VM to monitor File Sharing

[SelfProtection]

Originally Posted by Mr Angry

"....machine examination of content is still interception, and unlawful unless justified."

Bohms opinion stands or falls on the qualification of what is "justified". If, as is currently happening, the Digital Economy Bill becomes enshrined in law and ISPs are subesquently obliged by law to reduce by up to 70% the volume of illegal file sharing across their networks then that justification (in that particular context / regard) has been met.

We are seeing the same privacy arguments now being raised over the proposed introduction of the full body scanners. The fact is that there are certain situations whereby ones right to personal privacy are over ridden / superseded by other considerations.

Best get used to it.

Interesting concept trying to frame a Law which does not contravene EU Law, whilst the EU is seriously considering infraction proceedings for not complying with the related current Laws intended to protect the integrity of ALL communications data, irrespective of any VESTED interests!

[Sir John Luke]

To answer some of the points raised earlier (and apologies if this has already been linked), this records previous discussions with the Home Office regarding RIPA etc

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/34...-post4308.html

[Mr Angry]

Originally Posted by SelfProtection

Interesting concept trying to frame a Law which does not contravene EU Law, whilst the EU is seriously considering infraction proceedings for not complying with the related current Laws intended to protect the integrity of ALL communications data, irrespective of any VESTED interests!

It's a "concept" which is happening.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by SelfProtection

Interesting concept trying to frame a Law which does not contravene EU Law, whilst the EU is seriously considering infraction proceedings for not complying with the related current Laws intended to protect the integrity of ALL communications data, irrespective of any VESTED interests!

I would very much like to see the EU really pushing this. May encourage the UK government to grow a pair, reclaim sovereignty and tell the EU to keep its' heavily UK subsidised undemocratic Champagne Socialist bureaucracy out of our legal system.

Previous disclaimer regarding my distaste for Europe applies, nothing personal to this issue I just don't think its' any of the in no small part unelected EU's business what elected UK law makers decide to do for their electorate.

So yes please, EU please do push this as hard as you can. Might make the UK tire of handing over billions in return for pretty much nothing that can't be obtained through bilateral trade, immigration, etc, agreements.

[Bonglet]

Elected uk law makers like gordon pocket your money and throw it down the sink brown or darth i like your yacht can i have one mandelson broadbandings?

[Rchivist]

Again we are veering way off topic by discussing EU politics and the trading names of Virgin Media, rather than the issue of VM monitoring filesharing.

With regard to RIPA and its applicability to VM monitoring filesharing, and the use of CView, (whatever the EU may or may not say, with regard to ePrivacy Directive) I noted this quote earlier:

Broadbandings - http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/34946784-post770.html said:

Quoting RIPA, a section you appear to be ignoring:

Quote:
(2)For the purposes of this Act, but subject to the following provisions of this section, a person intercepts a communication in the course of its transmission by means of a telecommunication system if, and only if, he—
(a)so modifies or interferes with the system, or its operation,
(b)so monitors transmissions made by means of the system, or
(c)so monitors transmissions made by wireless telegraphy to or from apparatus comprised in the system,as to make some or all of the contents of the communication available, while being transmitted, to a person other than the sender or intended recipient of the communication.

If at no point the contents of the communication is available to anyone, through the use of closed systems interception hasn't happened. The question is if the aggregated output from CView constitutes making some or all of the contents of communcations available.

Did you notice that section (c) is preceded by the word OR ?

And the presence of that little two letter word means that an offence of interception under RIPA can occur even if the modification, interference, or monitoring does NOT involve making some or all of the contents of the communication available, while transmitted, to a person other than the sender or intended recipient of the communication. The offence of interception is
if they do (a), (b) OR (c).

(c) is not, according to the wording you have quoted, an essential part of the chain of actions that leads to an offence.

I'm not actually abandoning the argument about (c) - I think there is an arguable case (and so apparently does Clayton whom you have also quoted, with reference to "spitting out file identifiers") - that such "making available" does occur. But it is interesting that the legislation doesn't actually REQUIRE that - because of that word OR that you quoted yourself.

Your statement

If at no point the contents of the communication is available to anyone, through the use of closed systems interception hasn't happened.

would therefore appear to be an incorrect inference.

Moving now to a more general point...

