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An increasing number of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) around the world have been blocking more and more access based on accusations of copyright infringement. Those demanding the blocking assert that high standards are followed when making the decision. However, those studying the situation are finding otherwise. Given the scope creep demonstrated by these activities there is legitimate concern for the future availability of Virtual Private Networks (VPN) on those providers.
TorrentFreak covers analysis from University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist on the topic via his personal blog:
A group of prominent Canadian ISPs and movie industry companies are determined to bring pirate site blocking efforts to North America. This plan has triggered a fair amount of opposition, including cautioning analyses from law professor Michael Geist, who warns of potential overblocking and fears that VPN services could become the next target.
Michael Geist's personal blog jumps right in with a discussion of likely expansions to the scope of blocking and other sources of blocking over-reach.
The Bell coalition website blocking proposal downplays concerns about over-blocking that often accompanies site blocking regimes by arguing that it will be limited to "websites and services that are blatantly, overwhelmingly, or structurally engaged in piracy." Having discussed piracy issues in Canada and how the absence of a court order makes the proposal an outlier with virtually every country that has permitted site blocking, the case against the website blocking plan now turns to the inevitability of over-blocking that comes from expanding the block list or from the technical realities of mandating site blocking across hundreds of ISPs for millions of subscribers. This post focuses on the likely expansion of the scope of piracy for the purposes of blocking and the forthcoming posts will discuss other sources of blocking over-reach.
Once a technology or practice is in place, it is usually extended and abused beyond its original purpose. Even in the short history of the World Wide Web as well as the Internet, scope creep has shown itself to be a real problem.
Sources :
Canadian Pirate Site Blocks Could Spread to VPNs, Professor Warns
The Case Against the Bell Coalition's Website Blocking Plan, Part 5: The Inevitable Expansion of the Block List Standard for "Piracy" Sites
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Freeman on Tuesday February 20 2018, @08:43PM (12 children)
Things like this are why we need Net Neutrality. The ISP shouldn't be screwing with my connection that I paid for. Just like the Water Department shouldn't be giving me less water, if I'm taking a bath vs taking a shower. Best summed up by a nice home alone quote. "Get outta here, you nosy little pervert ..."
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday February 20 2018, @08:46PM (4 children)
The ISP should charge you per gigabyte.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Tuesday February 20 2018, @08:52PM (2 children)
That discussion is orthogonal to the discussion at hand. An economic case can be made for per-gig charging, truly unlimited charging, or grading-on-the-curve charging. It has nothing to do with blocking destinations.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday February 20 2018, @09:47PM (1 child)
I pay for unlimited (with Bell): if they start blocking my vpn use, i'll be dropping that and going elsewhere. If THEY block it, i will be shopping around or going back into my cave.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday February 22 2018, @04:49AM
I pay for 250 GBs with Telus, who have already been caught blocking a union site during a strike, along with a few hundred other sites that shared the same server. Unluckily I don't really have any other choice where I live.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:18AM
Not all too long ago access cost about a buck a minute. Then came AOL and for ~$US 20 a month you could get all the 32kbps second you could use. Fortunately for me I was acquainted with a couple of people who jumped in and brought a few T-1 lines and started their own ISP. Leased connections from the monopoly phone company, then under cut them on ISDN. Now days they are running their own Fiber to Home local network. On top of this they ascribe to Net Neutrality. So you can use a VPN or even host one on your own domain.
From my own research there are quite a few outfits in the U.S. Just start looking around, they are there.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 5, Informative) by DannyB on Tuesday February 20 2018, @09:05PM (1 child)
Another aspect of your analogy. Not only controlling your amount of water, but tainting it by injecting various wonderful JavaScript ingredients -- for your own good, of course.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:34PM
At least the water company, theoretically is injecting the water with good things. While I would equate injecting my internet stream with JavaScript as similar to my water company injecting the stream with lead. Hopefully, neither is deliberately injecting your stream with nastiness.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Hyperturtle on Wednesday February 21 2018, @12:21AM
Once, while setting up an ipsec vpn through an AT&T U-Verse connection, it didn't work; the negotiations kept timing out, but everything else was OK.
I called AT&T and the business service representative told me that "only pirates use VPNs". I said that ok fine, I am trying to connect this business service to VPN with enterprise grade hardware to the company headquarters hosted at an actual physical AT&T raised floor data center, and you're telling me that I am a pirate? Who's your boss?
Then it worked
I later learned that HTTPS VPNs are passed through unmolested because they couldn't be sure if it was legit or not -- but these site blocks are undoubtedly going to be applied to https based VPN destinations, and likely hose up a bunch of legit tunnels set up because IPSec was already blocked by the ISP because no one but pirates use VPNs.
This was before net neutrality was put into place, and was a great reason to enforce net neutrality. Now it sounds like an accepted business plan...
Comcast was blocking VPNs for a while, too, and their salespeople would say sometimes if you are not pirating, then you are working, and you can't work from home on a consumer/residential connection, you need a business connection to do business because you might have a server hidden behind the VPN and that's a theft of service!"
They completely twisted the "don't put a server on the internet on your residential connection because you need a static IP for it to reliably work without denying us money when you use dyndns or something" and turned it into a "that's no fair give us money because if you aren't pirating warez you are pirating service!"
If we had dumb pipes and net neutrality... not much of this would be an issue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @12:57AM (2 children)
Uhm, I think you need to read up what Net Neutrality covers, they can still block stuff fine, they just can't slow traffic deliberately.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:06AM
Really? Where exactly does it say what you claim?
Here's a link to the ruling [fcc.gov], please do enlighten us.
From what I see, the 2015 FCC ruling says something completely different:
So. Are you just uninformed and spouting off about something of which you are ignorant, or are you just (poorly) attempting to spread FUD?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Wootery on Wednesday February 21 2018, @10:49AM
So slow Netflix unless you pay extra violates net neutrality, but no Netflix unless you pay extra doesn't?
Blocking is just throttling, turned all the way up.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday February 22 2018, @04:55AM
We have net neutrality here in Canada, doesn't seem to be slowing Bell down in their plans to use this as a wedge to get rid of it. They're probably watching America and salivating at the prospects, fast lanes, blocking undesirables, with an ever expanding list of undesirables.
Everyone focuses on fast lanes with net neutrality but the real danger is the site blocking, especially for political purposes. When certain parties web sites won't load or certain neighbourhoods can't access the voters registration site...