Senator Proposes to Monitor All P2P Traffic for Illegal Files

mytrip writes "Senator Joe Biden (D-Del) has proposed an ambitious plan, costing on the order of $1 billion, aimed at curtailing illegal activities via P2P networks. His plan involves utilizing new software to monitor peer-to-peer traffic on an ongoing basis. 'At an afternoon Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing about child exploitation on the Internet, Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) said he was under the impression it's "pretty easy to pick out the person engaged in either transmitting or downloading violent scenes of rape, molestation" simply by looking at file names. He urged use of those techniques by investigators to help nab the most egregious offenders."

And people ask why I support Jesse Ventura?

[elrous0]

Republicans belong to big business and the wealthy. Democrats belong to trial lawyers and Hollywood. And BOTH of them want to spy on me, tell me what I can and can't do on the internet, and use the government to impose their interest groups' agendas on me by force. And between big business and Hollywood, they're both just *aching* to crack down on file sharing, DRM circumvention, or anything that doesn't make some studio money, prop up a lethagic music industry and their 80's-era Compact Discs, or protect an overextended movie industry and their overpriced "tentpole" movies.

Fuck them. Fuck them both.

Re:And people ask why I support Jesse Ventura?

[CogDissident]

So, he has a "unique serial number" that always identifies a computer. But won't tell anyone how he got it. I'm guessing that they're assuming a MAC address is unique, even though it can be spoofed.

In any case, all the more reason to use the TOR network.

Re:And people ask why I support Jesse Ventura?

[Firehed]

Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) said he was under the impression it's "pretty easy to pick out the person engaged in either transmitting or downloading violent scenes of rape, molestation" simply by looking at file names.

Does that quote suggest to you that he's technical enough to even know what a MAC address is, let alone know that it's spoofed with five seconds worth of work in the command prompt? People have of course screwed with filenames just to see what happens (much more in Kazaa/Limewire than Bit-torrent), probably to test Rule 34, with interesting results; more importantly, it shows that filenames are completely meaningless if you're looking to actually reveal content. In any case, just ticking the "encryption required" box in your torrent client solves that problem - and you can bet your ass that any sort of unique serial number would be the much more industry-standard (and equally absurd) IP address. You know - take the RIAA approach.

Re:

[CogDissident]

Actually, he is technical enough, or was briefed by his tech-team enough, to mention that IP addresses arn't the only things used, and are only associated with the time stamp of when they were used, and they subpoena the ISP for the info of that IP address at the time it was used.

Re:

[rocketPack]

Isn't it possible just to claim your wireless access point was left open and that someone else was using your wireless without your consent or knowledge? They can only prove it was your modem that transmitted the information, not the actual PC without doing a forensic hard disk analysis, right?

My router spoofs all my MACs and I've only got one IPA, so anyone using my router looks the same to the entire web.

Is this a plausible defense?

Re:

[ultranova]

As far as I know that defense probably wouldn't work. It's akin to leaving your gun on the kitchen table. In the US, the use of various tools implies knowledge & responsible handling. Unless you live in California where you can get away with anything.

What if I sell coffee out of my kitchen window ? Could I then claim to be an Internet Cafe, and not liable for my customer's actions ? Or is this yet another right which only companies over a certain size rather than real human beings have ?

Re:

[LucidBeast]

I agreed with you even before realizing I had read "wifi" as "wife".

Re:And people ask why I support Jesse Ventura?

[Dancindan84]

People have of course screwed with filenames just to see what happens (much more in Kazaa/Limewire than Bit-torrent), probably to test Rule 34, with interesting results;

Yeah, I love that bash.org entry too: http://bash.org/?572066 [bash.org]

Re:And people ask why I support Jesse Ventura?

[UncleTogie]

So change a few to "JoeBidenHavingSexWithPreteens.mpg" and watch the fun begin!

Re:And people ask why I support Jesse Ventura?

[clang_jangle]

I prefer "joe_biden_with_grandkids-EXTRA_HOTTT-XXXXX.mpg"

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

please don't use tor for downloading shit. you'll drive away all the exit nodes. setup a freenet node.

Re:

[Alarash]

MAC addresses don't go past the first network equipment (usually your router or switch). As far as I know there are only two ways of seeing the original MAC address : encapsulate the Ethernet frames, or directly ask the number from the NIC driver. Both are currently impossible to do in a passive way (ie: network probe or traffic filtering). You need a layer 7 tool to do that.

I don't think it's enforceable to require every single computer to have such a software (just to many of them, and too many versions)

Re:And people ask why I support Jesse Ventura?

[mastershake_phd]

Republicans belong to big business and the wealthy. Democrats belong to trial lawyers and Hollywood. And BOTH of them want to spy on me, tell me what I can and can't do everywhere, and use the government to impose their interest groups' agendas on me by force. And between big business and Hollywood, they're both just *aching* to crack down on file sharing, DRM circumvention, or anything that doesn't make some studio money, prop up a lethagic music industry and their 80's-era Compact Discs, or protect an overextended movie industry and their overpriced "tentpole" movies.

