Will ISP Web Content Filtering Continue To Grow? 239
unixluv writes to tell us that another ISP is testing web content filtering and content substitution software. One example sees a system message that is pre-pended to an existing web page. While it seems innocent enough, is this the wave of the future? Will your ISP censor or alter your web experience at will? There have been many instances of content filtering lately and it seems to be a popular idea on the other side of the fence.
Rogers sucks. (Score:5, Interesting)
I know about 3web but I've heard some fairly bad things as well. Can anyone recommend some non-DSL, high speed (5+ MBPS), preferably low-cost ISPs in the London, Ontario area?
On another note, I'm almost certain this is going to cause unforeseen problems for Rogers, or at least their customers. I'm glad I don't do tech support for them...
And as pointed out in TFA, this has some pretty evil possibilities. Barring the obvious censorship issues, who's to prevent Rogers from replacing, say, Google Adsense scripts with their own ads? They already do it with Bell ads on their digital cable. Don't believe me? If you have Rogers digital cable, you'll notice that there are some ads that play on every channel that has commercials. If you look closely at the start of these ads, you'll usually see about a half second of another ad, quickly replaced by the Rogers network-wide one. These preempted ads are usually for Bell ExpressVu, Rogers' main (satellite) competitor.
But, like most cable companies, they remain because they have a monopoly on the cable market. Ultimately, this is the problem that needs to be solved before the rest, and I don't see it happening any time soon.
All it takes is competetion (Score:2, Insightful)
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Google. IANAL so I don't know what legal angles they can take, but pulling that sort of reverse proxy meddling is probably at least a copyright violation. The Rogers reverse proxy server would have to download the Google or other content provider's page, strip out the ads and drop in their own. In other words, they're creating cached copies and modifying them to deliberately den
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And as pointed out in TFA, this has some pretty evil possibilities. Barring the obvious censorship issues, who's to prevent Rogers from replacing, say, Google Adsense scripts with their own ads? They already do it with Bell ads on their digital cable. Don't believe me? If you have Rogers digital cable, you'll notice that there are some ads that play on every channel that has commercials. If you look closely at the start of these ads, you'll usually see about a half second of another ad, quickly replaced by the Rogers network-wide one. These preempted ads are usually for Bell ExpressVu, Rogers' main (satellite) competitor.
That's not unusual. My parents' cable company (JetBroadband [jetbroadband.com], small enough not to seem so much like an evil telco but just as annoying) recently started doing this on prime time channels to air their anti-piracy and anti-satellite ads. I believe that most of the time the ad covered up was an Enzyte commercial, which I'm all for not watching but their in-house ads are often times just as bad. However they also sometimes insert advertising for local businesses into the national channels, and they do let n
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That may be the solution, right there.
If the "free market" is working the way it's advertised, someone will come along set up an ISP that does NOT filter content or inject their own ads or throttle p2p or whatever, and customers will fly away from the restrictive ISPs and sign up with the "open" provider. It remains to be seen if this actually happens. It's my theory that the "free market" is just some bogus concept taugh
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If the "free market" is working the way it's advertised, someone will come along set up an ISP that does NOT filter content or inject their own ads or throttle p2p or whatever, and customers will fly away from the restrictive ISPs and sign up with the "open" provider. It remains to be seen if this actually happens. It's my theory that the "free market" is just some bogus concept taught in econ schools to support the corporate plutocracy, so if I'm correct, there won't be a sudden insurgence of competitors in the ISP space.
The market only fails here because the ISPs (exluding dial-up and satellite providers which will probably never provide a decent alternative) have a local monopoly over their respective area. The FCC's decision to end exclusive cable contracts with apartments helps a little, but ultimately it does nothing for everyone who does not live in an apartment or for cities where there is no competitor at all. I also wouldn't be surprised if the ISPs have their own secret cartel, since for the above reasons there
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Also the "I"SP is also the distributed Internet1.0 access provided by bridges at local wi-fi points.
