In recent news, Virgin Media has decided to "measure the level of illegal filesharing on its network"...
On the face of it, it sounds innocent enough - illegal file sharing keeps hitting the news, and if the adverts can be believed, then file sharing equals copyright infringement, and copyright infringement equals theft. And we have all heard the music industry whining about loosing gazillions of pounds/dollars in profits due to the nefarious pirates.
And yet: I find this worrying.
There are several problems here:
- In order to identify traffic as "file sharing" they need to (literally) spy on users and examine the contents of each packet.
- On the internet, nearly all communication is file sharing. The internet is based on computers copying files to each other. You would not be able to read this web page if my web server had not shared this file with you.
- Contrary to common belief, file sharing is not illegal. However, copyright infringement is.
- If the Dark Lord Mandelson gets his way, users can have their internet connection cut if they are accused of copyright infringement 3 times. Yes: accused, not convicted. The presumption of innocense is gone.






