P2P Filters Not Ready For Prime TimeNew study tests filters, traffic shaping technology ( old news - 10:14AM Friday Mar 28 2008) tags: legal · Fileswapping · hardware · bandwidth · content · networkingWhile the MPAA might be ready for ISPs to deploy piracy filters, those filters might not be ready for ISPs. These deep packet inspection services are supposed to use network hardware to identify (and corral or slow) your pirated The Golden Girls DiVX transfers, but a new study of piracy filtering and traffic shaping gear by Internet Evolution says many aren't ready for prime time. Of the 28 vendors they asked to participate in testing only five agreed, and only two would let the results be published because the other three didn't like the results. Based on the response to Internet Evolution's ground-breaking test of P2P filters, both ISPs and the music industry will have to wait a while before the power tools they need to beat back bandwidth hogs or stymie copyright violators are widely available. For now, the advantage is with P2P perps that want all-they-can-eat capacity and easy access to pirated materials. In short, the study found that the marketing of these DPI and traffic shaping platforms exceeds their actual capabilities for many vendors. Only Arbor/Ellacoya and Germany-based ipoque GmbH agreed to results publication, because those were the only vendors whose gear could detect and throttle most P2P protocols with any degree of reliability. Interestingly, you'll note there's no effort made here to differentiate between legal and copyright-protected P2P transfers. Though addressed briefly in the intro, there doesn't seem to be any test results that show the gears' ability to detect and throttle only copyright-protected P2P traffic. That's supposedly within the base capabilities of deep packet inspection gear. Of the major American ISPs, only AT&T has stated they want to filter pirated material specifically, and they've supposedly been testing a solution from Vobile since last Spring.
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TamaraB
Question The Current Paradigm
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Brooklyn NYC
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| Erroneous assumptionsBS!
the advantage is with P2P perps that want all-they-can-eat capacity and easy access to pirated materials. Not everyone who drives a car runs red lights! This association of P2P with piracy is good propaganda, but hardly based in any provable facts. It's a crock!
Bob
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major marco
Res Firma Mitescere Nescit
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clubs:
| Re: Erroneous assumptions said by TamaraB  :Not everyone who drives a car runs red lights! This association of P2P with piracy is good propaganda, but hardly based in any provable facts. It's a crock! Bob When have you known any entertainment org that embraces a scorched earth/P2P is bad policy to allow facts to get in the way? It's whatever sounds good and how much money they can shovel into the pockets of the American aristocracy (Congre$$) to get laws passed to protect their obsolete distribution model.
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The Toll
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tshirt
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join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA
 ·Comcast
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This association of P2P with piracy is good propaganda, but hardly based in any provable facts. It's a crock!
Bob
you're correct, but with almost anything it only takes a few abusers to taint all users (and illegal use of P2P is reported to be the vast majority of it's use.)
The press seems to assume that ISP's are seeking to block P2P because it's illegitimate use, however I don't think they care (other than defending themselves from any liablity) about that nearly as much as they do about the effect on their network, due to the way it is used/the way it works. (high number of connections, extreme and continous bandwidth usage) | |
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TamaraB
Question The Current Paradigm
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| Re: Erroneous assumptions said by tshirt : ... illegitimate use, however I don't think they care ... Right, they care about customers actually using the bandwidth they were sold.
This nexus of common interest between the music industry and ISPs is a dangerous one, and it seems the ISPs have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
A revenue stream for ISPs, but no help, and an endless task for the music industry.
My first job was in the defense industry, we engineered ECM (Electronic Counter Measures) gear for the military. For every ECM the Russians would implement a Counter ECM, when it was "fixed" another would pop up! Oh.... the employment bonanza of the cold war years  Point being, spend all this effort to stop current P2P use, and it will evolve into a better more private system, ultimately undetectable, and unstoppable.
The more pressure put on P2P, the better it will get.
Bob
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tshirt
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join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA
·Comcast
| Re: Erroneous assumptions said by TamaraB : Right, they care about customers actually using the bandwidth they were sold. No doubt they (marketing dept.) oversold their(network operations) capacity.
It's a situation where they need the income to increase the network, and the high demand is driving them to do so, but demand rises faster than the physical network buildout can occur.
