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ISPs To Filter Traffic For Copyright Holders?
Dr. Zarkov writes "At a CES forum, representatives of AT&T and other ISPs discussed the need to filter traffic at the network level, to stop the transfer of copyrighted material. An AT&T spokesman said they 'would have to handle such network filtering delicately, and do more than just stop an upload dead in its tracks, or send a legalistic cease and desist form letter to a customer. "We've got to figure out a friendly way to do it, there's no doubt about it," he said.'"
Why are they so interested in this? Because there will be pressure on smaller ISPs to do the same, with the difference that for smaller ISPs, roughly the same absolute cost divided by a much smaller number of customers is a much greater per-customer cost?
The friendly way about it is not to mess with people's traffic in the first place. Once you have filtering equipment in place it can easily be misused to filter out anything any power with enough money might wish to black out.
You do not want to open that box...
We've got to figure out a friendly way to do it, there's no doubt about it
We've got to figure out a legal way to do it, there's no doubt about it.
There, fixed it for you.
Since pretty much everything these days is automatically copyrighted at the time of creation or fixing, I guess the days of network congestion will soon be pretty much over then?
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
It's funny how the U.S., where the PC and the Internet first became big, seems less and less on the digital frontier. When in much of the EU and Asia ISPs respect their customers a lot more--the main ISP in my city in Romania has even set up a DC++ server so you can films and music with other people nearby--in the U.S. all the new possibilities that the Internet has brought are just going into lockdown.
In practice this means "you can only download legal music and software from our approved stores.
People who download illegal files will continue to do so by obfusticating, unless you are to ban all binary transfers! It is the people who want to download legally who will now have to put up with restricted choice as well as DRM.
stop the transfer of copyrighted material
I'm sure the submitter meant to write "the unauthorized transfer of copyrighted material", but just who gets to decide what can and can't be transferred and if the transfer is legal or not? Oh that's right: someone working for the "copyright holders". That'll be the RIAA & MPAA then will it? The two groups that apparently run the country and get to write copyright laws, even though they're far from the only copyright holders. The two groups who get to bully the computer industry, even though the computer industry produces far more money than both of their members put together.
Next up: why Walmart should decide what recipes you can cook.
What they really mean, is that there's no way it can be done without pissing off enough customers for a class-action lawsuit against them.
Who gets to identify "copyright" and how do those with permission to use said materials bypass the system for legitimate reasons? Who is going to pay for the resources needed to store signature files for each copyrighted work on earth and the hardware needed to perform comparisons of any download with the signature database in realtime in such a manner that it doesn't adversely affect network performance?
Finally, wouldn't all these techniques be rendered useless by encrypted tunneling software short of making encryption over the internet illegal in itself? And who gets to enforce that?
8==8 Bones 8==8
I happen to be in an area where I have two and only two options for high speed Internet: Comcast and ATT.
Right now, I have Comcast and am paying through the nose for it. I'm thinking of switching to ATT, which will cut my monthly bill in about half.
But price aside, I'm curious what the Slashdot crowd thinks of the choice between ATT and Comcast simply from a moral ground. Which company, in your view, is "better"? And I don't mean which company makes it easier to pirate materials, but which company behaves more ethically?
So, lets see. Linux is copyrighted (it has to be to have a license on it). Does that mean they want to stop that as well? And the images on a web-page, they'll be copyrighted too so do they get stopped?
If not and they just mean "copyright infringing material" then 1) why don't they say that and 2) how do they ever plan to tell the difference between infringing and non-infringing use?
Same old same old, I guess: person of power wants to be seen to be "doing the right thing" by huge copyright holders but doesn't understand the detail or implication.
Actually, the only thing I doubt is whether something like this could even be tested without effectively ending the Internet as we know it. Is the idea of free and unfettered exchange of information is coming to an end?
The answer would show where the unbearable pressure is coming from that makes AT&T and it's ilk feel this 'need'.
Censorship whichever way.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Why do the ISPs even give a damn? How do they make money by pissing off their customers? Are the record companies going to pay them? Are they hoping to so bore their customers so much by limiting their access to entertainment that they will be forced to buy some other over-priced approved proprietary cintent?
So what exactly is in it for at&t?
Once they have a system in place that they think will block illegal downloads (it will never really stop them)they open themselves up to lawsuits. After all they will have proved that they can stop them. Doesnt that open them up to lawsuits for those they do not stop? Then if they block something that isnt copyrighted, they open themselves to lawsuits.
I trust Microsoft as far as I could comfortably spit a dead rat
They listened in on your phone calls without a warrant, and giving them amnesty for it is being seriously discussed.
That about establishes the principle that it's their network, not yours, and the moment you put your traffic on it, that's also theirs, to review and pass judgment on, and approve.
Or not.
Isn't it nice that they plan to do it "politely", though? That should count for something.
Anybody home? More and more p2p apps are including encrypted p2p sessions at the application layer. Did anybody think about that?
because future product development includes high speed transmission of copyrighted video. As such they will probably get hammered while trying to cut deals with the big media companies. Meaning, where the studios cannot get laws passed to do what they want they can go after anyone who both provides the underlying service as well as the content.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Why should we trust them?
Yes, that's definitely the nose of a camel you see poised at the entrance to your tent.
If ISP's start "filtering", just watch the way interpretation of copyright law expands. All the major corporations can afford to buy access to the courts, and you'll see one case after another work its way through the system, each stealing a little more from us.
You thought the RIAA was bad? Wait 'til these scumbags set their lawyers loose.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
i download copyrighted material everyday and if my ISP stopped it then I will be very annoyed.
Practically every page I download has a copyright, including the one I am reading now.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2007 SourceForge, Inc.
How can they differentiate unauthorized copyright from authorized?
liqbase
Is it the postal service's responsibility to open every package and check what's inside, in case I'm trying to send you a photocopied novel?
And I think this is total Bullsh*&*^&*(&^*& CARRIER LOST...
This is quite interesting to follow since here in Sweden the debate climate has just made an interesting turn. For the first time, politicians in our parliament has come out in support of scrapping the current laws against file sharing on the grounds that enforcing them requires giving either ISP:s or rights owners too much insight into people's personal communications, thus violating our privacy.