-nB
Hmm. What's to stop (Score:2, Interesting)
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Re:Hmm. What's to stop (Score:4, Insightful)
Answer: Yes. (Score:2, Funny)
Here you go (Score:5, Insightful)
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Um, use email or texting (Score:2, Interesting)
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Re:Um, use email or texting (Score:5, Insightful)
For the same reason Water companies don't contact you and tell you about all the leaky water pipes in your area, they don't want to be sending negative news to everyone, it makes them look bad.
If they can blame you for breaking their terms and conditions, that makes you the bad guy, but if they sent a text telling you all the latest things they'd decided to not let you do, regardless of whether you were doing them, that makes them the bad guy, and customers would start leaving.
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1 Acronym (Score:2, Informative)
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MIMA
Man in the Middle Attack
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Before... what? (Score:2)
I'd assume Firefoy would warn me before installing an unsigned update, right?
Sue 'em (Score:5, Insightful)
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It sucks, but frankly the only way for regular people to actually fight big business is through the courts.
Re:Sue 'em (Score:5, Insightful)
Filing suit is part of the process of enforcing certain already-existing laws.
You might just as well say, "Instead of arresting people for everything, we could just make a law to prevent murder."
Regulation is a valid approach (Score:2)
As a hypothetical example I'll take food safety. With tort law, victims could sue for contaminated food; the regulatory approach might use inspections and licensing to stop the food from being distributed in the first place.
Each approach has its advantages. Tort law is more flexible and
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That law exists. It's called "copyright." It's typically enforced through lawsuits.
Re:Sue 'em: we *have* a law (Score:3, Insightful)
Whenever you see this happening, do a screen capture and a "save page" to preserve the evidence, and then notify the webmaster of the page whose copyright was infringed, suggesting that this someone is committing this felony infringement of their rights, and that they need to do something about it before the statute of limitations on such action expires.
What do you think? (Score:5, Insightful)
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The only way that ISPs could then exert control would be through messing with DNS records and redirects, which has far larger implementations. OpenDNS anyone?
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Agreed. I don't want anyone messing with my websites. If I load up Slashdot, I want to see what Slashdot published on their site. I don't want any additional banners/ads/whatever...I don't want text selectively changed... I want to see Slashdot. And when I publish a website I want t
Is there money to be made? (Score:2)
Answer those, and you have the answer to your question.
Not new! This existed in 1999! (Score:2)
The company's motto was "Bringing the Web Home" and they wanted to sell these boxes to ISPs around the country. The ISP would try to use the local paper's ad sales force to sell ads for internet viewers, the
Sites that don't want to be filtered will go SSL (Score:4, Insightful)
When enough big-name sites do that the economic incentive to insert or replace ads will drop off.
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Who knows, maybe it will be a driver, either for, or against IPv6
It does and it doesn't (Score:2, Interesting)
This opens up a new marketing tool for low-cost virtual hosting providers:
"Do you want people to see your site as you intended? Use https: and automatically get our ACME SSL certificate."
Put verbage on the web site and the certificate to confirm to end-users it's legit so they don't panic.
!Content-Filtering (Score:5, Informative)
-G
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Basically, Comcast is listening to your conversation, deciding that it is going on too long and/or you are talking about something they don't like, and pulling the 1/4" plug, forcing you to repeat the call. And then doing it again.
Don't like it? "Sorry, we're the ISP - we don't have to care."
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-G
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Just to be clear, what Comcast has been caught at is not content-filtering. They have been breaking connections based on the *type of the connection*, not the content contained therein.
Actually, we don't know the criteria they are using. We know they're breaking bit torrent connections, but it is unclear if it is all bit torrent, or just a subset. Do they take into account the source and destination of the connection? Do they take into account other characteristics?
I should really now the answer to these questions and I'll ask some people who should know. Up until very recently I worked for the company that supplies Comcast with some of their traffic shaping tools which they are proba
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The big point I wanted to get across, though, is that these three terms are often used interchangeably, when they really ought'nt.
-G
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Let's call a spade a spade here - it's a Denial of Service (DoS).
