Here we go, ISP-initiated spying, just like Mettle said would happen

mettle has been scarce around these parts recently, but i simply couldn't read this without hearkening back to one of his posts from last july talking about this very thing... (because i think it's so highly relevant, i'm going to repost it below...)

For the last 15 years, Internet service providers have acted - to use an old cliche - as wide-open information super-highways, letting data flow uninterrupted and unimpeded between users and the Internet.

But I.S.P.’s may be about to embrace a new metaphor: traffic cop.

At a small panel discussion about digital piracy at NBC’s booth on the Consumer Electronics Show floor, representatives from NBC, Microsoft, several digital filtering companies and the telecom giant AT&T said the time was right to start filtering for copyrighted content at the network level.

Such filtering for pirated material already occurs on sites like YouTube and Microsoft’s Soapbox, and on some university networks.

Network-level filtering means your Internet service provider – Comcast, AT&T, EarthLink, or whoever you send that monthly check to – could soon start sniffing your digital packets, looking for material that infringes on someone’s copyright.

“What we are already doing to address piracy hasn’t been working. There’s no secret there,” said James Cicconi, senior vice president, external & legal affairs for AT&T.

from mettle, 31 july 2007...

Some tools for total surveillance are located on-site of telcos and ISPs, in that cozy Government/Corporate marriage. Other tools include OLAPs.

Types of tools coming online at present include "Deep packet inspection", an example of which is discussed here.

Much ballyhoo has been made of making particular digital pictures into crime. Those, as well as mp3 music files or other types of data files have identifiable "signatures", by means of "CRC", (cyclic redundancy check) and/or "checksum".

Much has been written already that the Vista operating system is Orwellian in nature. Now it is being reported that some anti virus companies may abandon scanning files for viruses and use "whitelisting" instead. Whitelisting will certify known files by their CRC or checksum. It is easy to see how that will fit into a police state.

The DoJ has already demanded records from major search engine companies. Apparently, only Google put up a substantial fight.

This article shows preliminary means to join the government grid.

For a peek ahead you can jump right to a look at the Global Justice Justice XML Data Model, or right ahead to see the National Information Exchange Model.

Of course, ultimately "users might need access to the global Centrix network, the Secret IP Router Network and the Non-classified IP Router Network to get all the information they require".

This report, among other topics, contemplates Information Sharing. (.pdf)

The pretexts for government to monitor all financial transactions seem similar to their need to know what library books people read and what Web sites they visit.

Starting with problems of a cashless society: government can cancel credit cards at a mere whim. And Government has been all over the alternate-forms-of-payment industry:

Consider E-gold and some of their tribulations.

The pretexts to monitor all electronic financial transactions are of course, framed in the emotional bugaboos of the day.

From comments on Press Esc:

'The Patriot Act is only temporary. It includes sunset provisions.' We all know what happened with that."

Similar legislation has already been shot down. (.pdf) (COPA was originally the basis for compelling the search engine records sharing compliance.)

So what else will Deep Packet Inspection look for? Consider this. (h/t slashdot)

just keep cranking out the ways the government can come after us...

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