This was sparked by a government report suggesting that the law should be changed to require ISP:s to scan the network traffic of their customers and possibly terminate the internet service if multiple violations were made. One thing we should not here is that in Sweden, the ISP:s are strongly opposed to monitoring their customers and wish to remain providers of a service, not the internet police of rights owners.
The main problem in this whole issue is that people tend to think that just because something can be done with new technology (such as monitoring what I send over the internet to my friends) it's ok to do so. Free societies value personal freedom and the freedom to keep our private lives to ourselves. No one would dream of suggesting that the postal service should start opening people's mail to see if there's something illegal inside. If it's not right in the analog world, it's not right in the digital world either.
Now I'm just waiting to see how long it takes the rest of the EU to catch on. There's a big chance that we'll see soon see the largest changes to copyright laws since they were originally thought up. Personally I'll be satisfied with a clarification that clearly states that it's illegal for anyone to monitor my personal communication regardless of what medium I use, unless specifically required to do so by a court of law (as in other wiretapping cases).
So they are looking for a "customer friendly" way to exit common carrier status, or is it a matter of monetizing the NSA infrastructure? In truth, while some speak of big brother by the state, I far more fear the social damage that can be caused by "little brothers" of corporations each potentially capable of monitoring people in far more detailed, even less accountable, and in far more subtle ways, all with a profit motive, than I do the latter.
that is what we learned in school. That is what Darwinism is about (whether intelligent design people like it or not). Imagine what will happen when ISPs filter more and more. Then people will make it unfilterable by encrypting it. This way more and more people will be encouraged to encrypt their traffic, more and more programs will support encryption by default. Actually this would be a positive side effect, wouldn't it? :-)
IANAL but the moment they start filtering they lose their common carrier status. Which then makes them legally liable for the traffic on their network; terrorism, porn, copyright infringement, etc. Here's hoping a lawyer there points out the risks and shows them the legal costs greatly outweigh whatever the studios are offering.
Everybody, flip off the cable/adsl and get a mobile broadband contract. It's cheaper, you're not constrained by wires, and (believe it or not) it's quicker. I went the whole hog, partly because I can't get a SIM on contract, and used a Sierra Aircard 720 with a T-Mobile SIM on pay-as-you-go. I pay £10/mo for 40kbps always-on, don't miss broadband one iota because I can get online anywhere on the planet on an unmetered cellular connection.
Also, don't ever underestimate the bandwidth potential of a pack of blank DVDs and a parcel post.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Why would they willingly give up their common carrier status? Because surely this would be doing as much...
Could they then be charged w/ not blocking ?
but the corporations have stolen it, with the help of soulless politicians who want "change", aka campaign "contributions".
I want change, alright. I want the greedy IP companies thrown off OUR web and send them back to their brick and mortar. Give the web back to the people and educational institutions and companies that don't try political and USPTO lock downs.
While we are at it, let's pull health insurance companies grubby hands off of health care. Take profit out of health care. That some should profit on the suffering of the sick and injured, and others even INCREASE their suffering, is detestable, but politicos from BOTH parties are happy with it, as long as they get their campaign "contributions".
Then, let's shut down the check advance folks. 450+% interest! They feed on the poor and make the Mafia look like a charitable organization. They've replaced Louie the Leg Breaker with law enforcement to do their dirty work. The credit card companies are not much better. 35% interest? Diverting payments to the lower interest rate loans when the higher interest rate loans are older is simply theft. and hair trigger interest rate increases? Politicos from BOTH parties are happy with it, as long as they get their campaign "contributions".
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Take my files, please:
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Find a bunch of people with common interests as you who know a thing or two about computers and set up a VPN between your networks for file sharing. Sure it is a little slow as a P2P medium, but at least your transactions will be encrypted and the ISP will be none the wiser. Also you would be staying under the radar of the MAFIAA by not visiting torrent sites as much.
The game.
AT&T will only be filtering stuff copyrighted by "big media". Your stuff, or Slashdot, will not be affected. AT&T obviously has an agenda here, and it's not about protecting everybody's copyrighted material, just copyrighted material that's owned by their "partners". Of course, you could become AT&T's partner, if you would like to pay them some large amount of money...
If I had to guess, I'd say this is about AT&T not getting sued by the big media companies. They seem to be bending over backwards, but hey, they're already forwarding all your traffic to the NSA, so maybe they've figured out a way to reuse the same equipment to filter media files?
If they remove the only use for broadband, people will want cheaper/slower connections. Smaller companies will be able to step into the marketplace to provide this.
Result: Nobody wants overpriced Big-ISP connections any more.
No sig today...
As long as using https etc isn't made illegal, such a "network-based solution" is relatively easy to work around - it's easy to modify e.g. bittorrent to use encrypted (e.g. TLS) connections instead of unencrypted TCP connections. This use of encryption wouldn't provide a lot of security (that is impossible as long as there's no way to distinguish between genuinely friendly nodes in the P2P network and those which are under the control of the RIAA or similar organization) but it would be good enough to prevent a "network-based solution" from recognizing anything.
"Piracy" (copyright infringement) is only allowed to continue because it makes ISPs more money than the alternative.
;)
ISPs know too well that without piracy, there would be little demand for expensive broadband connections. Of course, on the other hand, it has to be kept under control, lest it starts costing ISPs too much money.
Once legal alternatives become more profitable to ISPs, pirate networks will dry up overnight. The recent assault on net neutrality is an attempt to get there... making legal download service pay for "protection".
Yet, there is a more sensible way: the universal hosting marketplace. Imagine a P2P network where anyone can host files, and is guaranteed to be paid for each upload. ISPs could provide a large chunk of the capacity (à la Usenet), and make a bundle from that.
Give financial value to uploads, and the most active file sharers will view illegal file sharing as a financial loss. Similarly, piracy will become an observable, tangible loss to ISPs.
Until now, piracy was producers' problem. Give value to bandwidth, and it becomes everyone's problem.
