Tool To Allow ISPs To Scan Every File You Transmit 370
timdogg writes "Brilliant Digital Entertainment, an Australian software company, has grabbed the attention of the NY attorney general's office with a tool they have designed that can scan every file that passes between an ISP and its customers. The tool can 'check every file passing through an Internet provider's network — every image, every movie, every document attached to an e-mail or found in a Web search — to see if it matches a list of illegal images.' As with the removal of the alt.binary newgroups, this is being promoted under the guise of preventing child porn. The privacy implications of this tool are staggering."
Probably just for P2P (Score:5, Informative)
This will cause huge latency issues and cost beaucoup bandwidth. ISPs would be shooting themselves in the foot if they did this with all traffic. OTOH, I could see laws requiring such tools for P2P traffic -- in fact that may well be inevitable, with the **AA's "ruling class" status these days.
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On the flip side, having this would in place could potentially make you liable for the material your customers are transmitting. So much for common carrier status. If I were an ISP I'd be fighting this thing tooth and nail.
Re:Probably just for P2P (Score:4, Informative)
The parent is an example of typical slashdot idiocy. ISPs aren't common carriers. Though my karama will end up a smoking crater for breaking with the established GroupThink, so I'm making this post anonymously.
The immunity ISPs currently enjoy in the US come from various other safe harbor laws (i.e. Â230; DMCA). The constant slashdot drone of "ohhh.. ISPs can't suppress my free speech: common carrier common carrier!" is both entirely incorrect and dangerous, since it causes the geek squad to under-estimate the risks and the importance of things like net neutrality.
Re:Probably just for P2P (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet, for all your noise and handwaving - you fail to establish that an ISP isn't a common carrier.
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From what I understand from dabbling in ISP-ism back in the mid-90's, the only common carrier protection a ISP enjoys is for a USENET server; a court ruling established that USENET had common carrier protection, therefore a ISP could not be prosecuted for what was on a NNTP server, unless they attempted to censor it; if they attempted to censor it, that would imply that anything illegal that got transmitted was purposefully allowed to remain on the server. The only protection is to just ignore it unless it
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It's interesting to see you saying this, because it seems like every fifth post I see is someone saying the same type of thing... Wait, does that make complaints about "/. group-think" slashdot group-think?
*head explodes*
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Yes, but his basic point is still valid. The DMCA only provides a shield against claims of copyright infringement. This isn't the issue here at all.
Once the justice system recognizes some kind of legal obligation for the ISPs to scan the files passing through their pipes for child porn it is only a matter of time until some mother of an abused child sues the ISP for failing to properly monitor it's customers on the theory this would have prevented the abuse of her child.
Now you might respond that any law
Re:Probably just for P2P (Score:5, Informative)
The AC is correct in what he is saying about common carriers. Check out the registered company name of your ISP and I will wager that it is not AT&T but rather a subsiduary of AT&T (ie: a seperate company in the eyes of the law).
This is how the telco's in Australia with common carrier status get around the rule against sniffing the line, eg: Australia's "Telstra" is not an ISP but "Telstra Big Pond" is an ISP. Since common carrier rules are international I dare say AT&T do exactly the same thing.
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"63 The concept of a "common carrier," dating from 16th century English common law, captures private entities that perform public functions. Since at least the middle ages, most significant carriers of communications and commerce have been regulated as common carriers. Common carrier rules have resolved the disputed issues of duty to serve, nondisc
Re:Probably just for P2P (Score:5, Insightful)
Best way to get anyone to get rid of something is to make them hate it. All my email blocked today? You bastards! Turn that thing off.
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Re:Probably just for P2P (Score:5, Insightful)
This will cause huge latency issues and cost beaucoup bandwidth.
