ISP Gives Customers The Power To Ban BitTorrent
An ISP in the UK is set to introduce a voluntary customer Internet censorship scheme. Charles Dunstone, chief executive of Carphone Warehouse/TalkTalk said the company would introduce parental controls for subscribers which would include a feature to ban BitTorrent sites.
News link: here
47 Responses
10.13.2009
I can’t wait for (few) customers to enable this but inevitably some will STILL get sued. That will be the ultimate LOL of their shoddy evidence.***** THE RIAA!
10.13.2009
So would this make me immune to copyright theft accusations?Because I could just "ban" bittorrent and rent a seedbox/VPS for cheap and use that.
10.13.2009
This is actually a very good idea to help parents of tweens and teens. For people interested in utilizing BitTorrent to download pirated content it means nothing, but it will at the very least help prevent more trusting/ignorant parents from getting hit with a lawsuit because Johnny downloaded Lady Gaga’s discography from freesongsfromriaa.com.
10.13.2009
Will there be a way to ban the RIAA and MPAA websites?
10.13.2009
"It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected."- Mark Twain“Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.”- G.K. Chesterton“We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.”- Aesop“Let us not forget that the greatest composers were also the greatest thieves. They stole from everyone and everywhere.”- Pablo Casals
10.13.2009
"with even a small amount of tech knowledge" is the key part of your phrase. Would customers rather go online and hit the "No file sharing" button, or would you rather they go in and meddle with their router?From a family member standpoint, I wouldn’t want to help support those routers, because god knows what else they did.
10.13.2009
I don’t understand. Any person with even a small amount of tech knowledge can set their network to block access to any sites they want. Why do we need another layer of security? This just seems like another way the recording industry is using their influence to meddle in other places where they do not belong.
10.13.2009
This brings up an interesting question. What happens if the RIAA sues you for illegal downloads, but you claim that your ISP has blocked access to these sites? Can you then go after your ISP? Would you just forward all law suits to your ISP?
10.13.2009
Its one tool to prevent your kids from trying to do all of that even after you’ve gotten a few letters from your ISP.You know, the kind of thing that helps parents to their job of parenting.
10.13.2009
Only someone dumb enough to willfully listen to Lady Gaga would be dumb enough to get caught downloading her songs.
10.13.2009
opendns.com Not that hard people.
10.13.2009
You’ll probably find the trackers that have only legal torrents, and actively police their tracker will not be blocked.
10.13.2009
You might as well equate rapidshare or megafail with piracy because they’re often used to distribute things as well. The fact is, bittorrent is a method to transfer files and nothing more, just like http or ftp or whatever. Pirates happen to find it convenient, but that’s really irrelevant.
10.13.2009
Aren’t you late for your appointment at Youtube?
10.13.2009
I would. The Judges working these cases already dont understand the technology as it is. As long as you dont get a Judge who works for a copyright lobby on the side, I (who has zero legal experience) think you would be fine if it ever went to court.
10.13.2009
It’s voluntary, people. And enough with this "You can download legal stuff" crap, we all know what it’s primary use is for, and why a customer would wish to block it to cover their ass.
10.13.2009
So basically all they did is take NetNanny and added a bittorent blocking option/list. Sounds like a good idea for parents who are not techno-elite (most of them). Its voluntary afterall so why shouldn’t parents have this option?
10.13.2009
Just for kicks, I clicked on the "Recent Torrents" link, which should certainly be random. Out of the 30 torrents, I found 3, at most, that might be legal, and even those probably aren’t. Seriously, you’re just making yourself look stupid.
10.13.2009
it’s 1 step closer. next it will be on by default and parents will have to call to "unblock the illegal file sharing service".
10.13.2009
The intention is to keep stupid kids from downloading a bunch of crap that:A. can hog bandwidth from other usersB. can cause bandwidth overage fees to be incurredC. gets the PC infected from a Kanye song/gets the RIAA knocking on their doorIt’s a means by which the parents can take an active roll in what their children do. It also gives a job to a developer you elitist.
10.13.2009
"The pirate bay did a count from a random sample of the torrents on their tracker and found that 80% of their torrents are legal. That’s on THE PIRATE BAY."HAHAHAHahahahahaaaaSource? I find it highly doubtful that this is correct, or if so, the "random sample" was truly random (random sample from the linux category maybe).
10.13.2009
next time try giving a short explanation of what content you are linking to. A naked hyperlink will get you a bury every time from me. You’re lucky I didn’t just decide you were a spammer and report you.
