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I recently read an article about a new copyright protection system that RightsCorp America is trying to get ISPs to help implement. From the Article:

“Single notices can be read and bypassed similar to the way a software license agreement works [but] once the internet account receives a certain number of notices over a certain time period, the screen cannot be bypassed until the settlement payment is received.”

Basicly saying that the company would have the direct technology to block out and hijack all user's traffic except to payment sites and block it until payment is recieved.

The question is now: Wouldn't that require Browser Providers to implement a massive backdoor in browsers? (or ISPS?)

They claim ISPs do not have the right to refuse to support this due to DMCA third party liability clauses.

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  • It does not look like you are reading the article correctly. The idea is not to selectively block sites or activity, but to block ALL Internet access until settlement is made. – schroeder♦ Apr 4 '16 at 15:30
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Wouldn't that require Browser Providers to implement a massive backdoor in browsers? (or ISPS?)

There is no need to implement anything in the browser to block internet access. This can be fully implemented at the ISP level, similar to how capture portals at public hotspots deny access until the user provided some sort of login, payment or acknowledgment of the usage terms.

The main problem with this kind of ISP wide restrictions is that they only properly work with HTTP. With HTTPS the user instead gets only strange error messages because the certificates do not match.

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  • Wouldnt that then mean that I had to send payment information through a HTTP connection? – Magisch Apr 4 '16 at 15:10
  • @Magisch: such capture portals can be made to filter some requests and pass through others. Thus it would be possible to restrict only access to parts of the internet. Apart from that access to the internet might be comfortable but is not essential to do payments. – Steffen Ullrich Apr 4 '16 at 15:24
  • So....assuming they have an automated way of filing these, and assuming thats digitally automated (must be)... wouldn't this make copyright companies a single point of attack/failure for hundreds of ISPs each? – Magisch Apr 4 '16 at 15:26
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    @Magisch: There is no real-time synchronization needed between the copyright enforcer and the ISP and when in doubt the ISP could simply allow access to the internet. So I don't think DoS or similar are a problem. More of a problem would be if the copyright enforcer would like to block access for a user without proper reason, maybe due to a bug. But this would be a legal issue and not a technical problem. – Steffen Ullrich Apr 4 '16 at 15:31

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