Fuck them. Fuck them both.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:

[Danny Rathjens]

This "fixed that for you" meme is quite obnoxious. Everything on the internet is archived and when you modify someone's quote to make it look like they said something other than what they actually said there is now a lie about what they said in the permanent record.

Re:

[neersign]

and both Reps and Dems continually find ways to waste my money and tax me more. Some of the things these people come up with is absolutely ridiculous. Did you know that in Maryland, our senate/congress just passed a very important bill to name our official state cake? Seriously. These people get payed with our tax dollars to sit in a room and discuss these things, and they just raised our state sales tax because they have so many more excellent things to talk about. Thank you for wasting my money, Gove

Re:And people ask why I support Jesse Ventura?

[porcupine8]

Dude, I would MUCH rather they sit around and name state cakes than pass laws like this.

FYI

[Dancindan84]

It's a lie...

Re:

[cjb658]

Billions? Bah, if China has already done it, it will be easy for us to reimplement their solution. After all, we get all our other stuff from China, why not our censorshi- loyalty enforcement facilitators.

Wait...no...Joe Biden is the best senator ever! I welcome our new censorship overlor...

NO CARRIER

Re:

[c00rdb]

Aside from the obvious issues in actually implementing this horrendous idea- I have to wonder since when is this the governments concern? Copyright infringement has always been a civil matter. I think this would be the same as the government monitoring the internet for libel against any citizens. It's ridiculous. The fact is our government is horribly run. Stuff like this really makes me angry. How about concentrating on saving money instead of inventing new taxes and new ways to monitor us. How about someo

Re:

[cayenne8]

"Aside from the obvious issues in actually implementing this horrendous idea- I have to wonder since when is this the governments concern? Copyright infringement has always been a civil matter. I think this would be the same as the government monitoring the internet for libel against any citizens. It's ridiculous. The fact is our government is horribly run. Stuff like this really makes me angry. How about concentrating on saving money instead of inventing new taxes and new ways to monitor us. How about some

This is not a law proposal, just loose talk

[dave1791]

So a senator said something stupid about a subject outside of his domain of expertise. Every slashdotter, if elected to the senate, would say stupid things about SOMETHING. This is not a proposal for a law, or Iâ(TM)d be seeing it on my opencongress.org feed. Just kindly wite to the man and inform him that within a week of any such law coming into play, P2P programs would be randomizing the filenames.

Re:

[tsotha]

This is a lot worse than someone talking out of school. He's proposing to snoop on every packet that wends its way through the intertubes. Did you see how he wants to catch videos of rapes and molestation? Do you believe that for one second, or do you think it's more likely they want to catch people downloading Rocky XXIII?

This is a "trial balloon". If he doesn't hear a lot of screaming you'll see it on your precious feed. Disgusting.

The payoff

[PoliTech]

Where's the payoff ... hmmmm let's see:

Biden pushed for passage of a bill known as the Combating Child Exploitation Act. It would authorize more than $1 billion over the next eight years to hire 250 new federal agents devoted to Internet crimes against children...

One billion dollars! (puts pinky to lower lip) I see the tip of an ice berg, but ok since ... "It's for the children"!

provide additional funding to regional computer forensics labs, and give out more federal grants to the regional Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task forces. The House of Representatives passed a companion bill in October.

Ah! The rest of the iceberg! Now how will we pay for it? [slashdot.org]

No matter that it cannot possibly work, it is for the children you see. So naturally if it's not working, we'll simply need to provide a bit more funding in this year's budget, and the next, and the next...

Re:And people ask why I support Jesse Ventura?

[MrMacman2u]

If you are implying that everyone is wealthy therefore everyone is Republican... I'd gladly claim to be a Republican if it automatically meant that $100 bills just start floating out of the sky and into my pocket.

No, I'm not a republican OR a democrat because I enjoy the process of THINKING too much to give it up.

Both parties of this bi-partisan country are corrupt, lazy, money grubbing, fear mongers and I refuse to vote for another piece of deadwood until there are people put up for election that are WORTH VOTING FOR and not one minute sooner.

We need to demolish the two-party system

[FatSean]

We need more parties. This huge nation is too diverse to fit into A or B, we need like 20 different parties! Unfortunately, there is little incentive to do this because the politicians who can make the change benefit way too much from the status quo.

I wonder if anyone has a viable stratergy for getting more parties into the mix.

I feel a strong affiliation to the beer and cartoon party.

Re:

[Sancho]

What will multiple parties do? It just means that whichever candidate wins the election will be less likely to match my views, or any other single person's views.

What we need is for the federal government to back off and give back some of the power that they've taken from the states. That way, we can move to the state which fits us best politically, and everyone's happy.