A soft touch with this would yield far better results depending on your intent. I would imagine an ISP that is sick and tired of certain traffics could utilize a system like this to start taking a closer look. Catch a few token users and then you have a excuse to throttle/monitor/block at will. I mean think of the children! What worries me is that with so many computers doing the bidding of people other than their owners, who knows what kind of traffic is being exchanged. Seems like an easy way for law enforcement to take a closer look at an individual... I've come across very questionable images via Google from rather inane, yet obscure, search queries. You could be one Russian rickroll away from the authorities and those around you having some nasty suspicions in their head.
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Re:Probably just for P2P (Score:4, Insightful)
If my ISP told my opponent what porn i watch, they'd be sued. To the GROUND.
Re:Probably just for P2P (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Probably just for P2P (Score:5, Funny)
but would he lose his erection?
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You would still lose the election.
but would he lose his erection?
Only if he's Asian and speaking English.
Re:Probably just for P2P (Score:5, Insightful)
Your ISP doesn't care about your stroke material.
This is all about P2P, the RIAA and collecting data for government and marketing purposes. Don't kid yourself that your ISP is so broken up about the possibility of sketchy porn traveling their network.
Just today I read an article quoting telecom execs about how SKYPE and other VOIP applications are going to make us less safe from terrorists. It's about profit and control, nothing more nothing less.
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Your ISP will have people who are of various political persuasions working there. Someone will one day think "This customer is a candidate for the election. What are they looking at?"
Before you know it there are leaks and regardless of the outcome for the leaker, the candidate will be hurt and probably lose the election.
It's the same as having every single phone call bugged and recorded. Someone will use it against someone else, or at the absolute minimum, data will end up sold to marketing companies.
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Re:Probably just for P2P (Score:5, Funny)
"Well Mr. Smith's ISP reports he downloads copies of "Playboy's College Girls". Is this really the man you want to be your next state represenative???"
What, am I going to not vote for him because he watches boring porn?
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Uh, I think you missed the first "N" for "not".
Or is this what they call a Freudian slip...?
Re:Probably just for P2P (Score:5, Interesting)
One step further: make a file that has the same hash value of a "bad" file. This is trivial, especially if the file doesn't need to be valid for any application. If all that is checked is a hash of the traffic, then the actual contents of the file are meaningless.
So, this software will allow law enforcement to ruin your life (any implication crime involving sex and/or kids will do that, guilty or not), by simply seeing an unknown party send you a block of unintelligible data that happens to have the same hash as "pr0n." Great.
Anyone up for making an automated hash-spoofing packet forger? I'm sure something similar has already been done. With the speed of current connections, one could probably get the entire human race indicted for child pornography in under a week.
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I'm not sure whether there's any major prestigious prize given out in the field of crypto, but if there is, you just won it. Please publish!
Re:Probably just for P2P (Score:5, Insightful)
But if all they are doing is comparing hash files, couldn't you just as easily change the resolution of the file, or insert a couple different bits around to change the file slightly, which ends up with a completely different hash?
Re:Probably just for P2P (Score:5, Insightful)
But if all they are doing is comparing hash files, couldn't you just as easily change the resolution of the file, or insert a couple different bits around to change the file slightly, which ends up with a completely different hash?
Yup. That, along with good encryption, means the bad guys get around this easily, while innocent bystanders are caught up by hash collisions.
Re:Probably just for P2P (Score:4, Interesting)
Encrypted files on the peer-to-peer network could not be decrypted by CopyRouter, but the company claims it can fool the sender's computer into believing that the recipient was requesting an unencrypted and uncompressed file.
So basically what they do, is if your bittorrent client requests the files in encrypted format, they intercept that and instead request them unencrypted. They aren't decrypting the file, they are just asking for an unencrypted transmission of the file. If the file is in an encrypted zip file, then there is no way that they could see the actual files being transmitted.
Re:Probably just for P2P (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not hostile, much. As is common in our corporatocracy, here's a company that starts from the assumption that their customers are their enemy. So now we're going to pay our ISPs to "fool" our computers. Some "customer service" huh?
No thank you.
