So
UK politicians are caving in to lobbyists yet again, this time it's resulted in a gem of can't-go-wrong legislation that, in essence, results in ISPs canceling internet access if filesharing is detected on a customer's account. What the law fails to account for—in an epic way—is a golden principle of the internet: you can never assume positive ID based on IP address.
For those who have no idea what any of that means, live in the UK, and don't engage in filesharing, the chances are decently good that you're gonna wind up being disconnected for filesharing down the line. It really doesn't matter that you're not filesharing, but it does, in fact, matter that you have any one of a myriad of security holes on your computer that could easily allow someone to silently hijack your internet connection and route their filesharing traffic through it. On top of that, you're probably using outdated, totally insecure wireless encryption (or none at all).
There's not much you can do to prove your innocence, either, because politicians assume that IP addresses correspond to the account holder using the ip address. That's basically just as bad as assuming that the return address on an envelope is the true sender of the letter.
Anyway, I can't wait until one of them gets busted under his own law when some dude hacks his wireless and goes on a filesharing spree. Maybe another one of them will download a trojan that opens a proxy (very common). The most amusing that I've recently seen are trojans that not only open a proxy, but a
public proxy, so that not only can the attacker use your internet connection as he pleases, so can anyone else on the internet who stumbles across it.
If I were to guess, basically the only people who likely could actually successfully instantaneously track and pinpoint—accurately—typical forms of traffic, encrypted or not, routed through proxies is the NSA, and I assure you they couldn't give a rat's ass about filesharing or anything other than actual matters of national and international security—and they never will. ...and that's the way it should be.
But you'd think that maybe—just maybe—one of the UK lawmakers could have consulted with... I dunno... their IT staff before splicing this in? Maybe google the word "proxy?" Nah... it's easier to just take the money and let the chaos ensue, apparently. So what if a few innocent people get their access yanked and then get sued by some record label for downloading something they never downloaded, with absolutely no way to prove their own innocence?
So, my little younglings of the internet—and yes, that includes you, lawmakers above the age of 40—the moral of the story is simple: never, ever, sponsor, vote for, encourage, or write legislation that implicitly trusts ip addresses as a form of positive ID. That is, not unless you, too, want to eventually fall victim to your own legislation when some nutjob opponent frames you for something you'll have never even done. At least when it comes to being framed for drugs they have to procure some drugs first, but on the internet, you can be toast in as little as a few keystrokes—all from some crappy internet cafe in dirkadirkastan...or from across the street.
...I shit you not.