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AT&T Invests in Filtered Networking
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Fri Nov 16, 2007 12:49 AM
from the dark-futures dept.
from the dark-futures dept.
Filtered Coward writes "Last summer, AT&T announced its intention to begin filtering copyrighted content at some point. The telecom has now bought a chunk of Vobile, whose core product is VideoDNA. "Like other systems of its kind, VideoDNA develops a unique signature from every frame of video. The signature is meant to be robust enough to survive various transformations and edits, and it can then be used to run matches against incoming content.' Vobile claims that VideoDNA is good enough to be used on video when transmitted over a network. 'Based on the complexity of the problem, we suspect that anything initially deployed by AT&T will fall far short of a robust P2P video filter. But should AT&T truly have its eyes on just such a prize, the company would be in a powerful position to impose its own policies on the entire US, since it owns major parts of the Internet backbone.'"
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Technology: AT&T Announces Plans to Filter Copyright Content 436 comments
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."
Submission: New AT&T investment all about filtered network by Anonymous Coward
[+]
Your Rights Online: MPAA Boss Makes Case for ISP Content Filtering 282 comments
creaton writes "At the annual UBS Global & Media Communications Conference yesterday, MPAA boss Dan Glickman banged on the copyright filtering drum during a 45-minute speech. Glickman called piracy the MPAA's #1 issue and told the audience that it cost the studios $6 billion annually. His solution: technology, especially in the form of ISP filtering. 'The ISP community is going to be at the forefront of this in the future because they have everything to lose and nothing to gain by not seeing that the content is being properly protected ... and I think that's a great opportunity.' AT&T has already said it plans to filter content, but others may be more reluctant to go along, notes Ars Technica: 'ISPs that are concerned with being, well, ISPs aren't likely to see many benefits from installing some sort of industrial-strength packet-sniffing and filtering solution at the core of their network. It costs money, customers won't like the idea, and the potential for backlash remains high.'"
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Sounds preposterous (Score:5, Insightful)
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As soon as this absurd technology starts working (if ever) everyone will turn on the encryption.
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and it doesn't really stop ISPs from specifically throttling Bittorrent traffic (which is the issue today).
You can route Bittorrent through an SSH tunnel which would encrypt the data as well. Presumably you'd need a VPN service provider because I don't think a shell account provider would take to kindly to widespread use of their services in this way.
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Otherwise, with tin-foil hat off, this sounds like a genius marketing plan doomed to fail but done to please certain people who don't have a clue.
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Not to mention, how much processing power will AT&T have to spend on analyzing our packets?
If they do this with video packets by identifying fingerprints on the fly, I guess I've found
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How can they distinguish between encrypted video and other kinds of odd, binary data that they have no business interfering with, such as text in an exotic language and encoding, or somebody's proprietary compression format, or raw data from some odd kind of sensor?
Re:Sounds preposterous (Score:5, Interesting)
The NSA, now, has fairly good tools. There's a fascinating tool from a company called Sandstorm that re-assembles network traffic into its distinct streams and does quite a good job of re-assembling email and web transactions. Given a remote opportunity to do a man-in-the-middle SSL key replacement, or simply steal the SSL or SSH keys from the serving host (with or without a subpoena), such tools could doubtless do quite a good job of intercepting transmissions seamlessly. And innocent folks aren't bothered to go to that level of protection, such as using obscure languages or real one-time pads.
Like the phone company's wilingness to tap phone conversations from the telephone offices, undetectably, because it's merely duplicating the digital bits and sending them to whomever they care to send them to, such monitoring constitutes a massive risk to the innocent for political and illegal monitoring. We see what such monitoring and related censorship does in China right now: we need to be extremely wary of it occurring here with such tools casually accepted.
Parent
One time pad (Score:3, Funny)
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Encryption can beat this, but shouldn't have to (Score:4, Interesting)
I think we can all agree that there's a problem: lots of illegal video transmission is happening online. And while some of the slashdot crowd consists of "information wants to be free" hippies, there is also a good community of people who reasonably understand the value of intellectual property rights. But I don't think anyone is excited about a solution like this, which clearly removes the user's fair use rights and common sense.
So where's the balance? Can a technical solution exist that will simultaneously stop the illegal pirating of movies and TV shows (which would be good), and allow other uses (even short clips, parodies, etc)? I think the answer is no. The determination of fair use relies heavily on intent, and no technical system will be able to determine that very effectively.
