aprensivo

Hi all,As most of you probably know (or maybe not:), tomorrow a couple of countries meet up in South Korea to discuss, or should I say decide the way the ISPs in those countries. The official name for this treaty is AntiCounterfeiting Trade Agreement. Google for that if interested; for the need of disscussion, I'll keep it short - the draft of the treaty will FORCE the ISP to filter the packet going in and out from your PC. Obvoiusly, no one uses the word "force", but again I'll get to that below. And why go to such lenghts? To boost creativity! Well, at least that is what they say it is all about.As for now, no big Hollywod studio, musical industry giant and such can sue the ISP for their's subscribers activities. The ISP cannot be held financialy (and criminally!) responsible for a single user's actions, be it downloading latest Saw movie (is it part 8 or 9? I'm always a bit behind the rest ;-)) or the hottest Beyonce's song, sending the instructions of how to build a bomb or such. The new treaty will change that - the big boys will be able to sue the IPS. So, guess what a provider will do to prevent being sued for millions of dollars? You guessed it. It will be FORCED to filter snoop on the traffic your PC is taking part in.I don't know where most of you folks live, but I'm in the UK and the fact that the European Parliment agreed on a draft in it's today shape leaves a bitter aftertaste on my tounge when I think about it. And it's not because I am downloading terabytes of movies every week, share my "backed-up" music or such. I have my reasons for not doing so, but I don't want this topic to transform into a row between those who do and those who condemn it. What I really don't like is the fact the ISP will be allowed (or, as I staed before, forced) to cut off your Internet access if your activities are deemed illegal. France is on it's way to get it's HADOPI law (one of many aftereffects of the main international treaty), and the UK will be probably following shortly after. Oh, did I forget to mention it can be done just like that, without a court order or anything of the kind? Did I? Yep, if you're ACCUSED of violating the law, you'll get your connection cut off. Only then you can try and prove your case in court.Another thing - I don't want the ISP to filter my traffic. Filtering gives you means to reduce the bandwith for specific traffic, and - let's say - a provider that struggles with his banwith performance decides to cap Skype, which I happen to use quite a lot. Well, I definitely will notice the drop in quality of service, but I will have no means to prove the said ISP is doing that, right?On the other hand...If people are aware they will in all probability be caught downloading stuff from the net, they will not do that. So, the overall performance of the whole world network should improve... Although, as I said, I don't need massive bandwidth to get the newest Saw 12 :-) in under 10 minutes. I want freely and without anyone interfeering with it speak to my friends from all over the world. I want to upload a huge file I was working on to my company's server without any "this-guy-must-be-uploading-a-ripped-movie" alarms being triggered. I want my sister (she lives 10,000 miles away) to put on rapidshare a video of my little niece learning to walk so that I can see it almost straight away withoult being hassled by anyone to explain what this file contains. Simple needs, but I am a simple man.Hope the post is not THAT off-topic