ISP: It’s Impossible For Us to Stop Illegal P2P
Written by enigmax on September 23, 2008An ISP which was ordered by a court to stop illegal file-sharing on its network, says it simply can not. The Belgian ISP Scarlet says the court’s verdict is unworkable and after trying to slow traffic and also filter it, it says it’s not possible to stop the flow of illicit files since Audible Magic doesn’t work.
In mid-2007, after a battle with copyright group SABAM, a court in Belgium ruled that Internet Service Providers can be forced to block and/or filter copyright infringing files on P2P networks. Although most people familiar with the technical hurdles recognized that this was a massive if not impossible task, the judge in the case ruled that ISPs are indeed capable of blocking infringing content and gave Scarlet six months to comply.
Scarlet said right from the start that it believed that if it complied with the court order it would be breaking the law. The ISP claimed that Belgian law forbids it from spying on its customers so it lodged an appeal against the ruling, with managing director Gert Post saying: “This measure is nothing else than playing Big Brother on the Internet. If we don’t challenge it today, we leave the door open to permanent, and invisible and illegal, checks of personal data.”
Now, over a year later, Scarlet’s lawyers argued in court that the company simply cannot stop the flow of illicit files, which is a serious situation since the ISP has to pay compensation of 2,500 Euros for each day it fails to do so. According to a report, Scarlet has tried different techniques to try to comply with the ruling but has had no success.
First of all, Scarlet slowed down P2P traffic with the help of some Cisco technology. All this led to was complaints from the customers, and it did nothing to stop the availability of the illicit files. A lawyer for Scarlet, Christoph Preter said: “We have actually received complaints that P2P traffic was slower, but it remained possible. It is only a deterrent measure.”
The ISP quite rightly refused to block all P2P traffic, since it said it would be blocking legitimate traffic too. However, copyright group SABAM said this was not a valid excuse. “The argument put forward by Scarlet,” said SABAM’s lawyer, “is not about the impossibility of blocking, but about the consequences.” SABAM clearly doesn’t care who is affected, as long as it gets its way, stating that Scarlet simply hasn’t tried hard enough to comply with the court.
The second solution, the filtering of illicit files, was a solution put forward last year by SABAM itself. On the advice of an appointed P2P ‘expert’, the court ruled that Scarlet must use the content filtering technology offered by Audible Magic. However, Scarlet tried this system and it didn’t work when scanning for files on their network. During last year’s court case it was claimed that Audible Magic had experience with filtering in the US with Verizon and in Asia with another ISP. However, Scarlet made inquiries with Verizon about the partnership but was told that no such deal exists and Audible Magic refused to reveal who the Asian ISP is.
“We have misled the court,” said SABAM’s lawyer. “But SABAM followed the expert in the choice of Audible Magic, so we were acting in good faith.”
A ruling in the case is not expected until 2010.
Previously: uTorrent’s Mac Client Leaked
Next: Mininova Breaks Download Records
88 Responses
this is what you get when ignorant old corrupted judge is in charge. go to the top! stop big brother right now!
the Belgian court system is in obvious trouble
Here we go another court wanting the impossible from an ISP, when will they learn.
Should the weapons industry stop the sale of illegal weapons on the black market? Alcohol vendors to monitor drunk drivers? Some people should be banned from practicing law since they can’t grasp some of the basics of life.
It is very possible to cut down the amount of BT traffic over an ISP’s network. If the networks is designed correctly implementation isn’t hard. I work for an ISP we’ve tested a solution, I’d say it was possible to cut out 80-85%% of the illegal traffic, leaving legitimate traffic along.
The first ISP who has a common sense.
@5
How?
@7: Probably the same way that audible magic doesn’t.
Plus, why would you want to filter copywrited content?
@Dave: you know the song: im shitting like a rain….
@ 5 Prove it!
Anyways, nobody was talking about BT traffic, it´s about filesharing. There´s a zillion ways to do this.
This is really insane. It´s like holding a car manufacturer responsible for hit and runs commited with their cars.
#1 Nailed it…
“We have misled the court,” said SABAM’s lawyer. “But SABAM followed the expert in the choice of Audible Magic, so we were acting in good faith.”
Fcukwits! (rearrange the letters to see how I feel about them!)
it’s not impossible.
the fact is nobody cares if someone is using p2p, because it’s insecure.
@7 it isn’t something I’m going to explain on an open blog nor would I want ISP’s to start using it to stop traffic.
