Pirates abandon ship as IPRED law kicks in
It's no secret that P2P traffic makes up a huge percentage of the total traffic on the Internet. Also no secret is that fact that some portion of that traffic is used for nefarious purposes like downloading movies that haven't been released or software that Microsoft doesn't want you to have yet.Yesterday, the IPRED era was ushered in for Swedes, and an incredible 33% drop in Internet traffic followed. The vice-chair of Sweden's Pirate Party, Chrisitian Engstrom, said the decrease was a direct result of the new law.
Under IPRED's provisions, service providers can now be ordered by the court to turn over detailed information about traffic to a user's IP address. It remains to be seen whether or not the logs will be enough to be constitute sufficient proof for charges laid against file sharers.
It's an obvious scare tactic, but one that has proved effective for now. Even if only 1,000 of Sweden's 2 million-plus file sharers are prosecuted (as Engstrom proposes), that may not be a gamble the average downloader wants to take.
The P2P community has historically come up with ways around this kind of "annoyance." PirateBay's Ipredator service is coming, and may provide users with a simple and inexpensive way to avoid logging.
Comments
6
Subscribe to commentsr3loadedApr 2nd 2009 1:16PM
"It remains to be seen whether or not the logs will be enough to be constitute sufficient proof for charges laid against file sharers." - nope, it STILL isn't definite proof. They might be able to prove the data came from their connection, but can't prove whether it was them sitting at their computer, or whether it was even their computer (e.g. someone could have broke into their wireless network).
edwardApr 2nd 2009 2:12PM
Nope. If I am not doing anything wrong then they are not going to find evidence of wrong doing. (I hope)
numerwanApr 2nd 2009 2:06PM
Unforunately, the idea of being anonymous on the web is dead... In the US, the privacy act is dead... so many loopholes, even taking a dump in your own bathroom is probably monitored...
It's only a matter of time till someone comes up with something that will truly make you anonymous on the web... Till then, its either temporarily conform, or say screw it and run with it...
mkoApr 2nd 2009 2:16PM
Hmm I thought file sharing was not a prosecutable act in Sweden (or anywhere else in continental Europe)
Dwight StegallApr 3rd 2009 10:26AM
The average person only steals because it's illegal. It's just an act of defiance.
NypheriaApr 6th 2009 3:53PM
Umm no. The average person downloads illegally because they cannot afford it. It has NOTHING to do with defiance.