AT&T and Other ISPs May Be Getting Ready to Filter

[babylonsister]

AT&T and Other ISPs May Be Getting Ready to Filter

By Brad Stone

Tags: at and t, CES, content filtering, Copyright, digital fingerprinting, NBC, piracy
International Consumer Electronics Show

For the past fifteen years, Internet service providers have acted - to use an old cliche - as wide-open information super-highways, letting data flow uninterrupted and unimpeded between users and the Internet.

But ISPs may be about to embrace a new metaphor: traffic cop.

At a small panel discussion about digital piracy here at NBC’s booth on the Consumer Electronics Show floor, representatives from NBC, Microsoft, several digital filtering companies and telecom giant AT&T said the time was right to start filtering for copyrighted content at the network level.

Such filtering for pirated material already occurs on sites like YouTube and Microsoft’s Soapbox, and on some university networks.

Network-level filtering means your Internet service provider – Comcast, AT&T, EarthLink, or whoever you send that monthly check to – could soon start sniffing your digital packets, looking for material that infringes on someone’s copyright.

more...

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/att-and-other-isps-may-be-getting-ready-to-filter/

[ixion]

1. and thus begins the death of the internet

very sad ending for what was once an open framework. :cry:

[annabanana]

2. "As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression."

Your sig says it all. . .

[kurth]

3. And when your ISP gets hooked up with Turnitin.com

your error message includes your course grade, F.