The desire for higher speed drives their business (otherwise we'd all still be on dialup)
for some there will never be fast enough speeds, and the need to "manage" consumption will always be needed.
P@P will never reach the point of ultimately undetectable, and unstoppable.
The fact that there are 28 or more commerial entities competing to detect/block P2P shows how much money is available to the business end. can the P2P crowd afford to continue their side of the "war" with the few (so far) legitimate business oppertunities (ie income producing) for P2P apps?
As you point out the cold war became largely about money and ended mostly due to bankruptcy of the soviet bloc.
BTW nice boat | |
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LiamJunket
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Ocean City, NJ
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2 edits |  Flawed conclusions to study
28 vendors they asked to participate in testing only five agreed
Based on the response to Internet Evolution's ground-breaking test of P2P filters, both ISPs and the music industry will have to wait a while before the power tools they need to beat back bandwidth hogs or stymie copyright violators are widely available. So how did they come to the conclusion that tools don't exist when they only tested 5 of 28 products? The fact that 23 vendors refused doesn't mean their products don't work - only that they don't want their technology out there being examined where hackers can get an early crack at their code.
And of the 5 they did test, 2 passed the test.
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| | jc100
join:2002-04-10
·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: Flawed conclusions to study True. Got to read into some of these so called studies. Still, ATT is trying to do everything in it's power to piss off the consumer. I've said it over and over now. ISPS have no jobs being the police. If they wish to assume that risk, they also assume the liability that goes along with it. A person who downloads illegal content that bypasses the filter WILL HAVE a valid argument. It was ATT's job to make sure material I find is legal. The filter did not stop me, sue ATT. In all respect, they'd be right. This is exactly why OTHER ISPS don't want the job of policing the NET. RISK and LIABILITY are not worth it in their minds, even with a good team of lawyers. | |
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digitalfreak
join:2005-12-09
49533
| said by LiamJunket :28 vendors they asked to participate in testing only five agreed
Based on the response to Internet Evolution's ground-breaking test of P2P filters, both ISPs and the music industry will have to wait a while before the power tools they need to beat back bandwidth hogs or stymie copyright violators are widely available. So how did they come to the conclusion that tools don't exist when they only tested 5 of 28 products? The fact that 23 vendors refused doesn't mean their products don't work - only that they don't want their technology out there being examined where hackers can get an early crack at their code. And of the 5 they did test, 2 passed the test. Uh, sure. I didn't see any indication that the source code or any other part of the software was made available by Internet Evolution to the public. | |
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Matt
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Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
| said by LiamJunket :28 vendors they asked to participate in testing only five agreed
Based on the response to Internet Evolution's ground-breaking test of P2P filters, both ISPs and the music industry will have to wait a while before the power tools they need to beat back bandwidth hogs or stymie copyright violators are widely available. So how did they come to the conclusion that tools don't exist when they only tested 5 of 28 products? The fact that 23 vendors refused doesn't mean their products don't work - only that they don't want their technology out there being examined where hackers can get an early crack at their code. And of the 5 they did test, 2 passed the test. 2 detected P2P traffic, but can't differentiate between legit and illegal traffic.
That's not passing a test, that's the ability to write your name on the paper.
The fact is, if you follow the NANOG list, the technology isn't there to do deep packet inspection at an AT&T like level. Just ROUTING traffic at 10G speeds without adding ridiculous latency is hard as hell. Oh sure, we'll see it eventually, right about the time a new technology comes out and Bit torrent is obsolete.
Now, if you're talking about putting a deep packet inspection device in each RT or in each CO, then you may possibly have the ability to differentiate and then filter material, but you're not going to do it on any high speed backbone links. | |
| | 
Nightshade
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1 edit | said by LiamJunket :And of the 5 they did test, 2 passed the test. So that's only a 40% chance that a filter will detect a P2P network. No exactly inspiring results for a filter and definitely not ready for prime time.
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dadkins
Can you do Blu?
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join:2003-09-26
Hercules, CA
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| Blanket solutions suck! "Interestingly, you'll note there's no effort made here to differentiate between legal and copyright-protected P2P transfers. Though addressed briefly in the intro, there doesn't seem to be any test results that show the gears' ability to detect and throttle only copyright-protected P2P traffic."