Re:We need to demolish the two-party system

[Alpha830RulZ]

Actually, just having three parties would change the political dynamic pretty dramatically. My Pol Sci professor described this as the Burger King Problem.

Visualize a small town, with one main street. A McDonalds comes into town, and locates at one end of the town, let's call it the east end.

Now let's say Burger King wants to come into the same town. Where is the most logical place for the BK to locate? Answer: right next to the McDonalds, on the side that is closer to the most people.

In politics we see this in the clustering of positions. It makes sens for the Democrats to be just slightly more liberal than the Republicans, so that they can capture the votes of people that are somewhat liberal republicans. If they adopt a very liberal stance, then there is no way of knowing how people in the middle will vote.

We see this in Hillary Clinton, who in other times might have been described as a moderate republican, by here views. This stance makes sense, so that she can capture the middle of the spectrum. We saw this in the last 7 years, as democrats scrambled to be almost as conservative as the republicans, because that is what made political sense.

If you have a third player in the mix, let alone many players, that destablizes this balance. Then you'll start seeing a spectrum of views, rather than polarized (abortion) or highly similar (war on terrorism) positions. It's just game theory, which seems to be the meme of the day.

Federalism

[bobbuck]

Wouldn't be easier to go back to limited government and federalism so that you don't have to weigh national security, education, transportation, health care, etc. when voting for a single office?

What you want would just result in tyranny by the largest plurality.

Re:And people ask why I support Jesse Ventura?

[TheSeventh]

The problem with this approach, is that you are sitting back and waiting for things to change. I don't like most things about how our government is run or the people who run it either, but I try to take a more pragmatic view of changing things.

This is also my disagreement with those supporting Ron Paul. Maybe he is the best candidate, and maybe everything would be better if he were elected, but he has literally no chance of becoming president, but a lot of his supporters talk of voting for him, instead of "throwing away your vote" on one of the 3 contenders.

So, voting for Ron Paul is not throwing away your vote, even though he can't win, and therefore, you still didn't vote for the winner of the election, and possibly helped one of the others get elected instead? I feel it necessary to vote for the lesser of 3 evils, at least so things can be BETTER than they are now. I would rather have my say in voting for someone who can win, than in voting for an ideal out of protest for the others.

It's sad, but these days more people need to vote AGAINST someone, than for someone. You don't want McCain to become president? Vote for the person running against him that can actually win. You don't like any of the three? Find the one you can deal with for the next four years and vote for that one.

Say my dream car was a really fast Ferrari, but I only had $5000 to spend and I don't have any current transportation. Should I put that money away and just wait until I had enough to buy it, (which may never happen), and not have any transportation? Or should I be more practical and find the best option available to me right now, so that I can drive to work, and get a better job that makes more money and maybe earn enough to buy the Ferrari?

It'd be great if I could have my ideal, but practicality limits reality.

Re:And people ask why I support Jesse Ventura?

[Arccot]

So, voting for Ron Paul is not throwing away your vote, even though he can't win, and therefore, you still didn't vote for the winner of the election, and possibly helped one of the others get elected instead? I feel it necessary to vote for the lesser of 3 evils, at least so things can be BETTER than they are now. It'd be great if I could have my ideal, but practicality limits reality.

Kinda true, kinda not. While I'm not a Ron Paul supporter, the idea works for any 3rd party candidate. The more support a third party candidate gets in the general election, the easier it is for the third party to compete in subsequent elections. The party gets federal matching funds for federal elections, an easier way to get on the ballot, and state benefits vary from state to state. So yes, voting for Ron Paul does make it more likely a third party will be able to rise out of obscurity, just not instantly.

It is POSSIBLE to bring up a third party, if not to compete with the Reps and Dems, then to replace one of them. We aren't still voting for Whigs, after all.

I personally think it would be easier to start a third party at the bottom, in local and regional elections, than to make a bid for the presidency. But you need to attempt both to get the word out.

Re:

[patrik]

Except.... Ron Paul is not a 3rd party candidate so any talk of supporting him to improve the LP party is complete crock. I guess he may still end up being the LP candidate but I doubt it for two reasons:

1) He seems to have strayed from what my (and I think many other's) vision of what Libertarian is i.e. he believes in State's Rights at the cost of citizen's rights. He either fails to see that the States and the Fed govt are both equally capable of evil, or he has another agenda. and

2) It would probably

Re:

[clickety6]

I feel it necessary to vote for the lesser of 3 evils, at least so things can be BETTER than they are now. I would rather have my say in voting for someone who can win, than in voting for an ideal out of protest for the others.

Sir, would you like your testicles served to you deep fried, boiled or shredded?

Not always easy to tell which is the lesser of the three evils ;-)

Re:And people ask why I support Jesse Ventura?

