Software To Stop Song Trading 595
Shippy writes "Palisade Systems is about to launch new software that can identify and block copyrighted songs as they are being traded online. However, the article fails to mention that it will also stop legal song downloads. The software blocks anything that's copyrighted, whether you already own the song in another format or not. Here's some snippets from the article: 'If installed in a university, for example, it could look inside students' emails, instant messages and peer-to-peer transfers...', and 'Jacobson said the identification process would not work on an encrypted network, such as is used in several newer file-swapping programs. However, the Palisade software could also act to block those applications from using the network altogether.' Great."
And, thusly... (Score:5, Insightful)
What is needed.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What is needed.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Or SSH (Score:5, Interesting)
Hell, our university REQUIRES SSH for many things. You can't telnet to the e-mail cluster any more, it's SSH only. Likewise the webmail is SSL only. You just don't have a choice, you'll use the encryption or you'll not use the system. My department is working on going to that. Going to be no telnet, no FTP, no unencrypted IMAP or pop. Everything will be SSH, SFTP (which is also SSH), or SSL. Unencrypted communications will be in-building only, or for things like the main website. You want to access any systems, you'll do it with an encrypted protocol, or use an encrypted VPN tunnel to get a local address.
So either SSL or SSH would work well. They are just too useful and used for too many things. Try and shut that down and you'll find backlash like you can't believe.
Why bother? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why bother with encryption? Just set up some phony malformed files (and keep your mp3s rared whatever) and share all your bandwidths worth.
The system is supposed to work on audio-finger printing. I can imagine how easy a system like this could be DOSed. Now imagine all P2P users worldwide doing this (P2P-app prepares this stuff). It'd be the biggest DDOS of all time.
This censorship mayhem is so ambitious it's bound to fail.
Re:What is needed.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I work as an IT consultant in Australia and work on site most of the time. Our clients - banks and insurance companies - certainly do do block FTP and SSL. They usually block anything that isn't HTTP or HTTPS on port 80. This is a genuine frustration for me as I often want to send log files and software to the HQ of the software firm I work for.
To make matters worse one client I worked for had a policy of restricting access to external email and other content (games, porn etc.). They used web filter software which I won't name here for now. Lots of legitmate sites I'd want to get to for genuinely work related purposes were also blocked.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is the method adopted by large educational institutions in the end. They won't be able to fight large corporates for very long with the limited funding they do have. It will only take a handful of large law suits to sway them towards censorship.
Its an interesting world we live in now. It seems to have become standard practice somewhere in the late 90s to make product and then intimidate or sue your customers.
Re:What is needed.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What is needed.. (Score:3, Insightful)
And it won't look the least bit suspicious when the host is connected to several other hosts, transferring encrypted data at full-speed 24 hours a day.
Re:What is needed.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes you can. You can't win, but you can drive them bankcrupt trying to defend themselves.
It isn't about justice, it's about extortion.
Re:What is needed.. (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately, you can get written up for such a thing. Its the only thing I was ever written up for while at college. Go outside and go for a run at 12:30am? Campus police come knocking on your door and cite us for "Unusual Behaviour". Were we loud? nope. Break anything? nope. Go anyplace offlimits somehow? nope. 'We *could have been* raping people or looking into windows if people didn't close their blinds though'. Sure it was completely rediculous, and I fough it, and won, and had it removed from my record, but that doesn't mean everybody else will.
Re:What is needed.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's my suggestion. Open an https session, and pass some sort of simple 'obfuscating' key to the sender. This is a short https session that can't easily be distinguished from normal web surfing.
Then the sender obfuscates the data with your key, and send it back to you
Re:What is needed.. (Score:5, Funny)
Is use steganography.
We embed an MP3 inside a JPEG.
Then, just to really screw them up, we embed the JPEG inside an MP3.
Re:What is needed.. (Score:5, Funny)
Then you'll get sued by RIAA [riaa.com] and Compression Labs [slashdot.org] at the same time! Two for the price of one! Can't beat that.
