AT&T Invests in Filtered Networking

Filtered Coward writes "Last summer, AT&T announced its intention to begin filtering copyrighted content at some point. The telecom has now bought a chunk of Vobile, whose core product is VideoDNA. "Like other systems of its kind, VideoDNA develops a unique signature from every frame of video. The signature is meant to be robust enough to survive various transformations and edits, and it can then be used to run matches against incoming content.' Vobile claims that VideoDNA is good enough to be used on video when transmitted over a network. 'Based on the complexity of the problem, we suspect that anything initially deployed by AT&T will fall far short of a robust P2P video filter. But should AT&T truly have its eyes on just such a prize, the company would be in a powerful position to impose its own policies on the entire US, since it owns major parts of the Internet backbone.'"

Comments

Sounds preposterous

[PCM2]

This seems to imply that copyright-infringing video is being streamed over the network. Does this ever happen? More likely it is broken up into completely arbitrary chunks, which may or may not contain an entire frame and are unlikely to be delivered in sequential order. Furthermore, any form of network or P2P encryption currently in use ought to be able to defeat this. I wonder how much AT&T will be spending on this plan?

Re:Sounds preposterous

[belmolis]

How can they distinguish between encrypted video and other kinds of odd, binary data that they have no business interfering with, such as text in an exotic language and encoding, or somebody's proprietary compression format, or raw data from some odd kind of sensor?

Re:Sounds preposterous

[Antique Geekmeister]

This is AT&T. They don't distinguish, they just give it all to the NSA, as demonstrated by the lawsuits filed by the EFF and the whisteleblower who revealed the taps on core fiber optic backbones.

The NSA, now, has fairly good tools. There's a fascinating tool from a company called Sandstorm that re-assembles network traffic into its distinct streams and does quite a good job of re-assembling email and web transactions. Given a remote opportunity to do a man-in-the-middle SSL key replacement, or simply steal the SSL or SSH keys from the serving host (with or without a subpoena), such tools could doubtless do quite a good job of intercepting transmissions seamlessly. And innocent folks aren't bothered to go to that level of protection, such as using obscure languages or real one-time pads.

Like the phone company's wilingness to tap phone conversations from the telephone offices, undetectably, because it's merely duplicating the digital bits and sending them to whomever they care to send them to, such monitoring constitutes a massive risk to the innocent for political and illegal monitoring. We see what such monitoring and related censorship does in China right now: we need to be extremely wary of it occurring here with such tools casually accepted.

Encryption can beat this, but shouldn't have to

[compumike]

Encryption can beat this, but should it have to? Now we've got to throw a lot of computing power at a problem just to get around our nominally "common carriers."

I think we can all agree that there's a problem: lots of illegal video transmission is happening online. And while some of the slashdot crowd consists of "information wants to be free" hippies, there is also a good community of people who reasonably understand the value of intellectual property rights. But I don't think anyone is excited about a solution like this, which clearly removes the user's fair use rights and common sense.

So where's the balance? Can a technical solution exist that will simultaneously stop the illegal pirating of movies and TV shows (which would be good), and allow other uses (even short clips, parodies, etc)? I think the answer is no. The determination of fair use relies heavily on intent, and no technical system will be able to determine that very effectively.

--
NerdKits: Educational microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

Re:Encryption can beat this, but shouldn't have to

[QuantumG]

And while some of the slashdot crowd consists of "information wants to be free" hippies, there is also a good community of people who reasonably understand the value of intellectual property rights. And while some people are more than willing to sell everyone's rights up the river for fist full of gold, there is also a good community of people who have morals and are willing to refuse to obey bad laws.

Re:Encryption can beat this, but shouldn't have to

[mrchaotica]

However, one thing that some of the slashdot crowd tends to ignore is that content owners have rights too.

No, they don't! They have a privilage of a finite-duration monopoly, created by the government, for the express purpose of "promot[ing] the progress of science and the useful arts!" Nothing more! This is exactly the opposite of a "natural right."

Or are we suddenly to believe that the only things that have value are physical things?

That's how it's been during 99.99999% of human history (i.e., everything except the last 200 years or so). You know the Bible? No copyright! Beowulf? The works of William Shakespeare? All those revered works of art, music, etc. created during the Renaissance? No copyright on any of them! And it's not because it expired; there never was any copyright on them. Yet they still got created! <sarcasm>Gee, I wonder how that possibly could have happened!</sarcasm>

Face it: copyright was a fluke, which just happened to make sense in the period between when duplication technology was invented and when it became cheap enough for ubiquitous use. That time is over, and copyright is now no more relevant than the buggy-whip was after the invention of the automobile.

Co-conspirators

[Mr_Blank]

I thought telecoms were immune to certain types of litigation because they are neutral carriers of data. If a person makes a phone call or uses a bulletin board to commit a crime, the teleco is not part of the conspiracy. They are neutral. If AT&T starts filtering out "criminal" activity (and what jury of peers determined that anyhow?!), then are they giving up their neutral status? If they try to filter any material, will they be liable for all the material that inevitably slips through their net?

    Also, how do they pick out copyright material for which a license has been granted compared to material that is "criminal" activity?

Re:Co-conspirators

[stinerman]

AT&T the phone company is a common carrier. AT&T the ISP isn't. The ISP can do pretty much whatever it wants with "it's" network without any repercussions from the government. They never had a neutral status to begin with, so I don't see how this changes anything. AT&T has to abide by the DMCA at a minimum. This is just them being nice to the RI/MPAA and other such groups.

Re:Co-conspirators

[stonertom]

If i were a customer, i would want to know why i can't download a film off my ftp, but still get spam and malware. As an aside, shouldn't they use this for worse things than copyright infringement?

Fair Use?

