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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".
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'm sure they have a few senators in their back pocket. Rules like that don't apply to huge corporations.
"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!
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.
It works that way. I know, i live in turkey. so smarten up and act before its too late.
Read radical news here
I'm sure they make enough political contributions that they have nothing to worry about.
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?
"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.
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
"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.
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
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
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
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!
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.'"