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Controversial 'six-strikes' copyright alert system launches in US
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.
User Comments: 43
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You upload and download everything online. This is how online world is. The fact is most really don't need high speeds. 15 down is all you need even for HD content. I have 50 down and 10 up. I run a business online and need the extra. I going to throttle it down a bit since the need of faster doesn't mean ways the cost of it very expensive per year.
As your reply back the selling point from ISP was to download and faster, but download what? First it was MP3, and other media. Youtube allows you to watch videos and all sorts of things. You need faster connections for that. Everything is now under more locked down. Everything uploaded will be watched by this system censors. I only upload my programs to cloud network so my clients can get to firmware (aka ROM).
Everything you do now online going to be watched check by your IP. Now more focus is on uploads to certain sites and downloading from those sites. ISP can now tell you what you can and what you can't. Check your email boxes from your ISP .
Well to me it's good they're going after the sources who started all of this. But not everything uploaded and downloaded will be a red flag.
Just have to see how all of this will play out. They have to do something and this is what they came up with. this system!
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1 person liked this |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.
If you aren't pirating how are you getting screwed here?
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Everything you do now online going to be watched check by your IP. Now more focus is on uploads to certain sites and downloading from those sites. ISP can now tell you what you can and what you can't. Check your email boxes from your ISP.When you get in your car and drive to the store you are being monitored. If you look or act suspicious, it will draw attention to the authorities. How is this on-line activity monitoring any different form what is already present in real life? If you have a problem with this on-line monitoring then you probably have a problem with the real life monitoring as well. My advice would be to change your ways, if you think you are going to be a target for this new system. But then we all know if the real life monitoring doesn't work the on-line monitoring will likely not work either.
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We're not monitored here in this like that here. UK yes your are more. Traffic lights here yes. When that light turns red I stop my SUV! Running the light here means issues. I've been online since the BB, then Prodigy, AOL, full internet back in 1995. Still today we have so much to worry about, virus, malware, adware, all sorts of pest from bad web sites links. Today more watching of what you do online. Mostly I run my forums and on FB (battle pirate) an other forums like techspot. That's about it for me. I use the internet to watch movies from Netflix and Amazon Prime Instant Movies. Sometime Crackle TV. So that's about it.. I am not climbing walls and going crazy over this monitoring.. Just saying there are many on the Youtube where the video is showing going crazy over it.
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@sng
I point out to you that this will only be the begining. Though I do not pirate, the effects of ISP snooping will impact everyone. Not just the pirates. The tech savvy pirates will find each and every way they can to continue to pirate. This will just be the first step in censoring the internet for everyone. And all because someone couldnt or wouldnt wait till they could afford the item they pirated. Its the nature of the sleezy thought process that these pirates have. Gimme gimme gimme! I want it right now!
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You all are missing the point... The entire RIAA. plus all the BS about copyright and pirated stuff is just an excuse to pass rules and laws to control the masses, restrict, tax and charge for what should be open and free (the Internet).
The current US government (obama and his obamites) are at the root of the problem. Believe or not, but the worst hasn't even happened yet.
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Believe or not, but the worst hasn't even happened yet.You are right about that, because we've not started a civil war yet. I don't know when but things are going to get ugly.
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Rippleman said:
Like some here have implied, I too must ask, why are you all against it? Will you be getting 6 strikes?
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TS-56336 said:
What would happen if ISP's discover there are so many people downloading bit torrents that they cannot financially afford to enforce this? Imagine Verizon discovering 75% of their paying customers require Emails for strike one? That would require a lot of time and manpower to enforce.
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Of course, you can also avoid the penalties by simply signing up for service from an ethical ISP and skipping these clowns altogether.
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DO YOU WANT TO LIVE IN A POLICE STATE? Because there is where we are heading. Like some people have said, this is not about piracy, piracy is just the excuse to take out our civil liberties (like the war on terror or drugs and the police state security at the airports, 4th and 6th articles of the US Constitution do not apply there) this is about control over the people, this is about FREEDOM of SPEECH. Once they start controlling which website you can access and which don't you are screed.