Disclaimer: I am currently working on an open-source solution to achieve just that (see sig). Feel free to join us.
The real agenda is not to filter illegal IP, but to filter comments like this one that are critical of AT&T. They want to destroy our ability to express ourselves. They want to block information about their blocking information.
Andy
I'm personally against tampering with data on-the-fly at the network level.
However, if the service is advertised as part of the package you buy into, then no problem,
you've accepted the terms. And it's perfectly easy to imagine another ISP touting no such modifications to *their* data streams,
using it as a positive Selling Point, for customers of a different ethical mind set.
Who knows, perhaps one day we will have a standard set of TAGS in the headers of packets that categorise
information according to the priority is should have when being routed along the net...oh what? we have, oh...
Not wanting to RTFM, exactly WHY should ISPs filter traffic? The DMCA holds the ISP blameless for what goes through their "pipes".
Like not stopping legitimate copyrighted traffic.
After all, in this century (for the first time ever) as soon as something is "affixed in tangible form" copyright is granted. Everything on the internet save anything created before 1920 is copyrighted.
All ISPs have to do to keep copyrighted material off their networks is shut down the fucking network!
My friends' music is copyrighted. They want it shared. Star Wreck is copyrighted. They want it shared. Linux and other FOSS is copyrighted and they want it shared.
Good luck filtering out "Star Treck - The Search for Spock" from "Star Wreck - In The Pirkinning".
ISPs need to mind their own damned business and leave my internet traffic alone. Keep the files I can legally transmit from transmitting and you'll hear from my lawyer. This is entirely unaceptable. My ISP has no obligation nor right to filter traffic.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
The solution is simple: Encryption. Due to wide use of VPN solutions for work, throteling encrypted traffic is not an option for ISPs that want to stay competitive.
The main attack on encryption is to offer nodes for the P2P download or fake being the server. The data is then available in clear again. Defense is again very simple: Blacklisting does the trick.
This is doomed from the beginning, unless encryption gets outlawed. Quite frankly the whole global copyright industry is insignificant compared to the enormous value of trade secrets and personal information that gets protected by encryption. Also the copyright industry is not nearly as important economically as they pretend to be. Last time I checked, the HDD instustry alone was several times bigger than Hollywood and "Big Music" together. If people stop file-sharing, and sales in HDDs, burners and computers drop, several orders of magnitude in jobs are at risk and even those in the western world are a lot more than all copyright-based businesses together.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Isn't the idea that, if you start policing for some material, you become responsible for policing all material?
Dear ISPs,
You are hereby notified that the content of this slashdot post is Copyright (c) 2008 by myself. I reserve all rights to this post. Please filter it appropriately to prevent duplication of this post.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
That's right - they need to figure out a friendly way to abuse customers.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
What about if I sent a friend a file over the phone, using a straight PPP connection? Let's say it's not music, it's a book. Or if instead of sending the book digitally I were to read it for my friend to record, or listen. Hey, why should a phone line come into it - if I were to say, read the book to my child? Maybe AT&T should put a filter on us reading stories to our kids?
The end of that rainbow will be onion routing utilizing encrypted traffic over port 80. The fools may as well just have stuck "we're clueless" stickers on their foreheads.
AT&T can't filter out copyrighted content reliably; doing so would mean that they can uncompress and decrypt all major compression and encryption formats, which they clearly can't. And if they go after some formats, people will simply switch to different ones. With public key cryptography, people don't even need to pre-share keys.
ISPs To Filter Traffic For Copyright Holders?
How am I supposed to know that? Don't ask me, jeez I come here to read news not to report it.
However if you're offering me a job I'll go dig around and see what I can find out.
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
And while we're add it, let us apply this same logic to other things. Drunk driving, or smuggling of drugs, on our nations roads, is a serious problem in real life. So why don't we set up mandatory checkpoints where each and every person going through it gets searched without cause?
They won't solve piracy with this. There are better ways. Such as addressing WHY people pirate, instead of just trying to crack down on it. You know what might discourage piracy? If ISPs start charging for bandwidth. So instead of charging like $45/month for unlimited bandwidth, perhaps $35/month plus $1/GB downloaded.
I was curious too, so I went digging around. I think I found some diagrams depicting the technology they are planning on using. Once they implement this technology, we won't have to worry about those pirating thugs any longer.
If ISPs want to filter for copyright content, then are they liable to filter all content categories (eg., porn, export regulated content, etc...). Are they willing to change their status from being a "publisher" to being "editor"?
George (gk4)
1. If they try to implement this, perhaps we all need to write to the FCC complaining about this. Or would there be a better government organization?
2. Threaten to go to another ISP. It isn't like all ISPs will automatically jump on the bandwagon.
3. If we allow them to do this, what prevents things going one step further and Microsoft implementing anti-piracy measures in future versions of Windows (or perhaps current versions with patches)? Can you imagine if Windows had something to check whether the file you're trying to play had the right permissions? (More so than DRM.) I mean, if they can tell whether you're downloading unauthorized copyrighted material, what prevents operating systems checking to see whethering you're doing the same thing, but "running" them as opposed to downloading?
I'm somewhat alarmed at this. I travel quite a bit and have all of my CDs and DVDs ripped, encoded, and stored on a NAS on my home network, which I can then FTP into from anywhere and listen to my music collection or watch a movie while I'm out of town. Granted, DVD ripping is technically illegal as far as I understand, but even staunch DRM'ers would be hard-pressed to say that I don't have a right to listen to my own audio files ripped from my own CDs as I see fit. Anyone care to speculate as to the likelihood they would allow this kind of transfer of copywrited media?
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am master of my fate and captain of my soul.
I was listening to a story on NPR this am about how AT&T was whining about their revenue dropping. Well, duh. Turn yourselves into the a**hats of the telecom world, then act surprised when people cut service or go elsewhere.
Doesn't it just move you to tears when mega-corporations making billions in profits every quarter start whining about the cost of an infrastructure upgrade? We have to upgrade the system...whaaaaaaa. We have make a few less billions in profit to support our market...boo-f'ing-hoo. If it's that tough then sell all your circuits and get into a new line of work.
