Belgian ISP Forced To Block P2P Traffic 207
An anonymous reader lets us know of developments in a case in Belgium that has been under litigation since 2004. The Belgian copyright watchdog SABAM has forced an ISP to begin filtering P2P traffic (PDF). According to the PDF on the SABAM site: "The Belgian Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers (SABAM) has just won an important legal battle within the context of the dispute that opposes it to the Internet Service Provider (ISP) Tiscali, which has become Scarlet Extended Ltd. In its sentence of June 29, 2007, the Court of First Instance of Brussels is demanding from the access provider that it adopts one of the technical measures put forward by the expert in order to prevent Internet users from illegally downloading SABAM's musical repertoire via P2P software." The rumor is that Scarlet will be forced to deploy the same software as MySpace uses (Audible Magic) to filter illegal P2P traffic from the legal.
I guess that creates an opportunity (Score:5, Interesting)
FYI, here's what Relakks does:
"- You'll exchange the IP-number you get from your ISP to an anonymous IP-number .
- You get a safe/encrypted connection between your computer and the Internet. "
How could the ISP filter or block VPN traffic without annoying the rest of the professionals who rely on corporate VPN access?
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Unfortunately some ISPs throttle all encrypted traffic and will continue to do so, unless customers start leaving in droves.
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some of
Re:I guess that creates an opportunity (Score:4, Insightful)
They don't need to. They just need to block traffic to Relakks, then all other legit traffic can continue.
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- There is no evidence that Relakks customers are involved in illegal activities (unlike P2P whose unecnrypted packets you can monitor). I for instance happen to use Relakks more for Hotspot access than anything else.
- What happens if Relakks has some sort of DynDns VPN server address? The ISP could not reference this address in their DNS servers but then agin those subscribing to Relakks are savy enough to use OpenDNS as well.
What happens then?
FYI, countries li
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That's false. Unless the ISP wants to move to destination address whitelisting (i.e. you can only access approved servers), there's no way to reliably prevent people from using encrypted VPN tunnels for their P2P traffic. If set up properly, such tunnels can actually *improve* P2P download speeds in some cases.
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2) we're not talking about preventing VPN tunnels in general, we're talking about preventing traffic (of any sort) in specific - specifically a certain site. If an ISP doesn't want you to get to that one site, it is beyond trivial for them to block your "easy" attempts to get it.
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There is no such thing as a reliable blocker based on IPs.
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Query various name services for the crap you want to block. They'll give you an IP. Block those IPs.
Block the meta-IPs for TOR and any other such thing. At some point, you're relying upon something with a stable name/ip association. Block that thing.
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I dunno if you know how TOR works. If not, here [eff.org] you can find the specs. And the program. And the proxy, in case you want to participate and become a proxy, too.
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Re:I guess that creates an opportunity (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, lets all burn 3 CDs of mp3s each, and post it to random Belgans.
FILTER THAT, FUCK-WITS
:-P
monk.e.boy
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Here's what Relakks.coms costs (Score:2)
Wasn't the whole point of the P2P stuff this court ruling targets that people don't want to pay for the content?
( Yes, I know.. "people are willing to pay for the content, but not as much as the copyright holders are asking"
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But I have no moral problem downloading the major label stuff - mostly I don't like the quality, though. If I'm going to put on my pirate hat, it is typically to go over to the library with my laptop and rip compilation CDs. The New York Public Lib
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Just encrypt? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Just encrypt? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Buying bandwidth (or maintaining, leasing, and deploying fiber in the case of Tier-1s) is the #2 recurring cost an ISP faces, second only to employee salaries.
Even very expensive hardware is comparatively cheap.
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I don't know how the mentioned software works, but if they are going to distinguish between legal and illegal P2P traffic, they will have to analyse the content. If that's the case, I think encrypted content can only be blocked by employing a whitelist containing fingerprints of legal content.
Oh? (Score:2)
I can think offhand of at least two simple ways -
1. Encapsulate bittorrent in SSL over plain port-80 HTTP.
2. Either randomize or approximate flow pattern of any legit application that would be way too painful for any ISP to block.
The sheer scale of false positives, bad vibes, pissed customers and support load an ISP would encounter from any form of selective blocking of high-profile legit customer data will make it totally impra
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Zaphod Beeblebrox said it best... (Score:3, Funny)
This could really hurt the ISP. (Score:3, Insightful)
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A simple way to defeat this (Score:5, Informative)
TorrentFreak's guide to protocol encrpytion [torrentfreak.com]
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Yes, that may lose them some customers - probably less than the current order will cost them.. and even that will be puny in comparison to the total
Re:A simple way to defeat this (Score:5, Informative)
What about encrypted traffic? How can you tell it's "P2P traffic"? How about traffic from multiplayer games that uses a completely alien packet configuration that doesn't fit any "standard" mold because the company making the game had to design their own packet format on top of TCP/UDP? How do you discriminate between "good" and "bad" packets?