Remember Egypt's and Tunisia's uprising, what did they use to coordinate the manifestations and to share pictures and videos? Oups, the internet, file sharing, social media? Once the fascist controling the government starts controlling the last bastion of Democracy in the world, THE INTERNET, democracy is over.
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Well Hollywood would like to stop the pirates at all cost! They tried court and other things. So now why not go to the source of the matter the UP-LOADER. This is not only going to cover P2P stuff your looking at larger picture those who send up videos to Youtube will be also censored more. Anything that is copyright protected can't be uploader and shouldn't be uploaded without the permissions of the company or author. Prior to all of this from the 90s to now everything has been and open market but now Government and ISP Companies have to stop the all these open door or back door methods to getting files and media. So now the internet will be more enforce. Would be nice if they can do the same with Email SPAM and tracking cookies they need to put a system into place for that and go after those who attack our emails and dump tracking cookies or files on our system via browser cache.
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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"
Bigger password makes a big difference. Every time you add a character to your password, you are exponentially increasing the difficulty it takes to crack via brute force.
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Sphynx said:
so my password "n0p455w0rd" is not safe anymore from you? [image link]
how about if I don't broadcast my ssid?
Don't forget to reject unauthorized devices by MAC filtering, and turn off WPA.
Ben
For what it's worth, MAC address filtering and non-broadcasting SSID really provides a false sense of security. Anyone wanting to hack your network can easily sniff your MAC and SSID regardless because they are in plaintext on every transmitted packet. As for WPA, I believe you are confusing it with WEP. WEP is broken and should be turned off. As long as you use WPA/WPA2 with a strong password, you are safe. Don't worry about the SSID broadcast.
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so my password "n0p455w0rd" is not safe anymore from you? [image link]
how about if I don't broadcast my ssid?
Don't forget to reject unauthorized devices by MAC filtering, and turn off WPA.
Ben
For what it's worth, MAC address filtering and non-broadcasting SSID really provides a false sense of security. Anyone wanting to hack your network can easily sniff your MAC and SSID regardless because they are in plaintext on every transmitted packet. As for WPA, I believe you are confusing it with WEP. WEP is broken and should be turned off. As long as you use WPA/WPA2 with a strong password, you are safe. Don't worry about the SSID broadcast.
MAC filtering and turning off broadcast of SSID can be helpful to keep the technologically challenged from poaching your wireless (which is most people). It will only slightly slow down someone who knows what they are doing. Something else to take into consideration is range. Unless you live in a condo or apartment, there won't be many people in range of your wireless. Use the best security you can, but no reason to be paranoid.
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Sphynx said:MAC filtering and turning off broadcast of SSID can be helpful to keep the technologically challenged from poaching your wireless (which is most people). It will only slightly slow down someone who knows what they are doing. Something else to take into consideration is range. Unless you live in a condo or apartment, there won't be many people in range of your wireless. Use the best security you can, but no reason to be paranoid.
How is someone "technologically challenged" going to poach your internet if you have a reasonable WPA/WPA2 password in place? Your premise makes no sense. It simply isn't a good idea for a variety of reasons. Here's a link from Robert Moskowitz, a security expert from ICSA Labs. He shows that not only is this an ineffective security measure, but it can also degrade network performance.
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How is someone "technologically challenged" going to poach your internet if you have a reasonable WPA/WPA2 password in place? Your premise makes no sense. It simply isn't a good idea for a variety of reasons. Here's a link from Robert Moskowitz, a security expert from ICSA Labs. He shows that not only is this an ineffective security measure, but it can also degrade network performance.
You must have missed the "Use the best security you can" part of my post. Some people still use some older equipment that does not support WPA. I feel they should upgrade their gear but I am not the one spending the money.
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Sphynx said:You must have missed the "Use the best security you can" part of my post. Some people still use some older equipment that does not support WPA. I feel they should upgrade their gear but I am not the one spending the money.
I didn't miss that. Let's run with that. Because we're still using the "technologically challenged" barometer as your baseline of the people you want to keep out. So, in that case, pick a "strong" WEP key. Who's going to guess it? Not the technologically challenged, that's for sure. But seriously, with "N" routers available now for as little as $20, there's no excuse for not upgrading. If you don't have $20 to spend on security, you probably shouldn't be spending money on an internet connection. Food might be a better idea.
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