Interview with AT&T on BitTorrent Filtering

An anonymous reader writes "Slyck is running an interview with AT&T's Vice President of Legal Affairs, Jim Cicconi. AT&T discusses the latest in their effort to filter, however one interesting point tends to show they aren't moving anywhere until they discuss this with their customers. "We hear from our customers directly and indirectly. It's a very competitive business, ravenously so. I think our company is very, very sensitive to customer attitude — we have to consider this," Jim Cicconi told Slyck.com."

Hey slick

[Loki_1929 (550940)]

Forget your customers, get your ass down to the local library and get your hands on the text of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act right NOW. You're opening yourself up to upwards of trillions in liability if your filtering doesn't work perfectly 100% of the time. You're also opening yourselves up to massive liability with the federal government (hint: take a quick look at Comcast vis-a-vis Bit Torrent).

Quit spending all day being a PR monkey and get back to being a lawyer for your company. You're giving bad advice that has the potential to obliterate your employer.

Re:Hey slick

[despe666 (802244)]

I'm not worried about them, they'll just buy themselves another custom-made exception in Congress.

For those who didn't RTFA...

[SanityInAnarchy (655584)]

For those who didn't RTFA, here's the relevant quote:

Were focusing on pirated content over BitTorrent, [not BitTorrent per se.]

Hey, hint, to anyone who thinks this is a legitimate position: That is like saying you're focusing on stopping pornography, not web traffic per se. It doesn't work that way; even when you know what you want to block by domain (myspace.com), you'll be foiled by high school students (and proxies).

And that said, most ISPs are having a hard enough time blocking BitTorrent at all, much less trying to filter specific uses. The sooner you give up trying to filter stuff that your users don't want filtered, the sooner you can focus on a long-term solution that will actually work, like upgrading your network.

On DSL, it bothers me when my housemates use YouTube, and I occasionally try to throttle them, for that reason. When we get 100 mbit fiber, it won't matter.

Re:For those who didn't RTFA...

[LordSnooty (853791)]

When we get 100 mbit fiber, it won't matter.

Hmm, but by then hi-def streaming video will be the norm. The needs of apps always expand to fill the available pipe.

Re:Hey slick

[afidel (530433)]

The safe harbor provisions. By selectively filtering content they are no longer a common carrier and are thus part of the content serving chain and are thus liable for "providing" each and every piece of content that successfully flows through their system. It's right there in black and white in a document that they and the content industry wrote, they figured that banning the act would be sufficient so they wrote it to fit their existing business model. Now they think they can make more money by not expanding capacity and therefore want to eliminate one of the more bandwidth intensive uses of their network.

EDGE

[Mr. Underbridge (666784)]

"If someone is using a p2p network on a cell 24/7, it can adversely impact the service of their neighbors. It has the effect of not providing the service paid for. Overwhelming usage is from BitTorrent traffic. No one wants to get to the point [where] we say, "You can't do that."

Oh, now I get it. They think that's why EDGE is slow. Kind of cute in a retarded kind of way.

Do they think EV-DO users aren't using P2P or something? Perhaps if they upgraded the network instead of locking it down, it might work better for them.

Re:EDGE

[stinerman (812158)]

Yes, the Internet is faster for YOU if no one else does anything other than check their email. In fact, it's faster for everyone if everyone just doesn't use it. Look at all that theoretical capacity!

Re:

[PopeRatzo (965947)]

"We will provide greater bandwidth and service for everyone and invest in upgrades to our networks if this bill passes and you approve of this monopoly franchise agreement"

First, agree to never give any sort of customer information to the government without a court order, then we can talk. Until then, AT&T, just stick to the agreements you've made with your customers. And if that agreement was "unlimited internet", don't whine about how much I use.

It's funny how deeply caring and concerned about cus

Not even close

[TheMeuge (645043)]

We hear from our customers directly and indirectly. It's a very competitive business, ravenously so. I think our company is very, very sensitive to customer attitude -- we have to consider this

Hearing that hurt my ear. I've been a relatively unwilling AT&T customer 3 times now, due to various mergers and acquisitions, and they've managed to go against the consensus opinions of their customers on every issue that I have encountered, where such a dichotomy existed.

