-this-year/
======
luu
_the new program is meant to educate account holders and younger users about
the perils of downloading unauthorized content_

What perils? Later in the article, lawsuits are mentioned, but the whole thing
is pretty vague.

Putting aside both the legality and morality, doesn't this policy seem odd? If
there's nothing wrong with what people are doing, then there's no need for
this at all. If people are doing something wrong, shouldn't there be legal
censure, or something? Not just a warning about some mysterious "perils of
downloading unauthorized content"?

What premises could you possibly have that would make the correct conclusion
"warn people 5 times and then take some vague and indeterminate action"?

~~~
sp332
The perils are mainly getting sued for copyright infringement. I'm all for
copyright even if the current scheme is insane.

The legal problem is that no one can tell if the content is authorized or not.
Maybe it's fair use, maybe I legitimately bought it, or maybe it's similar
enough to another video that the bot got confused. Sending a warning is just a
way to sidestep the judicial oversight that a legitimate legal action would
entail.

~~~
jiggy2011
I think the way this works in practise is not that it's monitored by ISPs at
the source but rather it's monitored at the other end of the connection.

What happens is that the copyright holder, or some company working on their
behalf goes and connects to a torrent swarm.

Once they are connected to the swarm , they download the file in order to
verify that it is in fact copyrighted material. At that point they can log any
attempts by other peers to connect to them and download material from them
since the clients have no real way of telling who is a normal peer and who is
involved in monitoring.

They get a big list of IP addresses and times, from the IP they can figure out
who the ISP is. They can then ask the ISP to release records for which
subscriber was assigned that particular IP address at that time and bingo they
have found the infringer.

~~~
thaumasiotes
two points:

\- I believe there's some sort of issue with the approach where they log
people who download from them, because if you download a copyrighted file
being willfully shared _by the copyright holder_ you haven't infringed.

\- I once downloaded one song from a "500 greatest hits" type torrent. Some
time later, my university sent me a notice that they'd received a complaint
that I'd illegally downloaded Hotel California (I hadn't). Hotel California
wasn't even adjacent in the torrent to the song I did download; there were
never any attempts to get all or part of it. So the detection system (at that
time, at least) would seem to leave something to be desired.

~~~
jiggy2011
I'd be amazed if #1 washed in court. By connecting to a swarm that is
distributing copyrighted works without the copyright holder's consent you've
demonstrated that you have intent to pirate the material. Besides even if you
argued that you got a few chunks of the file from the copyright holder (or a
party acting on their behalf) you will have downloaded other chunks from
others (and possibly uploaded some of them back to the rights holder).

#2 I'd put down to a random bureaucratic fuckup rather than an inherent issue
with the detection system. I know a couple of people who've had letters from
their ISPs regards these activities and they have said that they were
accurate.

------
acabal
I don't get it... why do the ISPs even bother opting in? Isn't it just time
and money spent on basically making their customers angry, and for what
benefit on their part? Why spend money on something that provides no obvious
benefit, and many negatives, to the company?

I know some ISPs are also content providers, so I get that one. But what about
the rest?

~~~
r00fus
Looks like most ISPs are either content companies themselves (Comcast) or have
tight relationships with them (AT&T, Verizon).

They all see higher profits in screwing over consumers, apparently

~~~
jamesaguilar
Another possibility: content companies said, do this, or we'll try to get the
USG to force you to, which will be more expensive for both of us.

~~~
Natsu
As I recall, it was reported that the US Copyright Czar was involved in
getting these ISPs together and negotiating this.

------
k3n
> [...] but in no way was missing a July deadline a missed deadline

Thanks for clearing that up, Ms. Doublespeak.

------
dougbarrett
One issue I see with this, is mobile ISP's could, or will abuse it.

Last year, I got a phone call and e-mail from AT&T stating that if I didn't
stop using my phone for tethering, I would be automatically "upgraded" to a
DataPro 4GB data plan, which would override my "unlimited data" plan.

The issue with this is, I was using my Android phone as a hotspot, and I was
using it to watch videos from MSDN for work purposes because funny enough,
AT&T's 3G network was faster than my work internet connection.

My concern is, with phones and tablets blurring a line between mobile
computers and desktop computers (with docks included), if the next phone I get
in a few years comes with the ability to dock my phone to use a full desktop,
is that going to count as tethering? Is "desktop mode" data plan going to be
different than a "mobile mode" data plan? Will I be forced to finally give up
my "unlimited data" plan on my phone?

AT&T has tried numerous times to get rid of my data plan, and I know one of
these days I'm going to get a bill and it's going to be gone, and I'll call
AT&T and ask what is going on and they will just say "We don't offer that plan
anymore, so you were moved to the most appropriate plan" just like they tried
to do years ago.

I could see since I am a "unlimited data" plan user, they could implement this
six strikes plan, and use it any chance they can find until the inevitable
happens.

