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AT&T to Help MPAA Filter the Internet?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wed Sep 19, 2007 05:22 PM
from the real-man-in-the-middle-attack dept.
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."
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Submission: AT&T to Help MPAA Filter the Internet by Anonymous Coward
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  • Prepare for boardin' by the MPAA! (Score:5, Funny)

    by ackthpt (218170) * on Wednesday September 19 2007, @05:23PM (#20673785) Homepage Journal

    Arr, where isOliver Wendell Jones and his swashbuckling Banana PC when ye need them!

    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

    Avast, all the p2p sites need to do is mask the activity by sendin' and receivin' "noise" (content of random or random packets of encoded content with pre-arranged means of embedding send and receive commands, encoded by phrases passed by other means.) Arr, I be reading too many cryptographer tales.

      • Re:Prepare for boardin' by the MPAA! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2007, @05:43PM (#20674107)
        doesn't matter. a corporation's right to profit overrides any rights of mere consumers (yes, consumers, not citizens).

        they would prefer those removed anyway. they're competition.

      • Re:Prepare for boardin' by the MPAA! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by DaedalusHKX (660194) on Wednesday September 19 2007, @07:39PM (#20675367) Journal
        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.

        • Re:Prepare for boardin' by the MPAA! (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Not_Wiggins (686627) on Wednesday September 19 2007, @09:51PM (#20676501) Journal
          What stops you from using encryption? Encrypt all your traffic.

          What stops you? All the people who say stupid things like "I don't care if the government watches what I'm doing... I'm not doing anything illegal and they'll catch more bad guys!"

          You need the complicity of these people and their willingness to encrypt stuff that doesn't really need to be encrypted (say, like google searches for stock information).

          But, let's say that one was able to get a bunch of Joe Sixpacks to start encrypting traffic that wasn't of some deemed dubious nature. All it would take is a threat letter from an ISP to the effect of: "We see that you're sending encrypted packets on our network consistently. We have a policy against such activity, so you must not encrypt it or you'll be banned!"

          Can an ISP really ban encrypted traffic?

          No.

          Might Joe Sixpack believe it?

          Sure.

          He'd turn it off (see previous erroneous logic about giving up privacy) and leave only the "trouble-makers" who could be dropped without a loss of revenue. Heck, the ISP might even make money from the MPAA for such actions.

          Hmmm... re-reading this response, I think I have a tinge too much "tin foil hat" mixed in, but I think the general gist stands: it would be nearly impossible to get average people to collude without strong motivation to do so, and I just don't see from where that motivation would stem. 8/

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Xichekolas (908635)

          Two things generally stop one from encrypting their communications.

          1. It's not easy to do, and usually involves separately configuring each program to do so.
          2. The person at the other end doesn't do encryption, so you can't really put it to use once you figure out how to set it up.

          Sure, the people here on /. can set this stuff up, but the average user cannot. The only way this will happen is if we come up with a way to blanket encrypt everything that comes out of a box, and then enable it by default. The e

  • AT&T has agreed to start filtering content at some mysterious point in the future.
    too bad the MPAA/RIAA dont sue them every time someone finds a way to share songs. that would be a great and ironic use of their legal team

    • Re:if only (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RobertM1968 (951074) on Wednesday September 19 2007, @07:19PM (#20675163) Homepage Journal

      Actually, there are numerous cases in the past (around 2000-2002) of "content owners" trying to sue OSPs and ISPs. When good lawyers have been involved on the part of the OSPs/ISPs, as long as take-down notices have been properly handled, the cases have been thrown out of court. Some smaller ISPs and OSPs - in some of the earliest(IIRC) have settled. That trend died after the "content owners" started losing the cases against bigger OSPs/ISPs. I seem to remember NetCom as being one of them. The initial problem - back then - was that some of the suits pre-dated the DMCA (the DMCA not always being a bad thing). In some of those earlier cases, judges (with no technical knowledge of how the Internet works) had even ruled against ISPs/OSPs - ones that would have been protected by the DMCA.