The trend among content-filtering firewalls is .. (Score:3, Informative)
Eventhough it's client-friendly man-in-the-middle attack, which defeats the whole purpose of SSL, there is a demand for this functionality.
--
The way it works is the client installs extra root CA certificate, and the firewall is given its own CA-enabled certificate derived from the for
Re:And, thusly... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm probably talking out of my butt here, but what if, instead of the entire "stream" being encrypted, just the "content" was, with a one-time, mutually agreed upon key? How would their software know the difference? It would never have the same "fingerprint" twice. Would it just block any traffic that looked like random noise?
I can see this software pissing a lot of sysadmins off - could you ever be absolutely sure those "ghosts" you've been chasing weren't this software being over zealous?
The parent is right though. This will just prompt those who wish to trade on P2P to take it to the next level. Especially now that the "Big Five" labels are trying to force Apple to charge $2.50 per song! If that happens I will stop buying songs from iTMS and say "screw the bastards, release the hounds", P2P here I come!
Re:And, thusly... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like this could be useful as something a college could threaten installing unless P2P violators knock it off... but would be trading off quite a bit of legit functionality to ensure zero violations.
Re:And, thusly... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And, thusly... (Score:3, Interesting)
There are lots of ways a P2P app could prevent that from happening of course. But then it might be easier to detect and block outright. Cat and mouse, as always.
Steganography (Score:5, Interesting)
One may insert them into icmp packets (ping still allowed??). What if i encrypt all my email, will encryption be outlawed? The war on file sharing is turning into a war on drugs, we all know how effective it is.
I think anyone can still get packets and or out a given network can download and upload songs or anything. those big 5 labels are causing real damage trying to police the internet and deserves to die real fast
Re:Steganography (Score:5, Insightful)
Except pot smokers aren't being sued by large corporations for failing to bogart and the DEA isn't blowing the heads off of neighbors of file traders by mistake.
Re:Steganography (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, how about embedding the .ogg in a data: url in a web page? That might get around things if they check each file individually. And if need be, you can use steganography to put the song in a .png, and then embed that in a data: url. How cool would that be?
Re:And, thusly... (Score:5, Interesting)
Technology tries to liberate. Technology was once thought of as the essence of freedom's revolution itself. Recall Apple/1984... recall www-idealism. Then technology turns against itself and tries to control. Porn regulation, satillite cameras, fingerprints, RIAA server-side 'intellectual property' monitoring. Liberation vs. control. Hacktivists and regulators engaging in battle royal.
Sure there are always loopholes and entropy... but I fear the capability of technology to regulate and control will become so strong and so automated that only the most astute hacktivists or fleeting script kiddies will find sanctuary, leaving the rest of the populace to graze like sheep on genetic grass.
And you can see where it's going, too (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you've got the problem absolutely right. This is a direct consequence of two things: big media business abusing its monopoly, and a certain type of Joe Public breaking the law. In both cases, these are not good things, but they are done because the perps think they can get away with it.
As has often been said (but rarely heard) in these parts, the correct solution to this situation is to fix the problem, not to try to circumvent it by ever more devious means. The music industry should be compelled
Who needs encrypted protocols? (Score:3, Informative)
Makes for a few challenges but it would easily defeat the system by the sounds of it.
wouldn't it be simpler (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:wouldn't it be simpler (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:wouldn't it be simpler (Score:5, Interesting)
But if 90% of their traffic is P2P why not make it all internal traffic thus eliminating bandwidth costs? If there is a way to do this for instance block the ports that P2P programs use, hell block all the ports except 80 and then setup a VPN client with all ports open but restrict traffic to being only internal. Then the bandwidth load is reduced by 90% and the traffic (which would probably cut down) might come down by as much as 60-70%.
If new items need to be introduced to the P2P networks on the campus then the students should have to go out and use their own, their parents or some cafes' then they can bring it back into the closed school network.
