UK Government To Criminalise Owners Of Open Public Wi-Fi Networks

[DaBees-Knees]

http://www.slyck.com/forums/index.php/topic=50685

The UK Government's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has strongly hinted that owners of free public Wi-Fi wireless networks and Hotspots, such as those found in restaurants, libraries, universities and shared between neighbours, will not be exempt from the Digital Economy Bill's measures to tackle Internet piracy.

The Digital Economy Bill proposes a "graduated response" to tackling "suspected" pirates, which starts with several warnings and could lead to service restrictions or possibly even disconnection from your ISP. Failure to heed the initial warnings will also result in your personal details being supplied to Rights Holders for possible legal action.

Unfortunately the lawyers working for Rights Holders can only identify the owner of a connection (e.g. the library itself) and not individual users on a shared local network. The result is that many smaller businesses, education establishments and communities that run open Wi-Fi networks could be at risk of court action.

There's an old expression - "Using a sledgehammer to crack a nut". Mandelson and his cronies are beginning to really go over the top with this. Why not just shut down the internet and have done with it? Let's hope wiser heads prevail.  

[GhostShip]

The copyright mafia are clearly looking to burn their bridges in their assualt against the UK populace, its a shame really that they are so clueless in their actions and are merely encouraging folks to switch to fully encrypted networks that will fly under the radar they have set up, "epic failure" as the bay guys would say