      Now, there has been an argument that an ISP/OSP who does start filtering that "unfilterable" content is opening themselves up to tons of lawsuits for anything they miss - part of the argument is that they are no longer providing the role of (just) a transport mechanism, since they are picking what content does - or does not - go through their pipes.

      This situation may grow into something that tests that legal theory. I've personally talked to lawyers who think such actions would damage an ISPs/OSPs Safe Harbor claim. But then again, it's not their opinion (since it hasn't been tried yet) that matters... it's the outcome of any lawsuits that stem from AT&T failing to filter content that they should have.

      While they may get blanket immunity from the **AA over such errors, other content owners have been looking for a wedge in (again numerous lawsuits) to hold OSPs/ISPs liable. After all, it is far more profitable - I mean easier to recoup losses - to win a lawsuit against an AT&T than against John Doe.

      This also brings in the grey area of certain judges deciding that if AT&T can manage to filter certain types of content or traffic, then everyone should - opening more doors to suing OSPs/ISPs. At least in that particular case, the OSPs/ISPs have one particular clause in the DMCA still in their favor - which is (poorly paraphrased) an exclusion from being required to do so if that method makes the service unusable or creates ridiculous undue hardship on the ISP/OSP (for instance, a 20 person ISP needing to hire a team of thousands, or install tens of thousands of servers to be able to filter traffic in real time). That part of the DMCA though is kind of vague on specifics... leaving it open to interpretation... thus, what AT&T can do, and afford to do... most ISPs/OSPs cannot - but would a judge of questionable technology and Internet knowledge understand that?

  • Legal implications: none (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tackhead (54550) on Wednesday September 19 2007, @05:31PM (#20673909)
    > We're left to wonder about the legal implications of that

    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.

    • If I put on an explosive belt with C4 and a pressure trigger that bulldozer will be damaged quite a a lot.

    • Re:Legal implications: none (Score:4, Insightful)

      by thegameiam (671961) <thegameiam AT yahoo DOT com> on Wednesday September 19 2007, @06:16PM (#20674511) Homepage

      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.


      Source please?

      Here's a thought experiment for you: you're a big company with lots of government contracts. A well-known government law enforcement agency comes to you and says "we need you do X, and it needs to be secret." Wouldn't you think that you could presume that the actions the government asks you to do are by definition legal? Or if they turn out to be illegal, you have reason to have acted in the manner you did, which dramatically lowers any punishment.

      Has any controlling legal authority (to use former VP Gore's phrase) actually ruled that AT&T et. al. violated the law as opposed to having done something which smells bad?

      I'm not a lawyer (thank God), but I've hung out with a bunch to know the difference between unpleasant acts and illegal ones.

      Now, mind you, the above has no bearing whatsoever on any dealings between AT&T and the MPAA - I prefer my ISPs to behave as common carriers in the technical and legal sense. I do know that an ISP which actively filters then becomes more responsible when *bad stuff* gets through, so AT&T could be buying themselves a barrel of trouble if they implement this on a widespread basis (as opposed to an ad-hoc, subpoena-driven basis).

        • Re:Legal implications: none (Score:4, Informative)

          by thegameiam (671961) <thegameiam AT yahoo DOT com> on Wednesday September 19 2007, @07:11PM (#20675101) Homepage
          No, of course not.

          However, if a member of a law enforcement branch of the government says "this is legal" and it's plausible, I might answer differently.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by jsebrech (525647)
            However, if a member of a law enforcement branch of the government says "this is legal" and it's plausible, I might answer differently.

            Now imagina you have a staff of hundreds of lawyers at your disposal. Would you say "hey, let's not ask the lawyers if this is legal, and let's just blindly assume it is"?

            AT&T has every tool to know the exact legality of their actions. "We didn't know" is not a valid defense.
  • This sounds like the first cannon fire in the legal war to no longer be required to practice net neutrality. They can use this as the justification to change what traffic goes across the internet they provide.
    • But they don't provide the whole internet, so they're going to provide a branded experience. A shitty experience. An experience that puts them at a competative disadvantage.