What do you think of that?
Re:wouldn't it be simpler (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:wouldn't it be simpler (Score:4, Funny)
My school does. The internet is essentially useless. SSH in from your home computer (because you don't want to cart your tower home just so you can use eclipse; my computers at home won't run it quickly but they run X fine) and forward X? AHaahahahaaha that's a security hole!
CVS from sourceforge? Ahahahaha that's a security hole!
Check your off-campus email? Ahahahaha that's a security hole!
Vist a site running on port 8081? Ahahaha that's a security hole!
I'm also required to run an anti-virus program* on my Linux box. Linux is a big virus-spreading OS these days.
* Actually, I'm required to lie and say that I'm running Anti-Virus software. I'm not. You know why? BECAUSE THERE AREN'T LINUX VIRUSES
Yeah sorry. I'll be so glad to be out of this place (where students are expelled from privately writing a rap song about the math program) in 2 months.
Re:wouldn't it be simpler (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.centralcommand.com/linux_products.html [centralcommand.com]
http://www.drweb-online.com/en/index.asp [drweb-online.com]
(included in some distros such as mandrake 9.2)
Re:wouldn't it be simpler (Score:3, Informative)
I have not had problems checking mail from anywhere.
Re:wouldn't it be simpler (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:wouldn't it be simpler (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:wouldn't it be simpler (Score:5, Insightful)
Pointless so long as the RIAA refuses to sell anything except DRM crippled crap.
Even if the college did jack up their fees and force such a subscription on me, I'd still take free non-crippled files (P2P) in prefference to "free" (pre-paid) crippled files.
If they offered ordinary MP3's they'd attract more customers. The RIAA's refusal to sell a non-crippled product is purely self destructive. It's not like they've ever kept a single song from reaching P2P by refusing to sell MP3's. Using DRM only accomplishes one thing - driving away customers.
-
Re:wouldn't it be simpler (Score:5, Insightful)
interviewing for a tech-related position with
the head of dorm network-type stuff, I was told
that well over 90% of the internet traffic (barring worms and the like) can be attributed
to file-sharing. With the tightness of funds
that today's universities are dealing with,
maybe that bandwidth money could be better spent.
Re:wouldn't it be simpler (Score:5, Insightful)
Every college's Terms of Service says that their computer systems are for "academic use only" or some similar phrase, in part because they have to in order to get grant funding to pay for their bandwidth. You might not remember signing that TOS, but trust me, every student at a college has signed something when they accepted admission that basically binds you to everything the school ever puts out as a "rule" whether you bother to read it or not.
So, forget the dream that they have to give you totally unrestricted bandwidth as part of the price of your dorm room. They never promised that to you, so if it goes away, tough.
Colleges have mostly played dumb that P2P has been going on, trying to claim that they're just a common carrier that can't really coprehend what's fair and what's foul over their network. Once they start trying to block copyrighted content, they'll start becoming liable for whatever slips through their checkpoint.
So... that's why any blocks we're going to see going up are going to be whole-protocol blocks or bandwidth throttles. They won't be blocking in the name of copyright protection, they'll be blocking in the name of bandwidth protection...
Re:wouldn't it be simpler (Score:3, Insightful)
We've moved beyond the "you can only use the computer network in your residence hall for academic purposes." Internet access is an expected utility for today's students, not a generous gift from the university or a special privilege. It's no different than electricity or telephone access. We d
Re:Not every college (Score:4, Interesting)
At the college I went to, the computer center understood that the campus network and internet connection weren't just an academic tool. They were also a student entertainment service and a way to attract kids. A college with a TOS that doesn't allow this or has a generally crappy low-bandwidth internet connection in the dorms stands to lose a lot of good applicants to well-wired schools. Which isn't to say that the network was totally unrestricted - there were bandwidth caps on traffic going through all the popular filesharing ports, for example, and all non-port-80 traffic in the dorms was restricted during peak hours.
