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Will AT&T Start Filtering Your Connection?
I think this is a crucial distinction, because efforts to filter end users' connections (as opposed to making them pay consequences for their actions after the fact) have always been controversial, even when the content is illegal. The Center for Democracy and Technology successfully overturned a Pennsylvania law that required ISPs to block overseas child pornography sites, partly on the grounds that the filtering included many third-party Web sites as collateral damage. I've argued that a similar private-sector initiative called Canada Cleanfeed, where Canadian ISPs attempt to block child pornography Web sites, would do more harm than good. On the other hand, nobody's fighting very hard for the cause of child pornography downloaders who were caught and arrested. Web sites get sued and shut down all the time, but it was bigger news when Canadian ISP Telus blocked the Web site of a Telus labor union for three days. So it's a big deal whether we're talking about "pre-emptive" filtering, or fighting piracy "reactively" by going after violators.
AT&T Senior VP James Cicconi said in e-mail that "discussion about what the technology will or won't do is premature until we can invent it", but most of the hints so far have been that the anti-piracy technology will be "pre-emptive", i.e. filtering users' connections. Cicconi said on a conference panel that AT&T has to spend billions on network maintenance to carry illegal pirated traffic -- which they probably couldn't recoup by suing people, so the only way to prevent that would be to block it. And Cicconi has referred to the technology several times as a "network-based solution" -- but what else could that mean, except filtering?
So let's assume that's what's on the horizon. Interestingly, Cicconi said that AT&T did not plan to block actual Web sites. However, he said in e-mail, "If one could, with a high degree of certainty, spot and isolate illegal traffic from an offshore site, would you not think the copyright holders would have a reasonable argument for a court order to block that traffic (as opposed to the site itself)?" Presumably this could refer to a Web page with an index of links to BitTorrent files -- so they'd be willing to block the BitTorrent links, but not the Web page? But from that point of view, why not just block Web sites too? If an overseas webpage has a list of links to pirated content, and that content is served over http from the same Web server, wouldn't they want to block it?
But I doubt this would stem much piracy in the long run, because connection filtering to fight piracy became more commonplace, then the next generation of p2p file-trading programs would all just have circumvention capabilities built into them, that let you route your connection through a friend at an unfiltered ISP. You're on AT&T, you upload a file to your friend on Verizon which earns you some "credits" with his node in the p2p network, and instead of redeeming those credits to download a file from him, you use his node as a proxy to download a file indirectly from a site in Russia that AT&T is blocking you from accessing. Advanced users can do this already with tools like Virtual Private Networks and Tor, and some tweaks in a p2p program would just bring it within the range of the casual user.
On the other hand, if AT&T starts filtering traffic, it could set a bad precedent that any time a party in a legal proceeding wants a site declared "illegal", they can demand that AT&T (or other ISPs) block the site. It could be a site libeling a person, or a site hosting a decryption tool that breaks some company's poorly-designed code, or pretty much anything that some powerful person wanted to go away. Meanwhile, if an AT&T customer did get accused of downloading pirated content, now they could invoke the "AT&T didn't stop me" defense -- they thought that AT&T was filtering illegal content, and if they could get to it, then that meant it was legal! In both cases the problem comes from someone using the argument that once AT&T started doing any filtering at all, they should have gone further.
So I would watch the situation closely, even if you're not an AT&T user, and don't assume the situation will take care of itself. Cicconi said, "If a company like ours does dumb things and upsets our customers, we will lose them to someone else," which is something I'm skeptical of whenever I hear it used to defend various draconian anti-spam measures, but in this case I think it's even less applicable. When you're talking about spam filters, at least they always bring some benefit to the user (less spam), and the question is whether the free market weighs those benefits properly against the costs (more lost mail). On the other hand, if an ISP filters the user's connection, that brings no benefit to the user, and in a truly efficient market, all customers of such an ISP would just switch to an unfiltered one -- if that doesn't happen, it simply means the market in that case is not efficient. Is your ISP filtering your connection right now? Probably not, but how could you tell if they were? Right now we assume that ISPs don't filter connections because generally it's "just not done" (except when it is). In a few years we might not be so sure.
Yes
I had the first post, but those ATT bastards filtered it!
These are MY letters!
I didn't copy them!
Damn it...
Now, when I download something, I know it must be fully legal to download thanks to my ever so helpful AT&T DSL connection filtering out all those nasty pirates! Thanks guys! I'll be sure to forward any legal notices I receive on to you!
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
If AT&T does any filtering of the content (even if it is simply to block ports), haven't they then lost their common carrier status? Could they then be liable for content transferred on their network, including illegal materials?
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
My guess is that they will use type of traffic, destination and statistics (filenames, sizes, media types) to catch excessive users. This is similar to how most spamblockers seem to work, or even, Slashdot's moderation system. While in theory I'm against it, in reality, it means that AT&T spends less effort to support the 5% of users who are heavy users of illegal traffic. It's a smart business decision. I for one will take my service provider dollars elsewhere however.
technical writing / development
We may get our ability to legally backup and/or convert movies and music back...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Headline - "AT&T has Turned on Its Anti-Pirating Program blocking webpages"
Headline (30 mins laters) - "Hackers have found a way to circumvent AT&T's Multi-million dollar anti-pirating program"
Misread it as "anti-privacy initiative".
at&t begins filtering slashdot summaries...
