AT&T Gets Patent to Monitor File-Sharing Traffic

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Why does a patent to monitor file-sharing traffic surprise you? It's not like every damn thing we do now on the internet isn't monitored. :p

Internet provider AT&T has patented a new technology that allows the company to accurately track content being shared via BitTorrent and other P2P networks. The company explains that the technology can be utilized to detect pirated downloads and combat congestion on its network. Whether the company is already using the system to track infringing content, or has plans to do so, is unknown.
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This time next year ATT will be suing the NSA/DHS/CIA/FBI/ATF for patent infringement.
 
Looks like they are mostly concerned with Bandwidth Hogs for their broadband land products. AT&T isn't in the music or film industry.

If you are sharing feature length films and it makes your neighbor's paid Netflix movie slow down, then piracy is not a "victimless" crime.
 
They got the patent?

Then what did I get demonstrated to me back in 2002 at a computer expo doing this and more?
 
Qinsp said:
If you are sharing feature length films and it makes your neighbor's paid Netflix movie slow down, then piracy is not a "victimless" crime.
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If you uploading a torrent causes your neighbor's download to become congested, it's time for a new ISP.
 
so they are patenting this? They want to then probably license out the technology to monitor that p2p traffic. So they want to profit from it. This seems questionable....
 
Qinsp said:
Looks like they are mostly concerned with Bandwidth Hogs for their broadband land products. AT&T isn't in the music or film industry.

If you are sharing feature length films and it makes your neighbor's paid Netflix movie slow down, then piracy is not a "victimless" crime.
Click to expand...

I make sure to limit my torrent speed so I don't bother my neighbors :)
 
Does this mean AT&T will now sue all these RIAA/MPAA lawyer copyright trolls because they obviously showed the ability to monitor file-sharing when requesting the info for thousands of IP addresses (so much win if true :D)
 
Yeah, basically AT&T is going to target torrent customers if their bandwidth goes nuts. Expect to find something in your contract indicating they can do this.
 
Isn't att opening themselves up to lawsuit?

If ATT has the tools (we know they do now.) and they have them implemented (bandwidth useage impediment to other users detection for one.) then why would they not be responsible for the USE to commit crimes.

That would be like.. Well what the hell would that be like? They monitor everything and can prevent or shut off with an automated response. I don't see how they are not longer the digital "guardian" of the internet to the subscribers. As such wouldn't that make them liable legally to the lawsuits the entertainment industry loves to throw at tom dick and jane?
 
Also on another note. I have FINALLY figured out what the rest of the business world has to gain from all internet companies going to bandwidth usage based contracts. It allows banks/traders to commoditize internet bandwidth. Watch for it. I expect in the next decade we will see this happen and the financial markets will explode on it as the next .net bubble. Get in early sell mid way through before the pop and you will be set for life. Buying and trading real time options for bandwidth like we do power today. It is coming.
 
Qinsp said:
Looks like they are mostly concerned with Bandwidth Hogs for their broadband land products. AT&T isn't in the music or film industry.

If you are sharing feature length films and it makes your neighbor's paid Netflix movie slow down, then piracy is not a "victimless" crime.
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So sharing Linux ISOs slowing down your neighbor's paid Netflix movie will be ok?
 
nutzo said:
I make sure to limit my torrent speed so I don't bother my neighbors :)
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Screw the neighbors, if they don't like it they can upgrade their package or switch ISPs. If I pay for speed, regardless of the neighbor's crappy budget internets package, then I will suck down as much as I need.

Netflix on their end is skipping? Good. Get off the couch and clean up your fucking yard, its embarassing.
 
Cheetoz said:
So sharing Linux ISOs slowing down your neighbor's paid Netflix movie will be ok?
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Software distribution servers require the commercial contract, which many cable co's do not permit in residential areas.
 
Qinsp said:
Looks like they are mostly concerned with Bandwidth Hogs for their broadband land products. AT&T isn't in the music or film industry.

If you are sharing feature length films and it makes your neighbor's paid Netflix movie slow down, then piracy is not a "victimless" crime.
Click to expand...