I have seen such policies on computer labs (with the understanding that e-mail is okay), and that does make sense.
Re:wouldn't it be simpler (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:WiFi. The 3rd Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod the parrent down as a troll... nothing to see here.
I love it. Pure, honest intellectual fascism. Basically, you say "Your suggestion is impractical, so you should be modded down, and nobody should even see your idea."
I don't have any problems with your objections to his idea, but why insist that he should be modded troll for saying something that you disagree with?
Re:WiFi. The 3rd Internet (Score:4, Informative)
Encrypt everything (Score:5, Informative)
No man is an encryption island (Score:3, Informative)
I use GPG. Nobody else that I know does, and so I cannot encrypt email to them.
How many people really use WASTE?
As for AIM encryption, how many people are using gaim, have the encryption plugin compiled in (which frequently doesn't work with the latest version of gaim), and don't mind the occasional compatibility problems the encryption plugin causes with other AIM clients? I've come to the conclusion that the *only* instant-messaging protocol that I know
Re:Encrypt everything (Score:3, Informative)
How many "encrypted" file-sharing tools are there?
* Waste [sf.net]
* Mnet [sf.net]
* Freenet
* Entropy
From what I know most of these are either not very popular (Waste, Mnet) or not suited to distribute large files (Freenet, Entropy).
Am I misinformed?
Re:Encrypt everything (Score:3, Informative)
Looks promising but not ready for primetime yet.
already illegal to use encryption in one media.. (Score:3, Informative)
*But*, we are *always* under several overlapping "states of emergency"(one of the main reasons we do not have constitutional government-side isue), YET they still bust microbroadcasters whenever they feel like it for not having their license or paying their fees. In short, liars.
See, their laws mean
the death of a thousand cuts (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, is this RIAA-only songs being blocked, or other songs? Copyrighted doesn't always mean "undistributable". Someone may hold the copyright to something but may actually let people distribute it-- am I wrong there?
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Informative)
No, you are correct.
I write 'music'. I legally own the copyright, but for the most part I give it away free. Eventually going to press a CD or two but I'd prefer people listen to it, and that does mean filesharing is fine :)
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
No, dude. This actually looks at the sounds of files being transferred and compares them to an existing database of songs. It's not as simple as adding random characters.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
what about my copyright? (Score:5, Insightful)
'finger print' (Score:5, Interesting)
If I send my friend an mp3 of me playing some music how can it tell that from me sending a copyrighted work? Is it reading the 'finger print' and then checking byte by byte? Isn't that going to kill traffic... But couldn't it be beaten by adding one extra byte to the file? Sending in another format?
Re:'finger print' (Score:3, Insightful)
Supossidly it uses a technique called, Mel-Filtered Cepstral Coefficients to look for patterns in the audio output of the file. that is they dont check-sum the file, they play the file, and use there fingerprint technology on the way the file sounds when it is played.
This still has many problems. As other posters already pointed out, encrypting, archiveing, or simply renaming the extension of the content, would make it difficult to find. Unless of course,
Re:'finger print' (Score:3, Insightful)
MY Rights?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny, on slashdot GPL violators are on step below Charles Manson, while copyright infringers of music, movies, and software are somewhere below jaywalkers.
Re:MY Rights?? (Score:3, Funny)
When the internet was invented.
Re:MY Rights?? (Score:3)
Re:MY Rights?? (Score:3, Insightful)
When did trading copyrighted music online become one of my "rights"?
I think the fair question is, when did you lose the right to trade copyrighted music online? Especially under circumstances that are already allowed by Fair Use?
Re:MY Rights?? (Score:5, Insightful)
That depends on what you mean by "trade". If you're talking about allowing anonymous strangers to make complete copies of songs from your computer that are copyrighted and not authorized for this kind of distribution by the copyright holder, then you never had that right. There is no such right. The rights belong to the copyright holder, except for fair use. Allowing unlimited copies to be made for free and given to anonymous individuals is not fair use.
