Category Archives: ISPs
Deep Packet Inspection and the Confluence of Privacy Regimes
Given how difficult I found it to find successful SSHRC-related research statements (save for through personal contacts) I wanted to post my own statement for others to look at and download if they so wish. Continue reading
EU: Judicial Review Central to Telecom Disconnects
I’m perhaps a bit idealistic, but I think that there are clear contemporary demonstrations of democracy ‘working’. Today’s example comes to us from Europe, where the European Parliament has voted to restore a graduated response to copyright infringement that would see individuals disconnected from the Internet. Disconnecting individuals from the ‘net, given its important role in citizens’ daily lives, can only be done with judicial oversight; copyright holders and ISPs alone cannot conspire to remove file sharers. This suggests that any three-strike policy in the EU will require judicial oversight, and threatens to radically reform how the copyright industry can influence ISPs. Continue reading
Privacy Advocates and Deep Packet Inspection: Vendors, ISPs, and Third-Parties
DPI vendors are routinely involved in trying to sell their product – it’s what they do – but I think what is most telling isn’t what vendors say, but what the ISPs’ representatives say. When I talked to a Bell representative recently, and asked whether it mattered to Bell that throttling BitTorrent might affect the dissemination of information, the rep’s response was “they choose that business model, and now they get to live with the consequences of choosing it” (paraphrased). Is the technology itself inherently ‘bad’? I’m not comfortable with that. Are particular uses of the technology ‘bad’? Undoubtably. Continue reading
Deep Packet Inspection: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
In this post, I want to try to lay out where I see some of the Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) discussions. This is to clarify things in my head that I’ve been thinking through for the past couple of days and to lay out for readers some of the ‘bigger picture’ elements of the DPI discussion (as I read them). If you’ve been fervently following developments surrounding this technology, then a lot of what is below is just rehashing what you know – hopefully the summary is useful – but if you’re relatively unfamiliar with what’s been going on this might help to orient what’s been, and is being, said. Continue reading
