Friday, January 25, 2008

AT&T stalkers

This particular "digital media" update is rather timely as this week's guest at our Digital Brownbag was AT&T. They failed to mention this:

AT&T is considering the idea of monitoring online traffic in an attempt to prevent theft of copyrighted material. Peer-to-peer online activity is of a special concern to the company since, according to CEO Randall Stephenson, it's one of the most common ways to illegally exchange files.

So, some random guy at AT&T could have the ability to read my e-mails or open my instant message convos? What?! Doesn't that seem a little insane, not to mention unethical?

I think this is a bad business move. Who wants to use the services of a company that isn't going to respect privacy? Also, I like my high-speed Internet connection. Isn't this scanning process going to slow down the online experience?

MSNBC's Helen Popkin provides a thorough explanation of why this is particularly bad.

Take a look at this Web site about Network Neutrality, obviously against online scanning.

Joel Johnson, editor of Boing Boing Gadgets, unexpectedly polls the audience on AT&T's plans:





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