Maybe the song is copyrighted, but the copyright holder has authorized free online copying of the song. Maybe you know the person you're giving the copy to, and you know 100% for sure that they have a legal license to that song, such as from owning a CD. Those are mitigating circumstances.
Just because it's easy to commit a crime doesn't make it not a crime anymore. Little old ladies don't fight back as much big beefy ex-cons when you try to mug them, but that doesn't make it less illegal, or less wrong. It just makes it easier.
Re:MY Rights?? (Score:3, Informative)
1) It could be paid for (iTunes or by tax on recordable media).
2) The copyright holder could wish for the file to be openly shared.
3) The copyrighted music has already been purchased on other media.
Re:MY Rights?? (Score:5, Insightful)
If a company puts GPL'd code in their (closed) product, they save the money they otherwise would have had to spend to pay programmers to write equivalent code. If you copy music, you save the money you otherwise would have had to spend to buy it at a store. These are more similar than you seem to be willing to acknowledge.
Re:MY Rights?? (Score:4, Insightful)
That is not similiar. If I downloaded copyrighted music, and then incorporated that music into my own music for resale, then I would be committing an equivalent violation. Using downloaded music as an 'enterainment tool' is comparable to a company downloading GPL software for internal company use.
It's just a bad analogy, either way.
===---===
Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Umm... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Umm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Except of course, that if they did that, there's a danger that they'll become liable for the content of the information that's passing through. This arose before when it went to the courts as to whether ISPs are liable when their accountholders harbor kiddie porn on the IS
Stenography (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Stenography (Score:5, Funny)
I think you're on to something here. Writing all of your songs in shorthand, scanning them, then emailing the resulting tiff files will prove no match for this anti-filesharing initiative.
How will this work any better than spam filters? (Score:5, Interesting)
"seeking audio "fingerprints" that could be compared with information in Audible Magic's database."
We've tried database-oriented filters to stop spam in the form of keyword lists and the like for years, yet spam is more of a problem today than it was 5 years ago. Why won't the same techniques that let spam slip past our filters let content slip past these filters? Add a byte here or there, run a very light encryption routine over a file and bam - one broken filter.
Even if the networks that use encryption in the protocol itself are stopped - encryption on the file level can be used on insecure networks and this software becomes useless.
Josh
Re:How will this work any better than spam filters (Score:4, Insightful)
Will it look inside... (Score:3, Insightful)
someone will use this for sure (Score:3, Interesting)
The university I attend has explicit privacy rules, available for everyone to read. If I recall correctly this sort of thing would violate those rights awarded by the school and as soon as someone brings it up it'll disappear.
Re:someone will use this for sure (Score:4, Interesting)
so archive it (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright-status repository? (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's the problem: how do RIAA and MPAA distinguish, legally, between copyrighted material that is permitted (fair-use), and that which is not? I'm talking about articles, fair-use media vs. illegal-to-distribute-or-possess copyright media. How do these watchdogs inform the public of such differences? The onus is truly on the RIAA/MPAA if you ask me. The story, strangely, is "Copyright © 2004 CNET Networks, Inc. All Rights Reserved," which begs to question... how can a twelve-year-old truly understand this discombobulated law?
That's the problem with the whole thrust of the RIAA argument against P2P (that the illegal trading of this copyrighted material hurts business). What about Internet articles? These articles are copyrighted works, published to the Internet by their respective owners, but quite often articles are mirrored by websites like Slashdot. Sometimes the copyright owners like this mirroring, and other times they do not (they seem to flip flop on it, depending on the source). Therefore, the lack of consistancy *should* make it extremely difficult to win a copyright case, although somehow the owners always win.
IANAL, yet my argument is that two distinct laws ought govern copy protection, because this fork-in-the-road is quite ambiguous. Firstly, how are any of us to know the status of copyrighted materials downloaded? What if we download a song over P2P, expecting the song to be one of the songs that are fair-use, and we pass the song along to a ton of other people? Secondly, how do we distinguish between the legality copyrighted articles that are online and music, and the fair-use music?