I'll need more coffee before I try to read that again.
Unless of course there is no alternative...
Surely, though, this is another of those situations where blocking implies they have control, and therefore become liable for anything bad that happens?
Will I be filtered because it sees a 700meg file being transfered? What about ISO's? Will it assume and iso is a pirated CD, when in reality it's a Linux distro?
Definitely a complex problem.
I guess that $9.95/mo. DSL does have some strings attached to it...
I am glad that I am not using them
http://www.car-4-me.com
Why doesn't ever the media spin these stories the other way. Like "AT&T censors the internet, in order to save the porno industrys declining revenues"
It's a good thing I can filter out who my ISP is. For now.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
I'm sure they have a few senators in their back pocket. Rules like that don't apply to huge corporations.
So in the event that ATT mistakenly blocks, say, a competing VoIP service ( ATT do something like this? Perish the thought ), what recourse does the consumer have when they are an effective monopoly in the area?
Answer: They don't. Color me pessimistic, but I can only view this as a very bad thing. I had already sworn off ATT for anything beyond 911, but given how prevelant they are I understand I don't have much of a choice: My traffic will cross their networks at some point.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
"jams the network in ways we're not compensated for. He said AT&T is spending about $18 billion on network maintenance, a significant chunk of which is required just to keep up with tremendous growth of traffic on its backbone."
0 11
They were compensated.
The $200 Billion Broadband Scandal
New investigative ebook offers micro-history of Verizon, SBC, Qwest, and BellSouth's (the Bell companies) fiber optic broadband promises and the consequence harms to America's economic growth because they never delivered and kept most of the money, about $200 billion.
This is one of the largest scandals in American history. America is 16th in the world in broadband and the US DSL current offerings are 100 times slower than other countries such has Japan and Korea. How did we go from Number 1 in the web to 16th in broadband and falling?
Starting in the early 1990's, with a push from the Clinton-Gore Administration's "Information Superhighway", every Bell company -- SBC, Verizon, BellSouth and Qwest -- made commitments to rewire America, state by state. Fiber optic wires would replace the 100-year old copper wiring. The push caused techno-frenzy of major proportions. By 2006, 86 million households should have had a service capable of 45 Mbps in both directions, (to and from the customer) could handle over 500 channels of high quality video and be deployed in rural, urban and suburban areas equally. And these networks were open to ALL competition.
In order to pay for these upgrades, in state after state, the public service commissions and state legislatures acquiesced to the Bells' promises by removing the constraints on the Bells' profits as well as gave other financial perks. They were able to print money -- billions of dollars per state -- all collected in the form of higher phone rates and tax perks. (Note: each state is different.)
* ADSL is not what was promised and paid for. It goes over the old copper wiring, can't achieve the speed, has problems in rural areas and is mostly one-way.
* 0% of the Bell companies' customers have 45 Mbps residential services.
The fiber optic infrastructure you paid for was never delivered.
http://www.muniwireless.com/article/articleview/5
"that AT&T has to spend billions on network maintenance to carry illegal pirated traffic -- which they probably couldn't recoup by suing people"
Yeah and you also have to spend billions maintaining a network so that morons can blather on about inanities! That's what being a telco with common carrier status is all about! You're supposed to recap your expenses with a user fee structure, while being completely disinterested in the nature of the transmitted content, you dumbass! If you don't know that then obviously you're the wrong man for the job!
You're using her as bait, Master!
The obvious solution in many cases that you don't like a vendor's policy is to change vendors, however, I know that my local cable ISP uses ATT for their internet connections. Several other ISP's with wireless or other highspeed internet do to. Does this mean I could be filtered? Or only people that are direct customers of ATT? This really scares me coming from a company that runs/owns so many internet backbone links..
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
I'm sick of web pirates leeching off those of us who obey the law. About time you little leeching party ended. Others will follow, and good for them. About time.
I be a pirate, matey!
Arrrrrr!!!
Headline - "AT&T has Turned on Its Anti-Pirating Program blocking webpages"
:(
Headline (30 mins laters) - "Slashdot blocked by AT&T Big Brother Anti-Pirating Program". 0 views.
I am opposed to the off-shoring of piracy. We Americans must stand firm and only download from American sites. So bravo AT&T and kudos besides.
This is because the press has been turned into a pack of trained monkeys who repeat whatever pablum the corporations inject into the wire services without engaging in any critical analysis. In government matters, they have just been converted into an outsourced extension of Minitrue.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
If large-scale piracy is blocked from the network, doesn't it stand to reason that the network will perform better overall for ATT's customers?
People here rightly bemoan bandwidth strangling caused by botnets. Do those same people have a similar problem with their network being saturated by music, movies, and game downloads?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Just dismantle the damn internet, that's where they're going with all this.
Tie the tubes!
Won't them filtering content invalidate the protections offered by being a Common Carrier?
In that case the doesn't the ISP end up being responsible for all content carried?