How about this: We pay you, and you give us bandwidth and stay the fuck out of our business. If we're using too much bandwidth, then spell it out in our contract and charge us more, so we can choose to give our business to someone else.
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So now it's our responsibility to make sure our ISP doesn't get "sick and tired" of our traffic? And we're supposed to give up the privacy of our transmitted data to insure that our ISPs are happy?
Interesting, I was just thinking about how seldom I see anything remotely offensive i
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"Each digital file has a unique digital signature, called a hash value, that can be recognized no matter what the file is named, and without having to open the file again. The company calls this list of hash values its Global File Registry."
Wait a second. Hash value? I sure hope the law enforcement people have been told about hash collisions [wikipedia.org]! I know it's unlikely in a large binary file like images or videos, but, taking one example, md5 hash collisions and ways to find them do exist, and it's inevitable
Re:Probably just for P2P (Score:4, Informative)
Hash Values are useless anyway; change 1 pixel in an image and voila, new hash. They could use loose hashes as used for Spam-filtering, but the chances for collisions are higher.
The other issue is of course, it won't work on encrypted connections. It might not even work for obfuscated connections. AFAIK, Authorities are seriously shooting themselves in the foot using these techniques. They will only drive CP and others further underground, to a point that finding and prosecuting the bastards becomes too difficult and expensive.
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Re:Probably just for P2P (Score:4, Insightful)
If you think that this has anything to do with combating child pornography, then you are seriously naive.
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I thought with the premise that MD5 and friends are based off, that hash collision possibility is not related to size of source.
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Looks like this does nothing to address encrypted traffic, it's just matching files transmitted in plaintext to a database of MD5/SHA1 hashes. Actually knowing the level of incompetence demonstrated by most enforcement agencies, probably something that generates a 40-bit hash or so, just to ensure as many collisions as possible.
So bring on net-wide encryption.
change 1 bit and the comparison fails? (Score:2)
but it would determine whether a file is digitally identical to one on the child-porn list
So if this thing does perform a hash on a file, then changing one small part of it would completely alter the result. Presumably there's more to it than that - otherwise anyone wanting to post an image (that was on a list - there's nothing that limits this to kiddie porn) would make a near-identical copy and the whole detection system becomes worthless.
Re:Probably just for P2P (Score:5, Insightful)
The makers of CopyRouter claim that it can even be used to defeat encryption and compression of files in the Internet's Wild West: the peer-to-peer file-sharing tools such as Gnutella and BitTorrent.
What are they going to do? Detect and Man in the Middle [wikipedia.org] every single connection attempt that goes through their router? The file sharing tools will simply upgrade to stronger encryption, such as AES [wikipedia.org], and harden the connection handshaking against MITM attacks (perhaps by introducing public key infrastructure with well known key server(s)). It was my understanding that the present crop of file sharing tools provide obfuscation (ROT13 and the like) and not real encryption to set the bar just high enough to prevent packet inspection. However, it would not be difficult to implement stronger encryption methods (if they haven't done so already), should that prove necessary. In fact, the CopyRouter folks are at a distinct disadvantage in any encryption arms race since MITM and other cryptanalysis techniques are much more computationally expensive than the encryption itself AND the users outnumber the routers by thousands or even tens of thousands to one. The NSA might more credibly claim to be able to do this, but they have acres of underground super computers consuming as much electrical power as a small country, so I am very skeptical when anyone claims to be able to "defeat encryption" and doubly so when a private company mentions it as a bullet point in their power point presentation. It is more likely that this is a private company trying to sell a pig in a poke to ISPs and governments who don't inspect the merchandise to carefully or don't know any better.
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No problem the next step will be just to make encryption illegal.
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We must not continue to allow our fundamental rights to be taken away under the rhetoric of "protect the children" and "watch out for the terrorists."
Here endeth my rant for the day.
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Please, folks, remember when you go to vote that both Obama and Biden have taught constitutional law so they at least know that programs such as this one violate the First and Fourth amendments.
If they're such experts, why do they keep trying to violate the 2nd?
