Office of the Privacy Commissioner – Deep Packet Inspection. How does society reconcile the technological benefits and privacy impacts of new technology? Deep packet inspection is just one seemingly neutral technological application that can have a significant impact on privacy rights and other basic civil liberties, especially as market forces, the enthusiasm of technologists and the influence of national security interests grow stronger.
In the summer and fall of 2008, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada contacted leading academics and professionals working in telecommunications, law, privacy, civil liberties and computer science to ask if they would contribute a short essay on DPI to a project tor create a resource on deep packet inspection. This web page presents the work of these academics, lawyers, researchers, activists and industry professionals. We value the time they invested in preparing their essays, and we hope that it will encourage further discussion around deep packet inspection and similar technologies. Technology, Thoughts, and Trinkets» COUNTER: Counterfeiting and. Last week I was a participant at the COUNTER: Counterfeit and Piracy Research Conference in Manchester, UK.
I was invited to be part of a panel on deep packet inspection by Joseph Savirimuthu, as well as enjoy the conference more generally. It was, without a doubt, one of the best conferences that I have attended – it was thought-provoking and (at points) anger-inducing, good food and accommodations were provided, and excellent discussions were had. What I want to talk about are some of the resonating themes that coursed through the conference and try to situate a few of the positions and participants to give an insight into what was talked about. The COUNTER project is a European research project exploring the consumption of counterfeit and pirated leisure goods.
Dr. In a panel on consumer perspectives on downloading, empirically grounded research was provided to express the position of consumers in relation (primarily) to peer-to-peer filesharing. Christopher Parsons. Technology, Thoughts, and Trinkets» Archives. Technology, Thoughts, and Trinkets» Virgin to Use DPI to ID Copy. Late last week The Register reported that Virgin Media is going to be trialling Detica’s Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) appliances to measure the levels of copyright-infringing file sharing that is occurring along Virgin Media’s networks.
It’s important to note a few things right up front: I have a request in to the company manufacturing these appliances, Detica, and have been promised responses to my questions. In light of this, I’m not accusing Detica or Virgin Media of engaging in any ‘privacy invasive’ uses of DPI, at least not at the moment.The information that I’ll drawing on is, largely, from a consultation paper that Detica presented in late September of 2009.This post is largely meant as a ‘let’s calm down, and wait to hear about the technology’s details’ before suggesting that a massive campaign be mounted against what might be a relatively innocuous surveillance technology. With that stated… What are these kinds of behavioural types? The second: The third and fourth: Technology, Thoughts, and Trinkets» Twitter, Mobile Browsers, an. If you spend much time working with computers then you’re likely familiar with metadata, or data about data.
In the digital era metadata is relied upon for many of the tagging and categorization systems that are seen in popular web environments, such as Twitter, Digg, Delicious, Facebook, and so forth, and is more generally used to define, structure, and administrate data across all digital environments. I should state, upfront, that metadata is incredibly valuable: nothing that I’m going to write about should leave you with the suggestion that metadata should be removed from the digital landscape or could be removed.
Instead I’m advocating for a responsible use of metadata. In this post I will be drawing on a pair of examples to underscore just how much data is contained in popular metadata structures: the information divulged every time a person tweets on Twitter, and what your mobile phone operator may be giving up to third-parties when you browse the web on your phone. Takeaway. Technology, Thoughts, and Trinkets» Choosing Winners with Deep P. I see a lot of the network neutrality discussion as one surrounding the conditions under which applications can, and cannot, be prevented from running. On one hand there are advocates who maintain that telecommunications providers – ISPs such as Bell, Comcast, and Virgin – shouldn’t be responsible for ‘picking winners and losers’ on the basis that consumers should make these choices.
On the other hand, advocates for managed (read: functioning) networks insist that network operators have a duty and responsibility to fairly provision their networks in a way that doesn’t see one small group negatively impact the experiences of the larger consumer population. Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) has become a hot-button technology in light of the neutrality debates, given its potential to let ISPs determine what applications function ‘properly’ and which see their data rates delayed for purposes of network management. The Canadian Situation The United States of Inspection A Note on the UK. Technology, Thoughts, and Trinkets» Deep Packet Inspection Canad. Last week my advisor, Dr. Colin Bennett, and I launched a new website that is meant to provide Canadians with information about how their Internet Service Provider (ISP) monitors data traffic and manages their network.
This website, Deep Packet Inspection Canada, aggregates information that has been disclosed on the public record about how the technology is used, why, and what uses of it are seen as ‘off limits’ by ISPs. The research has been funded through the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s contributions program. Deep packet inspection is a technology that facilitates a heightened awareness of what is flowing across ISP networks. The website was developed so that Canadians can easily, and quickly, learn whether their ISP uses this technology and, if so, how it is used to survey data traffic and the motivations and limitations of such surveillance. The project, and associated web space, has five elements composing its mandate: Christopher Parsons. DPI. Deep Packet Inspection.