Controversial 'six-strikes' copyright alert system launches in US

Jos

Posts: 3,073   +97
Staff

The "six-strike" warning system that aims to curb illegal downloads in the U.S. is set to go live today after missing its scheduled launch in November. AT&T, Cablevision, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and Comcast are all on board with the so-called Copyright Alert System, under which copyright offenders will receive a series of escalating warnings and can ultimately result in "mitigation measures" being taken against them.

The emphasis is reportedly on education, and despite some concerns, it doesn’t seem like ISPs will be watching their customers' traffic. Instead, it’s up to content owners to monitor peer-to-peer networks and notify service providers whenever their customers are suspected of trading copyrighted files online. From there it’s up to the service providers to get in touch with those users.

The specific alerts issued by ISPs will vary from one to the other but they more or less follow the same guidelines with three tiers of warnings and two warnings per tier. The first two notifications are expected to serve as warnings, alerting users of the offense and pointing them to legitimate sources of content. The second two are “acknowledgement alerts” requiring users to confirm receipt of the message before they can start browsing again, while the last two can include things like temporary bandwidth throttling, blocking access to certain websites, or warning about potential legal action from the content owner.

At least on paper, the measures are not as severe as previous attempts to counter piracy, both in the U.S. and elsewhere. But they are nonetheless the result of unverified accusations by private entities, not something that has gone through a judge. There’s not much stopping content owners from accusing you with little or unreliable proof, making ISPs slap you with whatever alert tier is up. You can still appeal if you feel wrongly accused but it’ll cost you $35 for an independent review by the American Arbitration Association.

It’s worth noting that the copyright alerts only appear target a subgroup of users, namely those sharing through BitTorrent. According to TorrentFreak, “the millions of users of file-hosting services, Usenet and streaming sites are not going to be affected.” The site goes on to point out that even those who keep using BitTorrent can avoid the warnings by signing up for one of many anonymizing services like proxies and VPNs.

Permalink to story.

 
And so it begins. This was one of the subjects I had been warning my freinds who choose to pirate. NOW they say that they wont be monitoring traffic, but watch, six months to a year from this date you will find that not only are they monitoring traffic, they will be montoring individual users. Yet another draconian measure put into place because we still cant keep ppl honest. My problem is that I fear this is the least of our collective internet worries. Eventually the ISP will escalate this program to Black Balling ppl they consider to be super pirates. Then we will get into constitutional rights vs. the rights of copyright holders to protect their intellectual property. This promises to be one giant mess that is going to cause more problems then it fixes. The sad part is that we could have stopped this at anytime by choosing to not pirate. I personally wont pirate and have convinced the ppl close to me to stop pirating. They were not too happy, but they understood my position. The internet is in my name and I DO NOT want to be under any agencies scrutinity. I suggest that if you as a individual choose to pirate, you do it on a burner ISP device. That way you get your "fix" and it cant really be traced to you. I also suggest that you dont pirate over wifi. There have been ppl who state that no one can track you if you pirate over wifi. That may be true, but you run the risk of loosing your free unsecured wifi because of one of these letters causing ppl to lock down their wifi.
 
Let the problems come out and then you can freak out, and its not about good or evil, they will try this either way and believeme the ppl wont let this thing alive...we will see solutions
 
When you say a "burner ISP device" do you mean like neighbornet? Just some random unsecured network? That's what I do. Wifi is what everyone uses to download stuff I'm not sure what you meant there, but overall this new system is a joke and I'm all for it, less legal threats :)
 
We regret to inform you, but due to watching a Youtube video containing a copyrighted song, we have given you strike five. Your internet download speed has now been reduced to 56k. Thank you for your understanding, and have a nice day.
 
[LEFT][FONT=RobotoRegular][FONT=inherit]The only ones complaining are the ones stealing stuff. We all know that.[/FONT][/FONT][/LEFT]
 
Like most things the Government does, this goes after the softest targets rather than the most serious offenders.

The serious offenders, who want to continue downloading copyrighted material, will find ways around the restrictions, such as by using anonymizing services. The people who will get hit hardest by the restrictions are the unsophisticated, such as those with unsecured wi-fi, who may have neighborhood kids downloading copyrighted content on their accounts without their knowledge.

