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Peter Sommer | 1 Feb 2008 08:10
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Re: RIPA and file-sharing??

I don't think it's RIPA;  the powers probably exist under the disclosure 
rules which are part of Civil and Criminal Procedure

In a civil case the parties must provide each other with "documents" 
which adversely affect their own case, adversely affect another party's 
case or support another party's case (CPR 31) 
http://www.justice.gov.uk/civil/procrules_fin/menus/rules.htm
Obviously legal proceedings will have had to be initiated, and in this 
instance the ISP joined to the action. 

 The above is so called "standard disclosure".   The parties can also go 
to the court and ask it to issue orders where the other side refuses to 
produce particular information.  "Document" is widely defined and is 
likely to include records of IP addresses. 

Peter Sommer

Peter Fairbrother wrote:
> PlusNet blame RIPA for revealing IP addresses:
>
> http://community.plus.net/trafficmanagement/2007/11/28/file-sharing-letters 
>
>
> "An example would be where English law dictates a different path, and 
> specifically considering the issue of file sharing, the Regulation of 
> Investigatory Powers Act (or RIPA) is relevant. [..] Amongst its 
> powers under RIPA, the High Court can request from an ISP details 
> about particular customers."
>
>
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David Hansen | 1 Feb 2008 10:10
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Re: "Warrants authorising phone taps treble"

On 31 Jan 2008 at 21:03, Peter Fairbrother wrote:

> Because any of it (even the real-er RDQ's) is intrusive, and I'd like it
> to be publicly known _exactly_ how intrusive the Cops are.

That was never going to happen because, as a previous Hutton revealed 
in a report, the Security Service welcome RIP having played a large 
part in writing it. I did ask how big a part Liberty played in writing 
it and the silence was deafening.

The whole thing is designed to obscure what is going on. As Home 
Secretaries are fond of saying, they must have something to hide if 
they don't answer questions about what they are doing.

Of course the people most keen not to tell us plebs what is going on 
are probably the likes of British Telecom, Thus, Virgin and the rest of 
them. They undoubtedly don't want their customers to know how in bed 
with the forces of darkness they are and how much they are shitting on 
their customers. They certainly have something to fear and so are 
hiding their activities.

--

-- 
  David Hansen, Edinburgh 
 I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents 
me   
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54
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Watkin Simon | 1 Feb 2008 10:32
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RE: RIPA and file-sharing??

PlusNet wrote:

"Amongst its powers under RIPA, the High Court can request from an ISP
details about particular customers."

> Peter Sommer wrote:
> 
> I don't think it's RIPA;  the powers probably exist under the disclosure
> rules which are part of Civil and Criminal Procedure

It is most definitely not RIPA.

Whilst we're on the subject, some of the requirements that are being imposed
by Court Order upon ISPs to disclose the allocation of IP addresses in civil
law cases are out stripping and taking precedence over those being imposed
under RIPA. 

In some instances the assistance an ISP is able to give to the police and
the security service to prevent and detect crime and to protect life
effectively has to grind to a halt in order for the ISP to deal with a
digital rights dispute.

That's because failing to deal with a Court Order is a contempt of Court.
Failing to deal with a RIPA notice isn't - it wasn't designed to be.  By
requiring disclosure it was designed so the CSP no longer had to make the
decision to disclose data as happened pre-RIPA under the DPA.  (The
Secretary of State could take a CSP to Court for failing to comply with a
RIPA notice.  That hasn't happened and we wouldn't wish it to happen.)   

Simon Watkin
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Roland Perry | 1 Feb 2008 10:45

Re: RIPA and file-sharing??

In article <47A21A65.5000500@...>, PeteM
<otcbn@...> 
writes
>So, not RIPA then?

No, RIPA is about public authorities (the various "bods" [1]) making 
requests when investigating crimes.

And nor is it likely to be "data protection requests" as mentioned later 
in the article.

[1] I was in a meeting with some Trading Standards people yesterday, and 
they brought up the subject of RIPA (probably a a result of the 
publicity earlier in the week) and they cited tracing rogue traders, 
mainly by doing reverse-DQ on phone numbers in classified ads.
--

-- 
Roland Perry
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Roland Perry | 1 Feb 2008 10:54

Re: "Warrants authorising phone taps treble"

In article <47A2E21E.6482.5AE5B2F@...>, David
Hansen 
<davidh@...> writes
>On 31 Jan 2008 at 21:03, Peter Fairbrother wrote:
>
>> Because any of it (even the real-er RDQ's) is intrusive, and I'd like it
>> to be publicly known _exactly_ how intrusive the Cops are.
>
>That was never going to happen because, as a previous Hutton revealed
>in a report, the Security Service welcome RIP having played a large
>part in writing it.

It seems unlikely they played much part in the comms data sections. 
There's nothing there that wasn't already well understood within the 
previous 29(3) regime.

>I did ask how big a part Liberty played in writing it and the silence 
>was deafening.

Liberty's eye was off the ball, in this instance, iirc. FIPR, on the 
other hand, did make a lot of noise, and initiated the process of 
amending one clause whose effect was to reduce opportunities for 
intrusion.

--

-- 
Roland Perry
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David Hansen | 1 Feb 2008 11:05
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RE: RIPA and file-sharing??

On 1 Feb 2008 at 9:32, Watkin Simon wrote:

> That's because failing to deal with a Court Order is a contempt of Court.
> Failing to deal with a RIPA notice isn't - it wasn't designed to be.  By
> requiring disclosure it was designed so the CSP no longer had to make the
> decision to disclose data as happened pre-RIPA under the DPA.

