The Digital Economy Act (it's not a Bill anymore, get your facts straight)

I will apologise straight that this post is disjointed, but I am slightly annoyed and really don't care at this point in time.

Right, I have had it up to here with people whining and complaining about the "draconian", "oppressive", "suppressive", "unrealistic" and "unreasonable" UK Digital Economy Act (full text of the Act available here). I have two words for you:

SHUT UP!

No really, STFU. As far as I'm concerned it' about time something was done. If you do not support the Act, you are welcome to skip to the last few paragraphs.

Basically as I said in my post about the Nobel Peace Prize Fiasco, the Internet quickly evolved into something that it was not intended to be. People have grown accustomed to it and assumed that it is their right to have free access to everything. Sadly, that's not how reality works.

The P2P programs of yesteryear, such as Napster, Kazaa, etc, are gone. These basically allowed users to share files with anybody on the Internet. In theory a good idea, but the problem was they were sharing illegal copies of music, movies, TV shows etc. Now that is blatantly illegal. There is no two ways about it, it's ILLEGAL.

ILLEGAL as in IT'S A CRIME as in 5 YEARS IN PRISON OR $100,000 FINE. Now I'm sure all of you have some music/movies/TV shows/whatever that you downloaded from the Internet. Well good for you, now STOP.

For too long people have just assumed that it is fine for you to download content from the Internet instead of paying for it. People think that it is their right. People think that the Internet is a place where no rules apply and they can get away with everything. Well guess what, it's NOT.

Fine we've had a good run till now, but the honeymoon period is over. The Internet needs to be regulated. It's not up for debate, it has to be done. Most of the problems caused by the Internet could be solved with simple regulation. As a security professional I welcome this Act, in the essence of it.

This is a fairly comfortable middle ground. Now all you nay-sayers out there, consider this: security experts (as in real experts) have said that no person should be allowed to connect a computer to the Internet without having due cause and having being ascertained to be capable of doing so in a secure manner. You would need to apply for some sort of Internet User Certificate, which would allow to go online. Still think the DEA is "draconian"? Really things could be worse.

Whether you like it or not, there needs to be regulation and oversight of the Internet. Until now, it has mostly been governed by mob rule and good faith. Well we've just about run out of that and there's a new sheriff in town. You may not like it, you complain about it till the horses come home, but he's not going anywhere. The sooner you accept it, the better.

Yes, lots of ISPs have opposed it and complained. In fact TalkTalk has said it will not comply with the provisions of the act (cf this article). Now as most people may cheer this, they may soon find that TalkTalk will change its tone. If they do not comply they will be shut down. It's a statutory requirement. You don't have to like it, you just have to do it.

Now the actual text of the Act is not quite perfect. They was a large lack of technical expertise when creating the Bill, which shows in its text. And, yes it was rushed through Parliament, but I watched part of the debates, there were a handful of MP's present. So anybody who complains it wasn't given enough debate, ask them where they were during the reading of the Bill.

It is not a perfect legislation, nor is it ideal, but it's a start. As with most Laws, it will be revised and revisited and amended, hopefully with more technical oversight. f course the interesting thing is with a General Election less than a month away, it means any sort of debate/modification of this Act may be done under a new Government, but that remains to be seen.