Thursday, October 29, 2009

Three strikes

The idea that Peter Mandelson should even have the title of "Lord" just shows how corrupt the British honours system really is. He's been forced to resign on a couple of occasions previously due to various corruption scandals, but managed to claw his way back into high office in some dubious way or other. Mandelson represents the worst of British politics, and always reminds me of the fictional character Grima Wormtongue.

If Mandelson's "three strikes" rule gets implemented the logical outcome is that a much larger fraction of traffic on the internet will be encrypted. The biggest problem with forcing ISPs to police copyrights is that it's going to be hard for them to establish exactly what content is moving through their system at any point in time. Once encryption comes into play even if the "deep packets" are inspected they may be meaningless, and the only policing option is then to become a user of the P2P networks and try to actively infiltrate social networks, which can be countered by peer ratings systems and other trust based mechanisms. The whole thing becomes a needless quagmire of spying.

Viewed from a scheming Mandelsonian perspective maybe this is just part of a larger plan. The ISPs have made clear that trying to enforce copyrights in the manner proposed isn't going to work - at least not using the internet in its current form. But maybe eliminating net neutrality can help. If you can separate internet provision via ISPs into two channels - an "official" channel providing government services and officially approved news, and then an "unofficial" channel for everything else. That way you can arbitrarily cut off people's access to the wider internet, but still leverage its capabilities to for state control and propaganda purposes, whilst still remaining in line with EU regulations on internet access. ISP based copyright policing also provides a convenient mechanism by which political blogs can be suspended, if you don't like what they're saying. All you need do is accuse them of repeatedly linking to illegally copied or leaked information.

2 comments:

Tim Tyler said...

We already have a government propaganda channels that can't be used for illegal file-sharing: television, radio, and teletext. However, you are certainly right that those systems are in need of an upgrade.

Bob Mottram said...

Existing broadcast communication systems all seem to be in the process of being assimilated into the internet.

Roughly:

TV -> YouTube
Radio -> podcasts
Teletext -> hypertext

In the 20th century government could significantly influence these forms of communication, but as they transition into the more messy and chaotic online world it becomes harder to ensure that everyone is "on message" (maintain a high degree of informational cohesion, which to the political mind is equated with national identity or national purpose). In the new media world it becomes harder for example to rally citizens for war, or around some particular political goal.

In the 20th century broadcast model copyright wasn't much of an issue, but in a more decentralised situation finding ways in which to assert rights over content starts to present more of a problem.

My guess is that probably within a couple of decades televisions will no longer exist, where I'd define a television as a dedicated device for receiving and displaying unidirectionally broadcast visual information. Probably all such devices will become terminals of one sort or another capable of displaying internet based video. Systems like iplayer are a first step in that direction.