For instance, I purchased my Blackjack from an authorized Cingular dealer, and received unlimited internet for $19.99 per month. I was really happy with the service. After Cingular became AT&T wireless, I began getting service outages, and now it takes me >2 minutes to connect to the internet, and the connection will time out after 2 minutes of being idle, rendering it almost useless. When I called, I was told that AT&T has different internet plans than Cingular, and my Blackjack could only get the $40/month plans, and they wouldn't help me with my service problems. I am still under contract, but it seems that AT&T isn't interested in their part of the deal.

It is perfectly clear that as a part of a government-sanctioned mono- or oligopoly, they have no interest at all in their customer's opinions.

Re:Not even close

[Lumpy (12016)]

It's your settings, reset your internet settings in the phone to default.

I did that and now I get no problems with my blackjack. I even get over 740k in metro detroit when I am in 3G land.

Also, do NOT sign a new contract with them. Stay with the old cingular terms. They will screw you hard if you change, and as long as you are a "old" customer you still fall under the old terms and you are safe from them screwing you on data plan rates.

I dont care what they promise you, do NOT upgrade your plan or change it in any way until it's really worth your while as your data price will go to the $40.00 a month.

Re:Not even close

[Nullav (1053766)]

Because getting a $5 refund after a few years is really worth the trouble.

Don't shed a tier for me

[Dachannien (617929)]

My suggestion - though I'm not an AT&T customer - is to investigate the possibility of implementing tiered pricing as Time Warner is considering. If the problem with BitTorrent and other P2P apps (from your perspective, anyway) is disproportionate bandwidth usage, why not just charge more from the people using more than their fair share?

That is, unless the true motivation here is that you're deep in the pocket of the content cabal and will do anything to get whatever pittance of a kickback they're willing to give.

Re:

[Belial6 (794905)]

They don't really want to go to tiered. If they do, they would need to stop advertising "Unlimited Internet" for their lowest price.

Re:

[Dun Malg (230075)]

They don't advertise unlimited access. Prove me wrong.

Fucking tard. 30 seconds with google reveals:

http://www.consumer.att.com/plans/internet/ [att.com]

Get unlimited high-speed Internet access over your existing phone line at great low rates. ... Plans as low as $19.95 per month

So fucking stupid, it's no wonder you post as AC.

Re:Don't shed a tier for me

[zappepcs (820751)]

Although there is some sense to what you are suggesting, there is still one problem: Unlimited MEANS unlimited. If you sell users an unlimited plan, it is UNLIMITED. If you sell them that plan then decide that it is only unlimited for certain types of traffic packets, well, that is just not legal. If you buy a car, you have reasonable expectations that it will work on ALL highways. If you buy an unlimited Internet plan, you have reasonable expectations that it will work for all Internet protocol types and traffic.

If they want to sell a plan that does not permit P2P protocols, fine as long as that is what it says up front. If they want to sell a plan that only allows 10KB per month, no problem (good luck with that btw) and other such things. The trouble is that they sell unlimited plans, and their real problem is that they didn't think anyone would use the unlimited part. You know, customers get tired of trying to connect, so just don't use the service too much, then it's all good.

Now, if the reason for wanting to filter is ONLY to help the **AA and/or government types to find out things about you, well... burn the witches in hell I say. Better yet, switch services, let the shareholders burn them. I switched, as fast as I could when AT&T merged with Cingular. Do you need a daddy? AT&T wants to be your Ma Bell?

Interview is complete BS

[whoever57 (658626)]

Parent is entirely correct. If AT&T were really concerned about bandwidth hogs, then imposing traffic limits is the way to go (and stop lying to their customers about the "unlimited" nature of their Internet service.

I suspect that AT&T thinks that they won't be sued for deliberately violating their "unlimited" contract by people who are swapping files in violation of copyright. But what about people who are using P2P for entirely legal purposes? One of those could sue AT&T if AT&T decided to

Re:Don't shed a tier for me

[boyko.at.netqos (1024767)]

Well, the problem is that charging for the data isn't going to do anything to resolve bandwidth issues. A user downloading a single large file during peak times at high speeds is going to create more of a bandwidth problem than a user downloading multiple large files via BT staggered over a couple of days. It's because data isn't the limited resource - data is unlimited. It's bandwidth - the capacity of the pipe at any particular time which is limited.

