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The importance of connectivity


With so much of my work revolving around the Internet, I would be very concerned if my online connectivity is suddenly disrupted for any reason. As such, you can imagine my surprise when I read that Virgin Media is considering temporarily suspending users who are accused of illegal file sharing.

Now, I don't dabble in file sharing myself. With Universal Music providing the particulars of illegal sharers though, I am immediately concerned over the likelihood of mistaken identity. And we all know that mistakes are but one of the inevitable constants in life. With this in mind, I would certainly switch my ISP in an instant if it were trying to pull something like this on me.

For the reason outlined above, I don't see how such a scheme could work. And think about it, even baseless complaints by actual file-sharers who are caught in the act will only serve to scare away bona-fida customers.

And if you must know, today's newsletter was done on my laptop while tethered to my BlackBerry. A software solution called TetherBerry allowed me to access the Internet at 3.5G speeds without having to bother with the intricacies of a proper dial-up connection. What kind of Internet connectivity do you use when you are on the move? - Paul

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Comments

I agree this is a draconian guilty before innocent tactic that would indeed violate many laws and civil liberties. Surely a more responsible approach would be for the ISP to block p2p sharing for that user by knocking out p2p port access and even applying a filter to block p2p with packet analysis if a user was accused of this activity. The reality is an honest user may have an infected laptop that indeed engages in serving or participating in the generation of traffic that the user is unaware of.

So even accounts that are producing this activity may have the account owner totalky unaware.

I don't file share but I wouldn't stick with ISP's that shoots first and asks questions later.

In Australia there is a three strike policy with most ISP's that allows users cease & desist or fix any comprimise in any of their equipment using their connection.

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