--
NerdKits: Educational microcontroller kits for the digital generation. [nerdkits.com]
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And while some people are more than willing to sell everyone's rights up the river for fist full of gold, there is also a good community of people who have morals and are willing to refuse to obey bad laws.
I agree that this policy of network filtering is a bad one, and that it violates the rights of the network users.
However, one thing that some of the slashdot crowd tends to ignore is that content owners have rights too. Or are we suddenly to believe that the only things that have value are physical things?
--
Long-time coder? No electronics experience? Come play with microcontrollers! [nerdkits.com]
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one thing that some of the slashdot crowd tends to ignore is that content owners have rights too.
You're painting a lot of people with a very wide brush there.. after all, aren't YOU a member of the "slashdot crowd". Would seem so from where I'm sitting.
There are no "content owners". There are "copyright holders" and they have the rights ascribed to them by copyright law.. of which I am opposed and believe should be drastically reduced, if not immediately and completely abolished.
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No, they don't! They have a privilage of a finite-duration monopoly, created by the government, for the express purpose of "promot[ing] the progress of science and the useful arts!" Nothing more! This is exactly the opposite of a "natural right."
That's how it's been during 99.99999% of human history (i.e., everythi
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I would compare this to the public road system. The roads can be put to uses that we can all agree are bad, even criminal. They can be used to transport kidnap victims, or to escape after robbing banks or killing people, or to get to the the place where one is going to commit a crime. Filtering network content and allowing only approved data would be like requiring every driver to submit a travel plan stating the reason for the trip and have his or her vehicle searched. That might well cut down on crime, b
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Was there a point in there somewhere? Calling something a "stupid car analogy" doesn't make it so. If you've got an argument as to why this is a poor analogy, feel free to make it.
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And while some of the slashdot crowd consists of "information wants to be free" hippies, there is also a good community of people who reasonably understand the value of intellectual property rights.
You are mixing up two entirely different issues here. I think you will find that the "hippies" understand the value of the copyright monopoly quite well. Much as they also understand that if AT&T were to be given a monopoly on the distribution of water, this would be extremely valuable to them. What the "hippies" question is whether or not this is actually a very good idea.
Co-conspirators (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, how do they pick out copyright material for which a license has been granted compared to material that is "criminal" activity?
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Its a different scenario, and needs handling differently. if you think that the current situation, where companies invest tens of millions in movies which get stolen instantly, will persist, you are dre
comcast is the beginning (Score:2, Insightful)
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After all, any unknown data compression format is effectively encrypted unless you know how the algorithm works.
Copyright Law (Score:5, Insightful)
* Educational material
* Parodies
* Licensed use
* Short clips
* Lots of others
I'm not in the USA, but say for example I own a hard copy of a movie or TV show on DVD, am I "allowed" to stream it from home during my lunch break or after work when this system is possibly live?
Remember, if they are doing filtering it means they are no longer a common carrier, what is the legality of this in regard to third party content; if I were to transfer illegal content over their connection will they be liable for this because they haven't filtered it out? Or will the law apply to them when it suites em.
There are so many holes in this I couldn't possibly see this implemented, not to mention the resources that'd be required on their end to keep up with the constant change in codecs/compression methods and to be able to decode it in realtime.
Yeah, it's just speculation at the moment, but in a really dark and unfunny way I can see PHBs combined with RIAA/MPAA mafia seriously pushing something similar based on their draconian previous tendancies.
Dear AT&T (Score:3, Insightful)
I have been a voice customer with you for many, many years, and I have chosen to get my internet service from you in the days of yore - 1996, with a 56k modem, and four years later, I upgraded to your residential ADSL product. I've always been content with your service - sure, the random two-hour downtimes at 1 AM every four or five months piss me off, but I understand that sometimes, you just gotta do it.
I've done my part in being a loyal customer; I only call when I'm sure the problem lays beyond my DSL modem, I don't torrent often, and I've never tried to do anything shady to your other customers. Over the past decade, you've treated me well by not blocking inbound port 80 traffic. That's why I haven't ever moved to a much faster Cable connection. Hell, I even work for a CLEC and if I was so inclined, I could have a free 1.5 SDSL line - but I haven't done that because you've given me no reason to go through the hassle of set-up.
You might have spied on me. Don't get me wrong - I'm plenty pissed off about that. But I know it wasn't anything personal. I know how upper management can be when the NSA comes knocking. The way things are going, I think you'll ultimately answer to us for what you did, so I won't stress too much about it. Anything important is encrypted, anyways.