What about hash collisions? (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems to me that if a user attempts to download a file that happens to have the same hash as a "known bad" file, they could be in for a world of hurt unless the system does verification of some kind. And if the verification step is conducted manually rather than automatically -- in the interest of expediency, of course -- what do you bet the odds are that some law enforcement types aren't going to be bothered with niceties like actually checking that some file is indeed prohibited material?
Try mounting you
Re:Probably just for P2P (Score:4, Insightful)
absolutely. U.S. ISPs continue to justify overselling while complaining about "power users" using too much bandwidth and overloading their network.
when will they realize that packet shaping and other intrusive network filtering/monitoring technologies such as this generate more overhead and are a waste of resources. instead of trying to manipulate/control subscribers, they should be upping bandwidth supply to meet the growing demand. then perhaps the U.S. wouldn't be left in the dust both in terms of average broadband speeds as well as cost of broadband.
you don't employ mandatory property searches to combat child pornography. not only would it be ineffectual, but even if it did it still wouldn't be worth the encroachment of our civil liberties. frankly, idiots who use the banner of fighting child pornography to pass stupid laws to destroy our democratic freedoms or strip away the rights of individuals are a much greater threat to society than someone who just downloads child pornography. those are the real sociopaths IMO.
if you want to protect children, give them free access to health care. give them free access to high education. create outreach programs to at-risk youth. employ social workers at school to watch for warning signs of abuse and provide counseling services at school for victimized children. narrow the disparity in education between the rich and poor so that poor children have equal opportunity to succeed in life.
you don't protect children by creating a fascist society around them.
A possible demise of goatse? (Score:2)
This could have an upside....
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Starts with porn... (Score:3, Informative)
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MPG? Have you been in a coma for the last eight years or so? I honestly haven't come across an MPEG file of a movie since the late 90's!
Re:Starts with porn... (Score:4, Informative)
You probably have, but they're usually encapsulated in a container format like AVI or MKV. :)
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Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
"The tool can 'check every file passing through an Internet provider's network -- every image, every movie, every document attached to an e-mail or found in a Web search -- to see if it matches a list of illegal images.' "
How exactly is this going to be accomplished? The equipment cost must be staggering and would consume allot of power. Way to conserve electricity, I thought we were trying to reduce the amount of power the Internet consumes. Does also this remove the common carrier status of ISP's?
I hope this never comes to fruition.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
TFA says they're going to use hash values. This will take a stateful packet inspection filter to catch, but the amount of state is only enough do the hash, and they can throw it away if it doesn't match anything on the blacklist.
While hashing seems easy enough to get around, I think the real thing they're looking for is a repeated pattern of someone sending blacklisted images. If you send/receive thousands of images, there's a good chance that you'll screw up and maybe a dozen of them won't get resampled (or use some other trick) to change the hash value. you'll pop up on a screen someplace, they'll get a search warrant, and you are busted.
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Did anyone do that "out of order packet" hack for the linux kernel yet? The idea is you send 99% of the packets in the correct order but 1% of the time you swap the order around. It does nasty things for programs like this. Also someone needs to look at claims of this software compared to what it does and let them know where they are in breach of local truth in advertising laws.
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Does also this remove the common carrier status of ISP's?
That's a myth. They don't have it.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
Repeat after me: ISPs do not have common carrier status.
Brilliant Digital Entertainment? (Score:4, Informative)
Wasn't that the Aussie spyware company attached to Sharman Networks/KaZaA?
Before it got raided, I mean?
I call shenanigans.
Re:Brilliant Digital Entertainment? (Score:4, Interesting)
I was about to bring up that point. KaZaA was linked to BDE (maybe a parent company or something). I'm not too sure of the exact relationship, but there definitely was one there.
Now correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't one of the defenses in the KaZaA court case the fact that they couldn't tell what files users were sharing, therefore they claim they weren't responsible for the distribution of copyrighted material? If this was the case, BDE's new "we can tell what you're sending/receiving" crap could land an A-Bomb worth of trouble in someone's lap.