It works that way. I know, i live in turkey. so smarten up and act before its too late.
Read radical news here
Don't wory well just break out the old "split" programs and break up those nasty large files, followed by "join" programs once they are received.
Now where did i put them?
I'm sure they make enough political contributions that they have nothing to worry about.
It surprised me that no one mentioned this before -- ever before the merger, both AT&T and BellSouth residential DSL connections blocked access to any SMTP ports other than their own. At least that's the case in Georgia and Ohio. Since I have 3 email accounts from other providers, I could not use their SMTP servers to send mail. Calling BellSouth was hilarious: their answer basically boiled down to "Well, sir, that's easy -- all you have to do is to upgrade to a Business DSL plan!". After escalating this through tech support managers to (useless) customer service reps, and at one point being told angrily that I should just accept it and that that's the way BellSouth protects *me* from spam, I canceled my BellSouth service and went elsewhere.
This is a very serious development -- we are now entering the age of the censored internet (at least in the West). Today it's pirated movies, tomorrow AT & T will loan their technology to the DHS, and then it's any page with the word 'Communism" or "Islam" in it. I suspect the next big advertising point for rival providers will be the unfettered-ness of their service.
If it was possible to "filter" the internet for pirated content I wouldn't need to use Bittorrent.
There. End of story.
Thats not how it works. Competing DSL providers pay AT&T for space in their CO. From there, its off to the competiting provider's network.
But my iPhone let's me browse all I want and you can't do anything about it because my plan is through... crap.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
(Obligatory IANAL) Now that AT&T are actively trying to filter content on their network, they have abandoned their common carrier status, with all of the legal protections that come with it. So, the next logical step is for the MPAA and RIAA to file suit against them for contributory copyright infringement, or something along those lines (they could basically recycle the same lawsuit they filed against Napster). And I hope exactly that happens, as a lesson to any other ISP stupid enough to consider doing this.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
It seems to me they are moving from Common Carrier to something else, definitely *not* agnostic about what's going over their wire.
This is to be expected though because *everyone* who has some kind of legislative play in Washington wants to make sure the Internet is a one-way sh!t pipe into the American home. The policy wonks want it too because they can't keep the insanely talented black-hats out of their networks. The third strike is that a two-way Internet is too Democratic for all governments.
In today's political environment the courts will enforce whatever the telco's and media conglomerates want. Look at how fast (measured in beuracracy(sp!) time) the Crackberry patent battle was magically swept away by the PTO.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
If they are doing traffic-based filtering, and not URI blocking, then encrypted streams should basically make this entire discussion moot, unless they decide to block all encrypted traffic as well... When are these knuckleheads get a clue and realize that they are fighting a losing battle? In any case, I am trying to boycott AT&T as I am Sony for being such idiots and violators of my trust. Vote with your pocketbook!
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
No need for AT&T and Big Copyright to develop technologies, SafeMedia has already figured this out. It says so right on their website. 100% accurate elimination of "contaminated" P2P traffic. Wow! AT&T can just slap Clouseau(tm) all over their network.
I would imagine that if this thing becomes common we might see distributed peer to peer web infrastructure get more popular. Freenet is the best example, although freenet is notoriously slow.
Further down the page there's one of the usual articles lambasting China for its internet firewall. Now I see the Americans have learnt from the Chinese and want to do it as well.
"Somebody running a server in their basement on our network and uploading illegal copies movies raises the costs for everybody else and jams the network in ways we're not compensated for,"
Uhh bullshit. We pay for the connection, we get to use the connection. If you don't like that quit selling us "Unlimited" Service and then crying when we actually use it as such.
It would be funny to have an national protest by uploading, legal things of course, all over the world just to see how badly we could cripple the internet. Say you entire photo library to your favorite photo site, or a nice modest ten gig transfer through chat programs such as Skype, or a few hundred emails with a files attached to them to everyone you know. Just for 24 hours or so and watch all this "unlimited" bandwidth grind the system to a hault.
As a follow up trick start up few hundred class-action lawsuits for fraudulent buisness practices and false advertisment.
This plan has all the indicators of federal backing. Why would AT&T spend billions of dollars in blocking technology when what they really want are more Internet users, not less? Illegal mp3 downloading means more people signing up for broadband. They're getting some federal money or something for this.
I predict AT&T's first step will be to block BitTorrent sites like Pirate Bay. It's frightfully easy for them to do and they'll prepare a press release in conjunction with the State Department or some other official governemnt agency that declares BitTorrent an illegal site, threat to national IP security, or whatever.
The answer to your carrier filtering your connection is to
encrypt it. People who value privacy should be pushing
for the completion of BTNS, and getting it enabled in their
router or end computer. This will allow everyone who has
this capability enabled to communicate vi IPSec automatically,
without having to exchange keys or passwords.
Tie the tubes!
but my computer already had a vasectomy!
And it sucks, basically they are filtering out P2P by killing your upload if you are connected to more than 2 or 3 peers.
There's no reason (aside from good old fashioned greed) that the U.S. should have aging, filtered, asynchronous, and broken Internet access almost everywhere.