"Change" is not the answer to everything. The "we need to do SOMETHING" mania is counterproductive when it leads to thoughtlessly creating new problems without solving the problem of initial concern.
 
[LEFT][FONT=RobotoRegular][FONT=inherit]The only ones complaining are the ones stealing stuff. We all know that.[/FONT][/FONT][/LEFT]

I agree. I understand the knee-jerk reaction, but really, people, think about what you are saying. If you aren?t doing anything wrong by downloading illegal content, then you don?t have anything to worry about.
 
You can secure your wireless connection all you want. I can crack any password you set in perhaps a weeks time or less then 5 min based on your password. I can use a special software that uses the 3 gpus to calculate the possible passwords. So any length password can be cracked in matter of minutes. No wifi is secure anymore. Password security is a matter of the past. This piracy stuff is due to microsoft and others overcharging for software and turning around and giving stuff out to economically challenged for free. Think about this concept. You charge $400 in the US. Sell it at $100 in Europe. In Nigeria you give it out for free. And Nigeria of all the places where all the online crimes and fraud occures or originates. Good job microsoft. And of all the countries the US is the most accused. Look at China and Russia. Everyone is running pirated windows. This is why we pirate. Unfair pricing practice.
 
You can secure your wireless connection all you want. I can crack any password you set in perhaps a weeks time or less then 5 min based on your password. I can use a special software that uses the 3 gpus to calculate the possible passwords. So any length password can be cracked in matter of minutes. No wifi is secure anymore. Password security is a matter of the past.
Your so-called special software can only crack password that is susceptible to dictionary-based attacks. I personally use 63 alpha-numeric plus special character, randomized, at the WPA2 level. Good luck brute-forcing my password, that would take several million years.
 
You can secure your wireless connection all you want. I can crack any password you set in perhaps a weeks time or less then 5 min based on your password. I can use a special software that uses the 3 gpus to calculate the possible passwords. So any length password can be cracked in matter of minutes. No wifi is secure anymore. Password security is a matter of the past.
Your so-called special software can only crack password that is susceptible to dictionary-based attacks. I personally use 63 alpha-numeric plus special character, randomized, at the WPA2 level. Good luck brute-forcing my password, that would take several million years.

"My password is bigger than yours"

"Nuh uh"
 
What gets me more then anything is the simple fact that no matter how many times its asked, ppl will not stop pirating. Its YOU the USER that is causing all of this. If you have pirated in the last two years, you are directly responsible for screwing EVERYONE else. This is not rocket science. I dont care what justification you will use. Theft is Theft. Your not pirating a movie so you can feed your family. There is no resonable justification for this piracy. So thank you to all those ppl who chose to screw us all. The entire internet thanks you for not only your stupidity, but for the measures that are going forward.
 
They know which sites to block out just block them and that will make everyone happy. Adding a tracking system on your account is another way for them to control what you do online. So now everyone with 20 down and higher won't need these faster speeds then. Save the money and go out and wait in line to rent that movie you really wanted so badly online. Now you can be a regular good citizen of US!
 
You can secure your wireless connection all you want. I can crack any password you set in perhaps a weeks time or less then 5 min based on your password. I can use a special software that uses the 3 gpus to calculate the possible passwords. So any length password can be cracked in matter of minutes. No wifi is secure anymore. Password security is a matter of the past. This piracy stuff is due to microsoft and others overcharging for software and turning around and giving stuff out to economically challenged for free. Think about this concept. You charge $400 in the US. Sell it at $100 in Europe. In Nigeria you give it out for free. And Nigeria of all the places where all the online crimes and fraud occures or originates. Good job microsoft. And of all the countries the US is the most accused. Look at China and Russia. Everyone is running pirated windows. This is why we pirate. Unfair pricing practice.

so my password "n0p455w0rd" is not safe anymore from you? :)
how about if I don't broadcast my ssid?
 
misor said:
so my password "n0p455w0rd" is not safe anymore from you?
prekesh-happy.png

how about if I don't broadcast my ssid?

Don't forget to reject unauthorized devices by MAC filtering, and turn off WPA.

Ben
 
Back