Because there exists no truly accurate copyright-status repository, I think all the people under suit from a watchdog might have some ammunition.Without a bona fide/impartial database of illegal filenames and md5 checksums to verify your current P2P files, how can you be responsible for these files?
Furthermore, if you downloaded a song from P2P, you should legally be able to upload it back to that P2P, if you truly believed the files to be fair-use, which could truly be any file.
Re:Copyright-status repository? (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot doesn't mirror anything, it just links to the article at source. The reason for that is copyright - slashdot doesn't have permission to mirror the article. Stuff published on the net is still copyrighted unless specifically mark as being public domain.
Linking to an article in no way copies it, and so cannot be prevented by copyright law. There is no inconsistency here - if slashdot copied the article verbatim and hosted it on their own s
Stopping secure transmissions (Score:3, Insightful)
As for looking into email, sheesh! Public key encryption will avoid that, and any attempt to block those types of communications would be rather stupid and overreaching.
This will work for about ten seconds (Score:5, Interesting)
Never underestimate the power of broke, bored, determined college students.
RTFA, - Geez.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Ikezoye said he still has not demonstrated the technology for the peer-to-peer companies.
This brings up a ton of questions:
- What are they looking for in the content of P2P traffic?
- What defines copyrighted or 'controlled' material? Bootlegs won't be in there...
- If it ain't installed in the client, where is it installed?
- Will this work on server based P2P like soulseek?
- What possible gain is to be had by filtering this?
Studies have already shown that CD sales increase where there is a market of 'try before you buy'. (Australia, for example) When is the RIAA going to wake up and realize that the biggest marketing tool in history is at their command and they don't have to do a damn thing to prevent it?
Radio killed the vinyl star? Nope.
Video killed the radio star? Um, nope.
MP3 killed the video star? Maybe, but absolutely to the artists' benefit and not some fat f*ck from Clear Channel.
Filtering is way too invasive to even be considered an option. Sheesh.
Legal P2P? (Score:3, Insightful)
All it would take is some authorizing legislation, and every time a P2P song passes through the toll booth, a few pennies (quanity specified in the law) get transfered to the song owner. Those pennies can either be asorbed by the ISP as part of their service, or they can pass it along to the customer as part of their bill.
There you go. If it can block it, it can log it too...
The more you tighten your grip... (Score:3, Funny)
What about fair use and off-site backups? (Score:3, Insightful)
So this software would make backing up your data illegal? I have all my CDs ripped, and I ftp them to another drive at another location frequently. This would stop any student from sending any of his MP3's to a computer at home for back up. That sounds fair.
Carnivore? (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to work for Palisade... (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, I should say when they stole PacketHound, since it was actually created by a coworker in his off hours, outside of Palisade. The CEO at the time fired this guy and sued the developer to gain the rights to PacketHound. Kind of ironic that they stole something that is supposed to prevent stealing!
Like Palisade's original product, called ScreenDoor, PacketHound is just a packet sniffer that sends out TCP RST packets to disrupt connections. Palisade (and Iowa State University) actually have a patent [uspto.gov] on this, even though there have been firewalls and other programs (like Snort) which do the same thing, and predate the patent.
Palisade itself is a tiny company that is milking this one patent/idea for most of its products. But they are somehow good at getting press...
how about... pu the tech to some good use. (Score:3, Insightful)
anyway, that's not my point, I think it would be good idea if people can change the software slightly so that it block different thing, *cough*spam*cough*, it might be more constructive than blocking `any` kind of copyrighted material. Well of course, it would be nice there is no censoring of information, but we are too far away from that.
if you like this, thank you. If you don't, sorry I took your time to read this.