You will watch what they want, when they want, how they want, and you will like it, plebe
You will watch what they want, when they want, how they want, and you will pay for it every single time, plebe
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Don't you just wish you had an account with ATT?
So you could cancel it.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
...who get impacted by arbitrary port filtering.
I'm not an AT&T customer. But my experience with Shaw is a good example of how bad decisions yield bad implemenetations that mess people up.
I am a small business user that hosted all email etc on site out of my home office. Mail started bouncing outbound. I still received mail, but I couldn't send it. After talking with various target sites, and man you wouldn't believe how hard it is to get to talk to a person on the inside of i.e. Yahoo!, I went through the stages of ensuring I had RDNS set up right, my DNS MX records were right, and I had valid SPF records. But none of it worked... I should have figured it out sooner, but it wasn't a connection refused as the error from my mail server said, no connection was being made. My ISP had starting blocking all outbound port 25 traffic on all residential routers without notifying them. But I was a business user... behind a residential router. So the had me go in, get a new modem, and they forced me to swap my static IP to a new one...
Then the fun really started. The new IP was in a range that the ISP had published as dynamic! So all the RBL lists and spam blockers had me black and/or grey listed. It took 3 weeks of systematically contacting each of them, AND hassling my ISP to follow RDNS convention for static IP on their block, and again getting my ISP to pass through to me (as I did my own DNS) for RDNS.
I still get bounced from a bunch of mail servers.
Anyway, arbitrarily block ports is bad. They SHOULD monitor traffic...
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
AT&T is probably doing this to protect itself from lawsuits from the big media companies. Like the Grokster case, if AT&T is enabling users to download pirated material or knowingly hosting illegal files on its newsgroup servers, then it bears some of the responsibility. That being said, every time you turn around AT&T and the rest of broadband/dsl providers are always promoting how fast their connections are and it's best for downloads... what do they think people are using that for, YouTube? The easy accessibility of pirated materials (and of course, pornography) are the prime movers for broadband adoption. The RIAA/MPAA have point when they say the ISPs make money off of piracy, albeit indirectly. I just hope AT&T is smart and leaves newsgroups alone.
He said AT&T is spending about $18 billion on network maintenance, a significant chunk of which is required just to keep up with tremendous growth of traffic on its backbone. "And a sizable chunk is traffic that is illegal," he said.
4 +Years.aspx
c le/2006/03/08/AR2006030802326.html
Verizon said it expects to invest $18.0 billion in net capital from 2004 through 2010 in deploying the nation's largest network that brings the broadband capacity of fiber optics all the way to customers' homes and businesses. http://www.tvover.net/Verizon+FiOS+Profitable+In+
So AT&T says it costs them $18 billion for maintenance while Verizon spends $18 billion on a whole new network infrastructure? I call bullshit. This is the same company that said they expect to be paid to by web sites for traffic over thier network.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
Now it makes sense. Since AT&T was unable to fulfill the "broadband for everyone" plan, we simply eliminate the reason for broadband. I mean, what do you need 10mbit for if there's nothing to push through the cable?
Not really dumb...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Somebody running a server in their basement on our network and uploading illegal copies movies raises the costs for everybody else and jams the network in ways we're not compensated for," said Mr. Cicconi..."
Right, because pirate bytes are... bigger? I guess they're all wearing hats and carrying parrots or something.
It's about control. Control of what you can and cannot do online. First they may start filtering out movies and music, but when do they start filtering out thoughts and ideas or anything else that goes against the mainstream. Before we know it, we have another Great Firewall of China, except on a much wider scale.
Sure encryption helps, but they will simply throttle bandwidth for encrypted channels. Who's going to hold these carriers accountable. Oh your Tor isn't working? Must be a problem with the program, we aren't doing anything on our end. Riiiight.
If this all goes down I'm taking bet on when people will revert back to good old fashioned modems and bulletin board systems for sharing information. With the pervasiveness of cell networks, I'm surprised theres still not a thriving 'underground' aside from whats online.
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
Pirates will just serve pirated content from behind proxy IP#s they switch to keep ahead of any filtering on IP# by AT&T. They will just see their operating costs increase negligibly, while creating a new market for proxy services.
Regular users will be spied on by AT&T, and their content selection determined by AT&T. An AT&T that is now practically a monopoly again (one of a duopoly with Verizon), and gearing up to duopolize all multimedia delivery including "Internet", phone and video.
This is the AT&T that monopolized telecom for decades until forced apart by the Federal government (which, under Bush, has encouraged it to reunite). That even monopolized Unix for decades. Slowing down all innovation, greedily soaking up all the profits it could by extortion, reducing service levels to the minimum.
They still need the Federal government OK to do these things. If you think you're on the right side when you support AT&T's Net Doublecharge attacks on Net Neutrality, just look at how this beast will abuse us with it. Get together with the government to force AT&T to leave our content alone. And to stop killing the competition that we need for the Internet to remain worth getting excited about.
--
make install -not war
I dumped them a long time ago when they volunteered all my phone calls to the government. Why use them for any service?