[Bryansix]

If you live in California it actually DOES make sense to vote for Ron Paul. Why you ask? Because it is a winner take all state and there is no way in hell that anybody except a democrat will take the state. So if you don't like the Democrat then you might as well vote for Ron Paul because your vote won't count for shit either way. A vote for Ron Paul or a vote for McCain is just as worthless but the Ron Paul vote sends a signal.

What you are pushing for is breaking democracy.

Re:

[Darby]

Well, there was one candidate who would have stood up for your rights. A real old school Republican too, which looks more like a Libertarian these messed up days.

The real old school Republicans are primarily the people who founded the Libertarian party when the Republicans turned down this road long long ago.

All the rest of them left the Republican party when that fascist monster Reagan was elected.

Ron Paul is a libertarian and has been for a long time.
He's nothing at all like a Republican as clearly demons

Re:SO... why do you support Jesse Ventura? (or, RT

[Stanislav_J]

Did you bother to read TFA? File sharing? DRM circumvention? hollywood/music industry??

The only thing that the FA mentions is child pornography, molestation, rape, abuse, etc. Not once do they speak about any of the illegal things you've mentioned.

I'll admit that I've a fear of a legitimate child-porn-tracking system being used to combat other activities, esp. for people in no way involved in such horrific fetishes, but that isn't the point of the system (as stated) that Biden wants.

Whenever law enforcement at any level says of a tactic or system or program, "Don't worry -- we're only going to use it to go after [insert category of criminals here]," always assume an unspoken "NOT" between "we're" and "only." Hello??? Patriot Act, anyone? Warrantless wiretaps? National Security Letters?

And I'm sure . . .

[base3]

. . . this dragnet surveillance "for the children" would never be used to enforce copyright. Right, Senator RIAA?

Biden's not Senator RIAA

[Reality Master 201]

He's the senator from MBNA and Citibank.

Totally different.

Re:And I'm sure . . .

[zappepcs]

You are exactly right in your suspicions, get ready for darknet p2p programs to start popping up all around us. When Mr. Biden asks what a darknet is, I hope he is summarily ejected from public office. Subsequent to this law, the information on the internet made available to share via darknets will in turn make its way to those who would share materials that are illegal, so the end result is nearly zero. Some idiots will always get caught, but they are just as likely to get caught without this law.

Anyone with his position should have enough intelligence to seek out smart people and see what can be done sensibly. Of course, all his intelligence is in his wallet; which is (un)fortunately under his ass most of the time.

It really is time to get rid of big business lobbyists. Their damage to the US is unfathomably huge. Time for open lobbying, not dissimilar to having to post your lobbying requests on the legislator's wiki site for all to see.

We need a LOT more transparency in the influences on legislators. Clearly.

This legislation is being promoted without clear evidence that it is needed. Where is the supporting evidence to show that this legislation will stop what it is intended to stop? How will it stop those from posting to the Internet from countries where the material is not illegal? There is no evidence to support it. If there is, the law is not needed. They can use the evidence they already have to arrest those guilty of the supposed crimes. Fucking idiots.

What an asshat. Yes, your child can click on the 'download britany spears' link and get childporn. Those filenames are ALWAYS accurate. Damn, even the **AA were using wrong filenames to spoil P2P sharing.

Re:

[computational super]

get ready for darknet p2p programs to start popping up all around us.

I wish I could share your optimism, but I doubt it. Freenet has been around for a long, long time (over 10 years now, I believe). It's barely usable because it depends on there being lots and lots of nodes - and why aren't there lots and lots of nodes? Because everybody's afraid of installing it since it might be used for illegal purposes! Nobody's willing to support truly workable anti-censorship measures because deep down, they support some censorship... which is unfortunate because you either allow

Re:And I'm sure . . .

[somersault]

pretty easy to pick out the person engaged in either transmitting or downloading violent scenes of rape, molestation

Would that also mean monitoring someone downloading, say.. The Sopranos, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, any hentai whatsoever.. and so on and so forth? :P

WHAT!?!

[Ceiynt]

pretty easy to pick out the person engaged in either transmitting or downloading violent scenes of rape, molestation" simply by looking at file names. Ok, so all my Metallica files will be relabled (Not Metallica_Not Illegal file_Ignore). That should keep the feds off me.

Re:

[Swizec]

Even though at first glance it might seem filenames aren't that important, it's actually a pretty good heuristic method to gauge what a file might contain.

This is because people are hardwired to organising their stuff. A filename by the name of "rapeMe" is far easier to find when you need id than the same file, but named "rU2:s" don't you think?

Now, since people are also lazy they forget to rename these files before transmiting them.

Sure, the method is not perfect and yes sooner or later filenames

Re:WHAT!?!

[LMacG]

Hmmmmm, what am I going to do with this file therapist.avi?

Re:WHAT!?!

[Cornflake917]

You shouldn't be downloading stuff from Sean Connery. I learned it the hard way when I downloaded analbumcover.avi.

