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TalkTalk experiment 'proves government plans will not work'
Monday 19th October 2009, by Daniel King
According to the internet service provider (ISP) TalkTalk, Lord Mandelson's new initiative to crack down on file sharing is "ill-conceived" and could end up targeting the wrong people.
In order to prove how this might be the case, the company went to one particular residential area, where it conducted a test looking at web usage and how it is registered.
The Highway in Stanmore, Middlesex, served as the location where TalkTalk sent one broadband security expert who identified 23 different wireless connections - with a third found to be vulnerable to hijacking.
It was advised that six per cent of the residents with a web connection were completely unsecured, while 28 per cent were utilising a WEP-based system of protection - something which is "easily hackable by anyone with a laptop".
The expert was able to download music files from two individual connections, proving that the issue of hijacking is something that needs to be addressed before the government's plans could be truly effective.
Andrew Heaney, director of strategy and regulation at the ISP, noted that unless there were changes to Lord Mandelson's strategy, a large number of innocent broadband users would be disconnected.
He concluded: "Also, the plan won't work in practice. It will actually encourage offenders to use Wi-Fi and PC hijacking more frequently and so increase the chances of innocent users being falsely accused."
This threat of disconnection follows a survey published by YouthNet last week that showed 75 per cent of respondents admitted they could not live without the internet.
Categories: Broadband, Internet Security, TalkTalk
