Big Brother's Future Mandatory Censorship Spyware for Illegal Downloads

[FastTadpole]

Quote:Big Brother Snooping For Illegal Downloads And Future Mandatory Censorship Installed On Your Computer
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 8:29

You are online, working on a project and you think to yourself why not download a few songs from You Tube. I know you are not supposed to do that but hey what's the big deal, after all it is already on You Tube. But hold up your illegal enjoyment of music will cause a whole lot of headaches if the RIAA and MPAA get their way.

Before you can even begin the download, your connection shuts off. Mandatory censorship programming on your Internet connection has determined that you haven't paid for your download. Next you can't access your Internet connection, it is still active but you can't access it. Why? In the background, a government program is running, checking all your files to make sure that none of them infringe on copyright. If it finds what it determines to be a copyright infringement, the program remotely deletes it from your computer.

Welcome to the future where Big Brother works for the Music/Movie Industry and who knows who else because why stop there?

If the government meets recent RIAA/ MPAA demands, you'll be forced to install spyware on your computer that trawls through all your data, searches for content that might infringe copyright, and deletes it from your machine remotely. To put it bluntly, the RIAA wants the government to spy on its citizens in the name of protecting copyright.

The RIAA and MPAA have submitted a plan to the Office of Intellectual Property Enforcement. It's basically a plan that they want the government to enact, and it's terrifying.

* spyware on your computer that detects and deletes infringing materials;
* mandatory censorware on all Internet connections to interdict transfers of infringing material;
* border searches of personal media players, laptops and thumb-drives;
* international bullying to force other countries to implement the same policies;
* and free copyright enforcement provided by Fed cops and agencies (including the Department of Homeland Security!).

Consider the following, all taken from the entertainment industry's submission to the IPEC.
"Anti-infringement" software for home computers

There are several technologies and methods that can be used by network administrators and providers...these include [consumer] tools for managing copyright infringement from the home (based on tools used to protect consumers from viruses and malware).

In other words, the entertainment industry thinks consumers should voluntarily install software that constantly scans our computers and identifies (and perhaps deletes) files found to be "infringing." It's hard to believe the industry thinks savvy, security-conscious consumers would voluntarily do so. But those who remember the Sony BMG rootkit debacle know that the entertainment industry is all too willing to sacrifice consumers at the altar of copyright enforcement.
Pervasive copyright filtering

Network administrators and providers should be encouraged to implement those solutions that are available and reasonable to address infringement on their networks. [This suggestion is preceded by a list of filtering methods, like protocol filtering, fingerprint-based filtering, bandwidth throttling, etc.]

The entertainment industry loves widespread filtering as a "solution" to online copyright infringement — in fact, it has successfully persuaded Congress to push these technologies on institutions of higher-education.

But this "solution" is full of flaws. First, even the "best" automated copyright blocking systems fail to protect fair use. Worse, these techniques are unlikely to make any lasting dent on infringing behavior, but will instead just invite the use of more encryption and private "darknets" (or even just more hand-to-hand sharing of hard drives and burned DVDs). But perhaps the most pernicious effect may be that copyright protection measures can be trojan horses for consumer surveillance. In an age of warrantless wiretapping and national censorship, building moresurveillance and inspection technologies into the heart of the Internet is an obviously bad idea. In the words of the Hollywood movie, "if you build it, they will come."

There's a technical term for this in policy circles. I believe it's "Totally insane."

Sources

The Entertainment Industry's Dystopia of the Future
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/ent...pia-future

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/15/big...stopi.html

gizmodo.com/5517850/riaampaa-want-government+mandated-spyware-that-deletes-infringing-content-automatically

http://digg.com/odd_stuff/Big_Brother_Sn...ure_Mandat
http://members.beforeitsnews.com/story/3...puter.html

[h3rm35]

well now... that sounds like fun. That'll keep black-hats busily working on shutting down and fucking over those particular trade groups for a loooong time. I've already heard rumors that there's enough people, resources and exploits to shut down both government and private networks involved with this kind of privacy infringement if it were to be enacted. If the Gvt thinks that they've got issues with cyberwarriors now, I'd love to see how much hair gets pulled out in the drawing rooms once they try to pull this kind of thing.