With regard to the TimesOnline article - there are a couple of inaccuracies - although I still feel it is a helpful article overall:

“If the enforcement were to be conducted by ISPs themselves, it would be covered by data protection laws. If it were carried out by a government agency, it would fall under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act”

Just as a reminder, as a general point, because this got buried under a discussion about VMs trading name, RIPA prosecutions can be brought against ANYONE, not just against a government agency. the Times article is wrong here.

And secondly -

“If each customer’s information is kept anonymous, as Virgin insists it is, then the DPI trial run is unlikely to breach UK law, as it would not be considered an interception of personal information.”

is also inaccurate - the author is confusing his Acts, RIPA is not concerned about personal information but about the unlawful interception of data. "Personal data" is dealt with by PECR and DPA and the relevant offence there is "processing" - which incidentally, includes deleting or discarding.

If there is any quibble about the validity of those statements I have made, I have decent civil servant sources for them quoting officials, and dates and location of meetings at which they were made and agreed.

[Mr Angry]

Originally Posted by R Jones

Again we are veering way off topic by discussing EU politics and the trading names of Virgin Media, rather than the issue of VM monitoring filesharing.

With regard to RIPA and its applicability to VM monitoring filesharing, and the use of CView, (whatever the EU may or may not say, with regard to ePrivacy Directive) I noted this quote earlier:

Broadbandings - http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/34946784-post770.html said:


Did you notice that section (c) is preceded by the word OR ?

And the presence of that little two letter word means that an offence of interception under RIPA can occur even if the modification, interference, or monitoring does NOT involve making some or all of the contents of the communication available, while transmitted, to a person other than the sender or intended recipient of the communication. The offence of interception is
if they do (a), (b) OR (c).

(c) is not, according to the wording you have quoted, an essential part of the chain of actions that leads to an offence.

I'm not actually abandoning the argument about (c) - I think there is an arguable case (and so apparently does Clayton whom you have also quoted, with reference to "spitting out file identifiers") - that such "making available" does occur. But it is interesting that the legislation doesn't actually REQUIRE that - because of that word OR that you quoted yourself.

Your statement

would therefore appear to be an incorrect inference.

Robert, I think it is the case that "or" is used in the particular context of (c) to differentiate between "wireless telegraphy" interception (specific) and the more general "a telecommunication system" thereafter (points (a) & (b)) referred to as "the system" interception.

Originally Posted by R Jones

Quote:
“If the enforcement were to be conducted by ISPs themselves, it would be covered by data protection laws. If it were carried out by a government agency, it would fall under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act”
Just as a reminder, as a general point, because this got buried under a discussion about VMs trading name, RIPA prosecutions can be brought against ANYONE, not just against a government agency. the Times article is wrong here.

Robert, with all due respect The Times is talking about with whom the enforcement responsibility lies from a statutory perspective - not who can & can't be prosecuted under the statute.

Additionally your "decent civil servant sources" would do well to acquaint themselves with the concept and practice of Crown immunity.

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by Mr Angry

Robert, I think it is the case that "or" is used in the particular context of (c) to differentiate between "wireless telegraphy" interception (specific) and the more general "a telecommunication system" thereafter (points (a) & (b)) referred to as "the system" interception.

I think not. for example, consider the case of interception to prevent the transmission of a message so that it does not reach its intended recipient but rather its total destruction before delivery. Would that necessarily involve the "making available to a third party"? For example the interception of emails and their absolute irrevocable deletion. Just hypothesising you understand. the OR becomes quite relevant then.

[Mr Angry]

Originally Posted by R Jones

I think not. for example, consider the case of interception to prevent the transmission of a message so that it does not reach its intended recipient but rather its total destruction before delivery. Would that necessarily involve the "making available to a third party"? For example the interception of emails and their absolute irrevocable deletion. Just hypothesising you understand. the OR becomes quite relevant then.

Again you have missed the point.

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by Mr Angry

Again you have missed the point.

Unfortunately that is the only part of the Act where the phrase "make some or all of the contents of the communication available" or "a person other than the sender or intended recipient" actually occurs. And it occurs after the word "or". Which suggests that it is AN offence - but not THE offence.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Mr Angry

Robert, I think it is the case that "or" is used in the particular context of (c) to differentiate between "wireless telegraphy" interception (specific) and the more general "a telecommunication system" thereafter (points (a) & (b)) referred to as "the system" interception.