This is just going to become a cycle... (Score:4, Insightful)
Music is shared. The industry finds way to block it, but in doing so pisses people off. New P2P app. Random corporate ups ante, finds new way to find out identity of P2P user. New P2P program that blocks ID. People post about it on slashdot. People make funny comments, and get modded up. Piracy increases, RIAA makes new blocking program. Cowboy Oneal finally decides that he's sick of it all and declares a ban on P2P relating articles.
Anyways, down to real business: The more people try to stop people from downloading files, the more it becomes damaging to themselves. Not only are they blowing money on quick fix solutions that do nothing but piss people off and force them to resort to other methods, but in the end their problem is that people are going to download their crap no matter what. If they stop them from downloading, they sure as hell won't buy it, so they might as well let them be.
Now, I'm not saying that's the right solution, or there is a solution, but I think trying to stop it and potentially messing people up all over the board is just a haphazard and dangerous way of doing things. Go back to the drawing board... And as much as I hate to admit it, but I feel by the time they solve P2P, Mac will be in control of the market, we'll be insectoid alien slaves, and Elvis will have returned, and will have posted a story on the truth about aliens here.
Didn't they raise a stink about.... (Score:3, Insightful)
FUD off
At least not going to college anymore, I don't (for now) have to worry about this. What I can see is this software is automaticly presuming you are guilty of music swapping, and searching your e-mail without due process (BTW, IANAL)
If the courts want to use an e-mail as evidence, do they not have to get a warrant? Why should this be any different?
harumph.
Jason A.
As long s there's a network connection... (Score:3, Informative)
... this software cannot block file sharing.
If I decide to encode a song as a text file containing the bit-string of a song and slap that on a web server, what is this software going to do? Oh, sure, the size of that MP3 just jumped by a factor of sizeof(char), but its out there. Maybe it'll be smar t and read the first X bytes of any file it passes? What if the file is multiple parts? I can serve it on my web server. I can toss it up on NNTP.
In short, the only way this software can stop filesharing is to block the network connection entirely. This is perfectly obvious even to a dimwit like me.
Maybe try the obverse (Score:3, Interesting)
The wargame company that makes Combat Mission does this to their save game files. The files are encoded not encrypted and the data read in/out into the file is true plain text, but unreadable. You cannot tell this is an encoded file by any means I am aware, but the file loads up smoothly and quickly.
Seems to me iffin you wanted to defeat this new drive to invade privacy, making a software module that will allow you to store and transport music (and many other kinds of files as well ) files as plain text would be a tremendous blow to those efforts.
Fan Mail (Score:4, Interesting)
Check out his senate testimony [64.233.167.104](Google Cache). This guy makes a living spooking the spooks.
Legitimate sharing of copyrighted works (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, my... Where to *start*... (Score:3, Interesting)
How, exactly, does a remote program ruffle through my files without my permission, anyway? Mandated backdoors? Screw them.
If it looks for an audio "fingerprint," how will it react if some 10-year-old wrote a 5K program to insert a random byte every N bytes of the MP3 (or any file)? If I do something as idiotic as flipping all the bits? The ways to foil things that search based on fingerprints are too many to name.
Who the hell gave you permission to look at my private e-mails? Oh, yeah... I DIDN'T!
Amendment IV: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
How exactly will it react to a file named "Britney-Spears.mp3" that contains nothing but static? Did I mention the violation of privacy?
They've already admitted that it's completely impotent against encrypted traffic, and there are already encrypted p2p clients.
For the love of God, don't these control freaks realize when they're beaten?
OK, I think I've got most of the obvious replies out of the way. It's obvious that the current control freaks "up there" see the Internet, and realize quite well what it can and will do them if they can't nip it in it's budding stages. Kid yourself not: They will wage an all-out war against privacy on the Internet. And as always, all that is needed for evil to win is for good to do nothing.
Contact your congressperson. Have all your friends do the same. Snail-mail them. E-Mail them. Donate money to their campaigns. Get the word out!