If your neighbor's network is going slower because you're downloading a huge file, that's not a sign of you being a 'bandwidth hog' - it's a sign of improper QoS policies in place. Everybody gets a share of the pipe. If you want a bigger share of that pipe, you can ALREADY pay for more bandwidth, which is the limited resource. Charging for bandwidth AND data is "double dipping [networkper...edaily.com]"

In my opinion, it's just an excuse to try to maintain the old business models of cable TV (for cable companies) and cellphone/landline (for phone companies) when better alternatives (digital distribution/VoIP) exist.

Re:

[petermgreen (876956)]

A user downloading a single large file during peak times at high speeds is going to create more of a bandwidth problem than a user downloading multiple large files via BT staggered over a couple of days
There are a couple of issues with this:

The first is that very few people download hundreds of megabytes per day from non P2P sources. Even if they do (for example a video on demand TV series) the content provider is likely to take steps to place the content close to the users (because it reduces thier costs a

Re:

[boyko.at.netqos (1024767)]

I agree with everything except the French-bashing. The French are actually known for trying out new technologies. The Concorde? The Bullet-Train? The Eiffel Tower? The Metric System? The Guillotine?

If True, Then Not Going To Happen

[Nom du Keyboard (633989)]

they aren't moving anywhere until they discuss this with their customers.

If this is true, then it isn't going to happen. What customer is going to say, "Hey, block some of the applications I could otherwise use with this broadband pipe I pay for."

Even if a customer isn't using it at the moment, they won't be in favor of blocking it since they might want it in the future.

If this is true, then it will never happen at AT&T, and they were just blowing smoke to appease everyone since they know their filtering solution is impossible anyway. You can't filter what you can't read, and you can't read strongly encrypted packets - end of discussion.

Re:If True, Then Not Going To Happen

[fahrbot-bot (874524)]

Even if a customer isn't using it at the moment, they won't be in favor of blocking it since they might want it in the future.

You're manking the assumption that customers are not stupid and short-sighted. AT&T will promise them a 50% discount for 3 months and they'll sign anything.

Re:

[megaditto (982598)]

Why would that be short-sighted?

I for one do not use p2p filesharing, ever. Even a one month discount in return for throttling gnutella and such to say 56 kbps would be fine with me.

Very likely most home users fall into the same category as me regarding filesharing (i.e. doing some web, news, VoIP, family videos on youtube, some shopping, and church newsletters).

Note that the 1% of users that know about filesharing are probably the ones using up 50% of the total bandwidth. I don't mind my ISP dropping those

Re:

[edmicman (830206)]

But it doesn't just apply to "illegal" filesharing. More and more downloads are going to be handled via P2P protocols because of the bandwidth crunch that the ISPs have created for themselves. How many HD movie downloads via iTunes would it take to hit 160GB in a month? What about legal downloads of isos or movies via bittorrent? What about Joost streaming TV (or any streaming video technology) that makes use of P2P technologies?

Capping bandwidths and throttling users is very shortsighted - it's only go

Re:If True, Then Not Going To Happen

[n6kuy (172098)]

Obviously you misunderstood what they mean by "discuss this with their customers".

Discuss, as in, "Oh, by the way, we're changing the terms of your service."

All Depends on How They Ask

[TechForensics (944258)]

You've never seen poll questions, have you? It all depends on how the question is phrased:

1) Should we (AT&T) slow down some kinds of uses you can make of your unlimited pipe; or

2) Should we throttle the bandwidth hogs who decrease the bandwidth available to YOU.

That's what leading questions are all about...

Does filtering really work?

[dattaway (3088)]

Many people on the dd-wrt forums would love to know how to do it. Its been tried on the L7 layer, but clients get around that in seconds.

Re:

[Artefacto (1207766)]

I'm not sure how they do it, but my ISP (netcabo, Portugal) is able to throttle bittorrent traffic even when the most strict encryption options are selected. They must be using good techniques to recognise bittorrent traffic in particular, because they're not able to throttle the encrypted protocols used by eMule. The method is so agressive that when it's in "throttle mode" other protocols may also be affected. It's also not mere passive throttling, they actually send false RST packages to your peers, so

Already a dozen comments...

[daveschroeder (516195)]

...in a story where an AT&T executive is asserting it "listens" to its customers, and no wisecracks about NSA wiretapping?

