Entertainment industry: wiretap the net, crypto is for pedos

Computer scientist/activist Ian Brown spoke at an event on copyright in London last night, where anti-Internet enforcers from the entertainment industry spoke on DRM. The entertainment industry types proposed that ISPs should be forced by law to monitor all customers' communications for copyright infringement, charging for anything that might be a copyrighted work. When Ian asked about encrypted communications, they dismissed him, saying "only paedophiles use that technology and we would all be better off if it was banned."

The current favourite seems to be that ISPs should be forced to monitor all exchanges of data and charge customers when a copyright work is spotted. When I asked how the spread of encryption could possibly be compatible with this scheme, they airily replied that only paedophiles use that technology and we would all be better off if it was banned. They obviously don't know that the US government already tried extremely hard to do this over about 25 years, and failed.

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