Re:

[Entropius]

Congratulations, if this goes through and someone gets that job, we now have a new record-holder:

The Most Rickrolled Person In The World.

Re:

[somersault]

Uh oh, someone sent me Rape Me by Nirvana on Windows Live a few months ago... am I going to go to jail?

Re:WHAT!?!

[mwvdlee]

I propose using "JoeBiden_[number].jpg" as a generic filename for all pornographic material.

Re:WHAT!?!

[mwvdlee]

Perhaps we could just encode filenames in Joe/Biden binary.
A file named "nasty_barely_legal_sicko_porn.jpg" would become something like "JoeJoeBidenJoeBidenBidenJoeJoe BidenBidenJoeJoeJoeJoeBiden BidenBidenBidenJoeJoe BidenBidenBidenJoe JoeBidenBidenJoeJoeJoe
JoeBidenBidenJoeBidenBiden BidenJoeBidenJoeJoeJoeJoe JoeBidenJoeBidenBidenJoeJoe BidenBidenJoeJoeJoeJoeBiden BidenJoeBidenBidenBidenJoe.jpg".

Re:

[thynk]

News alert: Billion dollar federal monitoring program defeated by ROT13 file name encryption. Feds calling "ROT13" the worst thing to happen to national security since 9-11.

It's unfortunate that none of this Billion bucks they want to spend catching people who swap illegal porn will actually help any of the children who were abused and in reality, won't stop it from happening to other children. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I'm pretty sure this isn't it.

Tags

[Jaysyn]

I've never seen a better use for the "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag in my life.

Re:

[$RANDOMLUSER]

I think "peopleunclearontheconcept" is more like it.

"simply by looking at the filenames"


while (conscious)
      head->desk();

Re:Tags

[MozeeToby]

How about a new tag, maybe... naive. Seriously, the way the government does stuff it would cost a billion just to implement what he's proposing. And we all know that child porn addicts never use encryption or, God Forbid, change the name of the files from "kiddy porn101" to "my cool bands music".

Aw jeez Joe...

[beavis88]

And here I have been giving you credit for not being a total tool. How wrong I was...

Post Attachment: Cowboy_Neal_Riding_Congressman.jpg

I understand now

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand how these politicians can't get a handle on terrorism, crime, drugs etc.

They think the people that deal in them are as stupid as they themselves are.

What light through yonder window breaks? Tis the clarity of seeing people for what they truely are: idiots.

File names??

[ChuBie]

He wants the filtering done on file names?? Is he serious? That would be one of the easiest filters to get around.

Re:File names??

[somersault]

Uhh.. you can just hit Shift and lowercase s.. don't need to press shift 4 to get a capital S. Are you related to Twitter by any chance?

Re:

[db32]

No no no...where the hell have you been? The $ in M$, I$O, and $enator Biden are not meant to be S. Certain organizations and persons EARN the right to replace the boring S with an $ though blatant lies, manipulations, fraud, bribery, and thievery.

Slashdot, Somersault, Open Source are all non privilidged S users.

$C0 is actually a special case in that they earn the $ priviledge AND get to replace the O with a zero for being so failing so miserably at it.

Hmmm - just rename the files

[GuyverDH]

Give them all names like "Senator Joe Biden's Personal Photo and Video Stash.tbz"

Ponies, puppies, and pumpkin pie (R13 ;)

[BadAnalogyGuy]

encr, lbhgu, puvyq, nff, shpx, cvff, yvpx, gbegher, encr, crrcrr, qhatrba, fubj, gryy, gbhpu, gvr, ovaq, fgevc, fcnax, fyvpr, oyrrq, qevax, fvfgre, oebgure, 8, 11, wvmm, ovgpu, fhpx, onfu, xvyy

ugh

[jollyreaper]

I hate it when they can't keep the script straight. The dems are supposed to be the stupid ones, the republicans are supposed to be the evil ones. Quit horning in on their territory!

Re:

[wizkid]

I don't want to disappoint you, but stupidity is shared by both republicans and democrats these days. But then, so is greed which is part of the cause of the stupidity.

Wait wait...

[techpawn]

pretty easy to pick out the person engaged in either transmitting or downloading violent scenes of rape, molestation" simply by looking at file names

BWAHAHAHAHA! Oh? He's serious? Well, I guess Windows.exe is really used to let sunlight in my house, eh?

Filenames, eh?

[EricWright]

I see two approaches here... name every file you transmit a) fluffykitten.jpg or b) underageSexDrugsRockRoll.mpg depending on the actual content

Of Course

[gx5000]

Of course they can do this... They can also stop spam dead in its router or switch feeds... We know where the viruses are originating from, and spam and and and... Since these greasy rogues produce over 90% of the e-mail, then one can take from that that they're also paying big bills to do this... The Golden rule persists, and this InterTubeTechnocrat hasn't a clue.... The thing is probably a work around for the FCC accounting which states that ISP's cannot restrict (reads choke P2P) network feed or else they lose their blanket immunity to prosecution on content.... this guy is trying to build them a trap door...ain't gonna work.

impossible w/o outlawing encryption

[davidwr]

If encryption is used, you can't do it.