I despise corporate whiners.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Like the mail, interfering/inspecting/tampering with the data portion of any IP packet should be ILLEGAL.
Just my opinion.
This post is copyrighted. By virtue of posting in the forum, I am granting license to slashdot.org to distribute a copy of it to those that browse the site, and I even have an a priori understanding that Google crawls, caches, and indexes this site so, by posting hear, I accept that this copyrighted editorial will be copied and possibly be redistributed by them as well. So, they too have been granted - albeit not explicitly - a license to distribute my work. Very good, I'm comfortable with this.
But here's the wrinkle. How does AT&T propose to understand whether or not this is copyrighted or public domain (perhaps my words are a transcript of an address given 200 years ago and are now in the public domain)? How can they know who is licensed to copy and distribute the work? How do they know the terms and conditions under which I've granted limited rights to my work to others? Moreover, how can they distinguish between my fair-use of a non-original work, and one that's not fair-use when the judgement regarding fair use happens a posteriori the use taking place and a complaint being filed with the court? Hmm...
The short answer is that they simply can't. There's simply no technological method to do so. But in attempting to, they publicly assert that it's not only feasible but that they have the means to do so. Dumb. They'll end up being held liable for permitting and abetting infringement the first time someone takes issue with another party's use of their work because AT&T said they could and would stop it but didn't. Any you know what, I bet AT&T's got much deeper pockets to rifle through than that mom that posted a clip from her kid's birthday party with everyone singing "Happy Birthday to You" (copyright 1935, AOL Time Warner -- expires 2030).
on all networks including the MPAA's and the RIAA's. Seems like it would be highly discriminatory to put filtering on some networks and not on others. Of course, with these filters in place, the studios could not ever CREATE digital versions of their films/music to begin with. Their conclusion that this filtering would "solve" the "problem" is about as nonsensical as filtering their own networks. If they can't figure out a business model that works in the digital world, maybe they should just go back to film only distribution instead of trying to prevent legitimate use by their customers. I for one pay for my content, but I'm SICK of DRM. I will not use any content with DRM, and until they figure that out, they are spending a whole lot of money on a problem that cannot even theoretically be solved.
"O'Connor, smash the window." "Why me, Bigboote?" "It might be boobie-trapped!" "Oh!"<smash> -Buckaroo Banzai
tie a grenade to each router, with a string on the pin, get behind the door, and yank.
you might as well, for your customers will run faster than you will after pulling the strings.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
The phone companies fought hard to get the FCC to say that internet service is not a common carrier service. That means that the phone companies can do all kinds of strange things like not providing service equally, or modifying and inserting packets on the network, or charging unequally, or charging for priority packets, or inserting ads... The price they pay for that ability is they are now liable for what goes over their networks. They are liable for hate speech, libel, slander, sedition, treason, and copyright infringement. The common-carrier laws were established to prevent this can of worms, and it is why AT&T does not have to filter your phone conversations and why UPS doesn't have to inspect packages for copyright infringement. They dug themselves this hole, and it is to the great detriment of themselves and their customers. I highly doubt that they can profit enough by changing ads on web pages and charging to re-prioritize traffic, to make up for the legal and ethical costs.
Basically, AT&T should give-in no and start asking the FCC to make them common carriers so they can stop this nonsense, before the real disaster hits.
They should be smarter then this. DRM for media has not worked, so why would they think DRM for network traffic would work any better?
Is there a friendly way to say "Sorry, you can't go to this website. Disney and Sony say no."?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
All they will do is ban material that the big players (read: RIAA MPAA) want stopped.
I doubt it will work, as the studios will still have to have a means of digital distribution, so I'm guessing that "legitimate" content will have some sort of pass- phrase or encrypted header applied. The filters will let that stuff through (to the destination in the header?) but would prevent it going elsewhere,
What happens next is people learn how to hack or decrypt the headers (or apply their own over the top of the old header) and we're back here again.
Plus ca change
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
That reminds me, I really must add adverts to my "Be your own certificate authority" blog post.
Wouldn't this negate the T's common carrier status? There are significant legal protections they would give up.
Basically if they start policing content and start stopping the transfer of copy written material then they become liable for anything they don't stop.
I find being offended by me offensive.
One thing Freenet has in common with Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection is friend codes. In both Freenet and Nintendo WFC, you need to add the other user, and the other user needs to add you. So how does one find other trusted users' friend codes in order to connect to the network?
But I noticed that since the last time I checked freenetproject.org, the page Connecting to Freenet has added a few sentences discussing an "insecure mode". Is this any better than just using a system built around eMule, Gnutella, or BitTorrent?
The page also states that it takes a couple days for a Freenet node to get up to speed. Do the developers plan to make Freenet compatible with dial-up or with broadband providers that use PPP over Ethernet, where IP addresses change every 24 hours or so?
(it's already begun with Comcasts anti bittorent filtering.)
If AT&T wants to try to start separating the "traffic they like" from the "traffic they don't like", I hope they've got a lot of money to invest in high powered routers, programmers, and experts. The "other side" will just start making that "traffic they don't like" look like "traffic they like". This is basically an un-winnable situation where that the ISPs will lose quite handily.
AccountKiller
Not even the number 13,256,278,887,989,457,651,018,865,901,401,704,640? Can that number be copyrighted or paracopyrighted? What about the number consisting of the concatenation of the MIDI note numbers that make up the melody of the chorus of "Baby One More Time"?
(The above was an illustration of your sarcastic point.)
Razor blades dar numa numa yay
Nu ma nu ma iei, nu ma nu ma nu ma iei
Keep her down, she's like a slutty dame
Now I'm impressed, they all keep paying
At least that's what Romanian sounds like to me.
US of A invests huge amount of money into producing top quality music, videos, and other intellectual property. "Intellectual property"? What do patents, trademarks, and trade secrets have to do with the present discussion? There is nothing wrong with wanting to be paid. Other than that I have trouble finding a grocery store where some of the money that I pay for groceries doesn't go to the major record labels' affiliated music publishers for the background music that they play over the loudspeakers.Why? What's in it for them? If I were an ISP I'd want to stay as far away as possible from content filtering. Who wouldn't? So, why? If they're doing it for any other reason than money they're breaking their fiduciary responsibility to their stock holders.
