New law sinks Swedish net traffic

Wow, maybe Draconian anti-piracy laws really do work. Two days after a new law went into effect in Sweden, Internet traffic has nose-dived and it's yet to pick up, Computerworld reports.

The law allows copyright holders to trace IP addresses to individuals, thus making filesharing officially non-anonymous.

Netrod Internet Exchange, which manages six of Sweden's primary Internet exchange points, reports 50% falls in traffic, with peak transmission rates falling from 200Gb/sec to 110Gb/sec.

The fall-off is all the more dramatic since Sweden's -- one of the most wired of countries (most fiber-optic broadband connections per capita) -- traffic had been on a steady rise for the past six months.

So does that mean fully half of Sweden's traffic is illegal filesharing? Seems hard to believe.