~~~
rorrr
You should read your ToS. Even if you are on an "unlimited data", tethering
is, most likely, explicitly prohibited.

~~~
dougbarrett
I fully understand that, and I complied with them without question. I'm
concerned that eventually, especially with the government support, I will be
bullied out of my unlimited data plan via loopholes.

~~~
rorrr
If it happens, take them to a small claims court. Show your contract. They
will have no case. They can't switch you to another plan if you don't agree
(well, if you keep tethering, they can).

------
stephengillie
Is there US governmental oversight of this program? Or is it just a business
arrangement between numerous copyright holding companies and ISPs? It looks
like the latter.

After an end user has received all 6 strikes, they could be sued or the ISP
could cut them off. Nothing prevents someone from being sued before completing
all 6 strikes, and a user could possibly complete 6 strikes and receive no
penalty.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_alert_system>

~~~
sp332
It has been specifically designed to avoid regulation. The ISPs opt-in, there
are no prescribed penalties, there are no legal notices or anything that would
involve the courts.

~~~
mtgx
The Obama administration did play as a "mediator", but you're right. This
system is specifically designed to avoid regulation, because they know they
wouldn't get that regulation. This way they can sidestep it by "partnering"
with the ISP's and carriers.

------
SeanDav
I predict a huge increase in uptake on VPN services and other privacy
providers.

I am seriously thinking of going full encryption for absolutely all my
internet and email use. Getting so tired of "Big Brother" and his idiotic "Big
Business" sidekick.

~~~
thebigshane
It feels weird (as a conservative leaning pseudo-libertarian) believing that
Big Business is doing a far better job of screwing up the Internet than Big
Brother.

The next step will be prohibiting US-based services from providing truly-
encrypted communication/storage.

~~~
montecarl
Big Business is rather influenced by Big Brother in this case. In much of the
US the telecommunications industry receives heavy funding from local and state
governments to build out their networks. There might be much more competition
(or not, who knows!) if it wasn't for the regulations, subsidies, and
municipal monopolies that are granted.

I'm not saying it would be better, but the telecommunications market isn't
even close to a free market.

~~~
thebigshane

      Big Business is rather influenced by Big Brother in this case.
    

I don't think Big Brother would be pushing so hard against copyright
infringers if it weren't for Big Business lobbying, particularly Big Media.
Big Brother is the accomplice, Big Media is the culprit.

~~~
montecarl
If you want to threaten others, best to use and influence the entity that is
"allowed" to use aggressive force. If you had to threaten internet users one-
by-one with guns, you might discredit yourself. Best to use Uncle Sam.

------
masukomi
A prediction: Members of Anonymous (or similar) will hack the home wifi of
every congressman/woman related to this, and cause them to receive six
"educational alerts" and then get cut off.

Soon thereafter the law will change or die.

~~~
redthrowaway
That's not a bad idea, but I highly doubt congresscritters would be cut off. A
simple phone call would likely get them exempted.

~~~
Natsu
I don't know where things stand with this program, but back in the days when
MediaDefender's email was leaked, one of those laid out a policy of not going
after politicians and the like.

~~~
redthrowaway
Perhaps fittingly, Anonymous has a similar policy of not going after
journalists. Don't bite the hand that feeds you...

------
jrockway
Remember that the big ISPs are owned by big content companies. If anything,
forcing this issue on people is going to result in increased regulatory
oversight, so I honestly don't see this happening.

------
ojbyrne
"... but in no way was missing a July deadline a missed deadline."

Just seems like this is the Copyright absolutionist's mindset in a nutshell.
Nothing is what it seems like, it's what we say it is.

------
icelancer
Good luck with this, idiots. I've cracked two WPA2 networks in my area and two
WEP networks. Cancel their service; see if I care.

~~~
quesera
Are you actually going to compete with these guys for the title of "biggest
jerk"?

~~~
daenz
The point is raises is important. There is no law that you have to secure your
network. If someone uses your network to pirate, do you get shut down? That's
like demolishing a freeway because a criminal drove down it for his getaway.