@8 no nothing as complicated, there solutions from reading over the website don’t scale well.
@9 I’ve no idea what that means! :S
It as a test to see if it would actually work! it isn’t something we will release nor would we use it ourselves. The Gov’s/Courts/private companies(RIAA) all over the world should not force ISP to block/drop/restrict any type of traffic. The only solution I see is a market shift in how they sell there goods. no high prices, DRM etc
@5: And how did you distinguish the encrypted legal packages from the encrypted illegal packages? Say one person is uploading a CD ISO for a game and the other one a completely legal Linux distro?
Oh wait, that’s impossible because both look exactly the same to you.
This is all bullshit. The ISP just has to produce documentation for their efforts and they should be good. What more than try can you do? I doubt the SATAN group can argue against tech facts when it’s written by the admins who tried everything.
Other than that: I followed my intuition on this one because I believe the copyright as they want it is doomed and bound to die soon. I’ll keep sharing illegaly -but in good faith.
Buncha hypocrite bastards.
“If the networks is designed correctly implementation isn’t hard.”
Dave knows what we need. Why not go one step further and only let the public connect to specific hosts. You know like TV?
Oh… and we won’t need sites like this, thank you very much.
“The ISP quite rightly refused to block all P2P traffic, since it said it would be blocking legitimate traffic too. However, copyright group SABAM said this was not a valid excuse.”
So they openly say that they dont give a shit about legitimate traffic on p2p networks. Basically saying “screw everyone else and give us money”.
I wonder how much they paid the judge to make such an idiotic ruling in the first place. Stopping illegal p2p traffic is impossible. Even if you could stop only illegal traffic on p2p networks now a week later there is another way to send the files. Darknets, heavily encrypted networks… No way for the isp to comply to the idiotic court ruling.
Another example of a justice system that is outdated and has very little to no knowledge of communications technology.
@16 I very much doubt they would have paid the judge off, they are simply relying on the courts lack of understanding.
We the internet user have all rights. just because I have a contract for certain ISP, he can’t go and cut my service if if NOT stated in my contract. As of this writiting, I don’t see in my contract that I’m not allow to use google or flirk search engine. It will always be a battle betwwen customer and ISP and the courts. So is not that easy said @5, you may have a secreat weapon, but it may not be use as the actomic bomb for the internet. I pay hight price to my ISP for their service and belive me, if I see a change, I will call my lawyer and my lawyer will call them and ect, ect, ect…..you follow the money trail………..IT IS ALL ABOUT THE MONEY.
Sooooo….
The ISP need’s to block HTTP, FTP,eMule, MSN,etc… The list is FAR too long.
Then they will need to scan for .wav, MP3, ogg, etc… The list is FAR too long.
Then they will need to scan .Rar, .Zip, .tar etc… The list is FAR too long. Fukk knows what they gonna do when they get an passworded file !!
Hell why not just block the whole fukkin internet and be done with.
What planet do these people come from ?!
@ 5 / Dave , hope ya got a Cray to run your sniffer on! TiT. Stateful Packet Inspection all the way…
In a further blow to P2P (illegal or otherwise), a Finnish based company called Viralg believes it has designed software that will finish it.
A.P – http://www.artikel32.com/geographie/vegetation-c.php
Hm… Guys this is going way off topic but..what ever happened to..you guys suing BRIEN(i.e. Torrentfreak)? I think you guys were suing somebody. Can’t remember who for copying your material without refereing.
There were some news about it some time ago but they appeared to be false and outdated, since the program only worked in Kazaa networks :)
Yes, I’m a Finn.
it’s not impossible
i work for an ISP. we disconnect pirates.
but we allow Pedophiles! :)
Another clueless judge, sigh…
copyright infringement is not theft as long as its not for profit. when will you guys learn that. you cant stop p2p and just because someone else labeled it theft does not mean it actually is. As one guy once said why are they going after file sharers they should be hunting for freakin pedofiles…
there completly right, it is IMPOSSIBLE to stop. Judge needs to do some research.
You think your gonna stop us? AHahahaha… ahahaha….
HAHAHA.
No. Your not going to stop us. Ever.
As other’s have suggested, Scarlet should switch off their network. They can quite legitimately claim that this is the only way to comply fully with the court order. That should make the court and the government take notice.