      I mean. What's to stop a politically submissive cash cow from cutting off the pr0n? You think prohibition was bad? That could spark the first coup in my lifetime.

  • I would just love to see... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by msauve (701917) on Wednesday September 19 2007, @05:35PM (#20673969)
    ISPs burn themselves by getting into content filtering. Force them make a choice between "common carrier" status, where they aren't responsible for the traffic they carry, and being subject to suit over delivering damaging traffic, like viruses and DOS attacks.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by rsmith-mac (639075)

      Repeat after me:

      ISPs are not common carriers
      ISPs are not common carriers
      ISPs are not common carriers

      I'm not sure why everyone keeps thinking otherwise, but ISPs are not common carriers. They already do actions that would be in violation of common carrier status, and no, no one has or will be suing them for it.

      • ISPs are not common carriers

        ISPs in the United States are not "common carriers" for the legalese sense of "common carriers". But they are "common carriers" in the broader sense of "entities providing communication services with similar immunities to common carriers", such as entities compliant with Title 17, U.S. Code, section 512 [copyright.gov]. Likewise, uses of a copyrighted work under 17 USC 108 through 112 [copyright.gov] are not "fair uses", which in the strict legal sense refers only to uses under 17 USC 107 [copyright.gov], but they are "fair uses" under common parlance.

  • Oh, good I can sue (Score:4, Funny)

    by rossz (67331) <ogre@@@geekbiker...net> on Wednesday September 19 2007, @05:35PM (#20673987) Homepage Journal
    The first time some porn gets through their filters, I'm going to sue their ass. Hey, just because I typed, "hot teen lesbian action" doesn't mean I actually want to see that stuff!

  • The winners in other categories are... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by The Ancients (626689) on Wednesday September 19 2007, @05:36PM (#20673995) Homepage

    Companies such as Endace [endace.com]. A start up from a NZ university, they've been on the Deloitte/Unlimited 50 fastest growing companies for several years (peaking at 1000% growth).

    Someone has to make the product to enable this functionality, and if this goes ahead, it will prove very lucrative.

  • I've always thought that over time, more and more services will become completely encrypted end to end.

    Personally I think that is a good thing.

  • Encryption (Score:5, Insightful)

    by iamacat (583406) on Wednesday September 19 2007, @05:38PM (#20674025)
    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.

  • ISPs are NOT COMMON CARRIERS! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by isaac (2852) on Wednesday September 19 2007, @05:39PM (#20674041)
    How many times must this myth bubble to the surface? ISPs ARE NOT COMMON CARRIERS (at least in the USA).

    If ISPs were common carriers, there would be no 'net neutrality' debate - it'd be a settled matter.

    -Isaac
  • This being slashdot, I figure someone out there will have an informed opinion on the technology they plan on using to perform this task. I'm particularly interested in how they plan on preventing uncooperative isp's from using this as a competative advantage.

  • Fits the pattern (Score:4, Informative)

    by Creamsickle (792801) on Wednesday September 19 2007, @05:45PM (#20674133)
    It fits the pattern we've been seeing from them. Remember, this is the company that pillaged South Africa's economy [busrep.co.za], rewrote its privacy policy to give itself more leniency [sfgate.com], lobbies against net neutrality [savetheinternet.com], and fights open-access wireless [cbronline.com].

    And don't forget, they shut down the time service too. Bastards.
  • Who are the engineers building this crap? Does the MPAA just dragnet tech schools looking for programmers who can't find work? The people needed to build a mechanism for "filtering the internet" are the SAME PEOPLE who use services like IRC,FTP,BITTORRENT, and USENET to communicate with one another and exchange data. They are NOT going to create a tool that will shut down the closest thing they have to a bastion of technical discussion; usenet/irc. Yes yes yes, flame on, i know that usenet is flooded wi

  • Can we take care of filtering spam first? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bl8n8r (649187) on Wednesday September 19 2007, @05:48PM (#20674179)
    Until they can figure out how to filter spam effectively and efficiently, this is just vapor. What do they plan on doing? "Oh look a .mp3 file, lets block it" type filter? That's retarded.