I read it as, my formatting for clarity:

(2)For the purposes of this Act, but subject to the following provisions of this section, a person intercepts a communication in the course of its transmission by means of a telecommunication system if, and only if, he—
(a)so modifies or interferes with the system, or its operation,
(b)so monitors transmissions made by means of the system, or
(c)so monitors transmissions made by wireless telegraphy to or from apparatus comprised in the system,

as to make some or all of the contents of the communication available, while being transmitted, to a person other than the sender or intended recipient of the communication.

The either / or statement applies to:

(a)so modifies or interferes with the system, or its operation,
(b)so monitors transmissions made by means of the system, or
(c)so monitors transmissions made by wireless telegraphy to or from apparatus comprised in the system,

Therefore states that interception occurs when either a, b, or the first part of c occur and the end result is:

as to make some or all of the contents of the communication available, while being transmitted, to a person other than the sender or intended recipient of the communication.

It would appear that Nicholas Bohm and Richard Clayton agree on this - neither dispute this. Richard Clayton expresses a non-lawyer opinion that my reading above is appropriate, Nicholas Bohm does not dispute it, his opinion is that machine inspection is enough to satisfy the requirement for some/all of communication to be made available to a person. He makes references to the person behind the machine, and data being made available to the machine being offered to the person behind the machine - http://www.fipr.org/080423phormlegal.pdf sections 16 / 17.

---------- Post added at 10:54 ---------- Previous post was at 10:52 ----------

Originally Posted by R Jones

Unfortunately that is the only part of the Act where the phrase "make some or all of the contents of the communication available" or "a person other than the sender or intended recipient" actually occurs. And it occurs after the word "or". Which suggests that it is AN offence - but not THE offence.

It's the RIPA definition of interception. It's not required to be anywhere else in the Act being a definition of a term. It can be referred to under 'interception / intercept' for the rest of the Act.

[Rchivist]

the clarity was important - because your quote of RIPA was actually incorrect in post 770 - it removed a line break and added a comma which is not in the original.

The formatting of your second quote of the same section in post 821 restores the formatting (and punctuation) in the Part One, Chapter One, section 2 of the OPSI text of the legislation.

Your first quote altered the formatting and punctuation of Part One, Chapter One, Section 2 of the OPSI text of the legislation and incidentally totally altered the meaning.

The incorrectly quoted text in post 770 did not support your argument.

The text quoted in post 821 more accurately reflects the original legislation formatting which can be found here
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000..._20000023_en_1

[Ignitionnet]

Roger that, was just how the copy / paste turned out. Unsure where the comma came from, sloppy editing on my part I guess.

Err that looks bad, 'sloppy editing'. By that I meant I may have clicked somewhere else in the screen and edited that without intending to. It would be rather stupid to quote something then blatantly edit it while giving a link to the original

It did paste quite messily, various parts of the screen get lit up when trying to copy from the document using Chrome.

Ah just checked. No added comma, but a line break was removed by the copy/paste and not restored but reformatted by me on the second time and actually matching the original. This would explain the confusion, the copy/paste broke the line break.

[SelfProtection]

Originally Posted by Broadbandings

It would appear however that the opinion that it's not black and white is an unpopular one. Not surprising given that a few contributors in this thread are actively campaigning against the CView system and their positions are both entrenched and very clear.

Speaking of Patterns.

Not strictly on subject but to clarify, it is also clear that there are a "few" posters actively campaigning "for" CView on this thread.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by SelfProtection

Speaking of Patterns.

Not strictly on subject but to clarify, it is also clear that there are a "few" posters actively campaigning "for" CView on this thread.

Again not on topic but as a rebuttal I see virtually no posts approving of, let alone actively campaigning for CView on this thread, you must be reading a different one from me. I see posts of people playing devil's advocate and some expressions of grudging acceptance, but perhaps one suggesting it's a great idea.

There is certainly no 'active campaigning' for CView, I see no-one suggesting writing to Detica congratulating them, no-one writing letters of encouragement to Virgin Media, no-one suggesting staying with Virgin Media because they are rolling this out and certainly no-one lobbying MPs, the ICO and the police to put forward a pro-CView position.

The most pro-CView position stated with any regularity is probably my own which as I've always stated is that I don't see it as a problem so long as it sticks to its' original and announced function but I do appreciate the potential for it to go beyond that and don't like that possibility. If that is 'actively campaigning' so be it.