Typical Belgium. Clearly there were ped0philic networks but since there were top people involved, important people dead suddently. The investigators who’s evidence pointed to networks were dissmised. A lot happened behind the curtains. But what do you expect when prince philip attents Bilderberg conferences and the chairman is Etienne Davignon. The kingpins are ruling with our consent! Belgian are too scared to revolt against this practises, especially Flamish (I am flamish, not proud btw). Sheeps in a herd.
Sabam stop parasiting!
too easy to stop a retarded p2p guy
Yes, but can you block all of the different channels for copyrighted music? The court ruled that 100% must be stopped, not just bittorrent, or 85%…. I mean, I’ve used ftp, http, torrents, limewire/ares type networks, vpn’s, irc bots, AIM bots… the more options you block the more creative pirates get.
@5 Dave, you are a retard. Blocking any protocol also blocks legitimate users using that protocol. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past 3 years, the uptake for legal uses of bittorrent has grown. So by simply saing “lets block bittorrent”, you are effectively stiffling new technology thats cheap to operate and great for the individual in favour of expensive servers that realy only businesses can afford to operate.
You are saying that people should be required to spend stupid ammounts of money to distribute their content via http of ftp, because some people use bittorrent for illegal filesharing. NEWSFLASH!!! people use http and ftp for that too. So now what are you going to propose? Maybe we should just throttle the entire internet huh, that’ll stop those damn pirated. Get a life.
The duty to go against this terrible copyright regime is among everybody, not just the ISPs. How can the ISPs win this fight without support and demonstrations from the people? They simply cannot. The ISPs cannot win this fight alone.
Roze
http://www.28chan.org/apstdt/
remember when recording a vhs or a tv show was piracy? Some people truly have their head so far up their ass they cant grasp the concept that as long as technology allows it people will manipulate data as they so choose.
@32 – who said anything about blocking an entire protocol lol, I love the over the top people on the internet :)
SABAM’s management was charged with fraud and money-laundering practices at the end of 2007, and their investigators regularly break the rules on collecting fees, so this crappy organisation might not last until 2010.
King Canute ordered the tide to recede. I think he was smarter than the Belgian judge.
I guess if the stupid four letter agencies had their way, they would jsut shut the internet off totally that way everyone has to return to the mundane practice of driving to a store and actually buying a CD. Do they still make CD’s?
JIff
http://www.anonymize.us.tc
Dave I understand where your coming from but..
Its easy to say you’ve accomplished something when in its your test world, but implement it in the real world and I guarantee you will stop only the weakest and dumbest pirates.
On top of that, even if you did somehow manage (which I will say is impossible) to block illegal traffic, there will be a work around out the next day and all your work was for nothing. When you have something like that in the real world, you cant go patching it real quick to deal with the hack, you have thousands of paying customers and executives that dont want you fuuxin with there internet.
Plus I highly doubt you took every protocol into consideration. Businesses use a lot (or part of) different protocols, and if any one of them stops working correctly.. the ISP has hell to pay. Legitimate customers may not care that you want to stop pirates, but every single one of them will tell you to F off when it involves them.
Dave im not trying to insult or offend you so please dont take it that way. Props to you for actuley working with such technology.
Alot of people really dont understand the total picture here.. to stop illegal traffic would be like trying to build a damn on the ocean. As of right now, people arent forced to do anything for files.. its so easy its almost effortless. Just wait till you put a little pressure on these people.. they are unstoppable like the ocean.
There is NO solution that can permanently hamper or stop illegal traffic. You can come up with whatever little spy crap you want, there will always be a work around.
Im not trying to get on the whole big ‘hackers are so awesome’ thing, but when you have people out there that learn this stuff themselves and its there passion/hobby.. they will always be smarter then the TEAMS of software developers that get paid to do what they do. They went to college so they have all the ‘book smarts’, but faced with someone who leaves and breathes this stuff.. they are pathetic. Which very vaugley explains why no matter what they come up with.. theres always a hack for it.
Hacking or Pirating is a VERY GOOD THING. Without these companies MONOPOLIZE the market and are never forced to change. Think about it.. why change when you dont have to? If there’s nobody out there forcing you to improve your product.. ‘too bad’. Sure they cause you headache when you get a stupid virus or something, but the freedom they produce is worth it.
Hackers and Pirates are an ESSENTIAL part of the internet, without them.. the internet would not be free. Period.
Belgian Internet services seriously suck balls (I know cause I live there). I pay like double what the Dutch pay and we have download limits while they Dutch have none.