One question (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One question (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. They claim that the can search "every document attached to an e-mail .. -- to see if it matches a list of illegal images. Apparently, they have never heard of SMTP-TLS, POP3S, etc.. Or perhaps they have and they are just like many others -- selling snake oil.
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Exactly. They claim that the can search "every document attached to an e-mail .. -- to see if it matches a list of illegal images. Apparently, they have never heard of SMTP-TLS, POP3S, etc.. Or perhaps they have and they are just like many others -- selling snake oil.
SMTP-TLS and POP3S are pretty bad examples, because they secure the connection but you're still likely to be talking to a mail server that you don't control, and therefore can't guarantee isn't connected to such a thing.
That being said, this is yet another case of "Product which doesn't need to exist and offers little to no real benefit being sold to idiots with some superficially-plausible benefit." Spend any length of time working as a systems manager and you'll see dozens of these.
Right now my favourite
One answer (Score:4, Insightful)
Can it decrypt SSL/SSH in real time?
According to the article they use man-in-the-middle attacks. This is probably quite easy if the server is using self-signed certs.
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Re:One question (Score:5, Informative)
No. RTFA. CopyRouter merely pretends to be a server and tells the client the client to send data unencrypted. Bittorent just needs to upgrade it's encryption mechanisms.
So what happens when... (Score:2, Insightful)
So what happens when the malware guys decide to have their malware fire off images that are on this list of banned files/images?
Suppose that their 'smart' and have the image embeded in the malware (or otherwise obscured). the malware sits there for a while and infects as many systems as possible... then the SPAM event happens. With this crap... I mean "wonderful, keep-our-kids-safe" software kicks in and drags even more of the internet down, who's gonna pick up the tab?
I know... have the **AA morons... I me
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You don't have to actually have the "perverted" pictures to do this, just send out lots of data files that have the same hash. (depending on the lenght of the hashes, its really easy to do) Not to mention, changing just a bit in a file will mess with its hash, so the real kiddie porn traders will just randomly change a pixel or two. Might be fun to send out multiple 25MB files that have the same hash. That would drop their servers to their knees....
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You know, it really makes me wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Technology evolves faster than moral values and society, thus keeping people in a constant state of panic over it, and causing a mess in the short term (and benefits in the long term). That was always true throughout history, from the discovery of fire (at least according to the theories), to the internet. This will be the same. It may take a civil war, or a nuclear bomb going boom, but we'll either all die, or we'll be better of.
Won't work. (Score:5, Informative)
Ok, on really simple protocols, like HTTP or FTP, maybe - but most, if not all, p2p traffic is safe, i think. This is of course because of the chunky nature of transmission - you can't really tell what part of the file went through your pipe just by looking at it, and since parts are sent at random, you cannot rebuild the file with your chunks without guiding information, be it a torrent file, a list of parts for emule, or whatever else there is. And you need the whole file to get your hash-check. That's one. Two: encryption totally kills the effort, as the ISP can in no way examine your file without interfering with your transfer, and SSL exists solely to protect you from this.
Even if my line of thinking is really misguided here, this would require lots and lots of processing power - i mean, on a routing line with a hundred users on one end, it's thousands of hash-checks to be made for every stupid rebuilt file - both processes of course painfully CPU-eating, unless you want false-positives, since you didn't bother to use a proper hashing algorithm.
All in all, this looks to me like a terrible waste of money.
Re:Won't work. (Score:5, Interesting)
They claim they can scan Gnutella and BitTorrent.
Gnutella I don't know, but BitTorrent, almost certainly.
The common forms of BitTorrent encryption uses a "shared secret". The shared secret for BitTorrent is a 20-byte key known as the "infohash". This infohash is ALSO used as the unique hash to uniquely identify a given set of files. So its ALWAYS given to the tracker, and if the tracker isn't using SSL, that means its in the clear.