If monitoring is heavy-handed AND encryption isn't illegal, it will be used.

The net effect: Wasted CPU time for encryption/decryption.

Wasted CPU time

[NotQuiteReal]

Heh, and Wasted CPU time translates to an environmental issue, so the EPA will probably be able to ban that with some bureaucratic regulation rather than going thru the bother of law.

Keep the voters ignorant

[Anonymous Coward]

Real issues: economy, environment, crime, international relations

Distraction issues: file sharing, gay marriage, abortion, drugs, bosnian snipers

Re:

[EmperorKagato]

Real issues: economy, environment, crime, international relations Distraction issues: file sharing, gay marriage, abortion, drugs, bosnian snipers

More Distraction issues: racism, The Pope, American Idol, elitism

Likely proposed by the ISPs

[ween14]

If I was an ISP who wanted to slow the use of P2P on my network, I only have a few options.

Comcast tried the first option, which is to drop the connections. The outrage on tech sites was massive, and eventually led to them being investigated by the FCC.

Barring that option, why not put the burden on the government to handle the filtering. Heck, that is even better because now you don't have to pay for it anymore, your customers pay for it through their taxes.

From now on...

[zerocool^]

From now on, I'm renaming all the tarballs I package.

tar -cvf XXX-9yo-boys-blowjobs-and-crystal-meth.tar dovecot-1.0-stable/

~Wx

Re:From now on...

[kotj.mf]

> tar -cvf XXX-9yo-boys-blowjobs-and-crystal-meth.tar dovecot-1.0-stable/

I was thinking something more along the lines of:

cp never_gonna_give_you_up.avi XXX-9yo-boys-blowjobs-and-crystal-meth.avi

Meta tags

[headkase]

Remember when search engines used to rely on Meta tags? Yeah this is a brilliant plan. There should be a new rule: if you don't know what your talking about when you make a *law* then you get five lashes.

How 'bout some quid pro quo

[0xdeadbeef]

I propose we monitor all government communication for evidence of corruption.

Seems easy enough....

[spookymonster]

... we wait for the Senators to open the file "report_on_perverts_downloading_rape_and_molestation_files.doc" and then BAM! arrest the whole lot of them.

Genius, I tell ya!

This reminds me of a dilbert cartoon

[UberHoser]

Where he creates a (filter or firewall or program) to stop a 12 year old in finding 'naughty pictures' on the net. Then you hear a boinging sound and Dilbert says "I hope that is not his eyes popping out'. Lets face the facts. Anyone can build something to get by any type of restrictions on the net. Period.

Just Say No to Politicians

[stewbacca]

As much as I'd love to register as a Democrat, it's boneheads like Biden that keep me from doing so. When I read the DNC platform I get excited. When I hear Joe Biden, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, et. al. pontificate, I remain registered as a Republican (in the RHINO or Southpark sense only).

How clueless can you get....

[splutty]

My first thought when I read this was 'Whiskey Tango Foxtrot'. (Well. Not exactly, it was actually the terms that those letters stand for, but hey).

This is really sad, because I just know he's serious about this, and he really does think this 'saves the children'. And he's giving the exact proof why people with no knowledge about these sort of technical things, should not be allowed to even propose a law about it.

You're not going to let a truck driver design your house. You're not letting a CEO have root ac

Just follow the money...

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

I am sure that Sen Biden's idea has nothing to do with the fact that he has taken $178,358 from the TV/Movies/Music [opensecrets.org] lobby in this last cycle. The ROI on paying off a politician is insane. Just look at Orrin Hatch and the DMCA.

Quick embed your kiddie porn somewhere else!

[gelfling]

Right Joe, all P2P traffic is used to propagate kiddie porn and allow those child raping Mooshlum terrorists to convert your virgin daughters to abortion-having car bombers.

I'm really starting to hate this fucking country.

Utter disingenuous bullshit

[moxley]

Could this be anymore disingenuous? Could this be anymore bullshit?

So is is about violence? Take a look at TV. I don't see him concerned about that.

SO this is about porn? I think not as P2P is one of many ways to obtain porn and has nothing to do with the production of it.

So this is really about lobbyists and big business buying support for an assinine policy that goes against the interests of the people this man is supposed to serve.

Now let's look at the technical side. Doe he even know what he is talking about? Obviously not. MAC addresses and IP addresses can be spoofed; neither of them can definitively ID a person.

Does he even understand general technology concepts? Obviously not, because if he did he would realize that the second one technological avenue is closed, the tech community will create a new one. Innovation cannot be stopped by repressive minded politicos who are in the pocket of consortiums.

