2008 - the year of ISP FILTERING.

[no1_vern]

ARS Technica has an article about the ISP's filtering content that you recieve from other sites.

Quote:

The MPAA has made no secret of its desire that ISPs take part, and rather amazingly, one of the nation's largest ISPs is interested. In fact, AT&T seems downright enthusiastic about the prospect of sniffing for copyright violations.

While AT&T has yet to reveal how such a filtering regime would function, it has repeatedly confirmed that it is going forward with the technology. Confirmation of those plans at CES made news, and it thrilled people like NBC's Rick Cotton, a lawyer who has led NBC's push for such filtering.

As I posted earlier such filtering/replacement of content is already in the trial stages.

[GroundZero3]

I'm sure in the coming years we will see a push towards encrypted traffic which is harder to filter.

I'm not sure how i feel about the whole filter issue. One side i understand that its sort of needed due to the strain p2p can put on a network. However its my understanding the infrastructure here in America is lacking compared to other countries. (you can get 100 Mbps to your house).

I also have no problems with companies wanting to protect anything they have created when it comes to music, movies, games, etc. Piracy wasn't a problem back in the day as many didn't have the internet or knew about newsgroups and such. However with p2p and torrents, warez are so easy to get its a big problem. And please do not complain to me about the cost of windows/photoshop etc. The amount you pay for the software and the time you use it add up to mere dollars.

[jokostel]

How many phone/power companies want to take the time and money to run light pipe or a better grade of copper thru major cities to get that bandwidth boost?

Id say WIMAX in big cities is the way to go.

[GroundZero3]

Verizon is trying to do it with FIOS but are having problems with cities wanting money and other ISP's fighting them tooth and nail. Plus trying to upgrade an infrastructure of such magnitude is gonna take a few years

http://www.ftthblog.com/more-verizon...ation-problems

[jokostel]

Well, somethings gotta give soon. The communication structure we have in this country is atroshious... compared to the Koreas or Japan... China.
Not sure about the Euro nations..

[GroundZero3]

You are right something has to give and companies need to start bring more open, but when it comes to down to the real issue: money. No one wants to give in and give some cash up to better the customers.

Cox out here has upgraded to DOCSIS 2.0 (42.88 (38) Mbit/s 30.72 (27) Mbit/s) about a year ago and bumped our speeds to 5 Mbps down/ 2 Mbps up. Which is great. However its all marketing. As Verizon installs FIOS into more houses, Cox will up the speeds little by little to keep its customers.

[Chuckiechan]

I'd like to see them start filtering in China and other country's where copyrights are ignored.

But then they have a big stick.

[Theophylact]

You should read Tim Wu's piece in Slate. As he says,

Quote:

Today, in its daily Internet operations, AT&T is shielded by a federal law that provides a powerful immunity to copyright infringement. The Bells know the law well: They wrote and pushed it through Congress in 1998, collectively spending six years and millions of dollars in lobbying fees to make sure there would be no liability for "Transitory Digital Network Communications"—content AT&T carries over the Internet. And that's why the recording industry sued Napster and Grokster, not AT&T or Verizon, when the great music wars began in the early 2000s.

Here's the kicker: To maintain that immunity, AT&T must transmit data "without selection of the material by the service provider" and "without modification of its content." Once AT&T gets in the business of picking and choosing what content travels over its network, while the law is not entirely clear, it runs a serious risk of losing its all-important immunity. An Internet provider voluntarily giving up copyright immunity is like an astronaut on the moon taking off his space suit. As the world's largest gatekeeper, AT&T would immediately become the world's largest target for copyright infringement lawsuits.

His recommendation? If you own AT&T stock, sell.

[EXreaction]

AT&T can die, if I wasn't so lazy and I lived near a AT&T HQ, I'd be out there rioting every day. Posting posters up all around the building about all the illegal things they do and all the stuff they want to do.

And you wouldn't want to imagine the damage that would happen to the US if we started filtering our networks from anyone overseas, or even just some countries.

Not only would it seclude us even more, but then the rest of the world would built a replacement and not allow us to participate. A big shot to your own foot when we are already in last place.

[no1_vern]

UM, AT&T ISN'T the only ISP that is trying to get this done. In the article AT&T is the main one mentioned but other ISPs are looking at ways to filter their content as well.