So, where's the money? Cash contracts with the MPAA/RIAA studios? ISPs fought hard to become common carriers rather than editors responsible for content. Now they want their cake and eat it too? What's that smell?
-[d]-
This is the frustrating part for me. The concept of abusing technology to accomplish what would probably not be permitted otherwise. This topic being a fairly good case in point.
'The Internet' has spawned a lot of new law, where I suspect none was needed. Music as a case:
In the bad old days of analog music distribution, reel-to-reel tape and cassettes were the preferred (only?) forms of copyright-violating copying and giving to your friends/etc. The copies were not so good as the originals, and that limited the copying business to be sure. An accomodation was reached, where at least cassettes were taxed to offset this unstoppable infringment.
So when did the US Postal Service ever get enlisted to open packages and see if there were unauthorized copies of music being mailed around? Never? Extremely rarely? Ah. Also, when did the USPS get into the habit of even randomly opening packages to see if other illegal material was being sent? Never? Extremely rarely? Ahah.
And yet, it was possible for the USPS to actually open a package and examine it. Possible, though usually not without detecting the act. Oh, maybe some of those envelopes I got that were mangled and then overwrapped in something due to 'damage in transit' were really inspections... Maybe. I'm not that interesting, so I doubt it.
But, now, we have AT&T discussing how to examine and filter infringing Internet traffic. Not because it's right, and not because it's legal, and surely not because it's expected. No, because it's *possible*, without unduly alerting either party to the transfer. Actually, they are considering the active filtering, where it need not be done now, and is not necessary for the Internet to function. They would actively, deliberately intercept and examine traffic. Like the Postal Service would open packages, inspect the contents proactively for contraband. Oh, actually, we would have to convert to reclosable packaging. Sheesh.
We don't really need new law to handle the copyright violations the RIAA and others are denouncing, do we?
Cyberspace was developed, arguably, Either with the deployment of the telephone or two-way radio systems. It ain't new.
Theft is an old problem. Copyright infringement predates computers, even the telephone.
What makes new law so attractive, I guess, is the ease with which the Internet can be monitored, manipulated, and filtered. 'Ease' being relative.
We should be fighting new laws not on the principle that the Internet should be left alone. We should be fighting new laws in this area because they are unnecessary.
Even copyright law is affected by this. When you can fairly easily preserve a work indefinitely, sure enough copyright law is amended to offer roughly indefinite protection. We haven't managed to preserve the *owner* of the work indefinitely, so how is is that copyright gets an increased lifespan? Oh - corporations are the owners, and they *can* be preserved indefinitely.
Maybe time to make corporations adhere to the same principles as persons? They seem to want all the benefits of legal personhood, but none of the limitations...
Ack. May Bittorrent be encrypted by default. Please.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Loads of people have wifi routers and wifi laptops these days, right? Would it not be possible to use mesh networking software in conjunction with this existing hardware to create another internet?
Your machine would wirelessly hook up to your neighbours hardware, which would hook up to its neighbours... all passing (encrypted) traffic to wherever it is going. I understand the OLPC machines use a similar concept.
Might not work so well out in the sticks where nodes are further apart, but most urban areas seem to have massive overlaps of wireless coverage. I guess you might end up with a load of disconnected city networks rather than one giant othernet, but that could be pretty cool too. Being even more distributed than the real internet (no ISPS as bottlenecks, ferinstance) would make it more secure: with sufficient node-density, there's a very good chance you could get a file from A to B with no intermediate machine having access to all of the component packets.
Since such a network would be entirely independent of cables, cables companies, governments and telcos, users could transfer whatever the hell they liked over it (although, obviously, they'd only have access to whatever else is on that particular network). I can forsee all kinds of problems and complications, and maybe it would be shut down/ collapse on its own in short order, but the emergence of an all-new internet over which they have no control might be enough to make the cable monopolies have a very long hard think about the services they provide.
All of this filtering talk sounds more and more like the way the Chinese government handles internet traffic there. The filtering has gotten to the point of producing visible degradation in the speed of network activities, and there is no reason to believe that the same thing won't happen in the US if ISPs start doing filtering on the scale needed to be even marginally effective. And in the end, this will only hurt the average consumer who isn't a big fish on the infringement front anyway. The real players and technically savvy will easily find ways around any filtering schemes.
There is no practical way of filtering at the level the media companies seem to want, short of shutting down the internet altogether. In some ways, it's like trying to enforce speed laws, you can pull over a car here and there, but there's no way you'll get them all.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Just conveniently also block "legitimate" copies of said material. And while you're at it those ugly flash web sites.
and cause the 'kids' today to revolt even more.
media asshole companies: you need to realize that making enemies of your customers won't endear them to you. they'll copy music and movies JUST FOR THE HELL OF IT. to annoy you. and to flood your network with too much 'noise' causing an increase in YOUR cost of doing 'business'.
do not make war with kids today. you really really don't want that... they are smarter than you and they hold a grudge that won't ever go away.
make peace with your customer base. before its too late.
(on topic: all you have to do is encase your data in some 'armor' and this idea of sniffing for 'copyrights' is rendered null and void. tcp/udp ports can be used for ANY kind of i/o and the data can be made to look like something else to a man or sniffer in the middle. the fight CANNOT be won. please consider giving up this futile attempt.)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
If they are looking to "enforce" copyright, then don't they have to enforce my copyright also? Through whatever technical means they are referring to...
Makes me wonder what would happen if thousands of webpages suddenly became copyrighted and their respective owners filed copyright infringement complaints through whatever process AT&T outlines for owners? In other words, this policy doesn't care WHO'S copyright it is (in theory), be it MPAA material, RIAA material, or anyone else who claims infringement....there has to be a way for AT&T to differentiate between non-infringing and infringing material. So I am guessing they will have a process where, if you feel your copyright has been infringed, you can file it with them and they will monitor the network for that traffic/signature/however they do that.
