Virgin set to adopt three strikes policy

Yup if this is introduced I will seriously consider taking my Net connection, TV package and phone to another supplier.

Although I do not condone illegal downloading I cannnot stand the big brother communist type attitude that the BPI and other such organisations operate under.
 
If this is going to happen then they may aswell pull the plug on 50MB now.

No point in having super fast speeds just for web browsing when all ISP's can offer 2MB+ that will do the job fine.

Price and not speed will be what customers will be looking for if this happens so I guess there could be a lot more price wars.

I don't know how they can tell if you are downloading illegal stuff either and I wonder if legitimate things like free Linux and downloading backups etc off your webserver could be mistaken and land a lot of customers in trouble.
 
AFAIK it's not the ISP who will be monitoring your usage, in this case. All this stems back to the recent government twitchiness over downloading, following pressure from BPI et al. The government have told the UK ISP industry they have a certain amount of time to "sort out their own house" else legislation will be introduced.

In effect, most ISPs are imposing a "three strikes" policy. They will not monitor your usage themselves (they have no legal obligation to as they're 'data conduits'), but if they're contacted by BPI or others they'll issue you a warning.

Basically as most people know, the BPI, RIAA and friends like to monitor public torrent trackers, p2p networks etc and log IP addresses seen sharing copyrighted material. They then take this log (your IP, which material you were sharing etc) and send it to your ISP, asking that they take action.

Previously many ISPs would have ignored this, but now they're under a lot of pressure. There are arguments circulating about civil liberties (the right to a trial etc) as this system automatically assumes guilt based on the say-so of a profit-making organisation looking to crush leaks in income.

So while I'm no fan of VM at the moment (re: Phorm) in this case I'd have to say not guilty. It's not them watching you have to worry about. Of course in the UK it's illegal to share copyright materials (and p2p/torrents upload the data as you're downloading it) which is why serious downloaders prefer Usenet. Encrypted SSL Usenet for me, as I don't want people spying on my legitimate activities in the name of company profits :D
 
how can you stop them from finding out your info???

i use limewire and utorrent and the torrents i get come from mininova

would it be better if i stopped using limewire?
 
superplay said:
Yup if this is introduced I will seriously consider taking my Net connection, TV package and phone to another supplier.
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What do you do if the government introduces a law that forces all ISP to divulge personal details based on an IP address and time supplied by a third party through a court? And the law also holds the account holder liable for all activity on their IP address.
 
Easy - you get SSL encrypted Usenet (eg from Giganews) and then nobody, not even your Usenet provider, knows what you've downloaded. The big organisations are only sniffing p2p and torrents because they're http and easily tracked - especially when they set up "honey pot" machines also sharing. They just sit back and log every IP that connects to their machines.

With Usenet you're only connecting to your news provider, over >256 bit encryption with no third party involved. Therefore, nobody to log your IP and "report" you.
 
clv101 said:
Where is Usenet content actually hosted? Which hard discs?
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Usenet was the forums of its day (pre-WWW). It's still heavily used and doesn't belong to one main server. Unlike a single forum (like OCUK), Usenet is propagated around hundreds of servers around the world as content is uploaded - almost like forum meets DNS lol

Basically news providers around the world have their own arrangement to trawl and store Usenet content, which they serve to customers. Some are text only, most are text and binary. Binaries are what you download (software, photos, movie files, music etc).

With Giganews (I keep using those as an example as they're who I'm with), they index Usenet onto a huge server and then supply customers with the content on demand. No logging, no messing about. Great for catching up with your friends on alt.os.linux ;)
 
bliss said:
Phorm and now this? VM really aren't doing themselves any favours. :p
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As I said above, I'm no fan of Phorm and am actually vehemently against it and all it stands for. But in this case, it's not the ISP at fault it's an industry-wide effort caused by pressure from Downing Street.

Entanet, for example, have ALREADY kicked off a user after claims (stress, CLAIMS) from industry bods that he downloaded and shared copyright material. So it's not just VM, and soon it will be all of them.
 
I know it's not their fault but i just love, how with phorm, they like to adopt to it early. :rolleyes:

When something goes wrong or the network needs upgrading it takes years. :p

So don't they need exact evidence to boot you off? Just a claim that you 'possibly' downloaded something copyrighted? If that's the case then this country really is turning into a joke.

I can see the ISP's losing quite a bit of money over this. It's not like we need anything above 2mbit for general browsing and the odd download.
 
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Ah well, looks like an easy way of getting out of a 12 month contract with VM then...

I wonder if this is the start of a unity between ISPs, I mean this kind of thing is bound to carry over from one ISP to the next. Get banned from one, foxtrot oscar and take your business over to another - they're bound to put a stop to that.
 
Rainmaker said:
Easy - you get SSL encrypted Usenet (eg from Giganews) and then nobody, not even your Usenet provider, knows what you've downloaded. The big organisations are only sniffing p2p and torrents because they're http and easily tracked - especially when they set up "honey pot" machines also sharing. They just sit back and log every IP that connects to their machines.

With Usenet you're only connecting to your news provider, over >256 bit encryption with no third party involved. Therefore, nobody to log your IP and "report" you.
Click to expand...

Carefull, this thread will disappear like every other thread that mentions usenet ;)
 
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If this is based on the MAFIAA et al looking for people sharing copyright material, it's no different from what ISPs have been doing for years - the first letter gets a "won't do it again" response, and at the third your service gets cut off.

DreXeL said:
Carefull, this thread will dissapear like every other thread that mentions usenet ;)
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Only if it wanders into certain sites that aren't allowed ;)
 
tolien said:
Only if it wanders into certain sites that aren't allowed ;)
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Where do I find out what is and isn't allowed? I think I know which site you mean, but I don't understand how it breaches the terms in the FAQ. It doesn't link to copyright material any more than Google does and carries a lot of links to non-copyright material too - just like Google. I.E. it's unbiased and just an indexing site. Maybe I've misunderstood.

I was going to PM a Don (i.e. you :D) but there's no PM on OCUK :p Feel free to email me if there's no link on the board that I've missed (details in trust). I'm only asking so I know the rules - not so I can promote trouble or break them :)
 
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