Microsoft Patents Flagging Technology For 'Repeat Offenders' Of Pirated Content

An anonymous reader quotes TorrentFreak's report on Microsoft's newest patent: Titled: "Disabling prohibited content and identifying repeat offenders in service provider storage systems," the patent describes a system where copyright infringers, and those who publish other objectionable content, are flagged so that frequent offenders can be singled out... "The incident history can be processed to identify repeat offenders and modify access privileges of those users," the patent reads. [PDF] The "repeat infringer" is a hot topic at the moment, after ISP Cox Communications was ordered to pay $25 million for its failure to disconnect repeat offenders...

As far a we know, this is the first patent that specifically deals with the repeat infringer situation in these hosting situations, but it's not uncommon for cloud hosting services to prevent users from sharing infringing content. We previously uncovered that Google Drive uses hash matching to prevent people from sharing "flagged" files in public, and Dropbox does the same.

Encrypt everything, everything, everything.

[Anonymous Coward]

If people would use end-to-end encryption even on their "private" cloud file storage, none of this fingerprinting would be possible. It's pretty simple, really.

If sharing files, send the decryption keys out-of-band to the intended recipients.

Mass sharing to unknown anonymous recipients is somewhat problematic, but if one is of the eyepatch-wearing, shoulder-parrot-hosting type, I'm sure there are plenty of common drinking holes on which to post such shared decryption hints.

Re:

[CBravo]

++1

You don't own your own computer....

[JWW]

if it's operating system spies on you and reports you to the authorities...

Re:You don't own your own computer....

[dwywit]

In such a hurry to get first post, user fails to read article, consequently posts irrelevant complaint.

"Disabling prohibited content and identifying repeat offenders in service provider storage systems"

IOW, not about things done on your own computer.

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[Calydor]

Except cloud storage is pushing more and more for PCs to be essentially dumb terminals.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

"PCs are going to become dumb terminals" since '98

Re:You don't own your own computer....

[AHuxley]

The "service provider storage systems" is the cloud for now. How soon before the desktop computer gets a free scan too?

Re:

[spire3661]

OneDrive is tightly integrated into windows, with no easy way to remove it, so no its not just things off your computer

Re:

[Roger W Moore]

You don't own your own computer if it's operating system spies on you and reports you to the authorities.

Just because you made some poor choices about what OS to use and/or how it is configured does not mean you no longer own your computer.

Microsoft loves pirates

[Anonymous Coward]

By patenting this obvious "technology", Microsoft has prevented any of its competitors with online storage systems which people actually choose to use (as opposed to relying inertia from non-tech savvy customers by on building it into their monopoly products) from using such schemes to prevent piracy, thus proving their love for the pirates.

I've patented...

[Gabest]

... repeated masturbation. If you do it more than once, you have to pay me.

Only on Windows

[rrohbeck]

I hope.

Question.

[Falconhell]

Its not my area of expertise, would just adding a few seconds to a video change the hash and therefore bypass this method?

Re:Question.

[dwywit]

Yes, you're correct, but there are other ways to identify infringing material. If you're silly enough to store the original extracted material without a quick pass through ffmpeg to process it through a different codec, and maybe a little compression, you deserve to be "flagged". Of course, as another poster mentioned you can always encrypt it.

I'm more concerned that the terms of service allowing the provider to inspect your content will be accepted by many.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're missing something here.

MS SALES DORK: "How can we force enterprise users to stick with Microsoft server?"
MS ENGINEER: "Sir, the OS suck and you won't let us fix that...."
MS DORK: "Damned straight! People love them some menus and we must have a unified user experience."
MS ENG: "Okay... So the only way to get people to use our server...."
MS DORK: "Make! Make people user our server."
MS ENG: "Make. Sure. So the only way to do that would be to have the government require businesses to run it."
MS D

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[lgw]

Video fingerprinting techniques are pretty good these days. If all they're doing is hash matching, they're not really trying.

Most storage service providers don't want people streaming video of any sort out of their public folders. Simple techniques that encourage people to put their pirate booty in a zip file or something at least stops the streaming.

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[AHuxley]

Soon if the file is unencrypted sections will be looked at in real time. Does the music, actors face, content match something thats protected?

*OTHER* objectionable content?

[wierd_w]

I see your piracy desire there MS, but please, DO elaborate on this "OTHER objectionable content" of which you speak. Do you mean things like kiddie porn, or do you mean things like "Donald Trump does not like that picture of him kissing Putin" ?

Because the technology to track either of the first two, can be used to track and punish the latter as well. Just wondering if you are willing to directly assert that you will never do this latter thing, and do so publicly.

Doubt you will, but hey, it never hurts to ask.

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[wierd_w]

I don't consider it tinfoil hattery when people in a western country can still be brought on charges for something as dumb as "blasphemy."

http://www.independent.co.uk/n... [independent.co.uk]

Or, should regulatory authorities in various more infamous countries decide that they can track any "objectionable" content they might take offense over, say pictures of Mohamed the prophet with a bomb shaped hat, or satire of the king of Thailand.

THIS is the stage to object to it at-- NOT when they have already decided that it is a perfec

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[stealth_finger]

This kind of generalization is absolutely normal in patent descriptions

That's the problem. patents shouldn't be generalisations, they should be pretty fucking specific.

It's not about Copyright it's about the ISP

[zifn4b]

So basically, we don't really give a shit about copyright infringement what we do give a shit about is if an ISP like Cox doesn't have the processes in place to deal with copyright infringement (or anything else for that matter) and fails to respond competently in a timely manner, it will be sued. In summary, we are trying to protect ISP's from financial harm that are trying to squeeze every last time out of subscribers and then want to put internet toll roads in place to further extort the subscribers due

Liability

[currently_awake]

1-If you actively screen users for illegal activity then you are liable for any crime you let through. 2-ISP's won't be able to screen for copyrighted material because it's patented.