My point is this: AT&T has to have a process for copyright owners to submit claims of infringement*. That's the ticket to crushing this stupid idea. Exploit that (file lots and lots of claims) and this system will be overwhelmed quickly. With copyright laws the way they are, it is trivial to find millions of cases of infringement to submit. See the problem is: copyright law doesn't distinguish between "large corporation like Disney" and "small amateur production company". And we're ALL small amateur production companies. All we have to do is figure out the process for submitting a claim. I can think of lots of infringing material of mine that is being sent -unauthorized- around the internet. I am sure you can too.
Go enforce THAT AT&T. Good luck.
* if there is no process, then it will be easy to show how ridiculously unfair the program is. Might not make a difference, but still.
+++OUT OF CHEESE ERROR+++ REDO FROM START +++
Can you cite what "Net Neutrality" law you believe they are violating?
A lot of people don't understand what the internet is. It is a network of networks. There is no entity that oversees the entire internet. This is something that is hard for many people to comprehend because in meatspace everything is controlled by "the government". Local (e.g. city/state/country) governmental laws only apply to the networks in that locality. Most internet traffic crosses one or more of these locality boundaries which makes it next-to-impossible to determine whose laws should apply to any given "infraction". In meatspace we have import/export laws, customs, tariffs, treaties, etc. There is no system to make any of those work on packets sent over the internet. This is why spam is so hard to stop - the spammer lives in one place, uses computers in another place, to send messages to people in yet a third place. Whose laws apply? It is extremely difficult to craft a law that works in real life.
As a result of how the internet is laid out and the lack of governance and laws, any given network (e.g. ISP X) CAN block any traffic they want. On any given network, the rule is my network, my rules. They don't answer to anyone except the other networks they exchange traffic with (their upstream providers, or their peers if they are a Tier 1 network with no upstream provider). If you don't like it, don't use that network: Get another ISP.
Comcast is in hot water not because they block file sharing traffic but because they accomplish this by sending forged packets. The FORGERY part is against the law - the blocking is not.
Networks routinely block traffic. Over 90% of all email traffic is spam - if they didn't block it your inbox would be flooded and email would be unusable.
Copyright law is going to be fundamentally changed by the internet - and there is simply nothing that the major "rights holders" (music and movie industry companies) can do about it. Look at the math - we have hundreds of millions of people who want the copyright laws eased, people who are thumbing their noses at existing copyright laws. And we have what - maybe 1 million people (copyright holders - people who are paid royalties from their copyright works) involved in the production of those copyright protected works? How do the copyright laws benefit the "average person"? Ultimately, the people's desire to have less restrictive copyright laws WILL be reflected in the law.
Copyright laws were enacted in a time when such laws were necessary to provide benefit to people who would not otherwise create these works and share them with others. The marketplace has changed. YouTube shows how readily people create content and share it freely with others without needing to be paid to produce these works, paid for their creativity.
The movie and music industry needs to come up with a new business model. The present model, that they can prevent people from copying and sharing movies and music is not, and will not, work in the future. No amount of agitating for new laws, no amount of trying to get internet companies to block file sharing, no amount of suing people is going to put this genie back in the bottle. The old system worked because they could control the distribution medium (the physical media such as the CD or DVD or video tape). Now they no longer control the media. In order for the movie or music to be played on a computerized system, it can be copied. Copy protection systems simply do not work.
My predictions:
jc
p.s. I've worked at ISPs and have an in-depth understanding of how the i
"I'd much rather be mistaken as a lesbian by a bigot than be mistaken as a bigot by a lesbian."
Not that I would have ever used it for TV, as it was clear ATT would sell info on what I watched to everyone who was willing to pay. But I might have considered them for network access as I don't a lot of good alternatives. But there is no way I am going to use an ISP who even thinks this might be a practical and desirable thing to do. There is no way for them to block illegally transfered data without blocking legally transfered data. In addition, if they are looking at the data this closely, they will likely be looking at tracking what you are doing and selling summaries of it to anyone who is willing to pay.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
Whats funny is these morons actually think that consumer ignorance would blind the consumer to the point where they don't notice they are getting less free porn and entertainment. Good luck with that.
Because each time the major companies bring a P2P system to an end, it produces an even better version that is more popular. Napster led to Kazaa which led to BitTorrent (yes, I realize that's a very abbreviated history of P2P). Now, with a decent blacklisting system, BT is pretty damned sweet. So, some genius at AT&T wants us to have something even better than BT?! Hooray!
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Anybody remember what happened to King Canute when he told the tide not to come in?
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flamebait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
I have an heavy network load with 100% P2P. I'm sharing *free* movies, GNU/Linux isos etc...
I think what's hidden behind those stupid threats is IAPs wanting to throttle down the traffic in order to reduce costs without client complaints.
They run the backbone. Which is why their partnership with the NSA is so disturbing.
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
But business was never about long-term investment. This is why internet originated in the DoD and not with some french company. Same for satellite imaging. Ditto for most of the break-through innovations.
This is so stupid of them is hurts. They are specifically not liable for copyrighted works transferring under the law as a common carrier because they have an open, unregulated network (not counting the whole torrent business, but packet shaping is not the same thing). Once they start actively protecting against transfer of copyrighted works on their network they are liable for whatever they don't catch.
Not to mention that there are many completely legal and valid personal reasons to transfer copyrighted files over the internet. Maybe you're sending it to another remote computer that you own. It could easily be argued that in this situation you are format shifting, which is protected.
This whole thing just doesn't make sense. I don't see how it would help them legally, or in any other way.
There could be no flaw more basic than what is proposed in TFA.
Person 1 pays Company A for some product. Company A wants to send product to Person 1 so that Person 1 can enjoy product. But they want to do it in such a way that Person 1 cannot be trusted not to publish product for Persons 2, 3, etc. No amount of filtering, encryption, copyright protection, etc, in the world is going to help Company A achieve this goal.
Now let's look at untrusted Person 1. Person 1 has content that they want to transmit to Persons 2, 3, etc. In this communication, both Person 1 and Person 2 are "trusted". The information holder, Person 1, doesn't really care what Person 2 does with the information, so it's a very low bar Person 2 must clear to fit the trust criteria. Basic encryption allows two trusted parties to communicate information such that no other entity, whether Company A, ISP K, or Person 3, can eavesdrop. Period.