This is almost the same (bogus) argument they invented to start the whole network neutrality (or rather, the destruction thereof) mess -- that somehow they aren't being compensated because their tubes are being used. Just as with network neutrality, this argument is spurious bullshit, unless you presume hackers tapping into their network with a pair of alligator clips on the side of the road, ie: hijacking of their physical infrastructure. This is obviously not what is happening, so what they are talking about is paid for usage that they now want to somehow declare "illegal". It's all bullshit! They should not be looking nor care what any of the bits they're transporting are, just deliver them! If they're on your network, they've been paid for, either directly by one or the other of the end users, or via the magic of peering agreements. You don't get to double dip!
And if the problem really is unauthorized tapping into their network, then they have real problems...
To the posters wondering how they can do it, look at l7-filter for iptables. Now, this is what you can do - fairly effectively people are reporting - to filter p2p with a Linux router. (There's also ipp2p for Linux, but that's judged only partially effective.) You can bet that what open source can do, AT&T's Ciscos can do too. Doing that level of inspection is going to add quite a computational load, on the one hand. On the other hand, blocking the p2p stuff will take a huge load off of the pipes.
Is the l7-filter's approach something that p2p software's next generation can get around? Maybe, but it won't be as simple as port hopping. There will always be ways to get a few files though, but the question is whether large-scale p2p operations will remain viable in a context of widespread packet filtering.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Let's be realistic for a minute. WHY in the HELL would I give a company my hard earned dollars so that they can restrict what I look at or listen to? Why are they even allowed to do this? If information is ever blocked like this, I vow to setup an entire farm of illegitimate data, and share it with as many people around the world as I can, circumventing all of their "anti-privacy" countermeasures. They're dogs. The next few years are going to be very interesting.
Internet: Serious Business
I have AT&T DSL now. It was them or ComCrap and AT&T bribed me more. I have their 6Mbs connection.
The main reason I have such a fast connection is P2P. If they block it, why would I need a connection that fast? I could then move to a slower connection and pay half what I am paying now.
If AT&T does this, it will hurt their bottom line. THAT will get these asshole's attention!
Can't they start by filtering the spam? Once they've figured that out, then they can move onto a more complex target.
Dekker Dreyer
Geeks will find a way get out from under providers like AT&T. It'll be something like self-discovering mesh networks over wifi, packet radio or some other type of hobby system that will grow until it becomes a carrier and this nonsense will start all over again. But, until then, it'll be a wide open frontier.
Sometimes I think retardedness like this is a good thing because it pushes geeks to start looking around for an alternative. Or, if none exists, developing one.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Oh I'll do more than that!
I will create an account with AT&T, cancel it, and then smash all my computers in front of their corporate headquarters!
That will show those Cyberpunks...
Is there heaven? Is there Hell? Is that a Tuna Melt I smell?-Primus
This is nothing but a back door excuse to justify
their involvement with the illegal NSA spying.
It's all part of the plan by the darkside to
put the computing and communications jenie
back in the bottle. These 'problems' that they
want to 'manage' were created by the darkside
so they can 'manage' the problem. These 'problems'
were created over 10 years ago.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Quite true. Human nature just loves to control things. This is about power. This about total control of what they can give us. Right now they can dictate to us a lot of things through television and radio. The TV news media is completely bullshit and corporate driven. It's a one way street of entertainment from the top down, and that is what they want to do with the internet. They want to turn it into a TV, because that is the only profit model they have been able to figure out.They cant see how to make large amounts of money off the internet when you the user have the ability to compete against them, freely distributing copyrighted material whether it be your own, or "illegal".
It is simply about control and that they are trying to angle the internet into a downloadable tv, pay service, with email taxation, pay per view movies, etc. They cant do all of those things when you have the power of free will.
Look at Myspace, and how it started...
Look at the growing trend to censor the internet and make it more "family friendly"
The growing trend of not being allowed to speak freely on most of the sites on the net, using words like "fuck" or simply posting nude pictures of yourself.
These are freedoms of express, and sure corporations dont want you do things like that, but when you run a site called "Myspace"... shouldnt it be your space?
There is a growing trend of censorship and it has nothing to do with piracy, and everything to do with piracy.
Piracy represents the purist form of freedom. The freedom of protest, the big "fuck you" to those who continually trample freedom.
Let them try... Burn the country down, i dont give a shit. America is already dead as a country. I know cause i live here, and i see it day in and day out in our media, in our government, and in the way people think about freedom and how little they understand it.
Where are our James Madison's of today? Where is Jefferson?
That spirit in America has long been lost, and all that remains is huge amounts of power held by large corporations who's only intent is to rape us of our money for profit. They will streamline that process until we are in shackles. That is how slavery was formed.
It's simply over johnny. Its over. AT&T will do what it wants because you are NOTHING to them. You are a fucking cash battery. GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD. AT&T is NOT A GOVERNMENT ENTITY. And our own government is in bed with them. We can not win. We have no representation looking out for the well being of our people. Case in point, the health care system, educational system, and minimum wage.
You're well being is not a fucking concern of AT&T or any other corporation, and they do not owe you anything. You did not elect them, they do not represent you. They are out to control and abuse you for profit any way they can.