Come on, people, you disappoint me! ;-)

Actually...

[The Amazing Fish Boy (863897)]

I posted one, but my ISP filtered the post.

No fuckin way!

[superash (1045796)]

If someone is using a p2p network on a cell 24/7, it can adversely impact the service of their neighbors. It has the effect of not providing the service paid for.

WHAT?? Was it written in the ISP subscription forms that you are not supposed to use p2p? And if I use p2p network and the whole cell is affected then its fuckin time you upgraded the b/w of the cell!!!

It's like saying, "You are using a Microwave and a fridge, your neighbor cannot switch on the lights....so, you need to switch off your fridge". pah!

Identifying Pirated Content

[zifn4b (1040588)]

"We've [internally] tested several systems, and we're going to see if there's a way to identify pirated content on the network. That asks the question of what to do if we develop such as technology. The actual deployment raises a lot of questions, [such as the impact on] customer rights and government policy. We wouldn't proceed without answers to those questions."

Hmm... maybe they could use something similar to this [faqs.org].

And the Singularity is just around the corner

[Ralph Spoilsport (673134)]

So, when it happens, all our troubles with bandwidth will be forgotten...

Or, will all this data processing power be squandered on downloading videos of the shaved pudendum of one Britney Spears?

RS

Competition?

[webmaster404 (1148909)]

It's a very competitive business

Oh I am sure there is loads of competition in the ISP business dominated by 4 businesses, that must be a ton of competition with Verizon, Time-Warner and Comcast all charging sky high rates for ISP service. Really, there's almost no competition in the ISP field there's the big 4 and some local ISPs and that is about it. Thats about the same as MS saying that the OS business is very competitive with only 1 major universal competitor which is Linux (Yes there is OS-X but it doesn't run on standard computers)

Re:Competition?

[rhizome (115711)]

that must be a ton of competition with Verizon, Time-Warner and Comcast all charging sky high rates for ISP service.

This is what has been termed The Big Lie [wikipedia.org], which if you sidestep the Godwinian implications allows AT&T to assert its barely bearable level of competition like Microsoft does with its own form of stiff competition. What they're competing against is "lack of complete domination," which is retarded in the broadest sense and an impossible Utopia in the specific.

Re:

[pavera (320634)]

The answer is phone services have a huge barrier to entry. You need somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-10 billion dollars to provide service (IE infrastructure, fiber, routers, etc) to all the homes in a single medium sized state. Multiply that by 50, and you need 250-500 billion dollars in capital to do the whole country.

Then, you have to convince/bribe/cajoul the politicians in each state/city to give you rights of way so you can lay your fiber. This is going to cost another 5-10 billion dollars countr

lying

[mozkill (58658)]

you can believe what this guy is saying in the interview. they dont actually consider "what the customer thinks" . the only thing that really matters is how they can get enough leverage to raise fees. they will figure out how to do it eventually and bit torrent users will lose out. its only a matter of time. one thing is for sure, you cant expect the AT&T spokesman to come out and say the truth, which is that " profits matter more than the customers".

Re:

[LaughingCoder (914424)]

profits matter more than the customers

Except that AT&T also knows that without customers there can be no profit. So in that case, customers are all that matters. Hmmm, what we have here is a genuine conundrum. Maybe it's not quite as simplistic as you suggest. Maybe they really are considering their customers - even if it's for all the "wrong" reasons like making a profit and staying in business, rather than just "doing the right thing".

I had AT&T's service

[Jewfro_Macabbi (1000217)]

Now I've dropped them like a bad habit. Seriously - their service sucks. Those commercials you see advertising their "broadband" network where the guys in a pond with a laptop surfing at high speeds. Yeah - my ass. I'm happy with my new Alltel service. Now I can download at the speeds faster than AT&T's total connection... The first month I used AT&T's mobile broadband - I received a $5000 dollar bill. I called them - WTF? They explained that though they had added unlimited net access to my account - they'd forgotten to take of the per MB charge - but they will fix it. The next month - a $15000 dollar bill - and the same rigamarole. Next month - a $34,000 dollar bill. At this point they disconnected my service for non-payment. I'll admit that lasted all of thirty seconds after calling them. It took 5 months for them to correct my bill.

