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MPAA Developing Digital Fingerprinting Technology
Danathar writes "The MPAA is looking to use digital fingerprinting technologies that in conjunction with legislation will enable and force ISPs to look for network traffic that matches the signatures. " From the article: " Once completed, Philips' technology--along with related tools from other companies--could be a powerful weapon in Hollywood's increasingly aggressive attempts to choke off the flood of films being traded online."
And ISPs are going to search for fingerprints in encrypted downloads how exactly?
It would be relatively easy for the next generation of P2P applications to add very basic encryption. Possibly based on a captcha (just a regular zip file encrypted against the random letters contained in a gif).
Or will the MPAA's next trick be to purchase legislation banning encryption.
Trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet. -- Bruce Schneier
It is sort of amusing that this technology is being developed by Philips, makers of the Philips DVP-642, probably the most pirate friendly DVD player on the market today.
We have 1TB disks coming up soon.
I don't know how many terrabytes of released music exist in the world, but I imagine it's a finite number.
We'll probably have 100TB disks, and then 10,000 TB cubes at some point in the future.
Perhaps all the worlds music will fit in the space of a cubic centimeter.
You visit your friend's house, put your cube-disk next to his cube-disk, hit "copy", and then walk home with your copy of the entire world's music.
Really, there's not a whole friggin' lot you can do about that.
Perhaps the possesion of world-music cube-disks will be the next marijuana possesion.
First I read this story today, and I swear I still want my 5 minutes back from wasting my time reading it. Then comes along this story about the MPAA developing "fingerprinting" technology. I suppose that when someone rips a DVD using DVDShrink or DVDDecryptor or any number of other programs that said program is going to copy said fingerprint wholly intact into the resulting file even if it compresses said file. Then, after I convert it to DivX format, I'm sure the fingerprint is still going to be intact. Then after I transfer it with (Insert any of BitTorrent, WinMX, IRC, FTP, etc, etc, etc, etc) the fingerprint is going to be sent intact without using a fragmented TCP packet. Assuming all this to be true, my ISP is supposed to then pick out this needle-sized fingerprint in a galactic-sized haystick.
This is pure science fiction.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Perhaps this will lead to a division in society between the people who know the MPAA can't take our money and those who don't. These companies exist only because of us, the customers. I have no problem at all telling them to %$#@ off, because I know entertainment is cheap and very easy to come by. Take my kid to a movie vs. take my kid to a park vs. take my kid to a ball game, whatever. Movies really are not that big of a deal. Sure I might miss great movies like Dr. Strangelove, but, ultimately, movies are just a medium for these stories and certainly not a requirement. Indy productions, stage adaptations, etc. are all different ways for the talented people out there to tell their stories. Big company execs can kiss my ass for all I care.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
Wow, is this a kind of an april's fool or something? I don't even think I need to comment much on the infeasibility of this...
Next thing you know, the RIAA will be solving NP-complete problems in constant time or something...
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
Frankly, I don't want to have to deal with any kind of "dispute process" or take the risk that a failure of that process might land me in court. File-sharing of music and movies isn't my problem: it's not some significant social issue that we all need to be concerned about. Racism ... sure. Health care ... certainly. Undue corporate influence in Congress ... absolutely. But ... Music? Movies? Why are we even considering subverting our national communications system to serve the needs of a few large corporations? Most of whom, I might add, are foreign interests.
... some organisms survive change, and other's don't. Let the RIAA and the MPAA and all their member corporations deal with the pace of progress like every other adaptable company that survived the advent of the Internet. Gee ... the public Internet makes "rampant piracy" possible? You're losing billions? THAT'S JUST TOO GOD DAMN BAD. The world changed around you, and in any event does not exist solely for your enrichment. Deal with it.
This is really starting to get out of hand. I mean, the entertainment industry is not some great cultural treasure that must be preserved at all costs (the people that run it think so, but they are mistaken.) This is an economic matter, no more and no less. I didn't shed a tear when Westinghouse went belly up, I didn't lose any sleep when K-Mart filed for bankruptcy
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
"This topic is absolutely chock-a-block with discussions about which burglars' tools work best to fuck over and steal from our neighbors. What next, discussions on how to cut through school zones and take kindergarten-age hostages to elude the police during a high-speed chase? "
I look at it like this. A discussion on how to preserve the privacy and liberty of those of us that do not commit copyright violations. Allowing this is like allowing the cops to tap my phone becuase my neighbor was caught committing a crime. It's unacceptable.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
I think the banks of the world might have something to say about that, and last time I checked, they are way bigger, and wield *much* bigger sticks than the MPAA/RIAA
The revolution will not be televised. It won't be on a friggin blog either