Will the internet be filtered/censored in the future?

[R'as al Ghul]

The next step to protect copyrighted material: simply filter the illegal traffic.
Yes, ISP's could decide to become traffic cops and restrict your data flows as AT & T is currently pondering:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/0...ter/index.html

“The volume of peer-to-peer traffic online, dominated by copyrighted materials, is overwhelming. That clearly should not be an acceptable, continuing status,”

Of course, the amount of computational power that's needed to filter worldwide traffic makes this almost impossible. Yet, it seems to be a certain trend for ISP's to think about content filters in the name of the wars against terror, copyright infringement and child porn.

[AntiochusIII]

Yes, ISP's could decide to become traffic cops and restrict your data flows:

The core of the problem. They're not the police. They're in it for profits. Private "cops" playing Big Brother is a very, very bad way to go.

[LittleGrizzly]

I don't think it would work without gverment enfrorcment, surely anyone who this caused problems to would simply change ISP.

[drone]

Here in the States, I would imagine that if they attempt to filter content, they lose Common Carrier protection. Thus they would be responsible for every bit that goes across their hardware. Person uses a chat tool to set up a hit, they are liable. Person downloads child pr0n, they are liable. Person emails a go-notice to hijack a plane, they are liable. Basically, they open themselves up to a legal crap storm. As long as they are oblivious to all content, they are safe.

Of course, after one lawsuit I'm sure the corporations would buy a law to protect themselves.

[Blodrast]

It already is being censored/filtered, in several "civilized" countries. It's only a matter of time until it becomes generally accepted (with the exception of a small minority; most people wouldn't know or care, though, just like with most other aspects of life).

However, given the general ineptitude and lack of technological awareness of politicians, the technological race between enforcing the restrictions and coming up with ways to bypass them (available to anybody with a bit of interest and non-technologically-challenged) will continue for quite some time.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
It's being done in Turkey ever since. They needed a court's rule, which wasn't the least hard to get, but recently they passed an act and they don't need it anymore. Any peasant-become-civil officer (there are no civil servants here; people are the servants of the state) is able to block any website at his will. Youtube is a frequent popular target.
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[Reverend Joe]

Oh, god... now we're gonna end up in one of those freakin' awful techno rebel hacker movies from the 80's, where the only way to get around ISP filtering is to enter a crude 3-d avatar and, to the tone of the worst music you have ever heard in your life, navigate a half-assed portal of random lights and blocks and crap, with the occasional wierd-looking picture of the "enemy" popping up and shooting glowing lights at you, and anyone who wants to navigate the idiotic 80's techno tunnel to freedom will need to know all of the worst lingo ever invented by man: leet speak!

GAH!

[AntiochusIII]

Jesus, Gonzo; and I always thought there was that horrible part of my childhood that I forgot about. Now thanks to your post I vaguely recall from the dark depths of my mind some ludicrous visualization involving skeletons and primitive blocky brick dungeons to represent "hacks."

Gah! Gah! Gah! Those "techno" movies are crimes against humanity and their creators should be shot. With crossbows. By skeletons.

[naut]

They're already going to do that here, Neo-Facist Rudd has commanded it be done, and his wish will be fulfilled by the mindless drones who will happily give up their civil liberties.



Not to mention the possible banning of plastic bags without the consultation of the general public.

[Innocentius]

No it won't! Our leaders are great! Hail our leaders!

[Husar]

Does anyone here believe that there will ever be anything that's not regulated by the government sooner or later?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

No, and I don't think it's always a bad idea either.

Filtering child porn and how to make ferterliser bombs is different from filtering out pirated TV shows, though that is illigal.

Filtering user to user traffic is a bit trickier, if the ISP knows a crime is being committed surely they have a responsibility to report it.

[master of the puppets]

god i hope not. It would be a travesty. Unlike maybe you people in turkey and other censored countries i live in america...[...].

Now that is freedom. It is the only true freedom left. freedom not only from laws but free from the laws of mercantilism, it is where experience is power and power is the key to every door. i can get a lot of things off the internet if i want them and that is not to say i am experienced, i don't even have a knack at it. but i can do it, and i have freinds who can help me in bigger stuff.

its freedom, its anarchy, its a beautiful thing.
but just like everything else there is good and bad but for all the bad i prefer this utter freedom to good healthy restriction any day.

[Husar]

You will love it even more once you try to pay your bills by making and selling something everybody can easily steal from you.

