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ISPs admit to taking money for handing over subscribers' data

It would be interesting to find out exactly how much it costs Sky to recover and process the data compared to how much they charge.

Plusnet have said that they "have never charged for it" (and they are entitled to recover any costs), but if the costs involved were as high as we are being led to believe, then surely they would?

Just about every news outlet in the UK has covered the ACS:Law saga to some degree, but even after a week, still nothing whatsoever from Sky News. :laugh:
 
I think this is touched on in the other ACS:Law topic.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/showthread.php?t=30349

Lots of news about this but it's been known for a long time that ISPs charge admin fees. BT and PlusNet were targetting more by law firms than most because, apparently, they didn't charge for it or do much to contest the claim.

Some ISPs also use it as a means of limiting data information demands, not just from law firms but also from customers too.
 
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BT said that it wanted a temporary halt on all new and existing applications until a "test case" could be heard.

That's exactly what is needed, a "test case".

A decent defence would be able to force IP harvesters to prove their tracking software's reliability, and maybe even get the courts to decide whether snooping on what people are downloading counts as "intercepting private communications" under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.
 
That's exactly what is needed, a "test case".

A decent defence would be able to force IP harvesters to prove their tracking software's reliability, and maybe even get the courts to decide whether snooping on what people are downloading counts as "intercepting private communications" under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.

Can't see that RIPA applies. Bitrorrent communications are anything but private, you are broadcasting that you want parts of a file to all other participants, and advertising that you've got other parts to share.
 
that and the fact that this case wont go anywhere, at least not without someone who knows how stupid the laws are and how unworkable they have been so far...

if you take the link Smoothound posted, they want to conduct the case in secret because they dont want to end up looking stupid, that or they already know its a bad method to use the unreliable IP data so they dont want the publics opinion involved after all if the public knew such an unreliable method was used to track them down everyone would loose confidence in the system (that being said those who have received letters already know how stupid it is)
 
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As we know, just because an IP address appears to be sharing material, that doesn't mean that it actually is. For a couple of years, certain torrent trackers have been inserting fake IP addresses with the intention of discrediting ACS:Law's (and others') method of evidence collecting.

http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-tricks-anti-pirates-with-fake-peers-081020/

Polluting the evidence works like this. When a client asks for a list of peers who are downloading the same torrent, the tracker software automatically inserts several “random IP addresses” that are not in the swarm. They are based on existing sub-nets, but might be from people who may not even be aware that BitTorrent exists.

IP tracing can work, when done properly. "Properly" means that the IP collectors have actually connected to a suspect IP address with their Torrent client, and have downloaded copyrighted material from it.

Doing that with thousands of IP addresses can be very time consuming (and presumably more expensive), and judging from a number of their emails, it's clear that ACS:Law didn't require that their data collection team do this.

Dear Terence,

regarding the test monitoring in BitTorrent: can you please specify whether you require us to being able to distinguish whether the user was downloading OR making the work available?

If this distinguishing feature is required we have to conduct testdownloads.

We will be able log higher numbers if testdownloads are NOT required - yet we would not be able to distinguish whether the user was logged because he downloaded OR made available the work to us

Dear Claus

* We are happy to agree to a non disclosure agreement to put your mind at ease in relation to your confidential information. In reality, the only information we require from Media Protector are a list of captured IP addresses and experts report. We do not expect confidential information about the inner workings of your proprietary software to be disclosed......
 
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The "Random IP" feature you see in many P2P clients isn't terribly effective and tracking systems could resolve them to the "correct" IP without much effort (the host name is often still shown). However since we have no visibility of what processes are used to "track" such activity then it's very hard to say for sure and Rights Holders want this all kept private under the DEA.

Surely anybody whom is accused should have a right to know what methods are being used to classify them as guilty.
 
agree, but on the other hand they will prolly want to keep those methods hidden otherwise it will make them look stupid.. after all they already know that the methods are flawed but it doesnt stop them trying to make money off us.
 
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