What Clouseau Does and Why? Today a new solution both completely deletes all illegal P2P file transfers and never invades student privacy. It fosters a respect for the intellectual property of others while respecting academic freedom. It creates billions of dollars of incremental revenue and asset value for the recording and motion picture industries. It is Clouseau. 1. Clouseau Is A Bridge: Clouseau is a bridge on a Internet network subnet. Like a bridge, information passes over or transfers in both directions. Clouseau looks at each transmission. 2. P2P or Not P2P Classification: Clouseau determines if the transmission is a P2P transmission or is not a P2P transmission. 3. Non-P2P Release If the transmission is not a P2P transmission (e.g. HTTP, HTTPS, client/server, email, VoIP, tunneling, etc.), Clouseau ignores it. All non-P2P transmissions are passed along to their destinations. 4. Clouseau Is Only Interested In P2P. At this point, only P2P transmissions are left. 5. BitTorrent or Not BitTorrent Classification The P2P transmission is inspected to determine if it is BitTorrent or not. 6. Not BitTorrent-Delete If the P2P transmission is not BitTorrent, it is deleted. 7. Legal or Illegal BitTorrent Classification If the P2P transmission is BitTorrent, then Clouseau determines if it is legal BitTorrent or illegal BitTorrent. 8. Legal BitTorrent Release All legal BitTorrent is passed along. 9. Illegal BitTorrent-Delete All illegal BitTorrent is deleted.
Clouseau never needs to invade user privacy by examining the contents of a file to determine its legality or illegality. That determination is based solely upon what type of transmission it is. Clouseau completely deletes all illegal P2P file transfers and never invades student privacy. No other technology does both
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On College Campuses Today It is unfortunately clear that the confluence of college students and peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing results in the wholesale theft of billions of dollars of copyright protected music and motion picture properties. Charles Reed, Chancellor of the California State University, issued an executive order on March 7, 2007 which stated “Technological advances and the advent of peer-to-peer file
sharing applications have created an environment where illegal downloading of copyrighted materials, particularly, but not exclusively, music and entertainment videos has flourished. These violations have caused the recording and motion picture industries – two industries vital to the economic health of California –to suffer billions of dollars in lost revenue. The Internet is now the preferred medium for dissemination of information resources. Abusive use of otherwise legitimate technologies has fostered a lack of respect for the intellectual property of others, particularly among young people. The university must act to ensure that the appropriate safeguards and policies are in place to discourage such abusive use.” A survey by Student Monitor from spring 2006 found that more than half of college students download music and movies illegally, and according to market research firm NPD, college students alone accounted for more than 1.3 billion illegal music downloads in 2006. A survey conducted by SurveyU over the weekend of March 24, 2007 found that nearly all students (98%) have at least one song that was acquired without payment. Also unfortunately clear is that universities are faced with a Hobson‟s choice in dealing with this “environment where illegal downloading of copyrighted materials, particularly, but not exclusively, music and entertainment videos has flourished.” Given current technology, a permanent solution requires either cutting off offending student access to the university network, or invading student privacy and examining the content of each and every file transmission. BitTorrent Background BitTorrent is a P2P file sharing protocol. To download a specific file, a peer first obtains a „torrent‟ file for it (a small file which contains data about the specific files to be shared), and connects to a specified „tracker‟ (the specific computer that coordinates the file distribution) which tells from which other peers to download the pieces of the file. Legal BitTorrent requires that the torrent and file be downloaded during the same session to insure that the file identified in the torrent is the same file that is downloaded. Illegal BitTorrent would have the torrent downloaded in one session and the file in another session opening the opportunity of substituting illegal files for legal ones. BitTorrent is both file-specific and tracker-specific, and both are specified in the torrent. Non-BitTorrent P2P is neither file-specific nor tracker-specific. Non-BitTorrent P2P indiscriminately makes all files available for universal sharing. Some examples of P2P applications which SafeMedia allows:
P2P telephony: Skype and its $4.2 billion price tag P2P TV: Joost and Babelgum are just a start. More like Zattoo are joining the party.
Personal P2P when it is a streaming based technology: P2P sharing of photos, videos and other files with family and friends is becoming increasingly common place. The list of start-ups chasing this nascent market is growing by the month. Tubes is the latest to join the party. P2P Video Delivery as a streaming technology growing in popularity, especially in places where 10 megabit/s broadband connections are commonplace. P2P data syncing between computers. Software to synchronize files across a number of systems using secure, peer-to-peer file transfers without a central server. Distributed computing is another area where we have seen P2P technology shine. SETI@Home is a good example Akamai, acquire Red Swoosh for internal network use. SafeMedia only stops illegal P2P