You can't outlaw encryption. You'd get into a serious fight with banks that way (and, trust me, you DO NOT want a fight with a bank). You can't outlaw connecting on "nonstandard" ports, that would open another can of worms you do not want to touch.
So please enlighten me how you'd like to enforce the "no encrypted P2P" rule.
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Re:A simple way to defeat this (Score:5, Informative)
No ISP would be plain retarded enough to block all encrypted traffic, on the grounds that it takes away a big reason for people to use the Internet (and thus their service) in the first place: buying stuff online.
(Christ, I had to give up mod points to point this out)
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Legal VS Illegal (Score:4, Insightful)
But what about the LEGAL P2P traffic, like Linux Distros and patches for various apps and games that are out there, as well as artists who promote and encourage the sharing of their works?
I hope that this isn't dragged over here to the States by the RIAA or MPAA.
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Re:Legal VS Illegal (Score:4, Informative)
It wouldn't surprise me if Audible Magic is owned or otherwise affiliated to people within the RIAA and it's offshoot organizations.
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Wow. Even computer game companies like Blizzard Entertainment should make more noise about that.
Blizzard? (Score:2)
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Of course they will.
See, lately, they've been acting abroad through subsidiaries, getting other countries to sign up for more restrictive laws than they have to deal with, and then getting congress to re-import those laws in the interests of 'harmonizing' everyone's laws.
I'm willing to bet if you followed the trail, it's large multinationals like Sony who initially lobbied for these laws in the first place. Next, they'll push real h
SSL for Azereus (Score:2)
Either that or a couple of the bigger ones are going to get updates/patches/plugings so when sharing with the same client they will be encrypted...
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RC4 (Score:2)
It's not as strong as SSL could be, but for the purpose at hand it's perfect.
I find it so interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Creates "Jobs" (Score:2, Interesting)
Another somebody gets paid for implementing a technology that definitely does not offer any real solution to the piracy problem and probably makes life for the law-abiding end-user a little more difficult.
Just like those fantastic copy-protected CDs that were so safe that pirates managed to copy them instantly, while many CD players failed to read them (not to mention the reduction in sound quality)!
Instead of paying all these experts to come up with the solution, maybe prices for digital products shoul
Re:Creates "Jobs" (Score:5, Insightful)
Scapegoats (Score:2)
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The enforcement of a law is difficult because the majority of disagree with it and people disobey it. Do you:
I assume your point was the though the law says breach of copyright is a crime, most people do not feel that it i
Re:I find it so interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
What you want is to turn our education around by pretty much 180 degrees. Remember elementary school? When you were told that you should "share" what you got with others, that it's more fun to play together instead of alone? That giving is more fun than receiving?
Now you want to turn it around? Don't we have enough greedy, selfish bastards already?
People need to understand laws to heed them. You can see that every day. "Don't kill" is easy. And understandable, hey, I don't want to be killed! So prolly the next guy doesn't enjoy it either. On the other hand, the program I wrote to solve my problem, do I care if someone else uses it? Nah. I still got it, it ain't like I can't use it anymore just 'cause he does too. Hey, I remember my elementary time, and I like sharing that program with him!
Make copyright laws understandable, and give people a reason to heed them. Current copyright is completely out of whack, it's (translated quote from a lawyer) "too complicated for use, but formidable for abuse". It's true. We actually have conflicting parts in our copyright laws, which is partly due to it getting patched more often than the average MS OS.
And give people a reason to heed it. If a law is pointing against me without offering me any benefits, my will to heed it is close to zero. Unless you can enforce it by the very root of the word enforce, i.e. with brute force, people will not care about the law. A law against killing limits me (I can't kill freely at will), but also protects me (neither can someone just pull his gun on the road and kill me without impunity). Same for stealing. Which incidentally is also heeded less by people who don't have jack. Could be coincidence, and probably is...
You will notice, though, that people were more willing to heed copyright when it was still based on "equal protection", i.e. when copyright not only limited the customer but also gave him some rights. Since those rights are eroding away, so is the willingness to heed the law.
Make fair laws, and people will heed them. Make unfair laws, and people will only ponder how to evade them.
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Encryption (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way to assure net neutrality is to encrypt every packet and randomize the ports on all new network protocols. This is true right now for some P2P and skype.