[HoreTore]

ISP's make millions from people downloading - why on earth would they want to kill off a major income source?

[Husar]

Flatrates?

[Blodrast]

No, and I don't think it's always a bad idea either.

Filtering child porn and how to make ferterliser bombs is different from filtering out pirated TV shows, though that is illigal.

Yeah, and they should also filter any information about chemistry that might allow you to make any explosives or anything that results in a violent reaction; also, everything about lockpicking, stealing, short-starting cars, anything about martial arts since those could be employed towards violent ends, naturally any kind of weapon-making instructions (swords, bows/crossbows/arbalests/trebuchets/etc), any info on hacking, cracking, phishing, phreaking, reverse engineering. And, of course, all types of porn - there's absolutely nothing good or useful that can come out of that.
Am I forgetting something ?

Filtering user to user traffic is a bit trickier, if the ISP knows a crime is being committed surely they have a responsibility to report it.

First of all, the only way they could know about a "crime", is if they are intercepting and analyzing the traffic. So the question is, do you want them to do that ? And if the answer is yes, then you have no choice (other than being a hypocrite) and accept the post office opening all your mail, as well as the phone company listening in on all your conversations (well, to be fair, that's pretty much happening anyway).

Then, if we do all these things, we will obviously have less crime. Yay!

[Lord Winter]

Am I forgetting something ?

Only the part about removing every book even if fiction that gives anyone a clue on how these work.

Otherwise dead on

[HoreTore]

Flatrates?

If you can't download via p2p, just how many people will bother with big connections like 10mb?

[Husar]

If you can't download via p2p, just how many people will bother with big connections like 10mb?

Believe it or not but there are legal ways to use a 10mb connection and that doesn't have a lot to do with flatrates anyway. In fact, there are ISPs who cut your connection if you keep constantly downloading und using your full bandwidth because if everyone does it, the whole internet in the region will slow down, there's only so much bandwidth between backbones as well and expanding them costs an ISP money that they will hardly get back from their customers who pay exactly the same whether they download a lot or nothing which is why I mentioned flatrates.
Maybe it isn't the case anymore but I heard of cases where the ISP cancelled a flatrate contract because the people where downloading day and night without a break, there also seem to be a few ISPs which cancel your connection every 24 hours.

[R'as al Ghul]

I think there're two main reasons or applications for connections with high bandwith: p2p and VoIP. I agree with HoreTore that if p2p would be declared illegal and suppressed by ISP's then a lot of people would cancel their contract and go for a cheaper line. Even though VoIP is on the rise, p2p is still the main traffic on the web.
What I don't get is Husar's point that when I actually use the connection as I pay for (600K/bit flatrate) it is bad for the ISP's. There's no restriction on the amount of data I can transmit. If it would be a problem for the ISP's when everybody used his connection to max then they would be wrong to sell the connections. If they have to expand their carrier net, they need to do that. They have to anyway, unless we want to stop the internet evolution right now. I'm aware that in some countries the Internet is still sold by the Mbyte or GB but if I buy a flatrate I want a flatrate, meaning no restrictions on volume of data.
Imagine for example I wanted to help spread linux distros by torrent. I could run my torrent client with max upload 24/7 and not break any points of the contract.

there's only so much bandwidth between backbones as well and expanding them costs an ISP money that they will hardly get back from their customers who pay exactly the same whether they download a lot or nothing which is why I mentioned flatrates

I think the ISP's are making enough money from people who don't use their bandwidth to full extend because they pay exactly the same whether they download or not.

BTW, cutting a DSL connection every 24 hours is completely normal and has nothing to do with the bandwidth you're using.

[Husar]

I think there're two main reasons or applications for connections with high bandwith: p2p and VoIP. I agree with HoreTore that if p2p would be declared illegal and suppressed by ISP's then a lot of people would cancel their contract and go for a cheaper line. Even though VoIP is on the rise, p2p is still the main traffic on the web.

How about high resolution videos and legal downloads? I download demos for example and while a 56k connection could do it with a flatrate, it would take quite some time to finish if the demo is 2GB for example, I prefer to pay a bit more for my 6MBit line which downloads the demos quite a bit faster.
I also like to watch high-res videos from GameTrailers and they seeme to just about use my full bandwith, the cahing bar is usually just a little bit faster than the video plays so a good connection is useful for that. For the rest of the day I use it mostly to play, browse, chat or listen to internet radio which means it's hardly used to full extent, yet I think the 4EUR I pay for the bandwidth alone are not too much.

