Run a Wi-Fi Network? HBO and Showtime Want to You to Police Your Users | Hacker News Reader

Run a Wi-Fi Network? HBO and Showtime Want to You to Police Your Users

eff.org

75 pointsDiabloD314 comments

I read through the court order and didn't see the part where the court orders Wi-Fi networks to block the infringing content. Is it even common for enterprise-grade access points to have support for blocking specific content? How does the court want it to be implemented? Removing DNS records? Active SSL inspection? Are they compelling CAs to issue fake certificates?

This seems poorly thought out and poorly implemented. But I wonder if it's time to cancel my HBO subscription.

I'm not going to directly blame HBO here. HBO had to fight for at least the last decade to even be able to stream their stuff online.

Their major shareholders try to force HBO to do things that are neither healthy for the US population, HBO's viewers, and also sometimes not even their shareholders.

Example: Sure, HBO Go, right? iOS, Android, etc etc... but until recently, only if you already had HBO service from a participating cable or sat company. Time Warner, the second largest cable company in the US, decided to not participate.

After much fighting with shareholders, rightsholders, and other forms of dickholders, they finally can sell you HBO Go service without requiring you to be an HBO customer (ie, finally you can have HBO and be a cordcutter; it is now 2015).

All of that said: court orders about technology rarely make sense in any terms that are meaningful to people like us, the people who actually understand how the technology works.

What I don't like about this entire thing is they are trying to go after major WiFi hotspot providers (ie, the companies that do it for the Starbuckses and McDondaldses that don't do it in house) instead of using the powers already granted to them by Congress; or powers they already abuse such as just stealing domains from major torrent and restreamer sites.

Honestly, this is why I support an Internet that everything is SSL secured to help APs from being attacked by a legal system that is simply outpaced by the speed of the evolution of technology; and don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming the government, some of this technology really is difficult to understand, and I don't expect them to understand it no more than I expect to understand how to build a house, do brain surgery, or perform complex choreographed dance moves.

I just went to the HBO Go site and the only subscription options I found is either through TV provider or through HBO now, the latter is for Apple iOS platforms only. So I'm still not sure how I could get HBO in 2015 not through designated provider. Though I know how I could get any HBO shows in approximately 3 clicks, for free and without any hassle, if I wanted to go this way. So it's still hard to understand what they're trying to do there.

Scuttlebutt is that Now exclusivity is only going to be three months. (Far shorter than AT&T's sweet deal.)

Three months is enough for the Game of Thrones season to end. After which, I don't care about HBO until the next one starts :)

https://www.sling.com has HBO Now as well.

That is still HBO as an a la carte add-on to a (net-based) cable bundle.

HBO Now is indeed their new offering, and they are only partnering with Apple for the launch, available on iOS and AppleTV only; however it will be rolled out to other devices eventually.

Apple cut the price of the AppleTV to $69, so if you really want it, its not expensive to get in. However, I'll just wait for a future Netflix deal instead.

I thought about getting AppleTV, but after learning the latest model has no jailbreak I decided not to spend my money on a product the manufacturers of which spent so much time on denying me full access to the device.

That and also I already have Pi, Chromecast and Amazon TV and I'm running out of HD ports on my TV :)

As I read it, the key part is part 2 of the order, in particular page 4, line 28 to page 5 line 1:

"... providers of computer and network resources through which video transits [shall be required to suspend all services with respect to Defendants' Infringing Websites]."

Not even the Court's clarification saves this from being an Order that would bind every network operator connected to the Internet who was served notice [0]; an operator not explicitly listed in the TRO could get the Defendants back online by providing name service and hosting. Then, any "provider of computer and network resources through which video transits"[1] would then be (according to the TRO) obligated to ensure that the Defendants' audio and video signals were not transmitted through the provider's network between 2015-05-02 20:45-400 and 2015-05-03 06:00-400.

Does that make sense?

[0] Notice that the TRO permits notice service by email. AIUI, Plaintiffs could contract with their favorite mass emailing service to send notice to every major and minor network provider, worldwide.

[1] An operator of almost any IP network on the planet obviously fits in this category.

Google pre-emptively blocked DNS requests of the A record for sportship.org. I was curious to see how sportship was going to handle the load, but Google says they know better than all of us.

OpenDNS is not censoring this content.

Friends don't let friends use Google public resolvers.

Also, this is why you should donate to quality organizations like the EFF. They're not just nerds. They're nerds with law degrees.

How can the court issue an order to someone who's not a party to the lawsuit?

Nowhere in the court order does it state that wireless access point operators must monitor their users. Concerns about the legality of effectively shutting down a website aside, the order deals primarily with service providers that enable the services mentioned, not those who would be attempting to access the content. While the phrase "providers of computer and network resources through which video transits" could be interpreted as access point operators, it seems unlikely that any court would interpret it that way.

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