Until we have a government that actually does something to stand up to big buisness, we're lost. SUCK IT UP, and vote for the same 2 party fucking morons that are in bed with the same people that are out to ruin your freedoms. Just keep voting for them.
Do you honestly think anyone in congress or the senate actually represent you? Are you fucking kidding me. You're a fucking peanut to them, and they only need you for one thing, a vote. Once their in, they're playing with the big boys, the wealthy elite. They're in the club. You were just the fat whore they fucked to get in good with her billion dollar daddy.
Wake up.
I've mentioned this before... given the political climate, the day is coming when the only trustworthy data route (ie. the only way you know your email won't be snooped/blocked) will be the old-fashioned modem and dialup BBS, where the only party you are required to trust is the sysop (and whether his phone lines are tapped), and where no one other than said sysop can filter your words, ideas, content, and whatever other "undesirable" behaviour you may exhibit.
And as phone lines continue to deteriorate (may will not transmit modem data above 26k, and they're not required to do so above 9k) and quality modems become a rarity, that could once again become an elite venue, just as it was in the olden days.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
So -
1) If I share an illegal copy of a movie using an encrypted p2p service
2) AT&T somehow busts me (i.e. they decrypt and analyze my shit at layer 7)
3) I can sue their asses for violating DMCA or whatever right?
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
a month doesnt pass before at and t or whatever its name tries to pull a crap with the internet that will damage the people and give them a monopoly. what kind of sobs were elected to the board last time i am really curious. they should have opened up auditions to gather every villain from 4 corners of the world.
Read radical news here
to congratulate the pirate bay on a job well-done. They have single-handedly caused more uproar in DC than the whole of communist china. This is the new cold war. Communism good, dirty swede pirates bad!
If they start blocking content they are assuming some liability.
And how will they know what files are pirated?
A Pirate walked into a bar and the bartender asked, "Is that a steering wheel in your pocket?"
the Pirate replied, "Arrggg, It's drivin' me nuts."
From the Red Herring article the reasons for blocking the what is deemed pirated material is the same reason that AT&T and other ISP want to create a tiered service structure where they can charge more for certain content to get the same throughput that is currently available.
AT&T has just found an end round to the government before the democrats could bring net neutrality to a vote. Because braodband was built and its business increased based upon the requirements of rich media content, now that they have their audience they want to suck them as dry as possible.
AT&T is just trying out it's technology that it would use to move traffic to a slower smaller pipe for those not paying the extra fee for their content to be presented in the best light. A new cash cow for AT&T and other telecoms that would benefit from the loss of net Neutrality. The consumers are the big loosers, and so would any new internet venture that did not have the start up resources to get on the higher service tier.
Anyone get the feeling this is just one step against AllofMP3? I mean not specifically only for them, but things the studio have limited control over and would rather block aka Customs and immigration style?
In Russia ......oh Wait !
in USA the internet filters you
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks who have their internet filtered by AT&T?
This does not make sense!
Once they've got the internet nicely partitioned, then we'll find out what it's going to cost providers / customers to avoid having their site on the pirate / child porn list.
There might even be optional services to buy; $5 per month to use BitTorrent, $3 per month to use Google, etc.
One thing I'm sure of - the reason for their "filtering" move is profit, nothing more or less. It'll be followed by blocking / impairing access to sites / netblocks that host "pirate" material. Then we'll find out who will be paying and how much. In the final act, AT&T determines that Google and other popular sites have links to pirate content so they'll go on the blocked / impaired list.
By the time that people notice what's happening it'll be too late. Welcome to our brave new world where men in black suits visit with an offer "it'd be a shame if something happened to that nice web site of yours".
The tricky part of the plan is almost done. If they get a pass from the government on filtering - it's a sure bet that they'll be bending the filtering to serve their bottom line best.
Let's be perfectly clear - people buy high speed internet connections so that they can pirate stuff.
Now, that segment of the market is not who AT&T wants. AT&T *wants* to sell broadband to your Grandma who only uses it to buy stuff on e-bay, and while they're at it they'd love to charge Disney a big fat fee to be able to show high definition video clips to her grandkids.
But those are the customers broadband providers *wish* they had, not the cutomers they *actually* have, and if AT&T really prevents people from using BitTorrent, their customers will just switch over to DSL or some other competing technology - or someone will make proxies that are easy enough for the general public to use, that's another possibility.
AT&T/TW is an awful company with a terrible history of ignoring what people actually want, and of losing huge sums of shareholder money trying to force something else down people's throats. But piracy - not kiddie porn, they could get away with blocking that - is what drives broadband adoption, even among people who only pirate three things a month.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
If the RIAA can sue me then I demand they join the carrier in every single suit. Or, if the carrier wants to filter me then they have to indemnify me too. After all it's AT&T what brought the illegal content to me.
My first thought when reading this was: "Are they going to actively filter known phishing sites?"
Looks like it's business interest they're looking out for, not individuals though.
And there's also the problem that if they do block those sites, people may just assume that any that slip through are genuine even more so than before.
Dissenting viewpoints on this site are routinely modded down because they disagree with the status quo on this website... Slashdotters are in effect hating themselves with this article. They do exactly what AT&T is doing.