Belgium is a backward country when it comes to ICT.
too al the noobs above that wish to say that its possible, get bent
A) hacker make tool to do what he wants
B) hacker shares tool
C) for long time it goes and everybody pirates away
D) DUMB idiots spend millions to prevent said tool
E) return to A)
Such as with DRM and security in general you cannot win, you can at best keep at it spending your way until no one can afford things OR, make the products cheaper and then reduce the “piracy effect”
THATS ALL FOLKS
OH and where exactly is it “illegal”
copyright is a right given by society to stake holders to make a little cash off there investment and efforts, NOT GOUGE, NOT TO ruin lives and why not have copyright at 20years or ten then it would force artists to not be lazy and keep making art
ya we know its ONLY ABOUT GREED
and nice move obama you just blew your chance to become the president by removing net neutrality
@Dave: You sound like a bullshit artist and a troll. That is, unless your definition of “illegal” is “anything that isn’t approved by the music cartel”, which has, at least until the fascist coup is complete, nothing to do with the definition of illegal.
Nah, I take it back – you ARE a bullshit artist and a troll.
Dinosaurs deserved to
die FilthyRichmond.com
Wow…we are on Scarlet. Really don’t do p2p…I just wish they would allow us to have some decent VOIP action.
#24 “i work for an ISP. we disconnect pirates.”
You can only disconnect what you can find. My ISP is a pain in the ass but there are solutions to their solutions. Their efforts might discourage some but the work-arounds are detailed on the net.
All this anti-piracy, anti-anti-piracy, anti-anti-anti-piracy and anti-anti-anti-anti-piracy is eating up even more bandwidth and processing power at both ends. Maybe the insane power consumption will eventually end this nonsense.
@1 – I wouldn’t so much call him corrupted, as I would out of touch. With the average age of judges in most developed countries in the seocnd half of their life, I believe they lack full understanding.
They’re trained in law (the path I’m following), generally with a liberal arts/social science undergraduate degree. Corrupt, unlikely. Out of touch, most likely.
I’ve met judges who require an assitant to turn on their computer and get Word going.
I would be pretty pissed off if my ISP was prohibiting me from downloading Ubuntu, patches for games, etc.
http://www.fetchmp3.com
J.
@ Dave.
Thats because U ARE A TiT!
Your are talking out of ya arse tr0ll.
You can never stop it. The only way is to turn the .net off. There is no possible way to inspect & disect every available packet in real time.
Repeat dave “I am a TiT”
net nuetrality is the biggest issue here. Every packet treated equally. It is NOT the ISP that needs to bear the responsibility, it’s the job of the music industry and law enforcement, which also get equal access.
Communications are often hard to distinguish between but moreover each time some one adds a layer of checks in there speed is always lost. Network inefficeincy kills effective networking practices.
If the music industry wants someone else to do the dirty work for them that just spells out how lazy/unwilling they are to protect their artists.
There is no way to differentiate legal from illegal encrypted p2p traffic- because it is encrypted!
Even if the traffic is not encrypted the overhead to generate hashcodes to anaylze the traffic is immense and expensive. Even this system is likely to lead to an unacceptably high false-positive/false negative rate on p2p networks the software has not been extensively tested on.
Furthermore, should a p2p network add onion routing to the mix this all becomes for naught.
Those of you who say you work at an ISP where this is pulled off obvious do not work there in a technical role. (no, helpdesk does not count)
At least someone is being reasonable…
actually in some states in the united states it is illegal for certain establishments like a liquor store (not bar) to sell to a drunk individual.
intellectual property is something that needs to be dealt with but this is certainly not the correct way to do so. i cant sue the government for drunk drivers on the roads.
@34 Dave, you wrote “”I’d say it was possible to cut out 80-85%% of the illegal traffic, leaving legitimate traffic along”"
How exactly would you do that without affecting legitimate users? How exactly do you differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate traffic? Has your network implimented some sort of psychic network filtering? I recon you do nothing more than what most other ISP’s do and that is indiscriminately attack bittorrent users. There is no reasonable method available to distinguish who’s infringing copyright and who is not, from the ISP’s point of view, so the tactic is to block it all while not giving a shit wether there are innocent people being prevented from going about their legal business. So… what you are really saying is that you block 80-85% of illegal traffic by throttleing to death every port except those used by general internet traffic, i.e. 21 & 80 ect, otherwise there is no way you can make a claim like that.
catch pirates is a good thing
we should have death penalty against pirates
Im not all that happy with file sharing, it is a form of stealing.
