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Censorship The Internet

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.
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Will ISP Web Content Filtering Continue To Grow?

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  • Rogers sucks. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheSpoom ( 715771 ) * <slashdot@uberm0OPENBSD0.net minus bsd> on Monday December 10, 2007 @05:03PM (#21647403) Homepage Journal
    Goddamn, I hate Rogers. At least they're being honest with their bandwidth caps now. Unfortunately, I find myself in the position of having to switch fairly soon to a cable-based service as the phone lines in this apartment are horribly old and low-quality. My experience with TekSavvy [teksavvy.com] has been great from a customer service standpoint but it seems any DSL line I get here will be subject to the same problems, problems my landlord is almost certainly not willing to fix.

    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.
    • Sooner or later the ISPS will start advertising "We dont restrict your usage, unlike ". The market competition will provide us net neutrality not government intervention
    • Barring the obvious censorship issues, who's to prevent Rogers from replacing, say, Google Adsense scripts with their own ads?

      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

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by CSMatt ( 1175471 )

      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

  • by zonky ( 1153039 )
    The code being appended breaking websites in some browsers? People disabling javascript?
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      It could be inserted as static text, preprocessed on their server side instead of a script appended to the page. That way the source would look just like Google had put it there themselves. I can't imagine that's legal, or at least I used to think that stuff wouldn't be legal.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      If I remember correctly a few ISPs were toying with the isea of actually rewriting webpage code, not just inserting a little javascript for flavoring. That's the problem. ISPs could modify web page code that isn't easily blocked without blocking the entire page. not really much is preventing them from inserting text-ads for example into a body of text on a web page.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Hatta ( 162192 )
        That would be great. Then everyone would have an incentive to use encryption by default.
      • by piojo ( 995934 ) on Monday December 10, 2007 @07:36PM (#21649413)

        If I remember correctly a few ISPs were toying with the isea of actually rewriting webpage code, not just inserting a little javascript for flavoring.
        Maybe I'm just being naive, but is there a reason that that wouldn't be a copyright violation? Creating and distributing a derivative work?
  • by R2.0 ( 532027 )
    Next Question?
    • Here you go (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pjt33 ( 739471 ) on Monday December 10, 2007 @06:07PM (#21648337)
      Will we see a trend towards major websites being served entirely over https?
  • I would love it if my ISP could just email me or text me to let me know of problems. With 90% of the cell phones out there capable of receiving texts and at least half capable of getting email it seems like the logical choice. Any ISP that dares to intrude on my web surfing will get the boot.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Stevecrox ( 962208 )
      90% of phones capable of receiving texts? Your kidding right? I remember the Nokia 5110 (basically a n402) was released in 1998 (I owned one on pay as you go then too) was capable of 192 charracter sms messaging, My Nan's BT Cellnet own brand analog phone (this predated both the digital antenna's and the GSM sim card standard) which she bought in 1996 was capable of supporting text messages and that was a cheap end phone. (it was still in use until O2 forced a discontinue of service on that model for techni
      • by rucs_hack ( 784150 ) on Monday December 10, 2007 @05:35PM (#21647873)
        Its always puzzled me why ISP's won't text you about network outages, filtering and bandwidth limitations.

        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.
        • Yes but after spending two hours trying to get a connection to work and anouther 40 minute phone call (my expearences with Tiscali) I'm now ready to tell everyone how much Tiscali as a broadband supplier suck. A text message telling me they have placed me on the secondary network which has crashed and may be down for three/four days would have gone slightly further towards softening my attitude about them, a text informing me my use was nearing the high end and much further use on my "unlimited" account wou
  • 1 Acronym (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    SSL
  • Sue 'em (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Asmor ( 775910 ) on Monday December 10, 2007 @05:09PM (#21647483) Homepage
    There should be no ambiguity here. They have no right to modify that information. What they are doing is tantamount to forgery, perjury and impersonation. Sue the hell out of them until they stop or go bankrupt.
  • What do you think? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mdm-adph ( 1030332 ) on Monday December 10, 2007 @05:09PM (#21647495)
    Get ready for the encrypted web.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      I would love to see end to end encryption become standard. I know that it creates overhead, and as the admin of several small websites, I know the implementation can take longer, but I would still like it to become standard.

      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?
      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Ephemeriis ( 315124 )

        I would love to see end to end encryption become standard. I know that it creates overhead, and as the admin of several small websites, I know the implementation can take longer, but I would still like it to become standard.

        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

  • Or power, for ego stroking?

    Answer those, and you have the answer to your question.

    • In 1999 after my wife graduated from college, she worked at a company called NTown Technologies in Knoxville, TN. They had a device that reconstructed the web pages of ISP users, and added a banner bar to the top of each page. The bar had links to email, a search box, and... a big area for banner ads.

      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
  • by davidwr ( 791652 ) on Monday December 10, 2007 @05:13PM (#21647555) Homepage Journal
    Sites that don't want to risk having their ads stripped or replaced will shift to SSL.

    When enough big-name sites do that the economic incentive to insert or replace ads will drop off.