Did someone try to apply "overrated" to my comment, and miss?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Slashdot Id #730745 for President, 2008.
You'd get my vote.
[club type bouncer pushing people aside] Move out of the way you measly citizen!!
[Queue music...]
[AT&T overlord steps to the podium] We will usher in a new era of telecommunications (ie. actually meaning 1984 style controls) for the citizens of these great United States! Blah Blah Blah Blah...
[Lone guy in the back yells 'YOU SUCK!!!' and is promptly escorted to the airport and flown to Gitmo as an enemy combatant]
While I said that in a humorous/satirical way, I seriously hope that the people of this country will rise up and not allow such controls to be put in place permanently. Apparently, the British "privacy" model is making its way over to The States.
Those unfamiliar with the Sherman Act can take a look at this Wiki entry.
Good luck to us all!
Administered by RIAA and MPAA
For you protection and well being
This is probably going to be used as an argument against net neutrality, whether valid or fallacious. Critics are going to claim that net neutrality will prevent ISPs from stopping piracy.
Ironic that the site carrying this story is called Red Herring.
I have a hunch that this is going to filter across to all major ISP that do wireless phones, internet and tv.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
I've had DSL for a quite while now.
I receive 20 megabytes per day of UDP port 1026, 1027 and 1028 pop-up spam messages.
AT&T has about 20 million subscribers.
That's 400 trillion bytes PER DAY of Winshit pop-up spam going through AT&T's network.
If AT&T wants to unclog their network, all they really have to do is block UDP ports 1026-1028.
This won't stop all the Chinese sourced TCP port 7212 traffic which is the second greatest bandwidth wastage on my DSL.
I wrote a program to listen to the requests on TCP port 7212. Big mistake. As soon as whoever is doing this shit saw that TCP port 7212 was actually open, I got hammered with 100x the TCP port 7212 traffic I was getting when it was being ignored.
There are those who would bang the cyber-terrorism gong. It's only terrorism if it scares you. I'm not scared. For me, it's only a cyber-irritation.
2500 packet crap-floods a day.
I absorb your traffic and be one with it.
AT&T has their collective heads up their collective asses. AT&T doesn't appear to be much smarter than the stupid Wile E. Haxors that keep hitting my TCP ports 1433, 3128, 5900, 6588, 7212, 8000, 8080 and various other ports.
Do the dumbfuck spammers actually think that a) my firewall is going to get tired, and b) some program is going to start up automatically on these ports they're trying, if only they try hard enough by sending enough packets?
In closing, I'd like to show you what slashdot.org does when you try to post a message here.
06-20 21:46:53 66.35.250.150 -> 81 TCP Unknown inbound session stopped
06-20 21:46:54 66.35.250.150 -> 8080 TCP Unknown inbound session stopped
06-20 21:46:55 66.35.250.150 -> 80 TCP TCP Port Scan Detected
06-20 21:46:55 66.35.250.150 -> 80 TCP Unknown inbound session stopped.
06-20 21:46:55 66.35.250.150 -> 1080 TCP Unknown inbound session stopped
06-20 21:46:56 66.35.250.150 -> 3127 TCP Unknown inbound session stopped
06-20 21:46:57 66.35.250.150 -> 3128 TCP Unknown inbound session stopped
06-20 21:46:58 66.35.250.150 -> 3124 TCP TCP Port Scan Detected
06-20 21:46:58 66.35.250.150 -> 3124 TCP Unknown inbound session stopped
06-20 21:46:59 66.35.250.150 -> 2301 TCP Unknown inbound session stopped
06-20 21:47:00 66.35.250.150 -> 6588 TCP Unknown inbound session stopped
06-20 21:47:01 66.35.250.150 -> 8000 TCP Unknown inbound session stopped
06-20 21:47:02 66.35.250.150 -> 444 TCP Unknown inbound session stopped
06-20 21:47:03 66.35.250.150 -> 8081 TCP Unknown inbound session stopped
06-20 21:47:04 66.35.250.150 -> 1026 TCP Unknown inbound session stopped
06-20 21:47:05 66.35.250.150 -> 3382 TCP Unknown inbound session stopped
06-20 21:47:06 66.35.250.150 -> 7032 TCP Unknown inbound session stopped
06-20 21:47:07 66.35.250.150 -> 8002 TCP Unknown inbound session stopped
06-20 21:47:08 66.35.250.150 -> 8090 TCP Unknown inbound session stopped
06-20 21:47:09 66.35.250.150 -> 2578 TCP Unknown inbound session stopped
Thanks slashdot. You have proven yourselves to be as retarded as all the dumbfuck Chinese haxors and all the IRC efnet homosexuals that try to break into my system.
Does not AT&T host alt.binaries.movies.divx (etc) on their own NNTP servers?
Me lost me cookie at the disco.
First, too bad for AT&T and Apple. The only place you can get the iPhone these days is through AT&T and this puts a black mark against AT&T for anything internet related.
Second, you bet your sweet ass they are dismanteling the internet. They've been trying to do it for a decade now and they will succeed unless someone starts making a fight against the asswipes who complain about the internet content or make up stories about it's harmful.
