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[ NNSquad ] Speculation, how AT&T can implement "copyright filtering" without wiretapping/dpi...


I've done some speculation on how AT&T might actually implement their
proposed copyright-filtering mechanism, without actually having to do
deep-packet inspection or even providing new hardware. After all, if
their motive is to save money, they will select a mechanism which
doesn't cost money.

The idea is to rely on someone else (MPAA or an affiliate) to spider
the torrents and identify participants, and once the graph of
participants is generated, to dynamically block just that graph using
router ACLs, which would allow the MPAA to play Whak-a-mole on
individual torrents.  This would be very different in practice
compared with either deep packet inspection or traffic analysis.

I think such speculation is useful because if AT&T really does follow
through on their stated goals, we should get ahead of the curve and
understand what this might look like in practice, and how to detect
the difference between possible techniques (DPI vs generic traffic
analysis vs spider-blocking).

The solution space is actually pretty limited.

More details/thoughts on my blog:
http://nweaver.blogspot.com/2008/01/security-thought-at-copyright-fighting.html