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The Right Honourable Stephen Timms MP is getting some stick for writing a letter that suggests that he believes that the term 'IP address' means 'Intellectual Property' address. It really doesn't help that Stephen Timms is the Minister for Digital Britain…

I have some sympathy for Timms. I suspect that he probably does know what an 'IP address' is, given that the concept of an 'IP Address' is central to one of the key issues around the problem of identifying 'internet pirates.' The logging of an IP address by an ISP can – at best – allow online activities to be associated with a particular ISP customer's account but not a particular person. In the case of a commercial provider of internet connectivity, like a cafe or pub or hotel that offers free wireless internet access, they may not even be able to manage that much.¹

Given that Timms and his civil servants have probably been using the term 'IP' as shorthand for 'Intellectual Property' for months now as they've exchanged goodness knows how many emails and memos and drafts of bits of the Digital Economy Bill, I can easily imagine whoever drafted the letter either having a brain-fart, misinterpreting the abbeviation when they typed up the letter, or simply falling foul of Microsoft Word's ever-helpful AutoCorrect feature.

It's a poor show that nobody spotted the slip before sending the response, but I'm deeply sceptical of the notion that it represents evidence that Stephen Timms believes that my computer's connection to the internet has been allocated an 'Intellectual Property address' by my ISP.

[Via Why, That's Delightful!]

1. We can be pretty sure this will have come up during Timms' discussions with ISPs and the record companies over the Digital Economy Bill. The ISPs will have been pressing the point that an IP address doesn't identify any particular culprit, whereas the record companies will have been explaining that this is exactly why they need the ISPs to just downgrade/disconnect their customer's internet connection, rather than expect the record company to identify the individual engaged in 'piracy' and take them to court. ↩