A recent article in The Age worries me.
The Australian entertainment industry wants internet service providers to act as file-sharing police and caution people who download illegal copies of films, TV shows and music via peer-to-peer networks.
If this went mainstream I would seriously consider moving countries. It’s not like I download movies or anything… It’s the PRINCIPLE of the thing. This would just be the first step to Australia becoming China v2.0 with our own Great Firewall (Dividing Range?). For starters, push ups hurt. And then there’s the whole privacy issue. Maybe I could just install TOR and be done with it. Actually, if it does happen, I bet it won’t be long before someone invents the next Bittorrent, except this time with native traffic encryption.
Forgetting all that for a minute, the best argument against such filtering/monitoring is being put forward by the Internet Industry Association:
… the proposal is asking [ISPs] to become law enforcers. Executive director Peter Coroneos says it is akin to holding Australia Post liable for what people send in the mail.
And this is a valid comparison. What is the mail except a relatively slow and predominately non-digital conduit through which information is sent? Why is the Internet as a medium being targeted? Is it because flicking a couple of switches inside ISPs is more convenient than physically inspecting everyone’s mail? Or is it because of the sheer volume of illegal file sharing that is occurring?
To end, I will just say this: “Never underestimate the bandwidth of a Post-Pak full of DVDs.”
