Subject: [p2pi] OT ? : Consultation on legislative options to address illicit P2P file-sharing

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:32:18 -0400

Please forgive me if this is off topic, but I thought it might be of  
strong interest to some :

http://www.berr.gov.uk/consultations/page47141.html

Consultation on legislative options to address illicit P2P file-sharing
Starting Date: 24-07-08

Closing Date: 30-10-08

This consultation is intended to set out and gather views on a  
proposal for a co-regulatory approach that could be adopted in order  
to facilitate and ensure co-operation between Internet Service  
Providers (ISPs) and rights holders to address the problem of illicit  
use of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharing technology to exchange unlawful  
copies of copyright material. This takes forward Recommendation 39 of  
the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property which addressed the issue  
of illicit use of P2P. The consultation also identifies and seeks  
views on other potential options and calls for evidence on issues  
related to illicit use of P2P.

Consultation Documents
	• Consultation on legislative options to address illicit peer-to-peer  
(P2P) file-sharing (499KB)
http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file47139.pdf
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From: The 8472 <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:50:08 +0200

Well, from a technical perspective this is trivial, ISPs cannot 
distinguish illegal from legal content, assuming a minimal amount of 
encryption/obfuscation. The content industry could only tell the ISP 
"user XY is doing something illegal, do something about it" and the ISP 
would have to believe that without being able to verify it. Most 
regulation proposals we currently see are after-the-fact measures, i.e. 
disconnecting the user's internet connection after he has been 
identified and warned about illegal filesharing.
Not to mention that some ISPs have an interest in preventing illegal 
filesharing on their own as they offer VoD, streaming and similar 
services or are owned by media companies.

As far as i can see this concerns ALTO in that it should not reveal any 
information about the user and his sharing behavior as it would be a 
singinficant dis-incentive for adoption if any data could be used 
against the users. Another issue is that such schemes might drive 
illegal filesharing deeper underground, e.g. onto darknets which provide 
pseudonymity and plausible deniability at the cost of increased 
bandwidth consumption, another network overlay and data being bounced 
through random nodes, which is completely the opposite of what we want 
to achieve.

Experience shows that fighting filesharing only makes filesharing 
networks more resiliant against attacks.

-- 
The 8472
independent developer for the Azureus Vuze Bittorrent client
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From: Nicholas Weaver <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 07:26:32 -0700

> services or are owned by media companies.

Actually, for P2P bulk data (big stuff like movies, rather than small  
stuff like audio), it is possible for the content provider to say not  
that "user X is doing something illegal", but that "Users X, Y, Z, A,  
B, C represents a graph of something illegal, block JUST that  
communication between these pairs of users".  And for open-world  
piracy,  this information can be found and verified by crawling the  
P2P swarm.

The ISP still has to trust that the content provider is telling the  
truth, but this is far more actionable information and information  
that can be distributed and acted on in real time to disrupt the  
pirate flows without significantly impacting other traffic.

> against the users.

The problem is this impacts utility: in order to make a decision you  
have to know some information about the users, and content IDs that  
the user is participating in is significantly important.

But as long as any form of content ID represents a random NONCE  
provided by the P2P coordination mechanism (not a hash, it MUST be a  
NONCE), an opponent could only use it to tie a user to a piece of  
content if the opponent is also able to access the swarm coordination  
mechanism in order to map the meaning of NONCE to content ID.

Thus it would represent an information leak, but it is probably safe  
to assume that if the adversary has access to the P2P coordination  
mechanism sufficient to get the NONCE (necessary to tie a user to a  
piece of content in ALTO), the adversary could also contact the  
coordination mechanism to get a participant list.

> Another issue is that such schemes might drive

There are two plausible transitions:  Deniability, and to private  
(closed-world) piracy.

Deniability on distribution is not necessarily going to fly, because  
the big strength of BitTorrent is substantial noninfringing uses.   
Deniability loses much of this benefit: it becomes far easier for  
content providers to argue that the software itself should be blocked:  
that using a deniable P2P file sharing tool is nefarious behavior  
because deniability is not a benefit for LARGE legal content.

The transition to closed-world piracy, however, is actually a win for  
the content providers.  The goal should not be to block all piracy,  
but to up the hastle so that casual users aren't tempted to pirate  
material.  Let the hardcore file sharers exchange information through  
secret torrents, they'd never be customers anyway.  Rather you want  
the casual users however to keep buying DVDs or pay for downloads from  
Amazon/Apple/whoever.

> networks more resiliant against attacks.

There are however, limits.  Bulk data P2P is just that, bulk data and  
P2P, and will always be detectable as such.

And open-world piracy is just that, open-world.  If you relax these  
constraints (eg, make it closed-world, or eliminate the bulk data by  
changing it to point-to-point), you can build some real robust  
defenses against a copyright-enforcing adversary.  But you lose a lot  
of the utility present in being bulk data, P2P, and open-world.

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From: The 8472 <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:47:31 +0200

> pirate flows without significantly impacting other traffic.
that would require the ISP to maintain infrastructure to join swarms. 
not to mention that real-time blocking without verification by an 
independent instance could be seen as a source of potential censorship. 
It has happend before that hosters/ISPs took down content they didn't 
like (such as the worker's union website of their employees) instead of 
illegal content.
> coordination mechanism to get a participant list.
yes, i agree. if the effort necessary to gather information from ALTO is 
equal to the effort to gather information about the swarm without ALTO 
then that's acceptable.
> because deniability is not a benefit for LARGE legal content.
i am operating under the assumption that blocking specific applications 
is not an option if the justification is just copyright infrigement, as 
deniable p2p would have other uses too, especially when the 
deniability-layer is decoupled from the filesharing layer. think 
bittorrent over i2p. I mean there even is child porn on freenet but 
freenet is not being blocked just because it contains some illegal 
content and cannot be traced.
> of the utility present in being bulk data, P2P, and open-world.
well, the point is enforcement of copyright, not the enforcement of a 
general p2p-blocking. If you draw a line between these then the latter 
is far more complicated with current systems and impossible with darknets.
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