    • SSL doesn't work with virtual hosting. That means each cert essentially needs it's own IP address. Since there's already somewhat of an IP address shortage (due to inefficient provisioning in the early days of the net), it may be awhile before this actually happens.

      Who knows, maybe it will be a driver, either for, or against IPv6

      • by davidwr ( 791652 )
        Many sites on the same IP can share the same certificate.

        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)

    by Ambiguous Coward ( 205751 ) on Monday December 10, 2007 @05:15PM (#21647581) Homepage
    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. Let's call what Comcast is doing by a more descriptive name. I propose Context Filtering. This way, we have QoS (throttling throughput while leaving it operational, etc.), Content-Filtering (watching the data going through and responding to the actual data) and Context-Filtering (watching the type of connection and reacting to that, such as SMTP connections, HTTP connections, BitTorrent connections, etc.) These terms are not interoperable, and shouldn't be treated as such.

    -G
    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by R2.0 ( 532027 )
      I propose a new terminology: Geraldine Job, named after the Lily Tomlin character.

      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."
    • 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

      • In regards to your three bullets, I agree. I actually added QoS as an aside, and it didn't really belong in my list. Your list is more correct, in laying out the three topics we all love to debate around here: content-filtering, context-filtering, and network neutrality.

        The big point I wanted to get across, though, is that these three terms are often used interchangeably, when they really ought'nt.

        -G
    • by ozbird ( 127571 )
      Let's call what Comcast is doing by a more descriptive name. I propose Context Filtering.

      Let's call a spade a spade here - it's a Denial of Service (DoS).
      • For the moment, I'm not concerned with the mechanism. Instead, let's all get on the same page about the essence of what they're doing, and then we can get get upset about how illegal their chosen method is. ;)

        -G
    • If the "type of connection" of BitTorrent is to be detected, you really have to watch the data going through. The same can be said for really anything other than reacting merely to the port number used.

      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.
    • by rtechie ( 244489 )

      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

  • You've Agreed To It (Score:5, Informative)

    by jcm ( 4767 ) * on Monday December 10, 2007 @05:22PM (#21647673) Homepage

    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.

    • by Todd Knarr ( 15451 ) on Monday December 10, 2007 @05:32PM (#21647843) Homepage

      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.".

      • Google caches pages, modifies them (puts a header at the top and highlights search terms within the pages) and distributes them to users. They also do language translations. I don't think Google wants to encourage the idea that this kind of activity requires permission.
        • 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

    • by Belial6 ( 794905 )
      Of course they don't get to make a contract with you that says they get to make derivative works from MY content. This isn't disagreeing with your post. Just pointing out that while your ISP can screw you, it is illegal for them to create derivative works that they have not contracted for without the copyright holders permission.
    • by kindbud ( 90044 )
      Also, realize that the ISP's will update it with nearly no notice.

      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 .html files being delivered to you.

      The meanings of the terms "adjustment," "your computer," "settings," and ".html files being delivered to you," that's what.
  • ... of course they will filter, censor and tell us what to do, think and believe. Thats what Freedom is all about!

  • by sed quid in infernos ( 1167989 ) on Monday December 10, 2007 @05:27PM (#21647757)
    Adding the header is making a derivative work of the original web page. So is substituting one add for another. I can't think of any reasonable fair use argument that would prevent this from being a copyright violation. The web sites visited by the ISP's subscribers likely have a cause of action against the ISP. And the ad substitution victims likely could prove significant damages.

    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.
    • That would be awesome, sue the ISPs for using your copyrighted page on the one they display with that message. Can the DMCA be of help here, where you have a front-end modification for a third party application?

      It wouldn't matter if it is opt-out or opt-in if the original site hasn't allowed the ISP to do this.

      • 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
    • by shking ( 125052 )
      Clearly, while Jim Prentice has talked to "many CEOs", about proposed changes to Canada's copyright law [slashdot.org], he forgot to consult Ted Rogers
    • And the ad substitution victims likely could prove significant damages.
      You'd hope that there's some kind of statuatory damages... kinda like the stat damages imposed on copyright infringement. Minimum $750 for a $1 song translates farely well to a $1 ad click.
  • I'd wager an underground modern BBS systems would start to popup again, if things get to far out of hand.

    Say hello to dial-up all over again!!
  • Copyright (Score:3, Informative)

    by Bogtha ( 906264 ) on Monday December 10, 2007 @05:28PM (#21647773)

    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.

  • by Vellmont ( 569020 ) on Monday December 10, 2007 @05:28PM (#21647777) Homepage
    Is the moment websites start going to all HTTPS.

    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.
    • by eth1 ( 94901 )
      Couldn't the ISPs get around that by adding a frameset, with their content in one frame and the https URL you requested in the other?
      • not if everything, including the URL you typed, was over HTTPS (and the SSL certificate matched up). they couldnt do anything to a request over HTTPS, except corrupt it.