~~~
quesera
I agree that the point is important, but that problem already exists
independently of this issue.

To use your analogy, the guy I was responding to was saying: "if you make a
law I don't agree with, I will break it and frame innocent people. See if I
care."

That's where it becomes a competition for the title.

------
alttag
The "trouble" with such a warning system is that at its base is he presumption
of positively identifying the infringer. Sure, and ISP can say "such-and-such
activity violates our ToS, and you're responsible for all traffic on your
account", but identifying a particular individual's traffic (from a content-
owner's perspective) seems to be difficult given the increasing frequency of
IP-as-identification being tossed from U.S. courts.

So, the biggest practical question in my mind is how they plan to reconcile
penalties for individual infringers against the rights of the account holder.

~~~
wmf
IIRC you're allowed to use the open Wi-Fi defense one time (i.e. you can
eliminate one strike). After that you've been "educated" so you cannot claim
ignorance for any later strikes.

------
jiggy2011
I assume that this will be targeted at whoever pays the bill.

The problem is that a lot of people especially families etc have more than one
person using the internet even if you ignore issues such as other people
breaking into your network without permission.

Another problem is that bit torrent traffic is very difficult to block without
effectively crippling the internet connection since modern clients seem to be
clever about using encryption and trying different ports etc. I've tried
blocking bittorrents on my router using it's feature for doing so, didn't work
at all.

This means that you might have a family with a shared internet connection
where all of the kids are given internet access because they need it for
schoolwork & keeping in touch with friends etc but maybe one of them simply
keeps downloading copyrighted material despite being told not to. Identifying
and preventing this behaviour might prove impossible and it's likely that the
entire household suffers as a result.

~~~
tonfa
(Went through all this stuff 5 years ago when it was passed in France, so I
already went through most of the arguments/counter arguments)

The argument is that they don't care, it _is_ the fault of the account owner
if they are not able to prevent "illegal" usage. Account owner should be able
to install "something" (they were always vague) that would help him prevent
people doing illegal stuff.

By something we always thought it would be allowing ISPs to do DPI or
something (and you would off course have to pay for it, because it's a service
they offer).

~~~
jiggy2011
I'm not sure if DPI would help much if the torrent connections are all
encrypted.

Perhaps you could do something by profiling connections, for example if a
particular computer has a large amount of connections open to a large number
of IP addresses. But then again in theory you don't have to download very much
to trip over this, downloading 6 separate 4MB MP3 files could do it if you are
very unlucky.

The only thing I can think of would be to run everything through an HTTP proxy
and then explicitly whitelist IP addresses of individual websites as and when
you need them.

Of course this would break stuff like XboX games and any legitimate use of P2P
networking.

~~~
tonfa
I didn't imply it made sense. That said I'm pretty sure you could have some
decent results with ML based analysis of network traffic.

------
netmau5
I worry this is the step in between illegal downloads and making anonymity
illegal. If they can flag you for downloading unpaid content, it won't be long
before they flag you for circumstantial patterns leading to that behavior such
as using TOR.

~~~
chimeracoder
We're already almost there.

Try being _truly_ anonymous on the Internet these days. It's near impossible.
Most online vendors won't accept pre-paid credit cards. Many email providers
require you to provide a phone number or another email address as
"verification".

Even posting on forums is difficult, because while Tor is decent for fetching
data, some websites blacklist Tor IP addresses (or, even if they don't,
there's a chance you may be sharing an IP address with someone who _was_
banned from a forum).

~~~
smsm42
Online vendors don't accept pre-paid Visa? This is news to me. How do they
even know - it's just a regular Visa card. I've used a number of such online
(mostly ones I got in all kinds of promotions) and never had a problem - I
didn't even think anybody could do that and I doubt Visa would allow you to do
that - to reject pre-paid Visa card. Do you have any source to this claim?

~~~
chimeracoder
> Do you have any source to this claim?

Paypal, for one, makes no attempt to hide this: [https://www.paypal-
community.com/t5/About-My-Account/using-p...](https://www.paypal-
community.com/t5/About-My-Account/using-prepaid-visa-card/td-p/462071)

While Paypal will accept it if you provide a Visa-verified billing address,
not all will, and that would defeat the point of anonymity anyway.

Visa and AmEx also forbid international payments on prepaid cards, and most
merchants nowadays require a verified billing address. (This wasn't the case
as recently as 2009).

Remember that a prepaid card is not a credit card - there's no risk of you not
paying, because _they [Visa] already have your money_ and yet merchants refuse
to take it. It's completely ridiculous.