What I don't get is Husar's point that when I actually use the connection as I pay for (600K/bit flatrate) it is bad for the ISP's. There's no restriction on the amount of data I can transmit. If it would be a problem for the ISP's when everybody used his connection to max then they would be wrong to sell the connections. If they have to expand their carrier net, they need to do that.

No, no and no.
I know for example that T-Online threw some people out a few years ago for using up their whole bandwidth all day long, I'm not saying I agree with it, I was just saying they do that. And noone can force them to expand anything as you pay for a maximum amount of bandwidth, if you get less out of it then that's your problem, if you want a bandwidth guarantee you have to pay more, like companies do, they pay a few hundred bucks per month extra to reserve a certain bandwidth which guarantees them that bandwidth because for them it's vital to have that guarantee. This guarantee does not exist for the normal home user however.

They have to anyway, unless we want to stop the internet evolution right now. I'm aware that in some countries the Internet is still sold by the Mbyte or GB but if I buy a flatrate I want a flatrate, meaning no restrictions on volume of data.

That's how I see it but then until lately some ISPs seemed to disagree.
This article is in German and from 2006 but although I haven't read it, it seems to adress the issue.

Imagine for example I wanted to help spread linux distros by torrent. I could run my torrent client with max upload 24/7 and not break any points of the contract.

I don't think your tiny upload speed bothers them as it's just a fraction of your maximum download speed unless you pay them a fortune anyway, at least as far as I'm aware.

BTW, cutting a DSL connection every 24 hours is completely normal and has nothing to do with the bandwidth you're using.

No it doesn't but it's also not normal, if you have a flatrate it's not like they're saving you any costs, in fact they break all your current connections which I wouldn't call normal at all. they just do it hoping that you won't be connected all day long if they do that.

[KukriKhan]

So, if I understand correctly, your point is that filtering/censoring, or otherwise throttling back access is not only a legal/moral issue over content, but may also be a matter of resource management by ISP's.

[Husar]

So, if I understand correctly, your point is that filtering/censoring, or otherwise throttling back access is not only a legal/moral issue over content, but may also be a matter of resource management by ISP's.

They may want to use it as one, my point was just that they are not dependant on the existance of p2p networking and that some(not all!) who claim that may just be afraid they can't steal their software as easily anymore. I personally think they should keep the internet open and not censor any sites or traffic but then some third parties already do that themselves which resulted in me being unable to access google video in the first few months of it's existance or getting inflated prices and a germanized games lineup on Steam just because my IP can be identified as german.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Why not get an interpol cooperation going to bust pirates, especially those who upload? Filtering and censoring will not solve the problem, you can always encrypt the pirates files and make them unrecognizeable, do private communication, and various other things which will sabotage all filtering systems anyway. The key issue is to crush and destroy all hosting of pirated material, and leave private communication and freedom of speech alone.

[Husar]

Why not get an interpol cooperation going to bust pirates, especially those who upload? Filtering and censoring will not solve the problem, you can always encrypt the pirates files and make them unrecognizeable, do private communication, and various other things which will sabotage all filtering systems anyway. The key issue is to crush and destroy all hosting of pirated material, and leave private communication and freedom of speech alone.

There are those countries who do not like working in international cooperation and who turn a blinf eye to a lot of things, or maybe they just like censoring their internet more than actually stopping piracy. There are also hosts which may shut down your website for hosting .rar files, happened to some Strike Fighters modder.
Of course I agree with you but it can be hard to get that inside the brains of politicians and those who think stealing is an expression of freedom.

[HoreTore]

Believe it or not but there are legal ways to use a 10mb connection

Yes, but a big portion of an ISP's 10mbit customers are using it to download illegal stuff. If they cut them out, they will lose millions.

[Husar]

Yes, but a big portion of an ISP's 10mbit customers are using it to download illegal stuff. If they cut them out, they will lose millions.

And a big portion of bankrobbers do want to buy Ferraris and support our economy, if we're going to cut them out....

They don't even want to cut them out, just make them download aother things with a bit of well-meant decision help.

[HoreTore]

Everyone else might object, but Fiat probably won't mind who they're making millions off...

So I don't really see why ISP's would want to care about this.

[Husar]

Everyone else might object, but Fiat probably won't mind who they're making millions off...

Ever tried paying them with money you printed yourself then?