ACTA secrecy breeds suspicion
Mar 2, 2010 Copyright, File Sharing, Net Neutrality, Privacy, Regulation
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Meddling Mandelson faces furore from MPs
The secrecy surrounding the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) talks is causing fury amongst MPs across political parties. The Government (Lord Mandelson and David Lammy) has refused to place the documents regarding the ACTA talks in the House of Commons Library because of other countries requests for secrecy, much to the annoyance of the UK MPs.
Darren Farnden, Head of Marketing
This is particularly important because whilst Mandelson and Lammy are involved in the secret ACTA talks they are also negotiating the Digital Economy Bill’s entry into UK law. If the leaked details of the ACTA talks are to be believed these new agreements will have a significant impact on the DEB which is already causing large amounts of controversy.
So what is the ACTA?
The ACTA is a proposed trade agreement between participating countries to establish international standards on protecting intellectual property from copyright infringement. The UK is joined in the talks by the US, Japan, the EC, Australia, Singapore, the Republic of Korea and several others.
David Lammy defends the government’s secrecy by explaining how publicising details of the ACTA discussions could damage the UK’s relations with the rest of the involved nations, stating “this would harm our ability to protect, promote and secure an outcome in the UK’s interest, and the premature release of documents that are not agreed and not fully developed may also have a negative effect on the government’s reputation.”
Tags: Copyright, File Sharing, Net Neutrality, Privacy, Regulation
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...IMP continuing despite industry backlash
Feb 9, 2010 Privacy, Regulation, Security
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Back in November 2008 we published an article (Entanet opinion: Are we living in “1984”? ) about the government’s proposed plans to centrally store records of all electronic communications throughout the UK. The Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP) will be the largest surveillance system ever created in the UK and calls for a ‘live tap’ to be placed on every electronic communication in Britain including telephone calls, emails and visited websites.
Neil Watson, Head of Operations
We raised obvious concerns over the impact on privacy, the security of the data, the enormous cost involved and the feasibility of the project. Our concerns were echoed by LINX, a major UK peering organisation who stated “We view the description of the government’s proposals as ‘maintaining’ the capability as disingenuous: the volume of data the government now proposes CSPs should collect and retain will be unprecedented, as is the overall level of intrusion into the privacy of the citizenry.”
- The Register: ISPs scorn government net snoop plan
In December 2009 it emerged all of the UK’s mobile operators had also announced their concerns over the project. Vodafone, Orange, 3 and T-Mobile all voiced their concerns in the form of submissions to the government’s consultation.
- The Register: Mobile networks line up to bash net snooping plan
Tags: Privacy, Regulation, Security
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Are YOU on the list? – Update
Jan 28, 2010 Copyright, Featured, File Sharing, Privacy
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In one of our early opinion articles back in September 2008, we highlighted the practices of a law firm (Davenport Lyons) who were sending out a number of threatening letters to alleged illegal file sharers demanding a settlement fee of over £300 or threatening court action. The law firms antics were picked up by the consumer group Which? who responded by reporting the firm to the SRA (Solicitors Regulatory Authority).
- Entanet Opinion: Are YOU on the list?
Neil Watson, Head of Operations
Yesterday’s news reports suggest Which? has identified another law firm operating this practice. In November 2009 a ruling by the Royal Courts of Justice granted ACS the ability to demand the personal details of thousands of customers from ISPs. These customers are once again accused of illegal file sharing and once again Which? has come to their rescue. The accused customers are receiving letters demanding between £300 and £500 or face the threat of court action. Which? argues that many of those targeted have been wrongly accused (again) and as we stated in our original article (Are YOU on the list?) this could well be the case as the law firm and copyright holders are identifying the illegal file sharers using IP addresses which can be easily hijacked and spoofed.
Tags: Copyright, File Sharing, Privacy
(4 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5) Loading ...Anti-privacy prophet or just plain profiteering?
Jan 26, 2010 Privacy, Social Networking
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Back in December Facebook infuriated many of its users and a number of privacy organisations when it revealed changes to its existing privacy settings which encouraged users to make as much information as possible available to the entire web and even removed the ability to make your name, gender, city and friends list private. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has now taken this privacy argument a step further claiming prophet status as he apparently foresaw a new social norm where we apparently care less for our privacy and are not concerned by the world and its dog seeing our personal information.