This is an important issue - one that could be used to basically take away the privacy you have on your computer and internet connection. When this government uses things like this they will take advantage of them to the hilt.

P2P Users Propose to Monitor All Senators...

[moxley]

P2P Users Propose to Monitor All Senators for Illegal Activity:

Including:

Taking of bribes or payment for votes/policy quid pro quo.
Hiring of prostitutes
Possession of Child Pornography
Violation of Campaign lows relating to finances
Violation of Federal "do not call" registry
etc, etc, ad infinitum.

Leet Speak will Foil Sen Biden

[DarthTeufel]

C47CH ^^3 N0\/\/ j03 8id3n

democrats + republicans = 1984

[0111 1110]

tags: democratswantpolicestatetoo or getridofrepublicanstosaveusfrom1984

Obviously just getting rid of Bush is not going to save us. Both democrats and republicans want big intrusive governments. The only difference seems to be that the republicans are in favor of borrowing and inflation to feed their spending addiction while the democrats are quite content to use old fashioned taxes more (in addition to the other methods). Both parties want to be spending a lot more of our money with each passing year. Both parties are funded more than adequately by Big Business. Do the democrats still talk about class warfare while at the same time proposing raising taxes on the poorest segment of the population with regressive tax schemes? I don't see the point to listening to anything they have to say. It is all lies and they will do whatever they please once elected. Idealists, however naive, are not elected anymore. Only pragmatists whose only beliefs are in serving themselves and saying whatever they think will get them elected.

Lies and Glory

[Miros]

What annoys me about this article is the glorification of the system that they have created. P2P networks use open protocols which are exceedingly well documented. Almost every bittorrent client that I've ever seen has a specific window with which to view the peers you are connected to. Literally, someone could copy and paste code from an OSS project, couple it with a dictionary of keywords, and then end up with this system. It's infuriating that someone could be taking so much credit for it. Finally, and most egregiously, they fail to point out that this entire system is ineffective in monitoring people with even the least bit of intelligence (you would imagine if you were transferring one of the only types of illegal content on the internet, that you would use an encrypted session), further indicating that this system is probably just a totally behind the scenes funded starting point for the enforcement of copyright through active federal monitoring of open P2P systems.

Intrusion is good, extrusion is bad, inclusion is

[OldHawk777]

Intrusion is good, extrusion is bad, inclusion is ....

Government Intrusion into personal life is good for plutocrats and dogmatist.
Government extrusion up your ass is a fact of life in totalitarian countries.
Government body inclusion in the public body is a poison to personal freedom.
Public body exclusion from the Government body is totalitarian decapitation.

Government, Corporatist, TeleClerics, Plutocrats want to get in your pants, under your skin, break your bones, suck your marrow, eat your heart, rot you brains, and finally fuck the dead fetid corpses of the public.

Corporatist/oligarchy government is big business with public resources to exploit, squander, and destroy. Like rich kids with toy soldiers ... it is all for their grand, bland, and fleeting glory.

Depression when it hits is bad for US never them. Toy-soldiers, Suzie-homemaker ... are just things to play with in a clueless life that has no sense of reality.
Intrusive constant warrantless P2P searches and virtual home invasions for US, does not mean politicians, judges ... (so they think) or CEO/CFO plutocrats and law breaking holy dogmatist.

Have you ever noticed how detached Cheney/Bush or Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon look/act when answering questions about our dead and wounded Warriors? To fools such as they and other PTB members we are just toy-Soldiers for play and fun. Look at the education system, health care, economic, telecommunications ... decline for the last 40+ years. Politicians accept corporatists and plutocrats funds and play the almost have some (wealth) folks against the have nothing (need help) folks ... always to the benefit of the PTB members. Fewer more wealth individuals every year and corporate/government and religion (catholic/mormon child molesting) accountability is close to nonexistent for US.

Anyway, ... get use to it ... more to come ... just before ... more to cum in your ears.

This (P2P intrusion) is not any more obscene, troll ... than what has been happening to US for decades.

Re:

[dreamchaser]

Yeah. One party will try to enslave us just slightly faster than the other. It's so nice having a clear choice. (sarcasm intended)

Re:Remember, Kids

[Pig Hogger]

Think twice (and then three or four times for good measure) the next time someone tells you to vote Democrat in order to protect your rights.

Anybody who votes republican whilst not being a zillionaire is a sucker. Plain and simple. One who has swallowed the total lie that republicans are less tax-happy than the democrats. Democrats tax now, but republicans tax later by inflating deficits and the debt.

Don't believe me? Google for US federal deficit charts...

Re:

[Ioldanach]

Right, Republicans hate taxes, so they lower them and spend like crazy anyway, and just wait for a Democrat to get into office and have to fix their mess. The Democrat gets unpopular because taxes must be raised to pay for the mess, and then the Republicans can win again next time and start with a budget that's all nice and balanced for them.

Re:Remember, Kids

[SatanicPuppy]

Dems always suck on IP issues and censorship. That's been the case for decades. They think of the children waaaay too much.

On the other hand, republicans also suck for censorship (dems hate violence, repubs hate boobies), and they are far more likely to get "decency-style" laws passed, than infringe on individual liberty...If you can't buy booze on a Sunday in your state, somewhere, there is a Republican to thank.

Re:

[Kiaser Zohsay]

If you can't buy booze on a Sunday in your state, somewhere, there is a Republican to thank.

Or a Baptist.

Re:

[IronChef]

I love violence and boobies--where's the party for ME?

Re:Remember, Kids

[somersault]

How the fuck do you expect voting for one of two parties is going to represent the majority of your views? I live in the UK, and I'm fed up of random slashdotters flaming republican this, democrat that, can you please explain what the actual difference is? I've seen more than one person point out that there is none, and I wouldn't find that hard to believe. I think as far as democracy is concerned, people should be able to vote on invidual laws and such (if they consider that law important) rather than vote one party every few years and expect to have things go the way they're wanting them to. Does it really matter whether this guy is Republican or Democrat? I'm sure there are plenty of idiots in both parties..

Apologies for the slightly trollish nature of my post, but it's really pissing me off seeing this inane republican vs democrat stuff, it's like racism or something, except the fairly arbitrary divide being which set of self-important morons you vote for instead of place of birth/skin colour. Admittedly you do have a choice who to vote for, but in the end there are always gonna be problems no matter who you vote for, under the current system at least.

Two Parties = No Voice

[kcdoodle]

You are preaching to the choir, man!
When voting, I ALWAYS end up selecting the lesser of two evils.
I would like to see more of a parliamentarian form of government in the U.S.
Most of all, I would like to see the abolishment of "winner take all" rules for electoral votes that some states have.
I could rant for days about different ideas and suggested changes, but this is the gist of it.

Re:

[Ioldanach]

The Democratic party wants to take money from the rich and/or old and use it to protect the poor and/or young from the rich and/or old. They espouse a belief that the children are more important than anything else, and try every possible tactic, regardless of how invasive or absurd, to, ostensibly, protect them. They seem to think that the constitutional amendment protecting gun ownership is just a guideline, and it means that the National Guard should have guns but normal citizens shouldn't, and spend lo

Re:Remember, Kids

[Clovis42]

think as far as democracy is concerned, people should be able to vote on invidual laws and such

Well, the US, and most other "democracies" are representative democracies. Voting on individual laws is a terrible idea. Just look at Athens. Regardless of that though, citizens of the US (in some states) actually do get to vote on individual laws, through "Issues" polls, or on state consitutional amendments. That's how some states get ridiculous "anti-gay marriage" laws passed that a representative body would probably avoid.

The US is not, by law, a 2 party system; it has just developed that way. Democrats and Republicans do not always vote in one big block either. There are "blue dog" Democrats who will occasionally side with Republicans on some things, for example. Middle of the road representatives sometimes team up to challenge their parties. So, in the end, there actually is reasonable representaton.

The problem is that most Americans don't really understand how they are represented. Many don't vote, or only do so when their vote counts the least, the presidential election. The Senators represent smaller areas, and Representatives represent even smaller areas than those, and that's just the FEDERAL government. Most of the stuff that actually affects your life is decided by your State/County/Local/City representatives. Hardly anyone votes for them, or can keep track of them. Which makes those votes the most powerful you can cast.

So, to somehow be on topic, for this issue it doesn't matter at all if they are Republican or Democrat. Pretty much all the federal reps are "it's a series of tubes!" boneheads for technical issues.

Re:

[pnuema]

can you please explain what the actual difference is?

I will do my best. Modern American politics all leads back to the Civil Rights bill in the 1960's. Once that was signed (by a democrat - he was quoted afterwards as saying that the Dems had lost the South for a generation, and they did), if you were against segregation, you were a Democrat. If you weren't, you were a Republican.

Ten years later, the feminist movement was in full swing, and Roe v. Wade (legalizing abortion) was decided. People who suppor

Re:

[mindwhip]

I guess so. And all you need to do is call it knoppix.iso and you will either go unnoticed or will give the government so much work impounding every PC that has ever legally downloaded the popular Linux distro by P2P, as well as making criminals of all the people who download the kiddy porn by accident.

Re:

[lastchance_000]

Hmmm. You think he came up with this himself?

Re:

[msim]

Alas you beat me to using a "tubes" reference, good day to you sir.

Aside from the issues with logistics and the whole impact on the USA's beloved "freedom" (im not from the us, so i use this term loosely) the repercussions this thing would have for all sorts of other traffic if this thing EVER got off the ground, is horrifying.

The other disgusting thing about this is if they did try and push it forward, imagine the sheer cost of putting this thing together, even if they find halfway trough it isn't feasable

Re:

[computational super]

Joe Biden, I would guess.