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From ZDnet:
If Comcast thinks you're downloading copyrighted material, you can be sure it'll let you know. But how it does it has raised questions over user privacy. The cable and media giant has been accused of tapping into unencrypted browser sessions and displaying warnings that accuse the user of infringing copyrighted material -- such as sharing movies or downloading from a file-sharing site.
Jarred Sumner, a San Francisco, Calif.-based developer who published the alert banner's code on his GitHub page, told ZDNet in an email that this could cause major privacy problems. Sumner explained that Comcast injects the code into a user's browser as they are browsing the web, performing a so-called "man-in-the-middle" attack. (Comcast has been known to alert users when they have surpassed their data caps.) This means Comcast intercepts the traffic between a user's computer and their servers, instead of installing software on the user's computer.
A Comcast spokesperson said in an email on Monday that this is "not new," adding that engineers "transparently posted an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) white paper about it" as early as 2011, which can be found here.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 25 2015, @04:12AM
Just from hanging out at geek sites, it's very clear that geeks are unwilling to self-police or cooperate with existing laws against piracy. Instead, they keep claiming (shouting, really) that piracy laws are obsolete and/or corrupt, but that IMMIGRATION laws need to be rigorously enforced, and H1-B regulations need to be overhauled to admit orders of magnitude fewer immigrants.
Nope. [gnu.org]
You seem to think that these laws are legitimate. Whatever. But that doesn't make any measure taken to enforce these laws necessarily good. What if it violates innocent people's liberties and decreases privacy? Do the ends always justify the means to you? I'd say other things are far more important than stopping unauthorized copying. We don't allow police to randomly break into people's homes just because there might be bad guys inside, because we recognize that the ends don't justify the means even if it is effective. So why is it that copyright goons think they can go to any lengths to stop people from copying certain data without permission, to the point of violating people's rights, scrapping due process, violating everyone's privacy, and just generally disregarding the principles that our society is supposed to aspire to?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by anubi on Wednesday November 25 2015, @05:02AM
The same snooping techniques used to see if you are doing something someone else does not want you to do can also be used to also tap into financial transactions as well as getting names, account numbers, transaction info, and other information needed for precision spearphishing attacks directed against anyone placing a financial transaction over the internet.
And as far as "piracy" aka. copyright infringement goes... to me this is a lot like the eminent domain done in the Kelo vs. New London [ij.org] case. Turns out someone wanted something someone else had. So they got up a gang of city councilmen and simply took it. United States Supreme Court "Justices" wearing black robes said this kind of theft was OK by them. So, whether one calls it "eminent domain" or "copyright violation", to me it all seems a lot the same, but worse for Kelo, as its not that others have a copy of her house... she lost her house! But the men who wear black robes did not seem to think anything was wrong with that picture. Does the fact anyone has a politician sign their wish-list into some sort of law make it right? I believe politicians have passed so many one-sided laws that respect for all laws is being diluted. I am beginning to see lobbyists, politicians, and their enforcement mechanisms more like an out-of-control street gang than a public service.
It sure seems like we are giving up a helluva lot in order to try to grant ownership to things that cannot really be owned by anyone. If I had a fire, how am I to tell who else had a fire kindled from my fire and try to demand payment?
This whole scheme of ownership of things that cannot be owned ( a secret ) is leading us down a path of immense frustration for all. I believe the best one can really do under these circumstances is to use economies of scale to enforce natural monopolies - which will fall apart if they get so inefficient that others begin mounting the barriers to entry and building their own production infrastructure.
Whatever happened to "survival of the fittest", aka "competition", aka "free enterprise"? Why are we actually paying and obeying politicians coining law deliberately designed to create artificial shortages of that which is in damned near unlimited supply - just for the benefit of their cronies who stand to profit big-time by forcing us to pay far more for something than what it costs to produce?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 25 2015, @10:53PM
Your words are a relief to read; there's only a handful of people online I've seen that can convey how folks trying to treat unlimited information as a physical restricted thing leads to serious complications / headaches! Thanks for your post!