Making the encryption in BitTorrent almost laughably insecure. It's good enough to block non-stateful packet filters. It's not good enough to prevent people from listening in.
As for getting a file hash with BitTorrent, that's even easier.
It does it for them.
The ".torrent" file contains a list of hashes. They don't even need to look at the file contents.
I dunno about other P2P systems, but BitTorrent is definitely not safe from this.
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Actually, it gets worse than that. Say that I have an "illegal" image that I want to transmit to you. All I would have to do is embed it in a random frame of some 700 MB DivX movie. Then, not only do files have to be checked, but every frame of every video too.
And the age-old question of "is this MP3 file legal"? That is an example of an uncomputable question.
More likely, thi
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There is a method in cryptography hat is called packaging. The encryption key is stored within the file but you must have the complete file to get the key from it. Now you can send your last blue ray film. If they store it completely for uncrypting it they have a lot of money to drop by the windows :D
Easily gotten around (Score:4, Insightful)
Time to make a utility that puts a file into an encrypted 7Zip archive, with the password stored in some reversable encryption method (encrypt the password with all zeroes as a key 1 million to 2 million times), so it would take x CPU seconds on some hardware to decrypt it.
This would allow files to still go across the net without requiring passwords or keys, but prevent utilities like this from just passively obtaining traffic, just due to the CPU cycles involved.
Of course, just stuffing a password in the comments field works too, but with a decent text parser, it can be extracted.
Its just more of the same cat and mouse game. The real crooks will not be affected while Joe ISP User will lose his privacy even more.
Evil (Score:5, Informative)
It looks like someone switched sides but taking a closer look they only seem to be in charge of the adware that came with Kazzaa, so I guess they were always evil.
Ways to abuse/defeat this... (Score:4, Insightful)
They're claiming they'll man-in-the-middle p2p users to disable encryption. Major problems there.
They're using a hash for the images/movies. Alter the image tags, or change a pixel, you've beat it. The more they ignore diffs, the more false positives they'll get.
There's my five seconds of thought on the efficacy/ethics of this. If you manage to solve all those problems, come back and I'll give it another five seconds. See you in ten years.
But hey, once it's in place they can use it for the *AA! Which is really what this is about, more free handouts to obsolete business models.
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What if the masthead graphics for something like google had the wrong checksum? Then everyone would look guilty.
This is Fantastic (Score:4, Insightful)
A better use for this technology... (Score:4, Insightful)
Tor (Score:2)
ngrep (Score:2)
Child porn is perfect for framing people (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with all the hysteria around child pornography is that it's too easy to frame someone. A little research, five minutes alone with your computer, and an anonymous phone call are all someone needs to ruin your life and reputation.
Let me be perfectly clear: Even if you're completely innocent, this is a serious threat to you. If someone decides to frame you, you won't be able to prove your innocence, and it won't matter even if you can. That's unacceptable. Yes, child porn is bad, but a society where anyone can anonymously destroy anyone else is much, much worse.
Random altering file server (Score:2)
I wouldn't get too upset if I were you (Score:2)
First for child porn, next for Video and music (Score:2)
How much would you bet that the MPAA and RIAA are going to try to get laws passed that require ISPs to install and use this software?
Corrupting the chinese (Score:2)
They actually use an army of low-wage Chinese and Indian workers to scan all that data. It's cost effective, but the side effect is that in a few years millions of Asians, who might otherwise have become normal, productive, law-abiding citizens of their respective countries, will instead have become deranged pedophiles.
Re:Corrupting the chinese (Score:4, Funny)
"but the side effect is that in a few years millions of Asians, who might otherwise have become normal, productive, law-abiding citizens of their respective countries, will instead have become deranged pedophiles."
Japan is proof the two aren't mutually exclusive.
Obviously we need to act... (Score:2)
...and take up a collection to pay the spammers to send a regular smattering of these files in their usual spam loads. ...and both overwhelm the filter and crush the ISP NAPs. ...and express our displeasure at the rapidly coming destruction of probable cause on the Internet.
