Slashdot Mirror
AT&T to Help MPAA Filter the Internet?
Save the Internet writes "Ars Technica is reporting that the MPAA is trying to convince major ISPs to do content filtering. Now, merely wanting it is one thing, but the more important point is that 'AT&T has agreed to start filtering content at some mysterious point in the future.' We're left to wonder about the legal implications of that, but given that AT&T already has the ability to wiretap everything for the NSA, it was only a matter of time before they found a way to profit from it, too."
No we're not. When AT&T permitted NSA to infiltrate/subvert its network in order to monitor all domestic and foreign Intarweb traffic, it broke enough privacy laws that the legal consequences would require the dissolution of the company.
Unlike Arthur Andersen and the Enron scandal, AT&T and the other US telcos are "too big to fail". Because no penalty can be assessed without bankrupting AT&T, no penalty can be assessed, period.
Now that the precedent has been set for some crimes (to date, those involving national security), there's nothing to stop it from being applied to other crimes (namely, those involving copying pictures of a cartoon mouse, or sounds emitted from a plastic-titted starlet).
As prophesized by the late, great Douglas Adams, the legal implications to AT&T are as follows:
"Have you any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?" said Mr. Prosser.
"How much?" asked Arthur.
"None at all," replied Prosser.
Neither MPAA nor ISPs should be able to see the content we are exchanging and be in the position to filter it. Even with SSL, where the server can theoretically be accessed by anyone, the computational requirements of establishing a session will choke the filters. Add some captchas and you are gold.
What stops you from using encryption? Encrypt all your traffic. Go through a little trouble and some processing and less headaches will be there from snooping, theft, lies, fraud or other crimes committed by those pretending to serve you.
If we used encryption for everything, in all our endeavors, it would be hard for them to declare something mainstream illegal. They tried it with alcohol, remember what happened? Mafia was an example of the free market prevailing, everyone wanted alcohol, and they got it, regardless of whether the government said it was bad, or even ammended the Constitution to ban alcohol... Even after being driven underground, the actual free market prevailed... alcohol remained available, despite ALL of the efforts of the government to deny people to buy and use what it was they desired. Of course, afterwards it was "allowed" again, merely because the state wanted to tax it... and it was allowed to do so, because the masses were just that... ignorant.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler