Turns Out P2P Filters Don't Actually Work

from the so-much-for-that-plan dept

Tue, Apr 1st 2008 7:20am — Mike Masnick

While ISPs are succumbing to pressure from the entertainment industry to start using traffic shaping products to filter out P2P traffic, there's been little examination as to whether or not those products actually work. Until now. While the findings aren't complete, what did come through loud and clear is that most vendors of such products don't have very much faith in their own products. Internet Evolution went to test 28 such products -- and 23 refused to let the tests happen. Of the five that they could test, three were so unhappy with the results that they forbade Internet Evolution from publishing the results. In other words, most of these products just don't work.

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Filed Under: p2p filtering

11 Comments

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AC, 1 Apr 2008 @ 7:37am

Mmmm... Stir Fry
Mike - Typo in the headline.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Apr 2008 @ 7:41am

Whenever legal tries to run the IT department, it just doesn't work out.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Apr 2008 @ 7:52am

So how many companies are running out and buying the programs from the two companies whose software actually worked?
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AMusingFool (profile), 1 Apr 2008 @ 7:57am

they need permission why, exactly?
And how can they be forbidden to publish the results? They got the copies for free, with conditional publishing? Then why not buy the software, and publish the results?
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Gunnar, 1 Apr 2008 @ 8:29am

My guess is these filtering programs aren't cheap, and Internet Evolution doesn't have the review budget of, say, Consumer Reports.
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Soy... sauce?, 1 Apr 2008 @ 8:41am

Re: Mmmm... Stir Fry
I'm a lo mien and wonton fan myself. Woka Woka Woka!

Hmm. Now I'm hungry.
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Mike (profile), 1 Apr 2008 @ 8:43am

Re: Mmmm... Stir Fry
Oops. Fixed, thanks.
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Pete Valle, 1 Apr 2008 @ 8:57am

Won't Wok
I had a weird mental picture of Mike trying to get programs to use a wok for him...

Anyways, I think that, no matter how much the filters suck, ISPs are going to continue to use them, just to save face.
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comboman, 1 Apr 2008 @ 9:19am

Isn't this a good thing?
ISPs can tell MPAA/RIAA they installed filters. Customers can still use P2P. Win-win?
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ReallyEvilCanine, 1 Apr 2008 @ 10:16am

Block what and how?
How exactly are ISPs going to filter encrypted µTorrent streams running on any of a few thousand otherwise IANA reserved ports that the torrent users themselves don't need but other users and businesses do?
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Isn't it expected?, 1 Apr 2008 @ 11:38am

And we're surpised?
Given we cant get independent evaluations of voting machines why are we surprised?
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