    FTFA:

          "...given the money and time that will be required to implement such a system..."

    Indeed. Did you guys not learn anything from DRM? How about copy protection? Maybe the anti-virus arms race will jog your memory? Oh wait, I know how about 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0? Still nothing?

    There's always going to be faster gun, and you cannot "invent" a solution around that.
  • ATT you want to see what will make me pay $50 a month for my Internet from the cable company? Start filtering and I'll drop your crappy $20 DSL that day.
  • Where are the greenies when you need them to protest?

    Did it ever occur to anyone the vast processing resources content filtering will require? Processing data of any sort will require energy (not including energy to keep them cool)

    Just imagine AT&T having data centers racked up with network appliances around the world. Their sole purpose; to filter content in real-time for the MPAA/RIAA.

    Such a waste of resources...
  • If I were AT&T I would log and record every piracy attempt that was thwarted and bill the MPAA for the service. Say $0.30 for each one?
    • They should charge a percentage of the financial losses they are preventing. At a modest 1%, that works out to $7.50 per mp3.

  • Going back to 2.4k dialup (Score:3, Funny)

    by Nonillion (266505) on Wednesday September 19 2007, @05:58PM (#20674311)
    God I'm getting so fucking tired of this shit. It won't be long till the RIAA and MPAA will sue you just because you have a broadband connection. They'll simply claim that 'because you have broadband, you have the ability to pirate our works'. The record and movie industry need to shut the fuck up and quit forcing telcos to spy on us, the government does enough of that as it is. In any case, telcos need to loose their 'common carrier status' and be liable to lawsuits if they intend to do this.

  • What I'm more worried about... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by phorm (591458) on Wednesday September 19 2007, @06:05PM (#20674369) Homepage Journal
    I'm not so much worried about AT&T filtering their customers' traffic... I'm not one of them, and there are often enough other choices. The problem is that this is only true if they're not filtering all the traffic that flows through their backbone, much like the recent NSA todo. If your ISP has traffic that passes through AT&T's network (or heck, uses their infrastructure), are they therefore going to be filtered as well?

  • Oh yea? History says otherwise... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BlueParrot (965239) on Wednesday September 19 2007, @06:59PM (#20674985)
    So lets see what will happen. People will start encrypting their connections. Then presumably AT&T will block or degrade encrypted connections ( thus causing security issues ). Now, queue stenography. TCP/Noise in images, audio and video clips. With a strong cipher encrypted data is mathematically indistinguishable from noise unless you have the key. Lets see their filters distinguish between an audio stream recorded using a noisy microphone and a stream containing an encrypted stream overlay. I'm sure their servers won't have any problem whatsoever trying to do image analysis on every single webcam simultaneously. Then you can proceed to trying to distinguish a noisy video from one with encrypted data embedded in it. Really, AT&T and pals, here is a message for you. The great firewall of China fails at censoring the net, and that one is run by the fucking government. You seriously think you can do better ( worse) than the PRC and still make a profit? Good fucking luck.

  • Fuck AT&T.. Fuck Freedom... Fuck America. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jackie_Chan_Fan (730745) on Wednesday September 19 2007, @07:14PM (#20675127)
    What in the hell is going on. The sad thing is.. IT WILL happen and you wont be able to do a dam fucking thing because that is how America works.

    I for one, welcome our regular censoring, anti american corporate overlords.

    The system is broken, and the country is dead.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by PhreakOfTime (588141)

      If I had mod points, I would use them.

      Whats worse, is that when it fails the first time around... something will be presented to MAKE people demand this 'filtering'.

      The country is dead, and its a great fear of mine as to what is going to happen when that critical mass of people realize that reality.

      will it be by conquest or consent? Well, we are where we are now, because WE consented to it.