BUT… you cant stop it and never will be able to. The only way to battle it is to make is easier to download it from a source paid for by advertising served on the interface or sponsorship of some form. All Artists need to embrace the free digital world we live in and think a little bit out of the box….but they are too greedy and lazy!
If they want to stop file sharing you need to turn off the internet and then stop selling any type of storage media! Even then, you wont stop it.
Where is that napster kid anyway?
@24
get a life
There’s only one way to stop all illegal file sharing, and that’s to disconnect all the customers entirely.
They should do that, and make every website that all those customers see redirect to a copy of the court order and a Google map pointing at the judge’s house.
Then we’ll see how long that order lasts.
“copyright is a right given by society ”
Government, not society.
Kinda sad for the ISP… they try so hard, but knew from the beginning it didn’t work, they practically struggled all the time to prevent it… and yet, people are dumb, keep on with their stupid arguments…
I sadly doubt that this ISP will remain till 2010…
Damn straight, you cant stop p2p of any kind wether it be kazza p2p progs, torrents, nzb, warez or w/e theres always a loop hole around it some are nearly impossible to even detect like using RS b/c its just HTTP downloads :P
Maybe somebody in the RIAA, CRIA, the film/music industry and government will get a clue.
And then maybe the BS the Greens are spouting that feasible, renewable clean energy will replace oil will come true too.
What if I send a postal package with an illegal version of a game to a friend. Is the mailman responsible, because he delivered it to the postal address? Or am I responsible, because I actually sent the package?
And should that mailman open my package, analyze its content and then destroy it? Even though I payed my stamp to get it delivered in the first place?
More discussion can be found here; http://www.mattiasgeniar.be/technology/isp-it%E2%80%99s-impossible-for-us-to-stop-illegal-p2p/
If the tracker supplies a SSL connection, and the sharing client/server supplies the same (like your bank does) how can a ISP stop that?
They can throttle in a reasonable way, but there’s no way they can know what the content of any packet is.
Bitorrent already uses encryption, why isn’t it’s use more widespread so these types of situations don’t happen?
Everyone is retarded
@ Dave:
I don’t see how any technology can reliably determine whether or not traffic is illegitimate.
Just because something is copyrighted doesn’t mean it can’t be legally shared. For example, some countries allow individuals to use copyrighted material in certain circumstances. The copyright holder may allow distribution but reserve other rights. As a trivial example most commercial websites permit you to request, receive and view their site, even though it’s copyrighted.
I don’t believe any technology can reliably determine which rights are granted and which are reserved on all traffic entering or leaving an ISP. If you and your ISP genuinely have something that can do that, sell it to the world and retire a rich man.
Foolings not rulings said everything that should be said
Thats like trying to get a police department to stop all crime, it’s ideal but not practical at all
It’s just stupid. You won’t ever be able to stop P2P, I guarantee it. Stop trying, and stop crying. Music companies complain the most, and they’ve gotten a 6% boost in overall revenue since last year, reportedly thanks to illegal downloads.
all of these organizations have the wrong outlook on this. it is impossible to stop pirating. The only way to combat it would be to make paying for content easier. Since their is little cost needed to spread content (piraters are doing so for free….) charge less for the content and have more people willing to pay. Perhaps partner with isp’s to include a fee in the cost of internet access.
if scarlet has to pay 75000 euro a month, (2,500 x 30), why not spread that cost to the customer? Assuming they have 10,000 customers(.1% of belgiums population), that would mean an extra 7.5 euro a month for internt. Is the peace of mind that you aren’t breaking the law by downloading copyright material, or that your internet wont be throttled/cut off not worth that much more?
Including commercials in free online content would also be plausible. Its been how tv makes money for years
if really want to do filter learn from china . invest billions to build a filter center.
@2 Duh! We’ve been waiting for more then a year for a new government, our policetop is covered in a illegal promotions for secretary scandal …
What one does with the bought bandwidth is none of the bloody ISPs business. End of story.
change the World,change those fucking aanti-p laws.All problems solved,it’s finally the time!!!
Someone should compare this to an easy to understand situation for the judges. Like the traffic police have to check all cars for illegal material no matter if they are driving two minutes to the store or hours out of the country. And you will have to recheck the car at every intersection since it could have been modified on the way. No way you can do that without practically halting all communications and flow of goods in a country.
new comcast sandvine shit
is already cracked
now get them to admit how much cash they spent making it and selling it and the added cost to CONNEDsumers and the waste of electricity that in effect damages the environment.