But now, my dear AT&T, for the first time in a decade, I don't know what to think about you. Your problems with torrenting and streaming video are that you don't have enough bandwidth to accommodate all of your customers. You've grossly oversold your network's capacity, just like my company does, and now you're being bit for it. It's an unpleasant situation for you - trust me, I know exactly how that feels.
But now, how many billions are you going to spend on this fingerprinting system for video? How many people will work on this project? How many legitimate packets of mine is this going to slow down or drop? And, in the first week this system goes live, won't everybody just turn crypto on and use YouTube over https? Billions of dollars...flushed right down the toilet in an instant!
Now, as I said, I'm just a humble legacy customer. I started out at SNET, then get assimilated into SBC/Yahoo, finally ending up as a customer of the Great Bell Company. But, might I, a meek twice-legacy customer, suggest that you ax this project and ***invest the fucking money in buying more fiber, thereby solving the actual problem***?
I mean, come on. What the fuck do you care if people are stealing the latest blockbuster using your network? You're not in the business of being moral guardians, and there's no way in hell a court would ever hold you liable for something like this.
Just know, my old friend, that if you do end up implementing this, the first time one of my packets gets dropped mistakenly, you damn well better believe I'll take my company up on that free SDSL line. And I'll be living here for a long time to come.
Sincerely,
Anonymous
The Happiest AT&T Customer Ever
It's not about fear of being sued (Score:2)
Of course no court would find them liable. But that's not the issue. The issue is that AT&T wants to enter the entertainment business, just like all the other big facility based providers. They want to become your "one stop source" for everything in audio, video, gaming, and reading (and bill you for everything on one big bill). But they face TWO obstacles to that. The content industry has probably already made it clear to them wha
Good ole Ma (Score:4, Interesting)
a) this technology can't work - too much overhead looking through all those packets
b) will probably flag several false positives
c) can be circumvented with encryption
AT&T doesn't have to do anything though - they just have to appear to be looking out for the media companies. Perhaps even catch a few dumb people who upload a lot and don't use encryption and hand them over to the media companies to sue. Makes many people appropriately scared of Ma Bell. And who do you think the media companies will choose to deal with to distribute their content on the mobile and internet platform. Well its not like they will have much choice really - IIRC the FCC relaxed rules that prevented AT&T from charging more for access to its lines. Remember when the government broke AT&T up - probably not which is the problem.
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At this point, could using any form of on-the-wire encryption be considered a "circumvention device" and therefore illegal under the DMCA?
What's in it for AT&T? (Score:2)
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Flawed (Score:2)
Not so flawed... (Score:2)
AT&T will sell / lease this service to other - media company related - ISPs. "Want to download a movie from iTunes, Amazon, or even TPB? Sorry, not if it's one of ours - but here's a link to our video store..."
Why should AT&T care? (Score:2)
A Fair(y) Use Tale (Score:2)
So all AT&T have to do is.... (Score:2)
2. decrypt Bittorrent encryption.
3. put the psuedo-randomly-ordered chunks of torrent data into the final file[s] (requires downloading the whole thing).
4. put the rar files most p2p movies are contained in into one piece and decompress.
5. compare the divx with the footprint for the dvd they have (remembering that its all been recoded n-times and possibly editted/cropped a bit so the divx timescale/image is not mu
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Yeah right.... (Score:2)
Two of the above were supposed to be public-serving municipal utilities. They were granted breaks to serve the public. This concept is now abstracted by the FCC, which no longer needs to recognize utilities in this way, rather, based on recent telecommunications law and the whims of the NTIA are what govern what AT&T does.
G
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In the 1900s-1930s, utilities were of a public benefit and received numerous breaks. AT&T is not the AT&T of yesteryear. Through the US TCA of 1996, and subsequent legislation, the breakup of the 'Bell' companies then reformed into the morass we face today in the US. That infrastructure was supposed to be a public, not private, asset base. Now it's to be a return on investment for the telcos-- especially AT&T. AT&T is a combination of SW Be
Fair Use? (Score:3, Insightful)
or, what if frames are the same between 2 different movies. (Fade to black, fade to white, common things like FBI warning, etc...)
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Processing power. Really, that's all it comes down to anymore and even then there are dedicated crypto cards you can buy to offload the TLS crypto calculations from the main CPUs. Frankly, I wish *all* web sites would switchover to using TLS exclusively, including sites like Slashdot. The two biggest obstacles to this other than sheer processing power are the fact that "trusted" SSL certificates are so expensive and that SSL web sites each need their o