Re:Eck (Score:4, Informative)
Basically all file sharing programs are blocked, along with all bittorrent (say goodbye to Linux ISO's and any other legitimate use) and most recently they've blocked off IRC. Yes, all of IRC. It still works on the campus wireless network, but you can't get any wireless signal in the dorms where these restrictions take place. As much as I love the dorm life, I'm getting an apartment next year.
So legal uses or not, if someone thinks it'll solve a problem, they don't care what else gets in the way.
Re:Eck (Score:2)
An artist can copyright his own work and choose to release it to the public under the terms he dictates. It's still copyrighted, he still owns the work, but it can still be legal to distribute it if the copyright owner says you can.
Re:Eck (Score:3, Informative)
seeking audio "fingerprints" that could be compared with information in Audible Magic's database
I think they will get a database from the RIAA of copyrighted songs to compare against. I doubt garage bands will be in the database.
JOIN THE RIAA TODAY! JUST FOUR EASY STEPS! (Score:5, Funny)
gathers GREEDY RECORD EXECUTIVES from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GREEDY RECORD EXECUTIVES.
Are you GREEDY [forbes.com]?
Are you a RECORD EXECUTIVE [cnn.com]?
Are you a GREEDY RECORD EXECUTIVE [riaa.com]?
If you answered "Yes" to all of the above questions, then RIAA (RECORDING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for!
Join RIAA (RECORDING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time RIAA member.
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Why not? It's quick and easy - only 4 simple steps!
First, you have to obtain a copy of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF METALLICA [metallica.com] and listen to it. (You can download the music (~280mb) using BitTorrent, by clicking here [idge.net].
Second, you need to succeed in posting an RIAA "first post" on slashdot.org [slashdot.org], a popular "news for thieves" website
Third, you need to join the official RIAA irc channel #RIAA on irc.riaa.com, and apply for membership.
Fourth, you need to pay the nonrefundable RIAA MEMBERSHIP FEE of FIVE MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS (US$5,000,000)
Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today!
If you are having trouble locating #RIAA, the official RECORDING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA irc channel, you might be on a wrong irc network. The correct network is lawsuitnet, and you can connect to irc.riaa.com as our official server. If you do not have an IRC client handy, you are free to use the RIAA Java IRC client by clicking here [nero-online.org].
If you have mod points and would like to support RIAA, please moderate this post up.
______________$*________________________________
| _____________&@_______________________._a,____ |
| _________._______a_______aj#0s_____aWY!400.___ |
| __ad#7!!*P____a.d_______#!-_#0i___.#!__W#0#___ |
| _j#'_.00#,___4#dP______j#,__0#Wi___*00P!_"#L,_ |
| _"#ga#9!01___"#01______"4Lj#!_4#g_________"01_ |
| __"#,_________*@`_________`___-!^_____________ |
| __#1_,%________$^_____________________________ |
| __J1__$%______________________________________ |
| __jk___58___RECORDING INDUSTRY_ASSOCIATION____ |
| _______________OF_AMERICA_____________________ |
| ______________________________________________ | (c) RIAA 2003, 2004 [idge.net]
` _______________________________________________'
Re:Oh, No! Not SSH?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
Simple. Ever heard of a man-in-the-middle? You make an SSH connection to a computer on the other side of this software. It detects you are using SSH, and steps in during the key negotiation protocol. Your client complains that the host key has changed. You either refuse the new host key and you're SOL, or you accept it and the software can s
Re:Slashdot: News for trolls. Stuff that's biased. (Score:5, Informative)
Bullshit.
Don't make the mistake of assuming all nations operate under the same set of laws.
According to the Copyright Board of Canada, downloading copyright files from P2P networks is completely legal, provided that the copying is done for private and noncommercial use. You don't even need to own the song in another format.
So yes, over a rather large percentage of the earth's total land area, it is a legal download.
Re:Slashdot: News for trolls. Stuff that's biased. (Score:4, Interesting)