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Microsoft Patents Flagging Technology For 'Repeat Offenders' Of Pirated Content (torrentfreak.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the clouds-are-just-other-people's-servers dept.

An anonymous reader quotes TorrentFreak's report on Microsoft's newest patent: Titled: "Disabling prohibited content and identifying repeat offenders in service provider storage systems," the patent describes a system where copyright infringers, and those who publish other objectionable content, are flagged so that frequent offenders can be singled out... "The incident history can be processed to identify repeat offenders and modify access privileges of those users," the patent reads. [PDF] The "repeat infringer" is a hot topic at the moment, after ISP Cox Communications was ordered to pay $25 million for its failure to disconnect repeat offenders...

As far a we know, this is the first patent that specifically deals with the repeat infringer situation in these hosting situations, but it's not uncommon for cloud hosting services to prevent users from sharing infringing content. We previously uncovered that Google Drive uses hash matching to prevent people from sharing "flagged" files in public, and Dropbox does the same.

5 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. You don't own your own computer.... by JWW · · Score: 3, Insightful

    if it's operating system spies on you and reports you to the authorities...

    1. Re:You don't own your own computer.... by dwywit · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In such a hurry to get first post, user fails to read article, consequently posts irrelevant complaint.

      "Disabling prohibited content and identifying repeat offenders in service provider storage systems"

      IOW, not about things done on your own computer.

      --
      They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
    2. Re:You don't own your own computer.... by AHuxley · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The "service provider storage systems" is the cloud for now. How soon before the desktop computer gets a free scan too?

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  2. Re:Question. by dwywit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, you're correct, but there are other ways to identify infringing material. If you're silly enough to store the original extracted material without a quick pass through ffmpeg to process it through a different codec, and maybe a little compression, you deserve to be "flagged". Of course, as another poster mentioned you can always encrypt it.

    I'm more concerned that the terms of service allowing the provider to inspect your content will be accepted by many.

    --
    They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
  3. Re:Encrypt everything, everything, everything. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Nope. The encrypted data can be intercepted prior to encryption at the source or after decryption at the destination, then hashed then linked to the encrypted file hash along with the key needed to decrypt it.

    Face facts buddy. You don't own that computer. Microsoft, the government, and hollywood's finest own "your" computer, and if you do something with it they don't like, you will be penalized for it. Hope giving up control the damn thing, because the general public was too lazy to run updates or really take any level of self-interest in it, was worth the dystopia we have coming for us.