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New tool would block illegal song swapping


janett999

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Network security company Palisade Systems this week will launch software that can identify and block copyrighted songs as they are being traded online.

Created by software firm Audible Magic and backed strongly by the Recording Industry Association of America, the song-filtering software has already triggered interest in Washington, D.C., along with strong skepticism in the peer-to-peer world and among some students and universities.

Palisade's new tool is the fruit of a cross-licensing deal struck early in the year, which also gave Audible Magic rights to use Palisade's network-monitoring technology to offer a similar product. Palisade executives say their university customers in particular are interested in the song-blocking capabilities.

"It's the kind of thing we hear from universities or customers that act more as an ISP," said Doug Jacobson, Palisade's founder and chief technology officer. "They want to take the position of not filtering out all peer-to-peer (traffic), stopping copyrighted works but not the other content."

Audible Magic's technology, which will be released as an option in the newest version of Palisade's PacketHound network-management services, has formed the centerpiece of an ongoing debate over the future viability of peer-to-peer networks. As the filtering technology begins to appear this year inside university and other networks, the intensity of that debate is likely to grow.

For much of the early months of the year, RIAA executives helped guide Audible Magic CEO Vance Ikezoye around Washington, D.C., offices, advocating the song-blocking technology as a tool for stopping copyright infringement on file-swapping networks. If built into file-trading programs such as Kazaa or Morpheus, it could help block large numbers of illegal trades, the record industry group said.

File-swapping companies--some of which have contended that filtering their networks is impractical or even impossible--said they were skeptical of the claims, noting that neither RIAA nor Audible Magic had given them a demonstration of the filtering tools. Industry trade group P2P United says it has repeatedly contacted the company asking to see the filters in action.

Ikezoye said he still has not demonstrated the technology for the peer-to-peer companies.

"What we're looking for is a real serious business discussion," Ikezoye said. "At this point, it doesn't look like anybody's interested in real business."

Palisade's version of the technology sits inside a network, rather than inside a file-swapping program. If installed in a university, for example, it could look inside students' e-mails, instant messages and peer-to-peer transfers, seeking audio "fingerprints" that could be compared with information in Audible Magic's database.

If a match is found, it would block the transfer of the song midstream. Jacobson said the identification process would not work on an encrypted network, such as is used in several newer file-swapping programs. However, the Palisade software could also act to block those applications from using the network altogether, instead of blocking individual song transfers, he said.

Palisade's PacketHound software will be available to customers this week, the company said.

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-5196218.html

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File-swapping companies--some of which have contended that filtering their networks is impractical or even impossible--said they were skeptical of the claims, noting that neither RIAA nor Audible Magic had given them a demonstration of the filtering tools. Industry trade group P2P United says it has repeatedly contacted the company asking to see the filters in action.

Ikezoye said he still has not demonstrated the technology for the peer-to-peer companies.

"What we're looking for is a real serious business discussion," Ikezoye said. "At this point, it doesn't look like anybody's interested in real business."

So, if I'm a potential customer, they want me to buy it first, then see if it works....what hucksters! :angry:

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So, if I'm a potential customer, they want me to buy it first, then see if it works....what hucksters! :angry:

I saw that article earlier and that is exactly what I thought. Great way to do business if you can find enough suckers.

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The Audio Magic solution uses Fourier Transform frequency fingerprints to define what songs are what. I imagine they have a huge database of all the popular stuff in it's lookup table.

I think there's two ways around this already, one being ZIP or RAR archives, which would mess with the FFT, and another is to use encryption support P2P networks.

Plus they'll have to convince the ISPs to install it - which may come by court order if this stuff really works, but would be many years off I think. I can see them being able to crack into ZIPs and RARs, but I dunno about encryption.

Good luck is all I can say, and this surely won't affect the home user for what I believe to be many years to come.

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Good luck is all I can say, and this surely won't affect the home user for what I believe to be many years to come.

I hope you are right only I don't wish them good luck. I hope the Bird of Paradise craps on their birthday cake. :)

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Plus they'll have to convince the ISPs to install it - which may come by court order if this stuff really works, but would be many years off I think. I can see them being able to crack into ZIPs and RARs, but I dunno about encryption.

That's what it comes down to yeah. ISP's aren't obligated to run such software at all. They have no responsibility in what their users do online.

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All this is doing is push people to use and develop more secure P2P clients that use things such as cjules13 mentioned. (archive files (.zip, .rar) and encryption)

I hope no ISP is lame enough to actually purchase this software and install it on their systems (I don't know about Time Warnier though :rolleyes: ).

File-swapping will continue. It still exists because its what people want to do and there's nothing that is going to stop that.

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it could look inside students' e-mails, instant messages

A violation of privacy.

anyway.............

ISP implementing this is like asking them to destroy themselves.

Let's admit it; the very survival of broadband depends on large file transfers, which is 90% P2P.

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A violation of privacy.

Already being done...In order to get a university computer ID and register an IP you have to sign away pretty much all of your rights. I figured it wasn't going to matter because there's no way they could moniter the 50,000+ IDs and the like five or ten thousand computers we have just on campus

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