The reality is the Internet is a reflection of society.
As an example...
The only difference is you have to travel farther to get to interact with hookers and dance clubs than you do web pornography. But all the sex is still out there and it's not going away. Same with anything else that someone might want to consider illegal, immoral, or unethical. The key distinction here is that as a society we agree to what is illegal through concensus of the laws and efforts to change it through a legal process. But ethics and morality are not legislatively controlled in this country just yet. If my daughter wants to dress like a three dollar whore there's no law against it except for indecent exposure.
But her dress is only permitted within public areas. She can't go to school like that and probably can't work at Bennigans dressed like that either. These institutions have and extension of the the legal rules of dress that is permitted because the society represented within that institution has agreed to an extended version of the legislative legal limitations (indecent exposure becomes dress code or uniforms). As long as the societal subsection that is the institution understands that their laws of the school or business are not implicitly enforced by government law then everyone is happy.
Where we get into trouble is when someone steps out of the school and sees someone who is in violation of the school dress code, is not in the school, and is not in violation of the indecent exposure law. They take it upon themselves to declare the individual in violation of a law that doesn't exist. Sure they might look slutty or offensive, but it's not against the law.
Where we get into a lot of trouble is no one has a good argument for stating something that on the surface appears to be, "We support slutty looking girls on the street." because that can be twisted into something it's not. And today's government in the US has a tendency to react to someone complaining loudly enough even when they aren't representing the majority of the society.
This isn't too far from what the sharia law can do to a country. With sufficient effort, a small group of over zealous people can enforce upon the society their ideals of what the law should be and they apply it to non-muslims as well. Taliban did this. They were a small group of people who relied on the ability to make outcries that if you didn't follow sharia law you were an infidile. Western countries might consider this extreme, but Christrians aren't so free of sin that they can cast the first stone either. It's just that sharia law is more current and example.
So where does this make the internet and AT&T important? AT&T has taken it upon themselves to start applying their own ethical regulations, extending the law beyond what they indended to do, without disclosure to the customers, giving customers the option to refuse their ethical extensions, or permitting the affected sites an opportunity to appeal their decisions. They are making up their own opinion of what's right and what's wrong and they are not a government legislature.
They could offer an option in their accounts to allow the consumer to opt-in to a safe-mode account status where they are filtered to death and everything is safe and wonderful. This would give them the ability to appeal to those who want that ethical extension without violating the choices of others to decide for themselves what might be unethical or not.
And if you reply to this posting tha
Russia cannot join the WTO unless allofmp3 is shut down by state authorities 8among many other preconditions). This has been carved in stone and russkies loose billions every year because of their "pariah" status with regards to WTO membership. If Rasputin the uncrowned tsar thinks oil revenues will last forever and he can re-arm Russia into a superpower on fossil fuel and then obtain more power via threat of using military force, so far so good.
.223 cartridges in a GI Joe's M4 assault carbine. He shoots tangos for you!
The west will defeat Russia, just like it defeated the USSR, as the free world is more industrious, has better management and more innovations, we can out-tech them. However, things have changed since the Reagen 80's. Free world economy is mostly services now, manufacture has moved to China and elsewhere 3rd world. Pirates, who share copyrighted audio-visual content over the net, are cutting off probably the most important mainstay of the current services based westerneconomy.
When record labels and movie moguls stop paying taxes due to loss of revenue, the US armed forces will stop working, because free world armies are run on expensive tech, not sheer human wave attacks. Re-armed, revenge thirsty Russia will then come to your house and you will hear your mother being gang-raped and shot by siberian conscripts while you are hiding in the basement, clutching your linux distro box. European people, who have first hand experience of atrocities russkies are capable of, understand th need not to undermine your own economy. Look at how Poland is re-arming, they know the russians are coming in 15 years or maybe 10.
In order to preserve western military might, the economy, our current services based economy, must remain strong to pay taxes - money which Uncle Sam uses to buy new fighter planes and cruise missiles and marines' boots. Every genuine audio CD or video DVD you buy puts five more
If the "default" speed is dog slow and only "real time *" connections get anything better, then you'll just get the dog slow connection that way.
Unfortunately in the UK we're way ahead of you on this.
* including any "premium" services such you've paid extra for, of course.
Go Richmond! I went to school there...
FWIW, when I moved to Tokyo in 2002 and signed up for bare-bones basic internet service via Yahoo! Japan, 12Mbps was the lowest anyone offered. By the time I left in mid-2005, the lowest anyone offered had risen to 18Mbps.
I don't know about anyone else, but it's sure looking to me like the real issues with lagging internet speeds in the US have exactly jack to do with technology, and everything to do with corruption. And given all the signs in so many different fields that corruption is the new norm here, I find myself ruefully convinced that it's going to be a long time before the US can climb out of this ethics hole and actually compete with the rest of the world. Welcome to the Long Slide...
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
It's already impossible to connect to the top 4 Emule servers abroad, as witnessed on a buddy's computer. The server receives the login but the response never comes back and you get a "Time out". So they're letting you connect to the server, but you can't receive no data from it?! Clever...