These are the fundamentals. They cannot be changed. As long as Company A can't trust the paying recipient to not redistribute the information, there is no technology that can help them.
The only model that will work is for Company A to transmit information to some trusted endpoint, say Provider Omega, and then require Person 1 to contact Provider Omega for some derivative of the product. The derivative has to be something Company A doesn't care about. Example: I, the copyright holder, post a photo on shutterfly gallery and send a link to untrusted Mom. Mom goes to link, sees photo thumbnail (derivative of photo no one cares about untrusted Mom stealing), orders print (another derivative no one cares about—if untrusted Mom gives photo to third party, that's fine with everyone).
Of course, the problem our Company A faces is quite different. Person 1 isn't buying a derivative of product, like untrusted Mom is happy to do. Person 1 wants the thing itself. No matter how many trusted third parties Company A contracts to stick DRM-enabled DVD drives in Person 1's computer, or ISPs that monitor Person 1's network traffic, or jack-booted thugs that break into Person 1's house, at the end of the day the technology serves only communications with trusted endpoints and no other kind. The only way Company A can keep Person 1 from distributing product is to not give product to Person 1 and instead substitute some derivative they don't care about. But if they don't care about it, neither will Person 1, and Person 1 will not buy it.
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
How about they start filtering for viruses, spyware, and other nasty stuff? No, there is no profit in protecting customers. Instead they would rather protect copyright holders.
However I would LOVE to see someone get sued by the RIAA/MPAA after this goes into effect, and their defense is, "But my ISP said they filtered out all copyrighted content, I thought what I was downloading/sharing was legit"
Make the ISP's responsible for this task, and who knows where it will stop! Will ISP's be responsible to monitor how users use their connection? If someone visits a site that describes how o make a bomb, will the ISP have to start reporting the users to authorities?
It's probably simpler than that. Restricting the download of "copyrighted material" allows them to actually control, then charge for that access.
Sorry, you can't download that torrent directly, but for only $9.99 a month (for the first three months) you can get two movies a day from our approved site and watch it via our patent-pending BittorrA&TT browser plugin ...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I just started to use encryption on my BitTorrent client to prevent my ISP from seeing what I am downloading. What is to stop us from encrypting all of our online communication and thwarting any effort they put into this?
I've been using AT&T DSL for over a year now.
According to the observed traffic, I receive 15 megabytes per day of UDP port 1026-1028 Macroturd LAN Mangler Messenger pop-up traffic claiming to be from shaw-cable.ca, 10 megabytes per day of TCP port 7212 Ghostsurf traffic from China, and another 5 megabytes per day of miscellaneous hack attempts. Doesn't matter how many times I cycle the DSL router nor how many new different IP addresses I get. The traffic remains constant.
Let us do a little simple math, shall we?
20 million AT&T internet subscribers times 30 megabytes per day of useless traffic.
That's 600 TERABYTES per day that AT&T is too inept, retarded and lazy to filter.
If AT&T really wants to do something useful, they should try pulling their collective heads out of their collective asses and clean up all the useless traffic.
Of course there is the theory that AT&T doesn't *want* to clean up the traffic, because if they did they would have to admit that they have had the ability to do so all along, and all the cyber-terrorist drum-bangers and other various scare-tactic dolts would have nothing to talk about.
It's like the IP address scarcity lie. It is an artificially created scarcity.
General Electric has 16 million IP addresses assigned to them in their Class A network, but they're only using 2 class C subnets for their various websites. The rest is all VPN and privately numbered, non-internet routable subnets. GE needs to give back the unused addresses.
There are a few other major offenders in the IP-address scarcity-lie as well. All it takes is 222 whois x.1.0.0 inquiries to find them all.
When AT&T says they're going to filter anything, they're telling a transparent lie in an attempt to cover their more than obvious incompetence.
Yahoo is a colloquialism for in-bred, cleft-palette, hare-lip mental-defectives. Do you really think it's a coincidence that AT&T decided to buy the Yahoo brand? It fits their defective mentality perfectly.
145 Million Dollars for Ed Whitacre's Golden Parachute? If you ever wonder why your AT&T DSL service sucks, it's because all the money that would have gone into improving the infra-structure has instead gone to lining the pockets of those who do not deserve it.
"The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers"
:)
AT&T and the other telcom companies don't actually want to filter the Internet. They are rolling their eyes, and cursing behind closed doors. They are being forced to move in that direction from incredible pressures being exerted on them by the original Darwin Recipients, the entertainment industries represented by the MafIAA.
DRM and Copyright Protection mechanisms have failed. They failed both technically and in the marketplace. It was a simple progression from the beginning:
1) They TOLD you it was bad. Tried to reason with you why you needed to keep buying multiple copies of their crap, and keep coming back for the new crap. They cried when you didn't do it and ran to Napster.
2) They wrapped DRM around everything and crippled the devices thinking they could exert their masterful techno dominance on everyone and force them back into the fold.
3) The real die hards, the evil college students with P2P, were supposed to be taken care of by contract through the MafIAA. Contrary to popular belief, the MafIAA is neither stupid, or inept. They just do what their employers tell them to do.
4) The MafIAA fails. Continuously. They make a couple of grisly examples, but the masses just get pissed off and more determined.
5) DRM proves to not work period, as both a concept and implementation technically. Copyright protection systems are broken faster then the companies can push out updates. DRM algorithms are cracked. Music is freed, one way or the other.
6) Even the most die hard dumb asses in the entertainment industries realize that they risk destruction of their sales if they don't start removing DRM from their products.
Now that "they" are naked and cannot actually control you directly, meaning your devices, they wish to control your ability to share anything with anybody. It's the endgame, and they believe this will be the checkmate. Sure you will be able to share in person, but gone will be days of P2P and the glorious sales statistics of old will come back. Board Members and Shareholders rejoice!
