Software That Flagged HBO.com For Piracy Will Power U.S. 'Six Strikes' System 292
An anonymous reader writes "A copyright monitoring program called MarkMonitor mistakenly flagged HBO.com for pirating its own shows, and sent automatic DMCA takedown notices to the network. It's a funny story, until you realize that MarkMonitor is the same software that will power the U.S. Copyright Alerts System (a.k.a. "Six Strikes"), due to be rolled out by the five largest U.S. ISPs sometime in the next month."
Re:Which ISPs? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Which ISPs? (Score:5, Interesting)
Was this mandated by some law I've not heard was passed...or, are these companies all signing onto this one service voluntarily? If so...why, what is in the bargain for them, they have immunity anyway over what their users do on the networks...why even bother with this?
This sounds like a job for Anonymous (Score:4, Interesting)
Were I Anonymous (and I am most certainly not), I would see this as a great opportunity to engage our fine Congress into taking up action. Since I am NOT Anonymous thus clearly lacking the knowledge I am not sure this could even be done....yet....
Would it not be thoughtful if something could be set up such that all sorts of protected files were downloaded and shared from a congressman's identifiable computer? Were it possible to acquire and spoof the MAC address, the IP address and set up a nice little honey pot for this wondrous program to sense and respond too. Six strikes you say, should happen quick and then we have our dear congress person getting dropped...oh wait you say, they are on the white list, but then Anonymous still does the job for now it can show the preferential treatment which certainly is news unto its self. Or, just bluw skying you know, take the old adage garbage in garbage out and just confuse the poor program. Help it to see everyone as a violator thus rendering its conclusions moot.
Hacking websites is one thing, sticky congress people into a situation where they have to try and explain that (1) it was not them and (2) why they feel this is good for the country would make for more interesting news coverage. Vigilantes that use their power to shine a light on a wrong do more power then just acting out in anger (hacking websites). I don't have the power or the knowledge or the influence to effectively change the mind of greedy SOB in Congress, but maybe there are those that do,,,,I wonder.
Funny, I posted AC because i started to ponder, what if when I get home I find some gentlemen in dark suits waiting for me, just to ask a few questions...Please, come with us.
Re:Which ISPs? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, of the ISPs implementing this, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon are all either directly or owned by content creators.
Only AT&T wireless (Previously called Cingular Communications) was/is a pure data network.
Note that it was Cingular that purchased the AT&T Wireless name from AT&T, so AT&T (which is also a content creator) is not involved there.
However you are correct in both of your first points. It is a huge conflict of interest, and they have all stated they are losing more money to piracy than they make in total on their ISP division.
Granted, this is not anywhere close to true, but they all firmly believe so, and more importantly they have made that statement to our government and so now must stick by it.
Think about it, their ISP divisions pull in what, 1-2 digit billions of dollars a year? Maybe 3 digit billions?
That is nothing compared to the 2-4 digit trillions they state they are losing due to piracy.
It's only the fact they are convinced 20% or less of their customer base are pirates, that keeps them from closing down the entire ISP side all together.
There is also the bonus of no lost customers.
Firstly, they will not be disconnecting anyone. Fines yes, many more fines sure, even apparently slowing down service and even blocking some things. But not disconnection.
I mean they "earn" $50-$100 each time they accuse you of piracy, with no evidence required! Who would want to disconnect someone and get rid of all that extra money?
Secondly, very few of the people hit by these strikes are willing to go without Internet service at all (Which is the only other option)
There is no competition, quite literally. Any "resellers" you would switch to are both A) under this same system due to being the same network, and B) still funnel money back to the network owner itself. They still get paid no matter which reseller you go with. It's all the same network and thus the same rules apply.
I believe you are also quite on mark with the future of file sharing. I've been saying the same for some time now, and in fact if anything am only amazed things are taking so long to get there.
The ultimate end game will be two-fold:
- High speed, anonymous, fully encrypted and functional darknets for file sharing.
- ISPs seeing encryption + high speeds as automatically assumed piracy unless vouched for by a business on the safe-list (aka VPN users, which will need to be registered and vouched for)
Anyone pulling encrypted data faster than your average webpage will have their traffic mucked about with, be it slowing down to 1kbps or less, or RST packets stormed to each end, to live-updated firewall blocks.
The EFF will complain that users of their HTTPS anywhere plugin no longer can browse the Internet at all, and no one in charge will care. The content creators will of course exclude their own https servers, since they want you to buy their stuff, but anyone else - it's not like we have legal network neutrality so there's no reason what so ever to even allow https to the Internet, let alone at high speeds.
There is a huge percent of our population too stupid to understand what network neutrality even means, and are strongly opposed to it. Even after these people can't shop at ebay any longer, they will still claim the benefits outweigh the risks, just so they don't have to admit to being wrong or making a mistake.
It's going to get much messier before things get better I'm afraid.
Where's the DOJ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Was this mandated by some law I've not heard was passed...or, are these companies all signing onto this one service voluntarily? If so...why, what is in the bargain for them, they have immunity anyway over what their users do on the networks...why even bother with this?
Collusion is illegal in the United States (and most other places). How come the five largest ISPs in the country all deciding to implement the same tracking system and enforcing the same restrictions on millions of subscribers who have no other alternative to their services is not being investigated by the DOJ?
When the railroads did things like this, the DOJ was quick to step in. When the Unions did things like this the DOJ was quick to step in. Today when big businesses do things like this, the DOJ is nowhere to be found. The DOJ is supposed to protect the 100% of the people, not just 1%. But, that is the price we pay to have the best plutocracy on the planet.