AT&T, Microsoft, NBC working on solutions to filter copyrighted material at the ISP level

It really shouldn't be a surprise that execs from AT&T, Microsoft, and NBC and several content filtering companies spent part of a CES panel about piracy talking about filtering at the network level -- it's definitely a tempting solution for Big Content, and one we've already seen Comcast kinda-sorta implement to general hue and cry -- but it's still somewhat disheartening. According to AT&T SVP James Cicconi, current anti-piracy efforts "haven't been working," and "a network-based solution is the optimal way to approach this." Of course, having your ISP monitor every bit that goes down the tubes is pretty damn creepy, but come on -- you know that's not stopping fools like NBC's Rick Cotton from saying that the volume of P2P traffic itself is unacceptable because it's "dominated by copyrighted materials." That's a little ridiculous, but AT&T's Cicconi tried to spin it positively regardless: "Whatever we do has to pass muster with consumers and with policy standards. There is going to be a spotlight on it," he said. Damn straight -- it's called "all of your customers switching to an unfiltered provider."

[Travar @ Jan 9th 2008 1:20PM]

Maybe AT&T is the next AOL... Costumers loyalty is not something to count on :)

[KR @ Jan 9th 2008 1:36PM]

I'm loyal to my costumer. She keeps me lookin' snazzy!

[Travar @ Jan 9th 2008 1:21PM]

Maybe AT&T is the next AOL... Costumers loyalty is not something to count on :)

[Deputy Doffoos @ Jan 9th 2008 1:22PM]

"Whatever we do has to pass muster with consumers and with policy standards. There is going to be a spotlight on it," he said.

it's called "all of your customers switching to an unfiltered provider."




damn straight fool!

[DWells55 @ Jan 9th 2008 1:45PM]

Hell yeah, best part of the article. Love ya, Engadget.

ATT isn't in my area so it won't affect me, but screw censorship like this. I don't think they could ever effectively pull this off either. There's always going to be people who know encryption better that they do.

[xbit @ Jan 9th 2008 1:26PM]

This will be as successful as Apple's attempts to lock down the iPhone.

[Barry @ Jan 9th 2008 1:33PM]

This seems like a really great way to throw away their common carrier status and become legally liable for every bit that goes through their pipes. How could they do this and remain common carriers?

[Nikropht @ Jan 9th 2008 1:35PM]

They must of forgotten of the word "Encryption".... Most torrent data is already encrypted...

[Sam_Smith @ Jan 9th 2008 1:49PM]

My torrent is encrypted, but that doesn't stop comcast from sending reset packets to my computer and the other end, killing my upload. Encryption isn't everything

[Brian @ Jan 9th 2008 1:36PM]

Tell it like it is, Engadget! Hell yea!

[Karl HacksWell @ Jan 9th 2008 1:41PM]

I find it humerous that they think they can really stop piracy.

[andy @ Jan 9th 2008 1:41PM]

Charter blocks all P2P.


However, seeing as they are the only internet provider available in STL, I don't guess there is much I can do about it.


(ATT not offered in my hood.)

[Jeff @ Jan 9th 2008 1:46PM]

Call me stupid, but AT&T actually provides broadband access somewhere?

I thought they were just a wireless provider at this point. (aka the former Cingular.) Or is this the former SBC?

I suppose this might be possible to do without losing 100% of your customers in an area where there's no other choice. In my area, though, I can choose between Verizon, Cablevision, Earthlink and numerous other providers. Whoever filters content will be crossed off my list faster than you can say "corporate jack-whores".

[IndiaTech @ Jan 9th 2008 2:01PM]

Stupid...

[OneLove @ Jan 9th 2008 3:29PM]

Stupid

[Jeff @ Jan 9th 2008 1:46PM]

Call me stupid, but AT&T actually provides broadband access somewhere?

I thought they were just a wireless provider at this point. (aka the former Cingular.) Or is this the former SBC?

I suppose this might be possible to do without losing 100% of your customers in an area where there's no other choice. In my area, though, I can choose between Verizon, Cablevision, Earthlink and numerous other providers. Whoever filters content will be crossed off my list faster than you can say "corporate jack-whores".

[kev @ Jan 9th 2008 1:49PM]

When I visited Cambridge, Mass, my cousin had AT&T cable. They also have DSL services in some areas.

[OneLove @ Jan 9th 2008 3:30PM]

Stupid (for posting twice).

[m-p{3} @ Jan 9th 2008 1:49PM]

Try to filter my encrypted torrents, biznitches.

[Eric Kelly @ Jan 9th 2008 2:23PM]

They will, biznitch.

[andyo @ Jan 9th 2008 1:49PM]

Yeah, something troubling about this is not their ability to filter stuff, but the fact that there is not much competition, so there's no going elsewhere (but maybe dialup). In my area, I got AT&T which has pretty much a monopoly on DSL. The only other option would be... Comcast. Maybe Earthlink... but they are worse than AT&T and the price is higher.

[kev @ Jan 9th 2008 1:58PM]

I think this is pointless, and will waste tons of power to accomplish nothing, given the inheritently different ways people can capture content (i.e. desktop tuner cards, DVD/VHS recorders, heck video cameras)...

As an engineer I can only imagine this would be a gigantic pain in the ass for no real monetary benefits.

[Electromodo @ Jan 9th 2008 2:05PM]

I think they can effectively filter only:
- DRMed music/video (which is often useless to copy anyway)
-TCP packets based on protocol (torrents)

You can encode, rip, render all other things and name them at will, so how would it be filtered? Is every audio/video going to have digital watermarks to trigger the filter?

Also, if people encrypt files, the only way to filter would be to filter by protocol (aka Comcast way).

