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Looking deep in your eyes (and your pocket and your head)
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by nk | July 26, 2007 at 08:51 pm
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Imagine a device that sits inline in a major ISP's network and can throttle P2P traffic at differing levels depending on the time of day. Imagine a device that allows one user access only to e-mail and the Web while allowing a higher-paying user to use VoIP and BitTorrent. Imagine a device that protects against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, scans for viruses passing across the network, and siphons off requested traffic for law enforcement analysis. Imagine all of this being done in real time, for 900,000 simultaneous users, and you get a sense of the power of deep packet inspection (DPI) network appliances.
[...]
Looking this closely into packets can raise privacy concerns: can
DPI equipment peek inside all of these packets and assemble them into a
legible record of your e-mails, web browsing, VoIP calls, and
passwords? Well, yes, it can. In fact, that's exactly what companies
like Narus use the technology to do, and they make a living out of
selling such gear to the Saudi Arabian government, among many others.
Daddy, where you were when freedom was taken away? Ask your ISP whether they do this and if yes, vote with your legs and wallet.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (4)
at 04:10 on July 27th, 2007
nk, Good stuff. I hate when companies and governments try to look into data. It is acceptable that service providers log some of your activity, but without any name that can be connected to the usage. As with ISPs they know the person as the service subscribers, and thus they shouldn't log the data transmitted between web and other IP services to the subscriber and back. This is specially true with VoIP services and and e-mails, which is a real private segment.
at 05:32 on July 27th, 2007
nk, thanks for posting this. As long as live human beings are on the other end of something like a DPI, it will definitely get abused.
at 06:32 on July 27th, 2007
Personal encryption is really the only way prevent unwanted access.
Priority of traffic can be done on nearly every type of router with
quality of service (QOS). Carriers can severly restrict bittorrent and
P2P without even looking at the content closely.
I suppose
there's something to be said for packing up andmoving on, but the trend
amongst all providers is to be restrictive of what goes across their
network. Without strong political support for an open net, we are
destined for a slate of offered services, rather than the open system
we have today. -> Good stuff.
at 06:59 on July 27th, 2007
In Germany, every provider of a certain size is forced to monitor emails and pass them on to the authorities if requested. That was introduced to fight terrorism. I wonder when encryption software becomes illegal...