Although the RIAA in the US figures the best way to tackle those sharing music is to sue them, the German right organisation for composers, lyricists and publishers (GEMA) is aiming to disable eDonkey file sharers by poising their ISP's DNS servers. So far 42 providers have been asked to poison DNS entries on their servers.
When eDonkey or any other Internet based application makes a connection to a DNS address, this must be resolved to an IP address before the application can make a direct connection to the remote host. It is a bit like how one must know the phone number for someone before they can phone them. A DNS server is effectively a directory equiries equivalent for DNS addresses, but provides IP addresses instead of phone numbers. By poisoning the DNS server means that the DNS server is forced to either return an invalid result or a different (incorrect) IP. This is like forcing directory enquiries not to give out someone's phone number or provide a different number. If you copy, please show your appreciation by linking back to CDFreaks.
In an aim to make the providers comply, the GEMA demands the providers to sign a testimony to commit full blockage or face a €100,000 penalty if any of these DNS entries that are suppose to be blocked can be reached by any of their customers after July 25th. This approach does have on drawback in that if a consumer knows the IP address of the remote user or changes the DNS Server their PC looks up, they can get around the poised DNS servers. So far the providers are either investigating any possible legal issues with the rest or refuse to comply since they don't see the GEMA having the proper judicial rights to make these demands. DamnedIfIknow sent in the following news via our news submit:
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There's a good reason for the GEMA to target access providers. These are located at the end of the internet chain (source-ISP-"internet"-ISP-user), and usually fall within the (German) jurisdiction, which eases enforcement. However, the effectiveness of this measure may be questioned: users can still enter the numerical IP address of the sites (URL-IP address converters are easily available on the net), and other DNS servers may be used. The GEMA probably thinks that an average user may not be able to take these steps. It also has high expectations of the ability of providers to block the sites, or at least of providers in general, setting a huge sum of 100 000 euro for failure to comply. The full source article can be read here. |
This is a rather unusual approach to trying to stop file sharing. However, it does have a drawback in that all it takes is someone to create an update for eDonkey to make announce IP addresses for shared content instead of the user's DNS address. However, while faking one's DNS entry on a server may help prevent other file sharers from reaching their PC, it does have the drawback in that it could block other applications they use that rely on others to contact them by DNS, such as chat software, games and some other applications. Then again, it is still far less harsh than cutting off the user or worse still filing a lawsuit against them.
If GEMA does force the providers to resolve to a different IP such as the IP of a server that logs connection attempts, they could track potentially track which users are using file sharing services, what they are sharing and possibly even what content they are trying to download. For example, if they decided later on to make this 'Tracking server' to complete the connection to the intended IP address and act as a proxy, it could be used to spy on what is being downloaded.
DamnedIfIknow added: If this is allowed then any private party can request ISPs poison DNS for just about any reason. What a nightmare!
Feel free to discuss and find out more about file sharing services including legal issues on our Music Download, Peer to Peer (P2P) & Legal Issues forum.
Source: Constitutional Code - BlogSpot