    • Re:Not surprising (Score:4, Funny)

      by ackthpt (218170) * on Wednesday September 19 2007, @05:35PM (#20673981) Homepage Journal

      AT&T is the company that used to own people's phones, so one would expect them to do something like this. Fairly easy and profitable for them, even if it is morally suspect.

      Aye, the more ye be tightenin' yer grip, MPAA and AT&T, the more p2p content and customers will slip through yer fingars!

      arr, wrong idiom!

    • Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Interesting)

      by pilgrim23 (716938) on Wednesday September 19 2007, @05:54PM (#20674257)
      I am not a law expert but isn't there some provision about ATT being a common carrier that gives them certain privileges and responsibilities. The later pertaining to being not concerned with content on the lines? If ATT can filter content then does that mean she is NOT a common carrier and not allowed the benefits (easements through private property without paying rent for it, use of governmental immanent domain to gain easements, etc?

      • Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Conception (212279) on Wednesday September 19 2007, @06:31PM (#20674687)
        Laws and "status" are only important if the current government wants to prosecute them.

        Obviously, the current government does not. And sadly, I suspect, it will be some time before we get one that does.

      • Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Informative)

        by Holi (250190) on Wednesday September 19 2007, @07:09PM (#20675079)
        Well AT&T' s broadband division is completely seperate from its telephone division for this very reason (well probably more than just this reason). ISP's are not afforded common carrier status, the are ESPs or Enhanced Service Providers under FCC regulations and held accountable (well kinda) to a different set of rules.

        I'm sure I've mentioned this before.
      • There was a court case involving AOL that illustrated this very principle. "Common carriers" are generally considered to be immune from prosecution or lawsuits pertaining to the content that passes through their system, because they do not originate that content. They are merely passing it from place to place at the behest of third parties, so they cannot be held responsible for that content.

        ISPs have often been able to claim the "common carrier" defense in court when users tried to sue them for things h

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by ScrewMaster (602015)
      Not as I understand it (any lawyers feel free to correct me) but Telcos are common carriers only as applies to their voice networks. For reasons I don't fully understand, so-called "data services" are exempt.

      • A am not a lawyer, either, but my understanding is that Telcos are common carriers (a.k.a. neutral carriers) as long as they treat all content equally. If they start to block content at the request of the MPAA (or anyone else), they are no longer a common carrier. Which would make them liable if they fail to stop traffic the MPAA doesn't like.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by darkuncle (4925)
        IANAL, but I'll correct you anyway. :)

        http://www.cybertelecom.org/notes/telecom_carrier.htm [cybertelecom.org]
        http://www.cybertelecom.org/notes/jones.htm [cybertelecom.org]

        thus far, the law (CA 1934, CALEA, 47 U.S.C. 153(h)(1991), etc.) does not differentiate between a "communications provider" that uses voice or analog signal, and one that does packet pushing for data (which lately, could also be voice). Of course, as soon as you go modifying what you're carrying (snooping on traffic, prioritizing traffic for whoever pays the most, etc.) that

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by ScrewMaster (602015)
          thus far, the law (CA 1934, CALEA, 47 U.S.C. 153(h)(1991), etc.) does not differentiate between a "communications provider" that uses voice or analog signal, and one that does packet pushing for data

          The FCC and the Supreme Court seem to have decided upon a different interpretation [coe.int]. The court upheld the FCC's interpretation of the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

          This quote is interesting:

          The Court seemed to be somewhat uncomfortable, however, with the fact that the FCC's holding imposed common carrier o
    • Sort of, but not as "common carriers".

      Where they may get into hot water is that anyone with enough money and/or legal time on tap can sue the crap out of AT&T the first time they get a virus if it can be proven that the thing passed in or out of AT&T's networks. After all, if AT&T is busily filtering those nasty ol' bootleg movies, they should be reasonably expected to filter out the dangerous stuff, spam, and most of all to control any customer machines in their network that might have become

    • If I had an AT&T filtered connection to the internet I would claim that "I use AT&T because they filter that content and therefore I assumed everything I had access to was legal," why, because they said, "they filter it".

      --
      So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's sister?

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