[ NNSquad ] Re: Speculation, how AT&T can implement "copyright filtering" without wiretapping/dpi...

[Kevin McArthur <kevin@stormtide.ca>]

There's nothing inherently offensive in this methodology until you 
realize that it bypasses due process of law.

The difference between copyright violation and fair use is not possible 
for a piece of software to decide. While many uses are clearly 
infringing, there currently exists no system that can tell the 
difference between legitimate fair use (like appropriation art or 
criticism) and true copyright infringement with any level of accuracy. 
Some questions arise:

Will the software, network or content owner be liable for a false claim?
Will a user falsely accused of downloading be able to make a libel claim?
Will the artist be able to make a claim for censorship, undue preference 
or collusion between the network owner and big media companies?
If the ISP _can_ police the network, do they not then have a _duty_ to 
police it -- and do they not waive their special intermediary immunity, 
instead opting for the legal environment of broadcasters and publishers?

These proposals bring more questions than answers, and I'm frankly 
surprised that these ISPs would even think about opening the pandoras 
box that is intermediary liability.

Even the very basic idea that one could take a currently-downloading 
torrent, and unilaterally decide it is infringing, is ludicrous; you're 
talking about acting on allegation before proving it in a court of law. 
From a legal perspective, its shoot first and ask questions later.

And thats not good enough,

K




Richard Bennett wrote:
> I presented this technique at the NN2008 symposium yesterday. I showed 
> a screen-grab from Mininova showing pirated Microsoft
> Office, and the peer list from an Azureus leecher. It's pretty easy to 
> connect the dots from Microsoft's monitoring of the tracker to action 
> by an ISP in response to electronic requests from the copyright owner. 
> One technique that comes to mind for stoppng piracy transactions is 
> Reset Spoofing, of course.
>
> I showed the technique to clarify that enforcement of copyright 
> doesn't involve Deep Packet Inspection or anything that scary.
>
> Is there any reason that such an automated system should not be used, 
> or does Net Neutrality now connote a license to steal?
>
> RB
>
> Nick Weaver wrote:
> > I've done some speculation on how AT&T might actually implement their
> > proposed copyright-filtering mechanism, without actually having to do
> > deep-packet inspection or even providing new hardware. After all, if
> > their motive is to save money, they will select a mechanism which
> > doesn't cost money.
> >
> > The idea is to rely on someone else (MPAA or an affiliate) to spider
> > the torrents and identify participants, and once the graph of
> > participants is generated, to dynamically block just that graph using
> > router ACLs, which would allow the MPAA to play Whak-a-mole on
> > individual torrents.  This would be very different in practice
> > compared with either deep packet inspection or traffic analysis.
> >
> > I think such speculation is useful because if AT&T really does follow
> > through on their stated goals, we should get ahead of the curve and
> > understand what this might look like in practice, and how to detect
> > the difference between possible techniques (DPI vs generic traffic
> > analysis vs spider-blocking).
> >
> > The solution space is actually pretty limited.
> >
> > More details/thoughts on my blog:
> > http://nweaver.blogspot.com/2008/01/security-thought-at-copyright-fighting.html 
> >
> >