Translation - kill all traffic using xxx protocol - legality of content be damned! 
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tshirt
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join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA
·Comcast
1 edit | Re: Blanket solutions suck! [BQUOTE=dadkins
Translation - kill all traffic using xxx protocol - legality of content be damned!
[/BQUOTE
the other choice is to open all packets, examine all content and make a judgement as to whether it is legal.
I don't want ANY provider checking all my content or deciding the legality.
the gov't is all the Big Brother we need (more than enough sometimes)
you see the abuses that happened when a private party (MPAA/RIAA) was given jurisdiction to write it's own subpoenas (the gov't basically abdicated their responsibility to control the legal process) | |
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funchords
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 ·Skype
|  Differentiating illegal & copyrighted content is DANGEROUS
In the US, everything written or drawn is protected by copyright laws, without any requirement for upfront registration.
To design a copyright filter to act correctly according to US law, it would have to block all transfers unless some bitprint was registered somewhere as allowable to be transferred:
1. Because its copyright has expired (currently 70 to 90 years from the date of the works creation or the death of the creator).
2. Because the content was explicitly placed into the public domain by the owner, a recognized authority, or a treaty provision.
3. Because the content's owner explicitly allows such distribution while retaining other rights.
AND THIS IS A REALLY INTERESTING ONE:
4. Because the downloader claims the right under Fair Use. (The owner does not get to decide "fair use." If the owner consents, that's called a license and it would be handled by #3 above.
So, unless the filter works in the way that I've described above, it's broken by design. It is incompatible with the Copyright laws of the United States -- and our laws have aligned with the various treaties and laws of other major world powers.
And there is still much case law to consider, some of it still controversial, and it would have to be incorporated into that system:
a. Does the protectee (author, owner) place any limit on the duration or places of distribution?
b. Does the protectee place a limit on the number of transfers?
It's madness.
To fix this system, we have to fix the part that's broken -- and the Internet is not broken. We need to fix the laws, which right now grossly favor the major studios over independent publishers, and protectees over users of IP.
My generation used to share stuff on magnetic tape and Xerox pages. If you're in your 20s and 30s, you're the generation that needs to help Congress understand if and how you want to support the artists and authors through the copyright mechanism. Don't look to us to do it -- we don't like your music, anyway.    
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| | tx_tower
join:2007-11-13
Blanco, TX
| Connection limiting, simple and effective solution w/ no big bro p2p is only a problem for ISP's due to the huge number of connections made, its as simple as limiting the number or connections a customer can make in the ToS, ie. selling a 10mb/5mb connection with a limit of 30 connections not on port 80 (how we currently throttle our customers). business customers get 100 connections. problem solved end of story and I agree its not my job as an ISP to police the internet, im just looking out for my network. | |
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funchords
Hello
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Washington, DC
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| Re: Connection limiting, simple and effective solution w/ no big Connections are irrelevant. Internet Service Providers need look no further than the IP packet header to determine how to handle my traffic.
ISPs need not waste money on "intelligent" devices to figure out what they'd rather do with a packet instead of what they're paid do with a packet (i.e. ROUTE IT).
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Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon
FCC Public Hearing on the Future of the Internet - Thursday, April 17th - Stanford Univ., Calif. | |
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a333
A hot cup of integrals please
join:2007-06-12
Corona, NY
·Verizon Online DSL
1 edit | Honestly, get a grip, and put down the piracy Kool-Aid as many open-source projects show, open source apps have WAY more people working on them, and embrace outside help, the end result of which is that those apps end up being light-years ahead of closed-source apps.
A couple of corps working on "intelligent" inspection techniques is no match for a worldwide cooperative effort that has the capability to turn out bug fixes/improvements on a daily basis. You just have way more people looking at the code, and editing it.
End moral of story:
Let Big Brother/Uncle Sam do the policing/net nanny honors. ISP's should be protected from any liability from the music industry, and be nothing more than 'dumb pipe' providers.
And, on a side note, file transfer protocols have been around since the birth of the 'net. In the 90's, it was FTP. Now, it's p2p. So get over the paranoia, and adapt to the times. New times, new demands, new rules. Get a grip, **AA. | |
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