        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.
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      I doubt this will stop ISPs for long. They'll likely just man-in-the-middle attack it. This has long been a weakness of public-key encryption and the reason that certificate authorities like Verisign were created to validate keys. The problem lies in the fact that ISPs control your communication with certificate authorities too. Theoretically, they can fool you into thinking whatever they want. How can you verify keys when all of your communications run through a single authority? Perhaps the only wea
    • Oh, sweet, I can't wait for the cost of SSL Certificates to skyrocket as a result. Then we'll start to see the spam for fake SSL Cert sites that sell "S.S_L C3r.ts for the lowE$t p.r1c es!"...
  • by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Monday December 10, 2007 @05:31PM (#21647823) Homepage Journal
    Well, it's almost the law, and proably will be soon enough, to require ISPs to spy on your every message, request and download.

    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.
    • Actually if anything it'll have the opposite effect on content monitoring and filtering. The SAFE act doesn't [arstechnica.com] require ISPs to monitor everything on their network and get fined if they don't report somebody. Instead it says *IF* they detect somebody looking at illegal images or something else covered in the act, and they fail to report it, then they can be fined. This means that the more monitoring an ISP does of the traffic, the more likely it is that they'll technically see something that should have be
      • Thank you for that excellent correction - complete with citation and insightful analysis. Now I can stop freaking out (to the degree...) and stop posting my freakouts.
      • FWIW, it just says any monitoring that turns up child porn has to report it. Which is still anti-American, forcing neighbors to report on each other to the cops, but since these "neighbors" are ISPs which don't report stuff like this at the rate that real neighbors would do voluntarily, it's an ethical conundrum.

        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
  • by lobStar ( 1103461 )
    Mirror of the hi-res picture: http://forum.pigvj.se/uploadfiler/37/rogers-google.jpg [pigvj.se] OK, i admit putting i there mostly to mess with my friends web hotel account. :)
  • Will your ISP censor or alter your web experience at will?

    What an innovative way to get me to switch to their biggest competitor. It's like anti-marketing, a novel approach to business.
     
  • For a VPS. It's a crude/expensive workaround, but it works. It sure sucks to pay an extra $15/mo for a server that I can use to do bittorrent without being throttled, and I ssh to it to establish a proxy connection for my web browsing.

    Too bad my area doesn't have non-sucky ISP like Speakeasy.
  • Remember that company that was selling "redacted" versions of movies? I think that they were some very religious Christian group that wanted to give their members a way to watch videos with the guts and gore and swearing edited out. From what I recall, they were rather ethical about it (the copyright side of things), purchasing one new copy of every movie for each redacted one that they sold.

    Now I may not agree that censoring movies like this is a good social move, but I am sympathetic to the idea. For pe
  • Encrypt everything. Someone more knowledgeable in the area can shed more light on this, but will any of this filtering software have any discernable effect if we encrypt all communications?
  • Once this takes hold, you can bet news and government intelligence apparatuses will exploit this to the hilt. Propaganda, revisionist history, and deception will gradually be used more than ever to manipulate the public (of any country, internal or external).

    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
  • Does Rogers lose common carrier status if they try this?
  • by glindsey ( 73730 ) on Monday December 10, 2007 @06:36PM (#21648699)
    I've really ENJOYED THE SAFETY I GET with web filtering. This sort of stuff has simply gone too NOT FAR ENOUGH. I'm so ABSOLUTELY CONTENT with Comcast, I'm going to go call them right now and VOLUNTARILY INCREASE THE AMOUNT I AM PAYING THEM, and I suggest that everybody else yell about HOW COMCASTIC THEIR SERVICE IS.

    Sincerely,

    SATISFIED CUSTOMER
  • We should send a strong and clear message that we do not want censorship of the internet by electing only politicians who support net neutrality and other anti-censorship and pro-rights measures. Dennis Kucinich is one candidate who does and who has a strong record of voting down other laws such as the Military Commissions act and the "thought crime" bill which is so loosely defined that peaceful protests could fall under its provisions.

    This filtering and modifications of internet traffic is no different th
  • ISps (Score:2, Funny)

    by Tailsfan ( 1200615 )
    Pleas don't be my ISP.
  • ECPA violation? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by anwyn ( 266338 )
    Will someone please explain to me why content modification is not a violation of the ECPA (Electronic Communications Privacy Act [gpo.gov]. Clearly to modify content, you first have to intercept it.

    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.

  • https - ssl (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Monday December 10, 2007 @09:46PM (#21650551)
    How about if connections are just switched over to https / ssl encryption technologies. Can you prepend to an encrypted page? How long before there's a FF plug-in to strip any non-encrypted element from a page? That kind of idea could stop this nonsense pretty quick.

    Also, does their extra crap count towards your bandwidth caps?

  • As an ISP myself, I think this is a fine idea. It doesn't change the original content of the page, and it's a great way to get a message to a user. For those of you who are not ISPs, it's important for you to understand that at times it is actually rather tough for an ISP to send a message to a customer reliably and quickly. We've tried e-mail, but some people don't check their mail or change their addresses without notice (often because they have revealed their addresses online and have gotten spammed to d
    • It doesn't change the original content of the page

      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.

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