ISP’s and P2P… It’s going downhill

We’ve been aware for some time now of the government and indeed the ISP’s increasing awareness of that newfangled technology known as P2P (Peer 2 Peer file sharing).

Over the past few months the publicity on this subject has grown rather dramatically as ArsTechnica recently broke the news of one particular ISP in the UK that went “medieval” that vowed to disconnect users after a single suspected copyright breach.

However herein lies a few questions.
How does the ISP actually know what we are doing?
and more importantly
If they do know how what we are doing, how do they know what we are doing is illegal?

Now of course, we all know that ISP’s monitor content that is downloaded through their network. They have to. Usually it’s not in depth, it’s more “packet inspection” to ensure that data is coming in and out successfully and without error, however it is possible to monitor exactly what comes in and out. And be exactly, I really do mean exactly. If i send an email out, it is entirely possible for the ISP to pick that up, and read it word for word. Now obviously there are some limitations but I won’t go into that here.

The biggest problem is, that ISP’s like the one mentioned in ArsTechnica, will be looking for P2P connections. And here is the problem, and relating to my second question.

P2P is NOT illegal, Fact. P2P is a technology, not an activity. In fact would it surprise you to know that Microsoft uses P2P? That even I use P2P?
When Microsoft released the Windows 7 Beta and Release Candidates they offered it for download, of course. But the downloads were all through a P2P service. it was the most efficient way of distributing the application whilst producing minimal load on their servers. I.e. parts of the file were downloaded from hundreds of thousands of other users who were downloading it rather than directly from Microsoft.

Now that is a completely legitimate use of P2P technology. Another prime example is Vuze. Vuze is a “content delivery network”. Essentially it has it’s own platform and website where it distributes things like free content, or media released under the Creative Commons Licence or even movie trailers. All completely legitimately. And the files that are downloaded from Vuze are downloaded through the P2P technology. But there is an even bigger problem. Seeding.

When you download a file through Vuze be it legitimately or not, the file sits on your computer and is then uploaded or “seeded” to other downloads, which is how P2P technology works. The problem with this, is of course the fact that ISP’s monitoring these file uploads and downloads might mistake it for illegitimate P2P use. Unless a human is sat looking at every single file, and knows exactly what it is, the ISP’s could potentially block millions of users.

There is of course another method which is site blocking. Bad idea again and here’s why. File sharing sites such as RapidShare or MegaUpload are all well known for their illegal use. However legitimate users would then be blocked. I don’t mind saying that I actually pay for a RapidShare account. Why? Because a lot of the software I download, that is legal and free I might add, is hosted on RapidShare. I also host my own files such as tools and utilities that I use on a regular basis (such as a bootdisk for Windows) so that I can download them quickly and easily without paying nearly five times the price for a hosting plan somewhere JUST to hold files for downloads.

So if ISP’s start blocking these sites then we start to affect the legitimate users and of course destroy all the trust anyone has in ISP’s. Even torrent sites contain legal content. There are quite a few websites out there that also distribute their software through torrents, including several linux distributors. Again all legally.

The fact of the matter is that the internet is really just too large to police in this manner. In fact the ISP mentioned in the ArsTechnica article even changed it’s approach to a ‘softer’ one for potential copyright breaches. But unfortunately with the way things are going, this is going to get ugly, and fast, and there are going to be a lot of people out there that really weren’t breaking the law finding themselves at the wrong end of a court order.