...the end of the world as we know it....

Maybe not new, but the people saying it are...

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/...sps-may-be-getting-ready-to-filter/index.html

This is ridiculous. Nothing is free or open anymore. I cant believe that they would monitor people's connections like this. I understand that downloading copyright material isn't good but at the same time this doesn't mean that your ISP should go around policing it's own customers.

Hmmm...this will not end up going anywhere.

This would set off an unprecedented (to this scale, anyway) legal battle between corporations. Companies like Google and Yahoo depend on open and free interenet. They will resist with every penny they have the efforts of ISP filtering.

It does bring up some interesting legal questions. When does that digital packet become the users? Does it ever? What if this digital packet is saved to a harddrive. Can companies then enter your harddrive for information that they technically own?

In the end, these companies will be forced to keep their networks open. They will be forced by law or by consumer demand (as pointed out at the end of the article).

cheesybanana said:

This would set off an unprecedented (to this scale, anyway) legal battle between corporations. Companies like Google and Yahoo depend on open and free interenet. They will resist with every penny they have the efforts of ISP filtering.

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No, they'll just cut deals with the providers; it's cheaper than lawyers. So you'll subscribe to AT&T Yahoo DSL, withaccess exclusively to the Yahoo Music & Video Store. Or you'll subscribe to Verizon with MSN, with access only to the Microsoft Zune marketplace. Or Comcast with iTunes, or Time Warner with Rhapsody, or...

I have been signing petitions against this sort of activity for a while now. To me, this is akin to the Post Office opening all my mail to make sure there's nothing "bad" in it, and then taking out that they think I shouldn't have. It's completely outrageous. I think they have other reasons for making these steps into filtering.

technologist said:

No, they'll just cut deals with the providers; it's cheaper than lawyers. So you'll subscribe to AT&T Yahoo DSL, withaccess exclusively to the Yahoo Music & Video Store. Or you'll subscribe to Verizon with MSN, with access only to the Microsoft Zune marketplace. Or Comcast with iTunes, or Time Warner with Rhapsody, or...

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Probably not that far, but ISPs have been pushing for sometime to set up "speed limits" on various sites. Meaning if it's a site they are partnered with, or a site that has paid to them, the connection will be wide open, while site not on their list will be severely limited in accessibility and connection speed. We can't let these big companies slide by on these major issues. The news media has been bought and sold for years now. The internet is our only hope for true free speech and an open forum where anyone can be heard, but the big companies want to put it up for sale too.

i hope this doesn't go to canada, as its not illegal to download anyways right now

I agree with all of the above. They can't search our bags unless they have good proof that we might be hiding something illegal. And the same should be for internet traffic. They should need proof before they monitor our doings.

It's cause in the western world it's innocent until proven guilty. And these things make me think we are all guilty and they are just waiting to catch us. No. The system shouldn't be like that.

And say one of these ISPs was in hot water for something. They'd just kill all the traffic partaining to the issue they are in hot water over. In effect hushing up their dirty dealings. Yes I agree it's a little of big brother. But on the other hand do we want our children exposed to porn and the like on the net? I don't think so.

I think the war needs to be fought on the server side. By shutting down all the illegal sites and such that way. Then we'd all be free to do as we wish on the net but without all the illegal activity on there.

Lastly there needs to be a few definitions set up. To say who actually owns what piece of data before and after it's downloaded. So then people would know.

As usual, this will only hit the innocent with undue online surveillance

The big illegal downloaders will just get around it, by some sort of masking software, encryption or moving to another ISP who doesn't filter

And if they are logging all your downloads, what's to stop them gathering other info you yourself would consider private

the8thark said:

I agree with all of the above. They can't search our bags unless they have good proof that we might be hiding something illegal. And the same should be for internet traffic. They should need proof before they monitor our doings.

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Businesses do this all the time. Then again, we are talking about home service here that you, the consumer, are paying for.

louishen said:

As usual, this will only hit the innocent with undue online surveillance

The big illegal downloaders will just get around it, by some sort of masking software, encryption or moving to another ISP who doesn't filter

And if they are logging all your downloads, what's to stop them gathering other info you yourself would consider private

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laws only screw the law abiding citizens or at least the people that only download a little bit of music for there own personal use. it will do nothing for the people that do it on a larger scale.

I have come to realize that most laws these days are the same.