SafeMedia tells Congress it can eliminate college P2P
Posted on 07/06/07 21:02 by Seán Byrne                             
SafeMedia tells Congress it can eliminate college P2P

In a hearing held at the House Committee on Science and Technology covering role of technology in the reduction of illegal file sharing, the SafeMedia Corporation CEO and Founder challenged colleges and universities to eliminate unauthorised P2P file sharing of copyrighted material on their campus networks.  SafeMedia also told the congress about its products designed to eliminate unauthorised P2P file sharing.

According to Fahmy, the CEO and Founder of SafeMedia, some colleges and universities are not interested in implementing policies to tackle the issue with some giving the concern of student privacy as a reason.  He then explained about Clouseau, the company's global "P2P Disaggregator" technology, which plugs in as a network bridge and takes effect without affecting the network topology.  He claims it works by detecting and preventing illegal P2P traffic, while allowing legitimate P2P traffic, such as BitTorrent.

At present, campuses that usually deal with illegal file sharing usually apply traffic-shaping systems, which limit the bandwidth available for file sharing to take place.  Some others apply measures to identify and block the transmission of copyright-infringing content.  However, according to Fahmy, traffic shaping is not that effective and does not eliminate the illegal distribution copyrighted material over P2P and that content identification systems do not identify any encrypted traffic despite 90% of P2P traffic being encrypted.

What is interesting is that SafeMedia claims Clouseau is able to block illegal file sharing protocols and networks, including encrypted transmissions, while not opening up transmission packets (for privacy) or affecting legitimate file sharing.  As ZeroPaid mentions, it makes me wonder how the box is able to tell whether one is downloading an illegal Torrent such as a movie distributed via the Pirate Bay or a legal Torrent such as an OpenOffice distribution. 

Thanks to GristyMcFisty for letting us know about this news.  More detailed information can be read in the full story on ZeroPaid.

Reactions
Discuss this article with your fellow community members! We appreciate your valuable input, but please keep the reaction policy in mind and make sure your reaction is constructive.
By twit, Thursday 07 June 2007 23:16
I love the smell of snake oil in the morning
By BitRate, Friday 08 June 2007 05:09
How the hell does this technology distinguish between "illegal" and "non-illegal" traffic ? It's not possible unless packet and content inspection is involved. This would fail if the session if using encryption. Sounds like a load of crap. All smoke and mirrors designed to scare those who download copies of retarded shows like "24".
By Dark Tower (guest), Friday 08 June 2007 05:48
The blogger at www.freedom-to-tinker.com already covered this nutcase company's lunatic claims last month. Some interesting comments: "Pirates are smart and innovative, and so is Clouseau. Our technology is dynamic, sees through all multi-layered encryptions, adaptively analyzes network patterns and constantly updates itself. Packet examinations are noninvasive and infallible. There are no false positives. Sees through all encryption? Even our best intelligence agencies don’t make that claim. Perhaps that’s because the intelligence agencies know about probably unbreakable encryption." and: "but SafeMedia doesn’t shrink from the most outlandish claims of infallibility: What if illegal P2P no longer worked? What if, no matter how intelligent, devious, or well-funded an Internet pirate was, they absolutely could not transmit copyrighted material via P2P? SafeMedia’s goal was to create the technology that would achieve exactly this. And we succeeded. Employing our new technology, Clouseau and Windows + Transport Control, makes illegal P2P transmission of copyrighted material impossible. IMPOSSIBLE. Not difficult and not improbable. IMPOSSIBLE!" This company has also paid an expensive law firm to register as their lobbyist. This sounds too much like that other recently mentioned company that is suing under the DMCA for Microsoft and Apple "avoiding" the use of their patented software -- Go to the press and the ignorant 'decision makers' and throw up a screen of smoke, in an attempt to get free investment money for a product that doesn't deserve it.
By Lord KiRon, Saturday 09 June 2007 23:07
LOL)
By sikoone, Monday 11 June 2007 03:01
The scary thing is there are companies out there stupid enough to believe the BS this company is spouting. "All encryptions are rendered useless to us!, bow down and give us money!" Yeah, right.
Name: Email:



Your comment:

Receive notification on new comments?