I do not advocate anything, I am just saying I doubt the system will be effective and I think many false positives will be triggered by it.

[Arthur Nonamiss @ Jan 9th 2008 4:18PM]

You can't filter by protocol if you're encrypting. That's the whole point of encryption. To the filter, it's just random ones and zeroes over an established connection. Since BT doesn't use a standard port, they can't filter that way, either. The BT protocol itself was designed to get around filters. There are other ways that they could solve their bandwidth problems, but I don't want to give them any ideas unless they're paying me.

[Don @ Jan 9th 2008 4:31PM]

Monolith would destroy any chance they might have using any flipped bits they have used to flag content. Talk all they want, but the fight against piracy is idiocy.

http://monolith.sourceforge.net/

[phrank @ Jan 9th 2008 3:00PM]

If I'm not mistaken, this is exactly the sort of thing Net Neutrality legislation would illegalize, wouldn't it?

google Ron Paul

...and then vote for someone else. ZING!

[palehorse @ Jan 9th 2008 3:01PM]

How long before they outlaw the use of encryption on certain networks?

[NewJohnny @ Jan 9th 2008 3:13PM]

As any law enforcement agency will tell you, you can't enforce a policy when everybody is doing it. The only choices are legalization or turning a blind eye. Why the consumer should pay directly for media is beyond me. Radio has been free for years and it's only increased sales.

[OneLove @ Jan 9th 2008 3:33PM]

The gub-mint is already filtering YO shit, looking for terro-wrists and political fodder.

[James @ Jan 9th 2008 6:52PM]

English please?

[OneLove @ Jan 9th 2008 7:02PM]

use your brain, please.

[Arthur Nonamiss @ Jan 9th 2008 3:37PM]

This is a great idea, and it will work perfectly until someone invents some way of obscuring the content being transferred. Some way to, I don't know, apply some sort of cryptographic algorithm or something. Maybe they would call it "encryption" or something.

[stolliemt @ Jan 9th 2008 3:39PM]

Since many smaller ISP's lease lines from the bigger providers I would think this could affect more than just AT&T. In my area, there are 5 isp's, and all but one lease lines from the TelCo to provide service for example. And of course, don't think the other big guys are going to buy this tech as soon as its available. Call in the EFF...

[PH @ Jan 9th 2008 4:12PM]

What's so ridiculous about saying that P2P traffic is "dominated by copyrighted materials."
Isn't that pretty obvious ? What else would constitute the bulk of the P2P traffic, home videos, yeah right ...

[Can @ Jan 9th 2008 4:24PM]

They may or may not be able to block current protocols such as BitTorrent, but will it do any good?

Firstly, there are applications that use the BitTorrent protocol 100% legally, their users will face trouble.

Secondly, as soon as BitTorrent is blocked, a new and better protocol will be developed just in a few days, and will become popular in a few months. Developers of this new protocol WILL (obviously) know how BitTorrent has lost its popularity due to the block of the protocol so it will be developed to be even harder to block. Yes, technically it may be blocked but people have creativity, the ones who write protocols have more. This will result in a more "powerful" and "hard-to-block" protocol because probably someone will think something that most (if not all) of us (Internet community) did not think, and implement "that" thing in the protocol, and with a good advertising strategy, making it the most popular protocol up to date.

Blocking protocols is, NOT, an option.

[VinylVision @ Jan 9th 2008 5:24PM]

AT&T is apparantly already passing everything over to the US Govt in the ALLEDGED fight on terrorism. If so it is only logical that AT&T will want to double dip their income by cooperating with content providers as well as gov't. Heck, I'm sure that the signers of the US constitution really intended for the gov't to monitor everthing citizens see, hear - even think. It would not surprise me if in the future I was told after a Google search: "Thomas Jefferson thought of that first so he has prior rights and our records show he has not explicitly authorized you to see, hear, or think about it; fortunately NBC now has rights to everything that Jefferon created so you will have to pay them to get this, otherwise your hard drive will be wiped clean of all historical information regardless of its source." Prayerfully, "God please intervene and prevent this from happening otherwise these big business folks will try to control you too." This entire subject is so insane that it is inevitable that it WILL come to pass... Insanity + greed + US Govt = UberInsanity.

[OneLove @ Jan 9th 2008 7:05PM]

All you do is play xbox, makes sense.

[Joel @ Jan 9th 2008 8:12PM]

hmm, let me get this straight, they'll filter copyright content. Does this mean that only Creative Commons content will be available (all javascript code, x/html code, css code, images etc included)?

[jonathan @ Jan 9th 2008 9:45PM]

Dont forget At&T is one of the largest bandwith providers in the US..they have A LOT of fiber and connections throughout, just do a tracert on some sites and see how many hit at&t...they carry a lot of the US's bandwith....

[Tom @ Jan 9th 2008 10:44PM]

Hi, have we heard of China? Most censored internet available with billions of US dollars being poured in to get the best "Great Firewall" China can possibly have.

And still, China's users have figured out ways around it. THE PEOPLE WILL NEVER REST! HUZZAH!

[Shyam D @ Jan 11th 2008 2:07PM]

If they filtered their content, doesn't that make them liable for the content as per the DMCA. I thought they were not financially liable as long as they didn't actively filter content and followed all DMCA take downs etc.

[Sam_Smith @ Jan 9th 2008 1:49PM]

Yeah, its called common carrier status. I'm hoping they do filter, cause I'll copyright something and wait for it to get passed thru AT&T tubes and retire from the settlement monies.

[Jonathan Bergeron @ Jan 9th 2008 2:11PM]

great idea

[Jonathan Bergeron @ Jan 9th 2008 2:11PM]

great idea

[the Gooch @ Jan 11th 2008 3:57PM]

My how very communist of you AT&T