[corsec67]

What about Fair use?
or, what if frames are the same between 2 different movies. (Fade to black, fade to white, common things like FBI warning, etc...)

Copyright Law

[drspliff]

Allows you to fairly use content in a situation which merits it, for example:
* Educational material
* Parodies
* Licensed use
* Short clips
* Lots of others

I'm not in the USA, but say for example I own a hard copy of a movie or TV show on DVD, am I "allowed" to stream it from home during my lunch break or after work when this system is possibly live?

Remember, if they are doing filtering it means they are no longer a common carrier, what is the legality of this in regard to third party content; if I were to transfer illegal content over their connection will they be liable for this because they haven't filtered it out? Or will the law apply to them when it suites em.

There are so many holes in this I couldn't possibly see this implemented, not to mention the resources that'd be required on their end to keep up with the constant change in codecs/compression methods and to be able to decode it in realtime.

Yeah, it's just speculation at the moment, but in a really dark and unfunny way I can see PHBs combined with RIAA/MPAA mafia seriously pushing something similar based on their draconian previous tendancies.

Dear AT&T

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear AT&T,

I have been a voice customer with you for many, many years, and I have chosen to get my internet service from you in the days of yore - 1996, with a 56k modem, and four years later, I upgraded to your residential ADSL product. I've always been content with your service - sure, the random two-hour downtimes at 1 AM every four or five months piss me off, but I understand that sometimes, you just gotta do it.

I've done my part in being a loyal customer; I only call when I'm sure the problem lays beyond my DSL modem, I don't torrent often, and I've never tried to do anything shady to your other customers. Over the past decade, you've treated me well by not blocking inbound port 80 traffic. That's why I haven't ever moved to a much faster Cable connection. Hell, I even work for a CLEC and if I was so inclined, I could have a free 1.5 SDSL line - but I haven't done that because you've given me no reason to go through the hassle of set-up.

You might have spied on me. Don't get me wrong - I'm plenty pissed off about that. But I know it wasn't anything personal. I know how upper management can be when the NSA comes knocking. The way things are going, I think you'll ultimately answer to us for what you did, so I won't stress too much about it. Anything important is encrypted, anyways.

But now, my dear AT&T, for the first time in a decade, I don't know what to think about you. Your problems with torrenting and streaming video are that you don't have enough bandwidth to accommodate all of your customers. You've grossly oversold your network's capacity, just like my company does, and now you're being bit for it. It's an unpleasant situation for you - trust me, I know exactly how that feels.

But now, how many billions are you going to spend on this fingerprinting system for video? How many people will work on this project? How many legitimate packets of mine is this going to slow down or drop? And, in the first week this system goes live, won't everybody just turn crypto on and use YouTube over https? Billions of dollars...flushed right down the toilet in an instant!

Now, as I said, I'm just a humble legacy customer. I started out at SNET, then get assimilated into SBC/Yahoo, finally ending up as a customer of the Great Bell Company. But, might I, a meek twice-legacy customer, suggest that you ax this project and ***invest the fucking money in buying more fiber, thereby solving the actual problem***?

I mean, come on. What the fuck do you care if people are stealing the latest blockbuster using your network? You're not in the business of being moral guardians, and there's no way in hell a court would ever hold you liable for something like this.

Just know, my old friend, that if you do end up implementing this, the first time one of my packets gets dropped mistakenly, you damn well better believe I'll take my company up on that free SDSL line. And I'll be living here for a long time to come.

Sincerely,
Anonymous
The Happiest AT&T Customer Ever

Good ole Ma

[gsn]

It's taken under 30 mins since this story was posted and the obvious is already been pointed out
a) this technology can't work - too much overhead looking through all those packets
b) will probably flag several false positives
c) can be circumvented with encryption

AT&T doesn't have to do anything though - they just have to appear to be looking out for the media companies. Perhaps even catch a few dumb people who upload a lot and don't use encryption and hand them over to the media companies to sue. Makes many people appropriately scared of Ma Bell. And who do you think the media companies will choose to deal with to distribute their content on the mobile and internet platform. Well its not like they will have much choice really - IIRC the FCC relaxed rules that prevented AT&T from charging more for access to its lines. Remember when the government broke AT&T up - probably not which is the problem.

Re:Good ole Ma

[keithmo]

c) can be circumvented with encryption

At this point, could using any form of on-the-wire encryption be considered a "circumvention device" and therefore illegal under the DMCA?

What's in it for AT&T?

[doyoulikeworms]

What do they gain from this? Last I checked, they produced no media, just conveyed it.

Re:Yeah right....

[postbigbang]

You're entitled to your opinion, but not your facts.

In the 1900s-1930s, utilities were of a public benefit and received numerous breaks. AT&T is not the AT&T of yesteryear. Through the US TCA of 1996, and subsequent legislation, the breakup of the 'Bell' companies then reformed into the morass we face today in the US. That infrastructure was supposed to be a public, not private, asset base. Now it's to be a return on investment for the telcos-- especially AT&T. AT&T is a combination of SW Bell, Ameritech, assets of AT&T Wireless, AT&T Long Lines, and other property grabs. Their anti-competitive stance, and long failure to invest in infrastructure instead of lobbying every congressional office in Washington DC with a bevy of lawyers, is what got them the advantage they currently have. Now they want to filter content, to their advantage likely (they intend to distribute video themselves) is a violation of public trust in my opinion.

The FCC plays into their hands. AT&T gives up private information readily to the US government in an onerous way.

You otherwise know nothing about me, and your anonymity prevents you from standing up to be suitably addressed. And you call me a coward. Fie.

One time pad

[walt-sjc]

I tried to create my own one time pad by XORing the Windows install CD with the Ubuntu install.... My computer burst into flames...