Given the current European policy on data retention, we should do it even for mail and instant messaging. Of course you should use sftp instead of ftp and ssh instead of telnet, and your SMTP sessions should go encrypted, but that is not enough. We should rewrite every protocol and make it look like IPSEC.
This way we would avoid the following problems without the need for regulation:
- Government censorship (the China firewall becomes less efficient)
- Traffic Shaping (ISPs shouldn't have the right to decide what protocols can you use).
- Multi tier pricing (the ISP could discriminate by IP, but not by service)
- Traffic analysis (for example the European Data Retention policy. If all packets look the same it becomes much more difficult)
A technical solution is always better than a political one.
In this case, the "expert" wouldn't have suggested the filtering solution if all of the p2p protocols where encrypted, like some bittorrent variants.
Re:Encryption (Score:5, Interesting)
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Maybe we should call it Stunnel [stunnel.org]?
Invent, not rewrite (Score:2)
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sad days to come (Score:2)
What is happening to our intertubes?!
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Good, make someone else bear the brunt (Score:3, Interesting)
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Bad news (Score:4, Informative)
But who gets the money? (Score:5, Interesting)
When bands come and play their own original music, we have to pay a fee to SABAM for this right...
What upsets me the most is that as far as we know NONE of the bands who fall into that category have received one Euro cent of royalties from SABAM.
I (and many others here) are not impressed with this company. Their business seems more akin to racketeering than ensuring royalties are correctly rewarded to the artists who created the works.
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What gives them the right to demand those fees? Did you sign some kind of shitty contract or is it stipulated by law?
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Nowadays some ISPs will sell you an internet service through a Belgacom line (as far as I know, Mobistar does this for example), but even then we're talking about two different layers of services (the line and the internet connection at the end of said line).
Other ISPs will work completely independently using their own hardware on the raw twisted-pair (Scarlet does that). Of course, twisted pair belongs to the incumbent operator (which in this case is Belgacom) but that's
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Not Necessary here in Canada (Score:3, Informative)
Rogers Cable throttle _all_ encrypted traffic now, as people were encrypting to get around bittorrent throttling. Your 7Meg line will get about 10KB down on a fully seeded torrent (Linux ISOs or whatever).
No worries, you'd think, in a nice open market you can just go to the competition, except that there is none. If your local copper is incapabable of decent DSL speeds, chances are Rogers are your Only option for broadband.
Go the 'free' market.
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Of course there is an "easy" solution... Encrypt everything, rencode the encrypted version to ASCII, PNG content, and WAV formats and then transport that via normal http requests. But, break it into a "page with rich content", hitting n servers.
The data will expand (roughly by 2x, it will actually be a bit less). Since the throttle is 10KB compared to 5MB, its 500 times slower. So, this will speed up your transfer by 250 times. The value of "n" would then be 8 to 10, which corresponds we
ob (Score:3, Funny)
SABAM meets university resistance (Score:5, Funny)
Acoustic Fingerprinting (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is that there is no way to know, simply by inspecting packets or analysing traffic flow, whether the users involved have the appropriate licenses to perform the action they're performing.
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If the courts were trying to shut down the "searching other random people's libraries" portion of P2P traffic, then fine, my argument doesn't apply. But this a
Audible Magic ... (Score:2)
Don't panic yet. (Score:3, Informative)
What I don't know, IANAL : Is Scarlet already obliged to enforce this ass-hat decision while the case is appealed ?
If so, as a Scarlet customer I will have to figure out a way to subvert Le Filtre P2P until I find another ISP. Sorry Scarlet
Tangentially, it's worth noting that SABAM tries to set a precedent by taking on a small ISP (at the time this case started rolling they were quite small compared to Skynet and Telenet).
I don't see them trying to pull this shit on Skynet/Belgacom. Odds are they'd get crushed like a puppy trying to stop a bus. (Wishful thinking)
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Fighting back (Score:3)
The music industry does not live in a digital vacuum and the sooner they (and lawmakers) figure out that they are just one medium-sized piece of the digital landscape, the better. Heck, any company that uses the internet should feel threatened that one industry can block use of the internet across the board, because it's only a matter of time before the precedent set here will be used by some other group to shut off, say, TCP-IP because that's how computers communicate to each other to do something or another that is illegal somewhere.
Come on! It won't work! (Score:2, Funny)
Now that's a battle the government will NEVER win.
d
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The internet will route around this breakage.
Just give it time to adapt.
monk.e.boy
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As long as companies aren't held responsible for their claims, they can claim whatever they want. And people for some odd reason believe those claims.
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