New Tool Promises To Passively ldentify BitTorrent Files

QuietR10t writes "A new technique has been developed for detecting and tracking illegal content transferred using the BitTorrent file-trading protocol. According to its creators, the approach can monitor networks without interrupting the flow of data and provides investigators with hard evidence of illicit file transfers. 'Our system differs in that it is completely passive, meaning that it does not change any information entering or leaving a network,' says Schrader." I wonder if it can specifically identify legal content, too.

Comments

Encryption?

[hansamurai]

I'm assuming this has no chance of defeating encrypted connections?

Re:Encryption?

[Dreadneck]

They seriously need to overcome these obstacles before illegal file sharers should worry about it being used to target people.

I strongly disagree. People need to start raising hell about this Big Brother bullshit now. Technology like this operates under the assumption that ALL users are criminals until proven innocent and blatantly violates the 4th amendment(in the U.S. at least).

Furthermore, does anyone here honestly believe that this type of technology will only be used to stop copyright infringement and kiddie porn? This technology smacks of oppression and the quashing of political dissent.

Re:Encryption?

[Gerzel]

The reason we go after copyright infringement, kiddie porn(well porn in general as it is always lumped in if at all possible to kiddie porn), and things like majauana is to make as much of the general populace guilty of something that is both against the law and seen as deeply wrong with the person.

Once this is achieved the person can easily be moved to a status of lesser or non-personhood.

Example is a "Sex Offender" law. Such laws are created inevitably to protect children. However, sex offender includes any offense that is deemed sexual in nature. Public nudity, an argument with a spouse that turns violent which may indeed be an isolated incident and as much at fault with the spouse(I'm not talking about someone who regularly beats their spouse), or just pissing on the sidewalk because there is no where else to go for miles. Everyone is lumped in and assumed to behave like the worst offenders in the group, the serial rapists and violent pedophiles.

Wait, wait, slow down there...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

So, you're telling me that, given a set of hashes corresponding to "Prohibited content" and access to all the packets moving across a network, you can detect prohibited content? Why, it's a miracle of science!

Seriously, this is news? It has been possible, with the complicity of the router or physical access to the wire, to unobtrusively and undetectably tap a network since forever. That isn't news. And being able to identifiy files whose hashes you have ahead of time? Also not news, especially since bittorrent uses hashes extensively itself, and was never designed for subtlety or concealment.

I realize that Technology Review lost interest in technology years ago, and now spends most of its time fellating venture capitalists; but this is pathetic.

Re:Carrier Status?

[Jane Q. Public]

They SHOULD. As long as they do not alter or supply content themselves.

The whole concept of common carrier was to account for services such as ISPs. Of course telephone systems were the first real examples, but the concept is still the same: a communications channel, where a service can carry those communications from point to point, without altering, supplying, or monitoring content.

I know of no logical reason why ISPs should not be "common carriers". They are ideal candidates to be. As long as they keep their fat fingers off the content.

And THEY should be in support of the concept, because if they cannot claim the "common carrier defense" (i.e., no responsibility for content), then they have some very heavy legal liability issues that common carriers do not have to deal with.

Re:Encrypted traffic...

[Kjella]

And if they did that, we could start having the tracker negotiate SSL keys for us. If they tried going after the tracker traffic, we could make that HTTPS. If they started faking the certs, we could move to OpenDNS or install a "trusted" torrent root cert. That is a battle they could not win.

Re:Encrypted traffic...

[Shakrai]

In theory, they could attack encryption with man-in-the-middle during the key exchange

In theory, isn't this (or shouldn't this) all be illegal under wiretapping laws anyway?

As a private citizen I don't have the right to start monitoring my neighbors phone calls (even if those calls are broadcast into my house without encryption) just because I suspect she is dealing drugs. What gives my ISP the right to start monitoring my packets just because they suspect I'm pirating something?

Re:Completely Biased and Worthless

[azgard]

Or, everybody will become a criminal.

Re:Yawn

[DMoylan]

>cannot legally be used in the U.S. or Europe

when has that ever stopped anybody?

Re:Carrier Status?

[tonyray]

The reason ISP's are not common carriers dates back to dial-up modem Internet. The Telco's wanted to charge ISP's by the minute just like they do long-distance carriers for access to their network. The FCC got involved in this and used AOL as a model. AOL had these huge caching servers so AOL customer's web page requests rarely went out onto the Internet; instead they were served from the caches. So the FCC ruled that ISP's were delivering content and were not themselves carriers.

The Telcos are now (with broadband) satisfied with the content provider status as it saves them a lot of headaches, fees and taxes on their own Internet services. Broadband is far closer to a carrier service than a content service, but I don't see thing changing.

Re:ATTN !! Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

[Lucky75]

Can someone please explain to me how they plan to view the files of encrypted traffic without it being illegal?

One would think that if they happen to decrypt anything with copyright protection that it would then violate the DCMA, as per various ridiculous recent rulings of the sort.

...or, you know, just be plain illegal due to attempting to access people's personal files.