10.13.2009
A lot of game updaters use BT. It will be funny when average Joe user blocks BT then wonders why it is taking him 48+ hours to get a patch.
10.13.2009
Really? What’s next, the option to get an abridged version of the internet? Actually, that might be kinda useful. I wouldn’t have to pour hot sauce and oxi-clean on my eyes to try and "unsee" ***** anymore.
10.13.2009
Comments like this would not appear in an abridged version of the internet. So I’m all for it.
10.13.2009
I’m sure most ISPs would be extremely happy if less people used torrent software, and would accomodate that in any way possible. With the net neutrality hammer coming down, they are gonna have to finally, actually (GASP) upgrade their networks.
10.13.2009
Well yes, except that I’m sure there’s software sold that’ll do this as well. Net nanny type stuff is not new, ISPs getting involved is not necessary and really should be illegal even if it’s voluntary.
10.13.2009
And ISPs suck at filtering too. Just look at their pathetic throttling attempts.
10.13.2009
Hell yeah, same thing with me except for it was when CD burners came out, I was like one of the only people that had one, plus Napster…I was on dialup at the time so it was slow as *****, but I was making mix discs for people for some decent bank. Once I got Charter@Home, shiiiiiiit….mad cash. I’d be downloading tons of ***** a day because there was like no one else near me on high speed stealing my bandwidth, ***** was ridiculous fast…Ah, the good old days
10.13.2009
I disagree. I’d like to see all ISPs be required to offer this kind of service provided it is at the request of the subscriber.
10.13.2009
And ISPs aren’t exactly great at stopping this either.
10.13.2009
Except that bittorrent’s primary use is not piracy. Bittorrent is an incredibly cheap and efficient way to transfer large files. It makes servers pretty much obsolete when it comes to large files. Obviously it’s gonna be used for piracy, because release groups don’t want to bother with servers. But the fact is, anyone can use bittorrent to transfer a file of any size to any number of people on any connection speed. That’s useful, and to claim that its only use or even its primary use is piracy is ridiculous.
10.13.2009
Net Nanny and other "guardian" applications are fairly easy to circumvent, especially on a home PC where you’re less likely to have other account restrictions on top of that (like you would at a public library or what have you.)
10.13.2009
Do you feel like maintaining an up to date list of trackers and websites to block?Also, I’m not even sure the average family user would know that there are settings to adjust in the router, let alone how to get there, how to log on to it, how to find the settings, then what the hell most of them mean.
10.13.2009
You can already do this on just about every router on the market. I honestly do not see the point…
10.13.2009
From reading the description above, it sounds like they will block the tracker sites, not the traffic. This could mean you can’t get the torrent file in the first place. If they are also blocking the tracker addresses, you probably won’t get a decent speed even if you do get a hold of the torrent file.
10.13.2009
There’s many ways to do that now without involving the ISPs…why not support one of them and keep those developers employed?
10.13.2009
Good musicians borrow, great musicians steal.
10.13.2009
Can’t wait for some parent to block BT, and then have their kid freak the ***** out when he can’t update his copy of WoW on Patch Tuesday.I just with more companies would use the power of bittorrent for "legitimate" uses… and help get rid of the stigma of Bittorrent = Piracy.
10.13.2009
I do have kids. Active parenting would be to tell them the rules of the computer, not allow them to use the computer if they break those rules, and make them earn back the privilege of using the computer.
10.13.2009
@the8thbit: I’m sorry-they’re lying, or they’re using a remarkably permissive, and completely wrong, interpretation of copyright law. I use TPB-I know what it’s used for.
10.13.2009
Most routers have a ‘p2p block’ option that blocks all known p2p protocols.
10.13.2009
Simple solution, nasagwa… PARENT. If your kid circumvents the net nanny software, no more computer time. Or better yet, skip the net nanny bs, just tell your kid what not to go to and if they do, no more computer time.
10.13.2009
Sweet I remember what it was like to be the only kid in school who knew how to get new cd’s before everyone else did and sell them for a price…I made a ***** ton of money doing that in highschool before I turned 18. This will at least make one smart kid some cash.
10.13.2009
jasmus: arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/02/pi … dailytech.com/The+Pirate+Bay+80+of+Our+ … insidetech.monster.com/news/articles/4083-t … digital-stats.blogspot.com/2009/04/70-80-of … torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-trial-day-5-pet …
10.13.2009
More like the kind of thing that helps parents avoid doing their job of parenting.
10.13.2009
"It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected."- Mark TwainI like this one. I’m always searching for music and shows that no one remembers and the media for it is out of production.