I paid for my bandwidth, i should get it.. if you tell me i got 20/20 a month, don't punish me for using it because you oversold your network.. :rolleyes: so yes, it has victims, us, the consumers while they line their pockets...
 
Grimlaking said:
Also on another note. I have FINALLY figured out what the rest of the business world has to gain from all internet companies going to bandwidth usage based contracts. It allows banks/traders to commoditize internet bandwidth. Watch for it. I expect in the next decade we will see this happen and the financial markets will explode on it as the next .net bubble. Get in early sell mid way through before the pop and you will be set for life. Buying and trading real time options for bandwidth like we do power today. It is coming.
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The real question is: who are the new smartest guys in the room?
 
GotNoRice said:
A direct download is simply the equivalent of a torrent with two peers, one of which is a seeder. I'm unclear how a torrent could ever be worse.
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The seeder isn't a representative of the copyright holder. Quit the opposite actually.

The other benefit is instant download caps provided you know which services are the best and what forums/blogs best represent them.. Granted you can get those with POPULAR torrents. When you dig around for torrents of less common tv shows, music, movies, etc... your going to run into slow torrents.
 
MrGuvernment said:
I paid for my bandwidth, i should get it.. if you tell me i got 20/20 a month, don't punish me for using it because you oversold your network.. :rolleyes: so yes, it has victims, us, the consumers while they line their pockets...
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This.

I pay for a service and actually using that service doesn't make me a dick; however if my ISP promise services that it can't or more likely chooses not to provide in practice then they are the bad guys not me.

Oh and QOS for the win.
 
If your contract says you can't run a public server (basically an ISP if you think about it) on the residential lines, then you need to open a business.

Did you know that businesses pay far more for bandwidth than residences? Why would that be?

4 people in a business from 9-5, or 4 people in a house?

It's from the fixed IP option and the 24/7 bandwidth. Homes use less bandwidth on the average, so they get the lower price.
 
unholythree said:
This.

I pay for a service and actually using that service doesn't make me a dick; however if my ISP promise services that it can't or more likely chooses not to provide in practice then they are the bad guys not me.

Oh and QOS for the win.
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They have to oversell. Since they didn't upgrade the US infrastructure to fiber like we paid them to do, we'd all be using 1.5/256 if they didn't oversell.
 
Qinsp said:
Software distribution servers require the commercial contract, which many cable co's do not permit in residential areas.
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Yup, it's in most of the usage agreements from the ISP. If you wanna share stuff, you're supposed to get a business line.
 
Qinsp said:
Looks like they are mostly concerned with Bandwidth Hogs for their broadband land products. AT&T isn't in the music or film industry.

If you are sharing feature length films and it makes your neighbor's paid Netflix movie slow down, then piracy is not a "victimless" crime.
Click to expand...

Stop being a shill for big media.

I'm paying for an Internet connection. It is their responsibility to provide the service that I am paying for. If it is congested, it is because they are spending too much money giving their executives bonuses and not enough money upgrading their damn infrastructure.

It is ridiculous that a company can make a billion dollars in profit from Internet services and still not have enough capacity to handle demand. Such incompetence would never be tolerated in the business world, where we have actual competition between multiple providers rather than a state-imposed monopoly.
 
damicatz said:
Stop being a shill for big media.

I'm paying for an Internet connection. It is their responsibility to provide the service that I am paying for. If it is congested, it is because they are spending too much money giving their executives bonuses and not enough money upgrading their damn infrastructure.

It is ridiculous that a company can make a billion dollars in profit from Internet services and still not have enough capacity to handle demand. Such incompetence would never be tolerated in the business world, where we have actual competition between multiple providers rather than a state-imposed monopoly.
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The good news is that you're only spending this fiat money you dislike and don't think is legitimate so at least you're not really losing anything of value by having to violently give that meaningless currency to an Internet provider while you ransom them for what you say they're supposed to be giving you by threatening to not give them money. :p
 
Well the good thing about this patent is that it means ONLY AT&T will be able to use it. So just don't use AT&T. :D
 
Qinsp said:
Looks like they are mostly concerned with Bandwidth Hogs for their broadband land products. AT&T isn't in the music or film industry.

