Politicians and Musicians do not understand the internet
The new French president's announcement that he will force ISPs in France to monitor their users and police copyright violations has led to an avalanche of reports of other politicians suggesting the same course of action in other countries. Even some old rock stars have joined in the call. So far this includes the UK, US and U2. Perhaps they are under the mistaken impression that Sarkozy did his homework before lifting his finger, but of course he didn't.
Sarkozy, Bono and the rest of you, I have just one word to offer you: encryption, go look it up in Wikipedia and when you understand it get back to us. That is, get back to us when you understand that no ISP can monitor encrypted connections unless they can factor numbers of unlimited size instantly for each socket connection that passes through their service. Encryption is easy technology to implement and is crucial to the viability of all e-commerce transactions, so you cannot ban it. Therefore ISPs cannot police the internet, QED.
It is true that the music industry has a problem. They have discovered that DRM cannot protect them because they have to give people the key so that they can listen to the music. No matter how hard they try to make it, someone somewhere can break into the decryption and share the recording. Now they think they have another way to stop file sharing by imposing limitations on ISPs but that will not work either. The truth is that technology has broken the music industries old business model and there is no going back.
Try to see it this way. Playing guitar, keyboards and drums, singing and even writing a few melodies and lyrics are not difficult skills to acquire. Many millions of people have such talents. In the old system a few major media companies selected a few of those people and put them on a pedestal which made them look special. Then they recorded a few tracks and sat back while the royalties poured in from all around the world. This made a few lucky musicans very rich while the rest struggled to earn a living performing in pubs, dreaming of the day that some talent scout with a record label would lift them into the big time. In the new world the media tycoons are not needed. Musicians record their own tracks and put them on the internet for everyone to appreciate. The ones that are good can then make a decent living with advertising, public performances and other honest promotions.
The comet has struck and now we just need to wait for the old dinosaurs of the music industry and their old business model to die out so that we smarter mammals can get on with living . Politicians who don't get it will no doubt find their extinction too.
Vive la revolution!