If I had any belief in the "Open Government" provisions down south I 
might ask where the pressure for this change came from. I can see the 
large telecom companies being very keen on such a change.

However, another arm of government down south is trying its hardest to 
prevent release of very simple information to me about who was in 
favour of a change. I doubt very much if the regulator will lift his 
little finger on the matter.

--

-- 
  David Hansen, Edinburgh 
 I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents 
me   
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54
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Ian Batten | 1 Feb 2008 11:04

Re: RIPA and file-sharing??


On 01 Feb 08, at 0932, Watkin Simon wrote:
>
> In some instances the assistance an ISP is able to give to the  
> police and
> the security service to prevent and detect crime and to protect life
> effectively has to grind to a halt in order for the ISP to deal with a
> digital rights dispute.

Unfortunately, elected officials want to simultaneously fight the  
``war on terror'' and also suck up to their friends in ``the creative  
industries'' by claiming that BitTorrent is a veritable pyre for  
business interests.  Meanwhile they tell us that faster broadband is  
a key to the nation's competitiveness, ignoring the fact that a lot  
of customers for residential high-cap broadband are using it to  
download copyrighted material.

Whatever your views on the reality or otherwise of the putative  
terrorists --- and I'm with Lewis Page of The Register, a former Bomb  
Disposal guy, that the IRA were a far more competent, effective and  
dangerous threat --- dealing with them doesn't provide electoral  
contributions, parties with film stars and the glamour of the music  
business.  There's no votes in bombs not going off, and precious few  
in looking staunch when they do, as Rudy is showing.

In the USA, politicians' desire to pre-empt terror comes second to  
pandering to the RIAA and the MPAA. This isn't Bush-bashing, by the  
way: the Dems are actually far closer to the entertainment industry,  
because a lot of the Republican base believes that Hollywood and what  
they probably still think of as `race music' are a threat to the
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Watkin Simon | 1 Feb 2008 11:23
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RE: RIPA and file-sharing??

> On 01 February 2008 10:05 AM, David Hansen wrote:
>
> If I had any belief in the "Open Government" provisions down south I
> might ask where the pressure for this change came from. I can see the
> large telecom companies being very keen on such a change.

The primary reason for the change was the coming into force of the Human
Rights Act giving effect in UK law to the European Convention of Human
Rights.  Although the DPA arrangements worked well enough they didn't
meet the requirements of legislation permitting interference with
individuals' Article 8 rights and - rightly or wrongly - CSPs both big
and small didn't being put in the position of "choosing" to disclose
data (or, more properly, exercising an exemption to non-disclosure).

With thanks to archive.org:

"There was an almost equally balanced split between those who welcomed
the inclusion of this aspect of communications in the IOCA regime and
those who felt that it should be left separate and in the Data
Protection Act regime. Various suggestions were made as to who should
authorise requests: internal to agency; at Secretary of State level; or
by a judge. Some CSPs felt that requests for communications data should
be more tightly controlled."

http://web.archive.org/web/20000815061553/http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/o
icd/iocresp.htm#Chapter%2010

http://web.archive.org/web/20000815054130/www.homeoffice.gov.uk/oicd/con
slist2.htm
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Peter Fairbrother | 1 Feb 2008 12:49
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Re: RIPA and file-sharing??

Watkin Simon wrote:
> PlusNet wrote:
> 
> "Amongst its powers under RIPA, the High Court can request from an ISP
> details about particular customers."
> 
>> Peter Sommer wrote:
>>
>> I don't think it's RIPA;  the powers probably exist under the disclosure
>> rules which are part of Civil and Criminal Procedure
> 
> It is most definitely not RIPA.
> 
> Whilst we're on the subject, some of the requirements that are being imposed
> by Court Order upon ISPs to disclose the allocation of IP addresses in civil
> law cases are out stripping and taking precedence over those being imposed
> under RIPA. 
> 
> In some instances the assistance an ISP is able to give to the police and
> the security service to prevent and detect crime and to protect life
> effectively has to grind to a halt in order for the ISP to deal with a
> digital rights dispute.
> 
> That's because failing to deal with a Court Order is a contempt of Court.
> Failing to deal with a RIPA notice isn't - it wasn't designed to be.  By
> requiring disclosure it was designed so the CSP no longer had to make the
> decision to disclose data as happened pre-RIPA under the DPA.  (The
> Secretary of State could take a CSP to Court for failing to comply with a
> RIPA notice.  That hasn't happened and we wouldn't wish it to happen.)
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David Hansen | 1 Feb 2008 13:09
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Re: RIPA and file-sharing??

On 1 Feb 2008 at 10:04, Ian Batten wrote:

> Of course, we could say that the real threat is placed in context by 
> this.  Elected officials, who presumably have access to real threat 
> analysis rather than the lies and spin the rest of us are given,  decide
> to favour giving more money to U2 over defending against  terrorists. 
> Either they really, really want to be photographed with  Bono or terrorism
> isn't as big a threat as is made out.

That is an excellent analysis.

Of course bogeymen are always a useful means of oppressing people. I 
have often heard officials and party politicians claiming that there is 
an emergency, even a national emergency. They don't know what they are 
talking about. The UK nearly cut off by sea and people dropping 
explosives, largely randomly, on towns can be rightly called an 
emergency. Current conditions are a little different.

That doesn't stop people trying to build empires, for example 
<http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/edinburgh/Terror-chief-attack-on-
Edinburgh.3722322.jp>

The spin after the London bombings was right. We are not afraid and 
will continue as before is precisely the right approach to take towards 
criminals. Sadly it was only spin.

--

-- 
  David Hansen, Edinburgh 
 I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents 
me
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