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Is Your ISP Watching You? Find Out Soon Canada.

Canadians worried about the coming copyright legislation should be armed with all of the tools possible in order to combat against their personal information being shared with the government.

What a lot of people are not putting together on the copyright legislation story is the fact that ACTA is coming out shortly as well. The Copyright legislation is just one component of a one-two punch that will have most Canadians ponying up fines faster than you can say “how do I cash in my RRSP?”. The copyright legislation simply gives ACTA teeth.

What is ACTA? Basically the government, or law enforcement, can call up your ISP and demand your records. If they see things that they don’t like in there, which will include downloaded music and movies, you will be fined enormous amounts of money under the new copyright legislation. Of course, they will also see your proclivities for midget porn as well, and dagnabbit, noone should have access to my midge lovin’.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has come out with a set of tools that will allow you to check up on your ISP to see if they are storing information on your internet habits. If they are, then it is time to switch to one that is not doing this BEFORE the legislation is voted through, not after. Besides; do you really want to stick with an ISP that is doing this in the first place? Why go with an ISP that already has the tools in place? When you call around to change, ask them if they would hand over your records if required to by law. There are a few out there that will say “No.”. The big guys aren’t one of those that will say no.

This article gives a blow-by-blow on how to install the necessary tool and library. OK, so this really isn’t an option for everyone as not everyone can install the Python library. However, if we are talking about guarding your personal freedom, there is no time like the present to learn.

You also should consider switching if you have ever received a letter or an e-mail asking you to stop using so much bandwidth. This means that the ISP is closely monitoring your activities, and probably storing data on you. No need to install the tool if you have received this warning sign; just switch.

I will be looking for a new ISP myself in the coming months, as I have received in the past an e-mail from Cogeco stating that we went over our download capacity. It didn’t bother me too much before I started reading current news, but boy does it bother me now. That and I can’t see Cogeco saying no to the government, ever.

Here is the screening process I plan to use for my new ISP.

1a. Do you currently collect data on your user’s packets?

If no…

1. Do you know about Acta?
2. If not, send them article.
3. Now that you know about Acta, will you start collecting information on your subscribers if asked to by the government?

I’ll let everyone know which ISP I chose after I go through my process of screening them - and even if they tell me that they don’t use data storage on user habits, I’m still installing the Python tool to check them out anyway.

Update:

Apparently Google is coming out with the tools for you to monitor your ISP. No Python library required! Yay Google! Unfortunately we don’t know when, so my recommendation still stands to get friendly with your inner Python. No, I didn’t mean heading over to RedTube.com, you sicko. And you are going to have to actually type it in, I’m not going to link to it.

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Posted: June 16th, 2008 under Canada Copyright Reform, Technobabble.
Comments: none

TorrentSpy $100 Million Dollar Decision

This article is a comment on this story about TorrentSpy’s recent lost lawsuit.

Here is how I use Torrents to evaluate my entertainment purchases.

1. Download Torrent.
2. Watch 5-10 minutes of the movie.
3. If I like it, I go to the theatre or rent the DVD. If I don’t, I don’t.

I think that the thing that has Hollywood running scared is that they know most people are using Torrent files for just such content evaluation. Let’s face it, there are certain movies that you went to see that you regretted wasting 2 hours of your life on. Now you can avoid those moments of regret and pain.

Up until now Hollywood marketing mavens have been able to salvage the good scenes in stinker movies and market them well in trailers. Now they can’t. Now they have to be held accountable for good content, and that is a lot scarier than just a few downloads.

I enjoy the fact that things as horrible as the first Batman movie franchise can not be allowed to see the light in this kind of user-controlled environment. If a studio is spending millions of dollars on a project, isn’t the natural logic that it should already have a good story and acting?

Let’s face it, Hollywood has been having their way with us since the late 70’s, when rampant commercialism seemed to take over the entire industry. Very few people are interested in making good movies anymore - they just want to make good product.

The TorrentSpy decision was absolutely expected as the almighty dollar always wins. Is it going to stop me? No, it’s going to encourage me. The tighter the industry closes the fist, the more problems they will face from the general public; their consumers.

There was a recent documentary on a Hollywood mogul in which his mother got him excited about talking pictures when he was a boy because they were the only product that you paid for before you consumed them. This is no longer the case, and Hollywood is not going to be able to turn the tide on this one this late in the game, no matter how many lawsuits they win.

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Posted: May 12th, 2008 under Technobabble.
Comments: none

Knopf Uninvited from PPF Forum - Our Copyright Laws are Under Attack

Check this out…

This guy was uninvited from the forum but they left the registered lobbyist representing the entertainment industry on the panel. He is not a hack but a recognized expert on copyright law.

When Harper was first elected I predicted that he would not be working for the people, as his (illegal) campaign ads implied that he would, but for his masters that are pulling his strings. I don’t like being proved right in this instance.

I don’t know how many people have read the book “Cryptonomicon”, a complex thriller about cracking the Enigma code during WWII and setting up a data haven in Southeast Asia - the political landscape is beginning to feel ridiculously close to the landscape written about in that novel. Maybe it is time to pack up some servers and find a country where our rights cannot be bought and sold - although I doubt that country exists.

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Is Your ISP Watching You? Find Out Soon Canada.

TorrentSpy $100 Million Dollar Decision

Knopf Uninvited from PPF Forum - Our Copyright Laws are Under Attack