SO what the mpaa/riaa are saying is FUCK THE ENVIRONMENT
Proof go look how much waste they provide earth.
@one peep above you vote for your gov’t its YOU being represented, dont like it VOTE THEM OUT.
AND copyRIGHT is like all rights something that can and should be taken away for abuse.
HOW does a 95 year copyright benefit socoety , or even 50 year sas it is in canada.
Want quality instead of quantity?
Make music , movies et all at 10 years.
This FORCES lazy , crappy artists and rich snobby pathetic businessmen to invest MORE WISELY in what they promote and how they promote it ( aka as cheap as possible to get the most return on investment to as many as possible )
instead of 30$ CDRS like i saw last time i was in a music shop.
SICK i tell ya,
AND HOW is 16.07 pop and popcorn with a 1$ savings ANY FRAKING savings at all you greedy bastards.
If you change the “b” with “d” in the word SABAM, It will be spelled “SADAM” which is close to “SADAM” so it’s the antichrist! Fast, kill it!
…close to “Saddam”. Sorry, mistakes happen people :P
Thousands of sincere and serious Ageless people I met on http://cougarhub.bravehost.com are the most amazing people I ever met! they care nothing but real love and chemistry! that’s what we are looking for in today’s world!
SABAM lies!
Old stupid judge.
Verizon should sue SABAM for damages, now. If I were a Verizon customer, I’d be on the phone right quick, forcing Verizon to react.
Dave
“…leaving legitimate traffic along.”
I don’t understand how you could be sure.
“55 Sep 23, 2008 at 20:22 by PedoPhile
catch pirates is a good thing
we should have death penalty against pirates”
Riiiight. Could you possibly need MORE attention?
@Dave: That would not satify the judge. The ruling required the illegal files to be “blocked”, not “diminished”.
What you are saying is — to a lawyer — like a convicted serial killer saying “I’m cured, now I kill only once per month, not one a day”.
Can’t say it better than chronnoss
Sorry, Dave, I don’t buy it.
There is no way you can reliably distinguish the legality or otherwise of all or even 85% of traffic, especially with the modest resources available to the average ISP. Dude, the NSA wouldn’t be able to do it.
Encryption, reduced data transfer rates, privacy issues, the problem of false positives, etc, etc, etc. No way you are going to solve all those serious technical and legal hurdles.
I call complete bullshit on your claim.
I’m a Verizon customer and I download stuff using Bittorrent. unless this magic stuff isn’t on in my area (which I doubt), there is no way it will work. ISP won’t understand that bittorrent, usenet, FTP, and many others to, to name a few, have legit uses. I use bittorrent to download the latest version of CentOS. As we know, CentOS is Linux and its also free. The only way to block all of P2P would be to read everypacket, invasion of privacy, and block all bad packets. However, that in its self is hard. Enecryption is just the stake in the heart of that idea.
When will ISPs just relize there is nothing they can do. Would a phone company of cut your phone if you pireted stuff back in the BBS days? no.
at number 5 what the fuck you doing here then bitch get lost, you over here spying on us so you can snitch to your fucking isp. go suck there dicks homie and get the fuck out of this site u dick ridin bitch, go block dicks from going into yours moms pussy hoe.
Once upon a time – in the days of mainframe computers – at a certain university computer centre somewhere in the northwest of England they used to test the lineprinters using picture files – some of you may remember those days – the Mona Lisa cleverly rendered with lineprinter characters.
Now the users of this system liked to print out these files to put on their office/bedroom walls. The centre management decided – in their “wisdom” that this was a waste of money and so they removed the picture files from the system.
Unfortunately for them a few people had made copies of these files – and promptly shared them with their friends – so the printing of pictures continued – but now of course much (at that time scarce) disk space was now being used to store multiple copies of these files.
So the managers set about deleting these files from the users’ disk allocations (at considerable cost in time and effort).
Of course the users quickly realised that this was happening and so they encrypted their files – and dressed them up to look like numerical data files.
The printing of pictures continued.
The waste of storage space increased.
AND – now valuable (at the time) processing resources were being used.
Over the past 30 years I have watched with amusement as the same merry dance repeats again and again –
the moral of the tale:
1. You can’t stop technically savvy people from doing what they want to with technology
2. Every effort you make to do so will ultimately just cause you further loss.
When will they ever learn….
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