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-G
Close enough. (Score:2)
That said, what Comcast is doing, if I remember, is actually based on nothing more than the total number of TCP connections. Thus, you actually can run BitTorrent just fine, so long as you limit the max number of connections to something reasonable.
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Just to be clear, what Comcast has been caught at is not content-filtering. They have been breaking connections based on the *type of the connection*, not the content contained therein.
This is partially correct. COMCAST IS NOT CONTENT FILTERING. What they have done is install boxes that send TCP RSTs to any host a customer tries to connect to above a certain threshold. This was intended to catch Bittorrent (which uses protocol encryption and random ports), but catches ANYTHING that makes a lot of TCP connections, like Lotus Notes and VPN tunneling.
So Comcast isn't really doing "context filtering" either. I'd call it "crude bandwidth throttling".
This is very bad behavior on the part of Co
Re:!Content-Filtering (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, content-filtering and context-filtering are two completely different issues. With the former, I can't see any way you can claim common-carrier status. With the latter, I'm not sure yet. For instance, if I'm a common carrier, I'm pretty sure I'm still allowed to pick what *kind* of things I carry. I am under no requirement, for instance, to support carrier-pigeons on my network. Likewise, I may be under no compulsion to support bittorrent transfers on my network. On the other hand, I *am* supporting TCP/IP traffic, so it seems I should support *all* TCP/IP traffic, provided it conforms to the spec I am claiming to support.
So, by that logic, anyone claiming common-carrier status (i.e. Comcast) should not be allowed to perform content- or context-filtering. The problem is getting them to define what context(s) they carry. I have no doubt that if it came down to that, Comcast would *not* claim to be a common carrier of the TCP/IP context. They would instead claim far more specific contexts, such as SMPT, HTTP, etc.
All of that aside, I think it's bullshit and Comcast should have their feet put to the coals for the fraudulent data they're transferring. They are actively performing a man-in-the-middle attack on those whose traffic they are supposedly neutrally transferring.
Long story short--and I apologize for all the rambling above--it matters what you call it because that changes what bullshit excuse will be used in court.
-G
You've Agreed To It (Score:5, Informative)
Each person should review the Terms of Service (ToS) they accepted (and most likely continue accept each time they use their Internet connection) and look to see what is stated there. Also, realize that the ISP's will update it with nearly no notice. Inside of those agreements that you agree to generally through your use of their services you'll find all kinds of interesting things. For example, here is some relevant quotes from Verizon's ToS [verizon.net] in Section 14.4:
"You hereby consent to Verizon's monitoring of your Internet connection and network performance, and the access to and adjustment of your computer settings, as they relate to the Service, Software, or other services, which we may offer from time to time."
Who is to say that "adjustment of your computer settings" doesn't include adjustment of .html files being delivered to you. Oh and just in case that wasn't strong enough, in Section 15.8 you get:
"15.8 You agree that Verizon assumes no responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, quality completeness, usefulness or value of any Content, data, documents, graphics, images, information, advice, or opinion contained in any emails, message boards, chat rooms or community services, or in any other public services, and does not endorse any advice or opinion contained therein. Verizon does not monitor or control such services, although we reserve the right to do so. Verizon may take any action we deem appropriate, in our sole discretion, to maintain the high quality of our Service and to protect others and ourselves."
Similar allowances are inComcast's Acceptable Use Policy [comcast.net]. Basically, folks have to understand what they are signing up for and how often it can change.
There are companies out there today, Phorm [phorm.com] for example, who already are working with ISPs around the world in order to put their gear in the ISP networks to create targeting advertising based on all Internet habits, not just specific sites with specific cookies or the like. So far they all seem to be giving you an ability to Opt Out, but that appears to be a way to create good will for the moment. If there was case law backing them up, who knows if they'd continue the practice.
