More Trouble for File Sharing: Virgin to Monitor in UK
Virgin Media, one of the UK's leading providers of television / broadband / mobile / phone services, has announced plans to use deep packet inspection technology to track illegal file-sharing activity among around 40 percent of its UK network. Users whose activities are being monitored will not be informed of this fact.
The tech comes from Detica, a company better known for working with government data and intelligence agencies than media files and P2P networks. Their CView product is designed to help put an end to illegal filesharing, and with ISPs showing interest, it's unlikely that Virgin's deal will be the last we hear about.
In a lengthy document on illegal filesharing, Detica outlines how CView can be used to baseline the level of illicit filesharing then continue to measure the same activity as punitive measures are rolled out. The company believes that every ISP has an obligation to reduce illegal filesharing "by an agreed percentage over a period of time," a goal that can only be achieved through accurate, thorough measurement of user activity - this is the very reason Detica created CView.
Beyond measuring user activity on P2P networks, CView will not collect data on individual users. Raw traffic data and identification information is reportedly deleted in the closed system and cannot be accessed by a human operator. CView gathers data on peer-to-peer packets in user traffic and then inspects the packets to see whether the content is being shared illegally.
Although the tech only examines aggregate traffic data, and although a Virgin spokeperson states that records will not be maintained on individual users, privacy concerns are right behind raining-on-our-parade concerns when one examines the question of monitoring user behavior. Isn't warning, fining, censoring and/or restricting access for infringing users the next logical step?
Give us your doomsday scenario - or your vote of confidence for the Detica/Virgin partnership - in the comments.
Share
Facebook
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
"CView gathers data on peer-to-peer packets in user traffic and then inspects the packets to see whether the content is being shared illegally."
--> And so bandwidth is affected significantly across the network.
who cares....we will just encrypt everything...and start sharing copies of the bible.
It is so obvious that turning the screws on file sharing is going to lead to the development of heavily encrypted protocols.
Things would be so much simpler if the content industry would just provide content in a form that consumers want instead of forcing a form that the industry wants.
Legislating drivers to carry buggy whips in their cars just won't work without extreme law enforcement.
Is it just me or is Peter Mandelson responsible for all of this ???
One of his billionaire media friends is a media mogul and they're reported to have discussed illegal sharing on the web.
This is bad, very bad.
I can see them monitoring protocols like Gnutella and Fasttrack but bit torrent is a legitimate method of file sharing and is ued by some big companies to share their software.
Can they do the deep packet inspection when encryption is activated?
No, the director of Detica advised Zednet in an interview that CView falls down when it comes to inspecting encrypted torrent communication, it would require too much processing power apparently (although from what I've read the weak point is during the SSL handshake). So turn on your encryption and be happy.
Also worth noting that MI are very pissed off at this as it makes their job more difficult, as they put it, it encourages a more wide spread use of encryption. So what next? Well let's make it illegal to use encryption I guess...
All is illegal when you don't have the permission to download or to share it or try to exploit it.