~~~
wmf
This sounds more like a problem with the issuing banks. Is there any way for a
merchant to know that a card is prepaid? If not, how would they know not to
check the billing address?

(Semi-related: Do prepaid cards count as debit for purposes of the regulation
on swipe fees?)

~~~
chimeracoder
> This sounds more like a problem with the issuing banks.

It's a problem with _both_ parties, since _both_ are known to refuse to
process them.

> Is there any way for a merchant to know that a card is prepaid?

Yes

> Is there any way for a merchant to know that a card is prepaid?

No

~~~
chimeracoder
Copy and pasted wrong - just noticed. The 'no' is supposed to be in response
to the debit card fees question.

------
mistercow
I have two hypotheses about this:

1\. They're never going to roll this out and aren't actually putting any
resources into it, but are simply hoping that they can stir up some news every
few months as a cheap deterrent.

2\. They are going to roll this out, and the primary target of it is kids
downloading on their parents' connections, which would explain why they only
seem to even be attempting to work with the largest ISPs. Obviously that would
be ineffective at deterring anyone who pays their own ISP bill; those users
could just move to a smaller provider. But if they're hoping to use parents as
enforcers, it makes perfect sense.

------
mtgx
I have the feeling this will end up very bad for Americans, much like the
patent system, and then there will be a decade or more before anyone even
tries to revert it.

~~~
rm999
You make it sound like this is official government policy or a law, but it's
just an agreement between some private companies. Copyright holders can
already can communicate with ISPs and ISPs can already shut off someone's
internet.

My ISP used to forward me copyright violation notices periodically (it was my
roommate's doing), and claimed they could shut off my internet after three of
them. This six 'strike' policy seems lenient in comparison.

~~~
nitrogen
_You make it sound like this is official government policy or a law, but it's
just an agreement between some private companies._

Not just any private companies. These are agreements between private companies
whose size and influence gives them a unique position of control over peoples'
lives; such a partnership, negotiated with the involvement of the white house,
might as well be official government policy or law.

~~~
bediger4000
Correct. Due to Government policies on broadband and telecomm in general,
effectively no competition exists in most urban areas for broadband access.

So, these 6 (or so) ISPs can make an abusive "6 Strikes" copyright regime into
de facto national law.

------
ecoffey
I feel like this article about how the Law views information and how Tech
views it is germane.

I think it is one of the best descriptions of this split, and what problems
we'll have to overcome.

<http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/colour/2004061001.php>

------
CWIZO
I would like to hear from somebody living in a country that already has this
kind of system in place. How does it work in practice? Do they catch every
torrent you download for instance?

~~~
wmf
In France, "95 percent of people who have received a first-time notice of
illegal sharing 'do not give rise to the need for a second notice,' that 92
percent of people who received a second notice cease illegal sharing, and that
98 percent of people who receive a third notice 'show the same trend.'"
[http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/11/3316158/graduated-
piracy-r...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/11/3316158/graduated-piracy-
response-france-hadopi)

So yeah, telling people "don't get caught again" works.

------
Aloisius
Luckily there are still smaller independent internet service providers out
there. A mass switch from Comcast after people discover they are being spied
on might wake them up.

~~~
saryant
To _who_ exactly? I left Comcast due to their horrible service but that meant
stepping down to a 6mbps DSL line. In the evenings Netflix can't even maintain
a stream.

I have a choice between two terrible providers. If you know of some amazing
ISP we can all switch to, I'd love to hear it.

------
sbierwagen
Good thing my neighbor only uses WEP encryption on their AP.

------
w1ntermute
Oh well, it's the ISPs' loss. I'll lower my internet plan by $20/month and
rent a seedbox colocated in Europe instead. Problem solved.

------
mparlane
New Zealand has a three strikes policy, I wonder what the 6 vs 3 implies.
Maybe RIANZ paid more than the RIAA o_O

------
tokenizer
Hmmm. I'm from Canada, and therefore have no opinion on this but, has this
been in the news at all until now?

~~~
k3n
It's news to me! It probably just took a backseat to SOPA/etc. and was likely
tabled at that time, only to resurface now that those efforts have been
unsuccessful.

~~~
pyre
It's been in the news several times before, many of them via ArsTechnica as
well.