Re:You've Agreed To It (Score:5, Interesting)
Except that Google (in this case) hasn't agreed to those Terms of Service and isn't bound by them. It'd be interesting to see the response to a statement like this from Google: "We grant an implicit license to ISPs to make unmodified copies of our pages on their cache servers and distribute them. We do not grant any license, implicit or explicit, to create derivative works by modifying our pages beyond the boundaries of fair use. We remind ISPs that making and distributing copies of a copyrighted work, or making and distributing a derivative work based on a copyrighted work, without a license from the copyright holder constitutes copyright infringement. We also remind them of the consequences if the PRO-IP Act currently under consideration in Congress passes.".
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Hence why "beyond fair use". Google's header on the cached pages indicates that this is not the original copy and provides a link to the original copy. This is basic attribution, and attribution is not just allowed but required when presenting someone else's material. The highlighting of search terms would, IMO, fall within fair use. Rogers, by contrast, is including a header that has nothing to do with attribution and isn't in any way related to why the user requested the page in the first place, plus they
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What comes from Google that isn't either a) copyrighted by Google or b) fair use? Google returns a list of links to pages (the existence of a page at a URL is a fact, not copyrightable expression), a brief excerpt from the page (fair use considering the context, given that the excerpt is almost always no more than a single sentence) and a bunch of advertisements (copyrighted to Google or to the people who created and placed the ads). Google's image thumbnails on their image search page have been ruled in co
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All the ads on Google's pages are served by Google and placed there by Google's ad-service customers. Copyright wouldn't be a problem there.
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I update the TOS with no notice, too. Like me, they do not seem to notice or care that unilateral changes have been made to the TOS.
Who is to say that "adjustment of your computer settings" doesn't include adjustment of
The meanings of the terms "adjustment," "your computer," "settings," and ".html files being delivered to you," that's what.
Hey, This is America.... (Score:2)
This is almost certainly a copyright violation (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't fully thought through the contractual implications of this yet (as between the ISP and the ISP's subscribers), but there's almost certainly something there, too.
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It wouldn't matter if it is opt-out or opt-in if the original site hasn't allowed the ISP to do this.
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The DMCA would be "of help" here only in that it would be able to give someone at the ISP a huge fine and possibly jail time for what otherwise was, and is, *already* illegal under existing copyright laws.
The ISP is not reverse-engineering or breaking encryption. They are reading your packets, changing the content, and presenting the end user with content generated by a 3rd party (here, Google) while representing it as their own (powered by SuperISP(tm) at the bottom of the page) or as unmodified (replacin
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Dont trash that yet! (Score:2)
Say hello to dial-up all over again!!
Copyright (Score:3, Informative)
The reason why ISPs can get away with copying resources into their caches is because they are "incidental copies", where permission for copying is implied for the purpose of normal operation. Web developers can apply Cache-Control: no-transform [ietf.org] to indicate that changes of this nature should not take place. It seems to me that any ISP that alters such pages would be creating unauthorised derivative works and permission would not be implied to copy, thus making them guilty of copyright infringement.
The moment after this becomes fairly common. (Score:4, Insightful)
I kind of doubt anyone likes their website to have content in it inserted by an ISP. The big sites like Yahoo, Ebay, Amazon, etc, will just turn on HTTPS for all content. The only reason they haven't done it yet is because there's little reason to do so, and it takes some extra processing time.
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if, however, you type in http://www.google.com/ [google.com] and that site is supposed to redirect you to https://www.google.com/ [google.com] they could change that first HTTP page to have a frameset and put their ads in.
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Not Just a Bad Idea: IT'S THE LAW (Score:3, Informative)
The House just passed the "SAFE Act" [cbs4denver.com] to force all ISPs to take responsibility for all content they host or transport, even if they don't moderate it, in direct contradiction of the landmark CDA [wikipedia.org] which let ISPs be like telcos always have. Lots of child molesters trap children in telephone conversations, but the telco has no liability. Because holding them responsible requires tapping every conversation, which is what the SAFE Act (not the one with the same name that sanely deregulated crypto export) now does: forces ISPs to monitor and analyze the content of your every Internet communication.
