File sharers take battle to Mandelson

The Telegraph's site is quoting an amusing open letter to Peter Mandelson about his plans to implement a French-style 'three strikes' system to (the government believes) address unauthorised file sharing of copyrighted content in the UK.

Hannah Nicklin wrote to Mandy:

"You seem to be so eager for the Royal Mail to modernise, I wonder why you don't see it equally as important for the music industry to do so? ... Three Strikes [a proposed account-blocking Bill already enacted in France] will not work. Because we will not allow it to. No one will.

Aside from the impossibility of monitoring and prosecuting all (let's call non-profiteering sharers 'domestic') p2p filesharers, we will stop you from penalising any of them. If you begin to cut off people's internet access, then everyone who can afford to do so will set up alternative unsecured wireless networks across the country.

If you aim to track torrent usage, we will proliferate details on how to obscure or re-route your IP address. If you shut down those sites, we will use private chat to discuss what we want, and private cloud storage systems, drop boxes, to share content.

We will rename files, disguise track identites with a couple of bytes worth data, break meta-data, and come up with new ways of encrypting our actions. The industry will not only lose out on 'sales' but valuable usage figures too.

You are attempting to solve a digital problem using analogue solutions. We are open source, we are anonymous, and we are everywhere. Don't fight us, don’t push, help dying industries reform, and remarket themselves in a sustainable way."

While it's unlikely she will meet with Mandy, build such a groundswell of following to force change or, to be honest, get anything more than a 'thank you for your letter' reply, the key point she raises is the one of encryption. All it takes is the widespread deployment of encryption within file sharing protocols and the government's plans have a serious and very real challenge.