The picture above might look like a Photoshop masterpiece from your worst nightmare, but let me assure you this is no joke. It came from a marketing webinar put on by two companies that service Verizon and AT&T showcasing a new system that helps providers figure out where your traffic is going so they can charge accordingly. In a nutshell this is everything the EFF warned us about, and is pretty much the doomsday scenario from the net neutrality bible.

It’s hard to imagine the carriers getting away with this type of behavior in the current market, but it does point out that not only does the technology exist, but several companies are on the market trying to hock the concept as we speak. Either way it sounds like the cell carriers have all but determined they need to increase revenues, and this could very well be the future we face. Below is a direct quote from the webinar that Wired managed to lift from a trusted source.

“[We use] a number of different methods to accurately identify the application -- methods like heuristic analysis, behavioral and historical analysis, deep packet inspection, and a number of other techniques. What's key is that we have the best application identification available on the market, which means that even applications that are encrypted or use other methods to evade detection will be correctly identified and classified... We essentially feed this real-time information about traffic and application usage into the policy and charging system. Each subscriber has a particular service plan that they sign up for, and they're as generic or as personalized as the operator wants.”

Cats and Dogs living together? Mass hysteria? Let us know after the jump.