Darren Farnden, Head of Marketing
- The Register: Privacy furore forces partial climb-down from Facebook
- The Register: Zuckerberg: ‘I am a prophet’
Firstly, I don’t know about you but I still care about my privacy and I am less than happy about sharing my personal information with the entire Internet. So his foreseen privacy-liberal world is not exactly the reality he is claiming, at least not just yet.
Zuckerberg states in his interview with TechCrunch “When I got started in my dorm room at Harvard, the question a lot of people asked was ‘why would I want to put any information on the Internet at all? Why would I want to have a website?’
And then in the last 5 or 6 years, blogging has taken off in a huge way and all these different services that have people sharing all this information. People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.” Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Privacy, Social Networking
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Poll: The Government’s IMP is…?
Jan 11, 2010 Business, Net Neutrality, Polls, Privacy, Regulation, Security
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The UK’s mobile operators have recently united against the government’s planned IMP (Improvement and Modernisation Programme) which will require all ISPs and operators to collect and store all IP communications.
We would like to know what you think about the government’s plans and have created a poll to capture your thoughts.
Tags: Business, Digital Britain, Net Neutrality, Privacy, Regulation, Security
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...2009 – The good, the bad and the ugly!
Dec 9, 2009 Business, Copyright, Digital Divide, Featured, File Sharing, Marketing, Net Neutrality, Privacy, Regulation
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As we approach the end of an eventful year I thought it would be apt to take a look back over the main industry talking points of 2009 to evaluate what happened, why we were discussing it and where we are currently at. When we have completed that let’s take a stab at predicting what we will be discussing in 2010.
Elsa Chen, General Manager
The ‘hottest’ topic of 2009 was undoubtedly illegal file sharing
We first covered this subject back in April with an article discussing the Pirate Bay case. The four founders of the website ‘The Pirate Bay’ were found guilty in a Swedish court for assisting the illegal downloading of copyrighted material. They were each sentenced to 1 year in jail and ordered to pay £2.4million in damages to the entertainment industry. This was the catalyst that started the raging debate between the entertainment industry, the government and ISPs which continues to this date. The entertainment industry and a number of high profile MPs, in particular Peter Mandelson, are calling for a three strikes and you’re cut-off policy. However, ISPs have continuously raised concerns regarding the accuracy of correctly identifying offenders and the fact that cutting a user off is presuming guilt before a fair trial with minimal and potentially flawed evidence.
This topic continued to be covered for several months and was once again inflamed with the release of the Digital Britain Report which actually advised against a three strikes policy, much to the annoyance of the entertainment industry.
- Entanet Opinion: The pirates of… Sweden
- Entanet Opinion: USC: Solving the digital divide
- Entanet Opinion: Guilty until proven innocent is the wrong approach to file sharing
- Entanet Opinion: Are YOU on the list?
- Entanet Opinion: Mandelson’s mindless meddling infuriates Internet industry
So where are we at now?
Tags: Broadband, Business, Copyright, Digital Britain, Digital Divide, File Sharing, IPv6, Marketing, Net Neutrality, Privacy, Regulation
(4 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5) Loading ...Knowledge is power – good or bad!
Nov 25, 2009 Privacy, Regulation, Security, Social Networking
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Following our earlier articles regarding the rise of social networking and its potential privacy issues and our coverage of subjects such as cyber-bullying, when we heard the results of Ofcom’s latest report it raised a number of concerns.
Darren Farnden, Head of Marketing
Last month Ofcom released a report into children’s web access and their online habits.
- Ofcom: Children’s web access
The report shows that 35% of 12-15 year olds and 16% of 8-11 year olds now have access to the web in their bedrooms, up 20% and 9% respectively since 2007. Worryingly 60% of 12-15 year olds and one third of 8-11 year olds use the internet mostly on their own and one in five 5-7 year olds say they use the internet without an adult in the room.
From the parents’ point of view 45% of those whose children use the Internet at home state they have filtering software and controls in place but this leaves an obvious 55% of children using the Internet unsupervised with no parental restrictions in place.
Tags: Privacy, Regulation, Security, Social Networking
(3 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5) Loading ...Mandelson – New master of the digital economy?
Nov 23, 2009 Copyright, Featured, File Sharing, Privacy, Regulation
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Last month (here) we discussed Mandelson’s announcement at the ‘C&binet Conference’ regarding the tackling of illegal file sharers and his continued proposal of a three strikes system. These proposals have now progressed further with the release of the Digital Economy Bill.