Doublespeak and lies

[SirLurksAlot (1169039)]

"We've [internally] tested several systems, and we're going to see if there's a way to identify pirated content on the network. That asks the question of what to do if we develop such as technology. The actual deployment raises a lot of questions, [such as the impact on] customer rights and government policy. We wouldn't proceed without answers to those questions."

Yes, because they were so concerned with privacy when they let the government monitor communications [wikipedia.org] across their network without court author

We listen to our customers...

[Damocles the Elder (1133333)]

..the same way we did opinion polls and studies to show us that our customers wanted to be wiretapped! Honestly. Everyone was emailing us, phoning us, saying that they wanted to be monitored. And who are we to deny our customers?

I hope this happens

[AlgorithMan (937244)]

The day that P2P Traffic gets filtered will be the day when anonymous P2P will finally catch on...
then - when everyone can download everything without any fear of being caught - the CD sales will finally become THAT bad, that the music industry MUST start thinking about making better offers OR die... anyhow the result will be that all these crazy lawsuit-waves and the evil legislation lobbying will FINALLY come to an end

Sensitive Indeed

[EEBaum (520514)]

I think our company is very, very sensitive to customer attitude

Would be nice if that sensitivity would trickle down to the customer service phone reps, one of which answered "yes" when I asked "so it's company policy to charge customers for services they don't receive?"

I LOL'd

[stinerman (812158)]

It's a very competitive business, ravenously so

Yeah, 2.5 options make for a very competitive market. You (or other monopoly) own my phone lines, while my cable monopoly owns my cable lines. High-latency satellite connections, slow-ass dialup (still over the monopoly's lines, BTW), or "unlimited" (5GB cap) cell data plans are the rest of the .5 options.

I think a lot of businesses would be quite happy to have such an absence of competition in their markets.

metered usage is the long term solution

[wakim1618 (579135)]

There are several advantages to treating bankwidth like any other utility. Yes, your monthly charges will vary. So does your electricity bill and gas bill. But at the same time, this will provide pressure from consumers for software companies to declare how often their software calls home and how much bandwidth their application uses. In turn, this provides impetus for Congress to pass legislation whereby stealth phoning home will be illegal. Yeah, this last bit is probably wishful thinking. On the other hand, if you are uploading/downloading tons of stuff on p2p, then the costs of providing service to you probably exceeds what you are paying. Nevertheless, there is a large incentive for segmenting market between casual and heavy users.

But there are legal reasons for BitTorrent

[Orion Blastar (457579)]

Such as downloading Linux distros and free and open source software.

Some musicians, such as Michael David Crawford [geometricvisions.com] release their music in free OGG format with an open source license that allows it to be spread by BitTorrent.

Not only that but Joost [joost.com] and Miro [getmiro.com] are video players that use P2P and BitTorrent to share videos that are also released into the public domain, open source, and free licenses.

Like I said there are 100% legal reasons for using BitTorrent and P2P filesharing networks. This will hurt the free and open source market more than it cuts down on piracy. It is like giving commercial licenses a free pass and filtering or blocking the free and open source licenses. Some people write articles and howtos via Legal Torrents to promote their web sites in a free or open source license, as well as help out the community.

Re:asdlfkj3214^J!#$K%JEWKRJL^#!$%DJGASDLKTJ

[UbuntuDupe (970646)]

You make a valid point, but aren't you overstating the strength of your evidence?

Re:asdlfkj3214^J!#$K%JEWKRJL^#!$%DJGASDLKTJ

[Scutter (18425)]

WARNING - - - Cat-like typing detected.

Re:

[RadioElectric (1060098)]

Any cat capable of using the shift key is probably overqualified.

Re:

[MobileTatsu-NJG (946591)]

Ah, okay. Earlier you were drawing some pretty wildly over-reaching inferences, but I think now, with those caveats you mentioned, I'd have to agree.

I'd watch out on sending copyrighted material like that though. With all this monitoring going on, even a short excerpt like that could get you in trouble. Good move encrypting.

I just wanted to apologize for letting my cat walk over the keyboard. He's an Apple fan, you know, and he just won't let some tropics just drop.

Re:

[mozkill (58658)]

i totally agree. the first thing I noticed when reading this was the lie that "they care about what the customer thinks." . we all know they only care about profits and methods of getting leverage to raise fees.