If you are sharing feature length films and it makes your neighbor's paid Netflix movie slow down, then piracy is not a "victimless" crime.
Click to expand...

This isn't how the bloody internet works, jesus it's so old hearing this "My neighbor is making the internet slow" bullcrap.

Congestion is NOT CAUSED by the users, it's caused by the ISP not having the backbone and infrastructure to support all they've sold for each node.

You see, when you sell a user a speed, the amougn that they download does not "ADD UP," it doesn't somehow "overflow" into your pipe. It's not like there's some "finite" resource which is limited and they are somehow using "more" then what they should while yours is being "cut out" because of them.

They are downloading more then someone else perhaps, but they are still using the speed they pay for.

The problem is when the ISP sells more and more people to a node and overload it, it's the ISP's fault, not the users.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...caps-have-nothing-to-do-with-congestion.shtml
 
mrtheshaggy said:
The seeder isn't a representative of the copyright holder. Quit the opposite actually.
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I was quite obviously referring to bittorrent on a technological level. Whether you are downloading something via direct download or via torrent has absolutely nothing to do with who has the copyright on anything. There are countless cases where both are used for the purposes of piracy.

The other benefit is instant download caps provided you know which services are the best and what forums/blogs best represent them.. Granted you can get those with POPULAR torrents. When you dig around for torrents of less common tv shows, music, movies, etc... your going to run into slow torrents.
Click to expand...

Situations where there is limited bandwidth available are the situations where torrents tend to shine, and likely why you would be able to find that content available at all.
 
I'm interested to see how long it takes for this to be circumvented rendering the patent useless.
 
Qinsp said:
Looks like they are mostly concerned with Bandwidth Hogs for their broadband land products. AT&T isn't in the music or film industry.
Click to expand...

So you are telling me, as a consumer, that i am a bandwidth hog for spending money for a service that lists certain speeds? How is this NOT AT&T's fault for NOT building a better infrastructure for their product? Like you said, they arent in the music or film industry, they are in the PROVIDING FUCKING BROADBAND SPEEDS SERVICE! lol

Qinsp said:
If you are sharing feature length films and it makes your neighbor's paid Netflix movie slow down, then piracy is not a "victimless" crime.
Click to expand...

What does my neighbor have to do with that? They paid for a service that doesnt allow them the access they are paying for. How can i be the assailant at that point? I cannot. AT&T however is in fact the assailant in this victimless crime.

AT&T are criminals who were given immunity for the crime of spying on the american public, retroactively i might add, once the program came to light that was NOT the purview of the government organization who requested such access. But rest assured, that metadata has been "purged". LOL yea, until the next 'terrorist' attack of course, then, well, bend over and spread those cheeks fellas, i wanna see light at the end of that tunnel.
 
Modder said:
I'm interested to see how long it takes for this to be circumvented rendering the patent useless.
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I will die of laughter if to circumvent it, there is a sharpie involved like the DRM on those CD's a few years ago. That would be awesome.
 
Qinsp said:
Yeah, basically AT&T is going to target torrent customers if their bandwidth goes nuts. Expect to find something in your contract indicating they can do this.
Click to expand...

I doubt the 1Mbps upload connection on their "elite" level DSL service is going to do much of anything to the overall bandwidth.

Although way back when they had a decent usenet server they crippled the shit out of it so that maximum speeds were 128kbps first claiming that usenet made up 98% of usage or some obnoxious "I don't buy it for a second" number like that, then when people countered AT&T (Pacbell at the time actually) guarantees minimum speeds of 384k, they countered back with those minimum speeds are only people to the internet and their own servers are outside of the minimum speed umbrella (fair enough).
 
GotNoRice said:
I was quite obviously referring to bittorrent on a technological level. Whether you are downloading something via direct download or via torrent has absolutely nothing to do with who has the copyright on anything. There are countless cases where both are used for the purposes of piracy.



Situations where there is limited bandwidth available are the situations where torrents tend to shine, and likely why you would be able to find that content available at all.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but its clear you don't know much about direct downloads. I'd give them a try if I were you.
 
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