Re: Belgian court rules that ISPs must block file-sharing

[Sean Donelan <sean () donelan com>]

On Fri, 6 Jul 2007, Chris L. Morrow wrote:
> > I wonder if they did a proof of concept at all, or if they just read
> > the glossies..
>
> Surely you jest? they, of course, did a full scale mock up on their E1
> connected lab in belgium. Perish the thought that they may have attempted
> anything less. Best of all, this 'test' was probably conducted by a
> paid-for consultant to the belgian gov't, probably at the equivalent 4-500
> USD/hr :(
>
> The State-of-PA folks 'back-when' did their proof-of-concept testing in a
> lab connected via T1... their legislation was equally as clue- :(

It shouldn't be a surprise, since most of it is marketing fluff.  Same
as the Antivirus vendors, Intrusion Detection vendors, Spam blocking 
vendors, etc.  They all seem to have the same problems when trying working 
in public ISP networks. And all have done the dog and pony show trying to
get politicians to force ISPs to buy their products, whether or not
the products are actually effective or safe.

An university using these systems said "works great, we receive less
complaints from the RIAA, but sometimes we interrupt student's other 
network traffic such as VOIP calls."

For example is it Safe:
  Will it block traffic to emergency services, e.g. 9-1-1 or 1-1-2 if the
caller has a radio playing copyrighted music in the background?  I'm sorry 
your call can not be completed to 9-1-1 until you turn off your radio even
if you are being murdered in your home.

or is it Effective:
   Will it block copyrighted music transmissions mixed with other things 
such as a voice call with a radio playing in the background.  If you leave
other communication channels operating, people will find a way to use 
them.  Good for venture capilists funding these companies, because you
have to constantly pay for new and improved.