Darren Farnden, Head of Marketing
The bill covers a number of issues but the key features affecting ISPs and broadband users are as follows:
- 1. ISPs will be forced to provide written warnings to alleged illegal file sharers when alerted to do so by the copyright holders. Additionally, ISPs will be required to record how many warnings the accused customers have received and feed this back to the rights holders.
- 2.The Secretary of State (currently Mandelson) will be given new powers to update the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act in order to react to changes in technology more quickly. The powers will be exercised by statutory instrument rather than primary legislation which means although the proposals will need to be debated in the Houses of Parliament and will be subject to public consultation the MPs and Lords cannot block them.
- The Register: Filesharing laws to hit websites and newsgroups too
- 3. The use of orphan networks will be allowed where the rights holder cannot be found or identified.
- 4. The government will be given the power to reform and restructure Nominet, the body responsible for domain names in the UK. This follows recent board resignations.
- The Register: Mandelson to get Nominet reform powers
- 5. Ofcom will be assigned new duties to promote investment in the UK communications infrastructure and will be required to assess this every two years.
Alongside other ISPs, Entanet has voiced concerns over this policy for some time now but it appears that Mandelson has finally got his way – although the bill has not actually made it into law yet. Once the Digital Economy Bill is on the statute books ISPs will be forced to send written warnings to alleged copyright infringers at the request of the copyright holder. As expected the suspected users will be identified by the copyright holders using IP addresses from BitTorrent. The ISPs will then be required to record the number of warnings each suspected user receives and supply this information to the copyright holders. If the copyright holder wants further information on a particular persistent offender they will require a court order. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Copyright, File Sharing, Privacy, Regulation
(3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5) Loading ...Mandelson’s mindless meddling infuriates Internet industry
Oct 29, 2009 Copyright, Featured, File Sharing, Privacy, Regulation
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Once again Lord Mandelson has sparked anger amongst ISPs by announcing that the controversial three strikes policy for tackling illegal file sharing will be adopted in the UK by April 2010, despite ongoing criticism from the Internet industry.
Darren Farnden, Marketing Manager
Speaking at the ‘C&binet Conference‘, Mandelson announced that if the amount of illegal downloading had not dropped by 70% come April 2011 following the introduction of the new proposals (which include bandwidth squeezing and download caps), then further harsh measures including the disconnection of file sharers would be imposed from July 2011. Whilst the use of disconnection is expected to remain a ‘last resort’ measure, the news has once again infuriated the Internet industry.
Since the conception of these proposals Entanet has voiced its concerns and, following Mandelson’s announcement, ISP TalkTalk said that it would “continue to resist any attempts to make it impose technical measures on its customers” and has set up a campaign called “Don’t Disconnect Us” to lobby against the plans.
- BBC News: Net pirates to be ‘disconnected’
Tags: Broadband, Copyright, File Sharing, Privacy, Regulation
(4 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...Social Networking: Harmless fun or security risk?
Aug 4, 2009 Featured, Privacy, Security, Social Networking
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Updated: 19th November 2009
Leading social networking website Facebook has revised its existing privacy policy, stripping out technical and legal jargon and opting for a plain English approach. The new policy is also reported to encourage the use of Facebook’s privacy and security tools. Full details can be found at:
- The Register: Facebook revises privacy policy
When you receive an unrequested sales call or a suspicious email do you provide them with your personal information? No, didn’t think so. Yet we appear more than happy to publish immense amounts of personal information online. Growth in the popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and LinkedIN to name but a few, has led to growing concerns that those publishing their personal information online are unaware of the potential risks.
Darren Farnden, Marketing Manager
Tiscali recently commissioned a report into this issue and found that, of 2,505 people surveyed, the most common personal details published online are photos (68%), date of birth (49%), email addresses (40%) and 20% have even uploaded their job details. Worryingly the report also found that almost 1/3rd (30%) make their social networking profile public, whilst 13% were unaware of the difference between public and private profiles and an alarming 5% published their home address.
- ISPReview.co.uk: ISP Tiscali UK Reveals Lax Attitude to Online Personal Privacy
So why should we be worried by these stats? Well, information such as your full name, date of birth and address can easily be used by fraudsters to set up loans and credit cards in your name plus, by gathering detailed information about you, they can use this to try to persuade you that they are genuine and obtain more information from you such as your bank details. There are also more obvious security concerns over publishing things like you home address, telephone number or email address on the Internet.
Tags: Privacy, Security, Social Networking
(2 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5) Loading ...
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