Because we know that shortly after the 'authorities' can do this, they will be asking to investigate the intended recipients, on the premise that they have 'probable cause'.
I can't hardly tell the difference between the NY Attorney Gener
Big Daddy knows best (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what? In a dozen years of actively surfing porn, I've never encountered kiddie porn in the wild. This great big threat to all mankind so severe that we all need to put woolly pullovers over all our electronic gear and filter all telecommunications is simply and plainly crap. It's a ruse.
There are some people who want to control everyone else. They want to control what you see, what you hear, and as much as is humanly possible, what you think. They want to monitor us all (but not themselves, of course) and make us all cookie-cutter little clones who all think the same harmless little thoughts and are all scared of their authority.
F * U * C * K them.
Anyone telling you this sort of "protection" is necessary is deluded or a liar. Either way, such people should be ignored or in extreme cases, put somewhere they cannot bring harm to others.
False positives? (Score:3, Informative)
Electronic versus snail (Score:3, Interesting)
The last page (4) of the article reveals the truth (Score:5, Insightful)
"...Internet service providers could easily be seen by the public as "overreaching," making it harder to get public support for efforts of law enforcement. What's needed, said the group's executive director, Grier Weeks, is for cops to investigate the leads they already have..."
and
"The Department of Justice and all 50 attorneys general are sitting on a mountain of evidence leading straight to the doors of child pornography traffickers," Weeks said. "We could rescue hundreds of thousands of child sexual assault victims tomorrow in America, without raising any constitutional issues whatsoever. But government simply won't spend the money to protect these children. Instead of arrests by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the child exploitation industry now faces Internet pop-ups from the Friendly Bus Investigators. That was always the fundamental difference between the Biden bill and the McCain bill. Biden wanted to fund cops to rescue children. McCain wanted to outsource the job."
This my friends is about the money! The U.S. Government and Brilliant Digital (ironic business name!) both know this won't work. Brilliant Digital see this as a market to exploit and make millions of dollars. The U.S. Government get a "cheap" way of "dealing" with child pornography and a perception from the general public as "something being done".
I'm sure the Government know about Brilliant Digital's dubious past but the percieved "benefits" are too good to miss.
It's a win-win for both parties!
I have children myself and I find developments like this horrifying.
Someone does not become a paedophile by looking at images on the internet, it's deeper and more complex then this - blocking content will not cure the problem or reduce related crimes in any way.
The last quoted paragraph sends chills down my spine and really makes me angry.
Children can be rescued if the funding is available but a company like Brilliant Digital will recieve the funding instead and the problem is never solved - people are made richer instead.
I really mean Think of the children
Re:useless (Score:5, Funny)
Re:useless (Score:4, Informative)
Not only that, but it says that it works against movies.
The ISP downloads the entire 1-5GB file, hashes it, compares the hash, and then if it passes sends the file on to the user?
I think that would break almost every kind of application, and could easily be used to swamp the downstream of the ISP by making requests and then dropping the connection.
And then what about hash collisions, or programs that aren't web browsers?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Well I'll be damned! THATS why every time I try to listen to shoutcast my ISP (centurytel)
kicks me off. Maybe if I listened to a station they liked?
Re: (Score:2)
Kitty porn? (Score:2)
so once again we'll inconvenience EVERYONE except the people who DO trade kitty porn.
"kitty porn"...won't anyone think of the cats?
Re: (Score:3)
Why not snoop every phone call, open and scan every piece of snail mail, record every conversation?
That's a good idea. If everybody was monitored then we'd likely catch somebody doing something wrong. Unfortunately your idea isn't very original as the British are ahead of you on this. It would be even better if we made it mandatory for computer manufacturers to have Webcams built into monitors and turned on by default so that we can actually see the individual and put his picture in a database in case they end up doing something bad. Also with IPv6 we can (have enough addresses) to assign static IPs to i