When the Senate passes it, then the president signs it, every ISP will be forced to spy on your every online move (just like the government does - hi, Dick!). Just the threat of enforcement will be enough to get ISPs to do whatever the government wants.
And the law makes it a worse idea (Score:3, Insightful)
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If the government investigated the reports by looking more carefully at the reported transactions, without disturbing anyone, quickly, dismissed any that weren't actually evidence of a crime, and qu
Mirror of the picture (Score:2, Informative)
How cool is that? (Score:2)
I had enough, so I wound up paying more money... (Score:2)
Too bad my area doesn't have non-sucky ISP like Speakeasy.
This reminds me of... (Score:2)
Now I may not agree that censoring movies like this is a good social move, but I am sympathetic to the idea. For pe
Isn't there a simple solution to all this? (Score:2)
That's easy (Score:2)
Content Substitution... (Score:2)
Just look at how recently we find the current cadge/cabal in the white house has manipulated fact to bring about world disfavor upon Iran, which the UN and other agencies (even US intel agencies) now claim is not so badly outside of the line when it com
Loss of Common Carrier Status (Score:2)
This is complete bullEXCELLENT (Score:5, Funny)
Sincerely,
SATISFIED CUSTOMER
Vote only for politician supports net neutrality (Score:2)
This filtering and modifications of internet traffic is no different th
ISps (Score:2, Funny)
ECPA violation? (Score:2, Interesting)
Also as others have suggested, even if the ECPA could be waived by contract, this should violate the copyright holder's copyright. The copyright holder is not a party to any agreement between the user and ISP.
Will ISP Web Content Filtering Continue to Grow? (Score:2)
https - ssl (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, does their extra crap count towards your bandwidth caps?
What they're doing is actually a fine idea! (Score:2)
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What controls do you have to ensure that you're not screwing up some automated data transfer that uses HTTP?
This sounds an awful lot like what Verisign/NetworkSolutions did with their DNS typosquatting debacle.
Nice Rant... BUT (Score:2)
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Re:Fuck You America! (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a clue: "America" (people in America) did invent the Internet [wikipedia.org], a substantial part of the computer [wikipedia.org], the light bulb [wikipedia.org], the telephone [wikipedia.org] ... not quite ad infinitum. America did not invent everything, not even a majority of things, but American inventors certainly did invent a huge fraction of things invented since 1776.
If you are going to throw an irrelevant troll rant, at least get your facts straight :-)
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Re:The market will decide. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you really believe the free market is at work in the telecom industry? In most places in the US people have zero, one, or two options for broadband network access and that is unlikely to change anytime soon. As a result, we don't have the many competitors required for the free market, we have a cartel, with most major players having been convicted of undermining the free market at one point or another. New players cannot enter because legal restrictions on the use of the last mile, public right of ways, licensed to only one cable and one phone operator. New players are also disadvantaged because while the government ate the costs of the initial telecoms, subsidizing them to the tune of billions, they won't do the same for anyone else, thus making it a very unfair playing field. Finally, peering agreements are great and all, but the free market cannot act though dozens of intermediaries and if filtering is being done by a network operator that has a peering agreement with someone who has a peering agreement with someone who has a peering agreement with someone you're doing business with, your dislike of the practice will never filter back to them through free market feedback and so nothing will get better.
Before you can expect the invisible hand of the market to act, you have to make sure that market meets the minimum criteria to qualify as a capitalist, free market, and the telecom industry is not even close.
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Imagine a non-net-savvy family who can choose the current web through "noneofmybusiness.net" or a filtered web with "safeandsecure.net". One of them offers unrestricted access and no guarantees. The other offers to screen out all known malware, spoof, scam and other undesirable sites. Who do you think they will pick?
Lets be honest, the web *is* full of sites, c
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No I don't. It's either Qwest or Cox here, neither of which have acceptable terms of service.
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How about sending an e-mail to the customer's mailbox, then? Just like my ISP does. And it's a lot less intrusive than modifying web pages.
How is that different? (Score:2)