Of course....... It's impossible. It's like trying to move a pawn half way across the board, through a bunch or rooks, bishops, and then queen herself.
But impossible never STOPPED them before!
Of course this time, they are not paying a bunch of lawyers a couple hundred million dollars are they? The MafIAA was HAPPY. They got paid
The telcom providers are being forced to do this and they don't like it. If you think this has been their plan all along, you would be wrong. They know the costs of filtering their networks is far greater then any traffic caused by P2P programs. Those are real statistics and projections that some IT department geek can bring to the suits.
As much as the telcom industries may be forced, I doubt it will actually happen. For one, they will have to pass that cost off to the consumer. Feel like paying an extra 10$ a month for content filtering on your line? I thought as much. On a technical note, they KNOW this will just cause encrypted connections to SKYROCKET in volume and frequency. Freenet nodes will multiply so fast.....
So I for one HOPE they try implementing it. It will only force people to become more educated and use programs that will encrypt and obfuscate their connections. Websites will become SSL encrypted, if only to hide the data from the ISP.
It's like watching some retard about to shove their own head up their ass. Grab the popcorn!
Looks like this might operate in a "blacklist" sort of way - a copyright holder notifies the ISP what they want blocked, the "DNA" of that content is added to the filtering device, and it filters away.
Someone uploads an infringing video to YouTube, you go to view it, and it doesn't get through.
Someone shares an infringing mp3, you go to download it, and it doesn't get through.
It doesn't appear to be arbitrary -- not traffic shaping -- not protocol dropping or packet spoofing -- you need to add the "DNA" of the particular copyrighted "work" to the device.
Some record label releases "DRM-free" mp3's somewhere for download, and at the same time adds the "DNA" of those DRM-free mp3's to the devices (or sends them to the ISP to have the ISP add it to the device).
So in that sense, it sounds sort of like a pre-emptive DMCA takedown notice. You do it copyrighted work by copyrighted work.
All this kind of stuff seems slightly reminiscent of 3-D glasses in movie theatres or something like that. In the long run, it's probably unnecessary and more hassle than it's worth. Soon enough, people will get sick of scouring p2p, they'll just want the music now. Places like OiNK are few and far between. Certainly an exception to the rule. Most people just want what they want, and they want it now. P2P can't compete with what major labels COULD come up with, and soon, those things are going to be come up with, and this filtering stuff will be completely unnecessary.
The simplest way to solve the problem for the short haul is to realize that a "non-commercial, personal use" exemption to the copyright law more or less exists, whether or not it's on the books or not. We simply need to recognize that a non-commerical, personal use exemption is the best way to move forward on this. Takedown notices are a good recourse to have, because in a sense they protect all of us from having our stuff stolen. Pre-emptive takedown notices in the form of DNA fingerprinting of multimedia files? That's probably only something that's going to be useful for something that has lots of "hype". We get back to the same business model -- planning for large quantities. A few artists, large quantities, preemptive takedown notice.
At the rate it's taking them to roll out U-verse, for instance, this might be completely obsolete and unnecessary by the time it goes live. If wimax takes off faster, no one will need to download anything ever again -- it'll just be streaming all the way. The future is probably a subscription service with tens of thousands of music files - it certainly seems the way we're headed. It's just easier for most folks. Subscription services will make these types of filtering devices completely unnecessary.
It's not impossible to outcompete p2p on ease of use, security, selection, and value. Once that happens, these filtering devices will just end up being more or less a complete waste of time.
We've got to figure out a friendly way to do it, there's no doubt about it.
... it's very much an either-or proposition. Either we're going to allow private corporations to censor the flow of information in this country, legal or otherwise, or we aren't. Period. Dot. The original Communications Act of 1934 got it right: telecom providers got to have immunity from prosecution that might result from the transmission of illegal communications, in exchange for leaving said communications the Hell alone.
That is a non sequitur, my friends. There is no "friendly" way to deny people what they want
God I hate those people. This wouldn't be happening if the Feds hadn't screwed us over once again, by not requiring common carrier status for ISPs. This is ridiculous.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
You call $1NZD per GB "terrible"? Wow, you should see what it's like over at BigPoo where it is $150AUD per GB extra.
This has nothing to do with copyrights and has everything to do with network preformance and infrastructure. Most ISPs do not have the technology and infrastructure in place to meet demand and projected demand. Networks are just like highways (remember the phrase 'information highway'?).
You either increase your hardware to match demand or limit the ones demanding alot.
I read this somewhere once upon a time and I want to share.
Up until now ISPs have hidden under the common carrier defense when lawsuits come against them. These lawsuits range from child-porn to murder. They have been able to make this argument in courts because they don't filter content. Now with them filtering content, they can legally be held liable for the child-porn/bomb making instructions that somebody can access through their network.
Now the interesting part.
Since they are filtering all copyrighted material, all material that I can access has the blessing of the ISP for me to download. The ISP is saying, if you can download it on our network, then it isn't copyrighted. This means that we as subscribers could then sue the ISP for letting us download copyrighted material on the behalf of the copyright holder. Not only can we infringe on the copyright, but we can monetize on it now!
Also, it means we are no longer doing illegal things since the ISP is the infringer by allowing us to access the material.
Please filter your internet AT&T. I'll switch to your service from Comcast (the current filtering top dog) to you once you get your priorities straight.
Why not first concentrate on a decent network-side parental filter? That would be useful to consumers who want it.
It'll take 5 collabrative minutes to make all of the p2p programs out there use port 443 and SSL. Hope you don't mind blocking every bit of ecommerce traffic out there. Oh, sorry, you're going to build systems that will decrypt every last bit of encrypted traffic mid-stream?
He should try looking at the UID# next time. He might have gotten a +5 whatever if he had responded to one of my comments, but you have been here since the beginning. You're number 6400, for science's sake!
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
Just wanted to say that there's no music related software that I didn't get through p2p before buying it. In my opinion, "content filtering" = "diminished revenues" for a bunch of people, so this trend will not finish in happiness for either part of the tubes.
...to kick you in the face and keep you coming back for more. "Thank you sir, may I have another?"
Ask Me About... The 80's!
I can read it.