AT&T Announces Plans to Filter Copyright Content 436
An anonymous reader writes "The LA Times reports that AT&T has announced plans to work with the Hollywood movie studios and major recording labels to implement new content filtering systems on their network. The plans raise many troubling legal issues including privacy concerns, false positive filtering, and liability for failure to filter."
It'll be neat... (Score:5, Interesting)
So much for my business (Score:3, Interesting)
Encryption forever!
SSL For All My Friends! (Score:5, Interesting)
If we act now, while we still can, before AT&T and their telco/cableco cartel shuts us down.
net neutrality (Score:1, Interesting)
This is why we have CHOICE! (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Ouch. (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, whether or not they'll have many customers when it's all over is another story. The moment my ISP starts making decisions for me about what I can and cannot download is the day I find another provider. If there aren't any other providers, then I'm going to drive to Washington, D.C. (probably none of us will be able to actually board aircraft at that point), grab Orrin Hatch and a few other select Congresspeople by their lapels and shake some sense into them.
What's amazing about this is the level of influence the media companies are able to wield, in both the government and private sectors. Honestly, they must have some part of their organization whose only job it is to dig up dirt on Congressmen and corporate CEOs. Otherwise I can't see why AT&T would just roll over on this.
Well (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Ouch. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Ouch. (Score:3, Interesting)
And what they will probably do is aggressively packet-shape so that folk who encrypt traffic will see lousy transfer rates AND lobby for exemptions to common-carrier rules for copyright defense.
It doesn't make too much sense, but hey, no one expects good business from AT&T.
Re:Ouch. (Score:3, Interesting)
This leads me to wonder, if they don't have common-carrier status to data transmission, why hasn't anyone brought the big telcos up for allowing illegal material to go across on their data lines? Seems to me if there wasn't CC status given to data, those types of cases would be slam dunks.
Plus, if they try doing this for copyright violations, what's to keep someone from forcing at&t to follow suit for things like child porn or other illegal content? It can't be too hard to adapt one filtering system to do another task (at least, I'm sure that's how the argument will go.)
Re:Loss of Common Carrier Status? Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
Do we really need more laws? (Score:5, Interesting)
Instead of sending everything by postcard, send everything by envelope (encrypted), and stop expecting every lawyer, politician, company, government agency, and identity thief to respect your privacy.
Re:Dinosaur Managers: Please Retire! (Score:2, Interesting)
While I sympathize with your position, cynicism and overall view on this issue, it has nothing to do with technology.
It has been this way for countless generations. Power is not awarded based on merit. It is awarded based on wealth. Show me anyone in a position of power who has not paid their way there.
This will never change, regardless of how many revolutions we may have, it is but one sad component of the tragedy known as the human condition.
[IP address changed for this post to defeat slashdot's asinine 30 minute post flood interval.]
Re:Encrypt everything (Score:5, Interesting)
For years I've routinely encrypted as much of my communications as I can (e.g., when I control both ends of the connection) and the overhead is completely invisible.
How do you really detect in real time? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, you can detect ssh, etc, known protocals and block them.
But if today the server encripted an MP3 file with rot13 no computer would automatically detect it as an mp3. And tomarow they just do it different. Tomarrow they make a jpg out of it. Change the extention and Bob's your uncle.
An application is written that everytime it starts it downloads a plugin with todays encription standard. There is no way they could even think of keeping up without breaking things for there customers on a daily basis.
You do understand... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Communications Decency Act Section 230 (Score:3, Interesting)
Is this right?
Re:Oh really? (Score:3, Interesting)
So...actually, I am curious: can you avoid AT&T networks? Maybe Google will need to start using all the dark fiber they were supposedly buying a while back?
Odd thought (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Encrypt everything (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm assuming that if ATT goes to the NSA and says "Please help us pass a law that says that stuff can't be encrypted" and the NSA sees low-grade crpyto they will reply "You pussies, we solved that stuff in kindergarden". But if they see high-level crypto, they may start screaming "national security" and do something that is stupid, unconstitutional, or both.
Re:Fairly easy to by-pass filtering (Score:3, Interesting)
As soon as that happens, Cisco et al will start selling specialized boxes that do MITM attacks, can handle OC3 bandwidth, and provide the unencrypted traffic for inspection, filtering, and recording. There would certainly be a lot of demand, as there are lots of network administrators with more-or-less legitimate reasons to want to filter their traffic (university network admins, for instance).
90% of a solution is not a solution.
Here's another possible reason (Score:3, Interesting)
Or it could be the RIAA/MPAA suggesting to AT&T that cracking down on piracy would be a good way to avoid dealing with hordes of high-priced entertainment industry lawyers for many years....
Re:Dinosaur Managers: Please Retire! (Score:3, Interesting)
Trouble is, some of the charlatans have PhDs** so that gives them credibility, especially among the educated, who don't realise it's perfectly possible to be both educated on one subject, and woefully ignorant of everything else. My favourite to date from one of these PhDs: "Corn ferments in the digestive tract! So you should only eat rice!" (Er, what do you think they make sake from, bamboo??)
** "Piled Higher and Deeper"
Re:Encrypt everything (Score:3, Interesting)
Besides, the DMCA is really about the copying of material that is already publicly available to anyone who wants to buy it. It's not about protecting the confidentiality of private conversations. Although most DRM schemes do (ab)use cryptography, the DRM threat model is fundamentally one that cryptography cannot address. Every cryptosystem assumes that the parties trust each other to not reveal plaintext to their enemies, and that the parties possess secrets that the enemies do not have.
DRM violates both assumptions, so any use of crypto by DRM is fatally flawed. If your (potential) enemy has physical possession of all the relevant secrets to decrypt the material (and they must, otherwise they wouldn't buy it), then the cipher is breakable no matter how strong it might be when the keys are secret. So DRM is ultimately impossible at a purely technical level, and therefore it must be backed up by laws.
Cryptography is all about protecting the confidentiality of a private communication between two trustworthy parties against an eavesdropper who doesn't have the keys. And it has become very successful at that objective. We should just use it, routinely and for everything.