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Software To Stop Song Trading
Shippy writes "Palisade Systems is about to launch new software that can identify and block copyrighted songs as they are being traded online. However, the article fails to mention that it will also stop legal song downloads. The software blocks anything that's copyrighted, whether you already own the song in another format or not. Here's some snippets from the article: 'If installed in a university, for example, it could look inside students' emails, instant messages and peer-to-peer transfers...', and 'Jacobson said the identification process would not work on an encrypted network, such as is used in several newer file-swapping programs. However, the Palisade software could also act to block those applications from using the network altogether.' Great."
Encrypted protocols increase in popularity.
I guess it's time to start bridging those WiFi networks around the world. If you can't beat em, fuck em. I start file sharing over WiFi networks. I look forward to the days of local BBSes again. (WiFi BBS?)
Life is not for the lazy.
Encrypt IM encrypt file sharing encrypt your email
404
How does this effect pay-for programs like iTunes?
Also, is this RIAA-only songs being blocked, or other songs? Copyrighted doesn't always mean "undistributable". Someone may hold the copyright to something but may actually let people distribute it-- am I wrong there?
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how do i tell this software that i want people to trade MY copyrighted music? if they block my file swapping would that be some sort of anticompetitive thing? just because the RIAA and its labels own the majority of music being traded doesnt mean that all the music being traded belongs to them.
If I send my friend an mp3 of me playing some music how can it tell that from me sending a copyrighted work? Is it reading the 'finger print' and then checking byte by byte? Isn't that going to kill traffic... But couldn't it be beaten by adding one extra byte to the file? Sending in another format?
Wait... it did say that it can look into student's emails and instant messages right? So basically it is giving the University free right to look into student's messages and claim that they are merely looking for illegal songs. There has got to be something that can be done by the students at these universities to block this. This is a total invasion of privacy. If any university tries to impose this onto the students attending, the students must do something. Hopefully we haven't lost all of our rebellious nature.
..is a P2P app that can run over an SSL connection, disguised as web traffic. I'd bet that could beat this thing. Does such a thing exist?
Is this software going to intercept any archives (.rar, .tar.gz, .zip etc.), unarchive them and check them? I'm not against such software - Universities have a right to disallow file trading on their networks, just as I have a right to use an ISP which doesn't use such software for my home connection. However, I just think that this won't work, at least not without blocking or hindering so much legitimate use that everyone revolts against it.
sig under construction...
If this is based on fingerprinting technology it would be pretty trivial to cutoff the Type 1 and Type 2 tags, reverse the content and stick'em back on. Reverse the process after downloading. Of course you could always UUencode the song and add a zip extension to it or a multitude of other tricks to hide what your doing.
Never underestimate the power of broke, bored, determined college students.
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I attend a Big 10 School, and while
interviewing for a tech-related position with
the head of dorm network-type stuff, I was told
that well over 90% of the internet traffic (barring worms and the like) can be attributed
to file-sharing. With the tightness of funds
that today's universities are dealing with,
maybe that bandwidth money could be better spent.
With the tightness of funds that today's universities are dealing with, maybe that bandwidth money could be better spent.
Every college's Terms of Service says that their computer systems are for "academic use only" or some similar phrase, in part because they have to in order to get grant funding to pay for their bandwidth. You might not remember signing that TOS, but trust me, every student at a college has signed something when they accepted admission that basically binds you to everything the school ever puts out as a "rule" whether you bother to read it or not.
So, forget the dream that they have to give you totally unrestricted bandwidth as part of the price of your dorm room. They never promised that to you, so if it goes away, tough.
Colleges have mostly played dumb that P2P has been going on, trying to claim that they're just a common carrier that can't really coprehend what's fair and what's foul over their network. Once they start trying to block copyrighted content, they'll start becoming liable for whatever slips through their checkpoint.
So... that's why any blocks we're going to see going up are going to be whole-protocol blocks or bandwidth throttles. They won't be blocking in the name of copyright protection, they'll be blocking in the name of bandwidth protection...
This is a good point. Frankly make them sign a contract or a LOI stating that if they do anything illegal that they have to indemify the university of any illegal actions and take full recourse for the aforementioned.
But if 90% of their traffic is P2P why not make it all internal traffic thus eliminating bandwidth costs? If there is a way to do this for instance block the ports that P2P programs use, hell block all the ports except 80 and then setup a VPN client with all ports open but restrict traffic to being only internal. Then the bandwidth load is reduced by 90% and the traffic (which would probably cut down) might come down by as much as 60-70%.
If new items need to be introduced to the P2P networks on the campus then the students should have to go out and use their own, their parents or some cafes' then they can bring it back into the closed school network.
What do you think of that?
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I was working for Palisade when they developed the first version of PacketHound.
Actually, I should say when they stole PacketHound, since it was actually created by a coworker in his off hours, outside of Palisade. The CEO at the time fired this guy and sued the developer to gain the rights to PacketHound. Kind of ironic that they stole something that is supposed to prevent stealing!
Like Palisade's original product, called ScreenDoor, PacketHound is just a packet sniffer that sends out TCP RST packets to disrupt connections. Palisade (and Iowa State University) actually have a patent on this, even though there have been firewalls and other programs (like Snort) which do the same thing, and predate the patent.
Palisade itself is a tiny company that is milking this one patent/idea for most of its products. But they are somehow good at getting press...
maybe we just need to rename songs as .doc or .jpg. If that crap can still catch them, cram the song into real images or insert them into real office documents.
One may insert them into icmp packets (ping still allowed??). What if i encrypt all my email, will encryption be outlawed? The war on file sharing is turning into a war on drugs, we all know how effective it is.
I think anyone can still get packets and or out a given network can download and upload songs or anything. those big 5 labels are causing real damage trying to police the internet and deserves to die real fast
I would LOVE to see a university try to block that. A small private one might (and I emphize might) be able to get away with it but a big one? Forget about it.
Hell, our university REQUIRES SSH for many things. You can't telnet to the e-mail cluster any more, it's SSH only. Likewise the webmail is SSL only. You just don't have a choice, you'll use the encryption or you'll not use the system. My department is working on going to that. Going to be no telnet, no FTP, no unencrypted IMAP or pop. Everything will be SSH, SFTP (which is also SSH), or SSL. Unencrypted communications will be in-building only, or for things like the main website. You want to access any systems, you'll do it with an encrypted protocol, or use an encrypted VPN tunnel to get a local address.
So either SSL or SSH would work well. They are just too useful and used for too many things. Try and shut that down and you'll find backlash like you can't believe.