Category Archives: Privacy
Update: EDLs in Saskatchewan
The costs have been increasing and if they go to a point where it just doesn’t make sense anymore then we’re not going to move forward. … This being said, I should be fair and point out that the Privacy Commissioner of Saskatchewan hasn’t received the Privacy Impact Assessment from Sask. … I don’t know exactly what the consequences of this kind of ‘tweaking’ would be, especially given how limited those governments incorporated suggested privacy protections, but it would be nice to see documents that really put the Commissioner’s cards (and desired changes) on the table. Continue reading
Thoughts: Google and ‘Interest Based’ Advertising
I’ve made references to Google and privacy in a variety of blog posts , but whenever I think about Google my mind returns to a comment from Peter Fleischer, the chief privacy officer for Google. … If your users don’t trust you, you’re out of business ( Source ) Perhaps naively, I think that this statement is accurate – look at the nightmares that Facebook, NebuAd, and Phorm (to name a few) all have when they ‘invade’ customers’ privacy without being fully transparent about what, and why, they are engaging in their practices. … While I’m not a fan of behavioral ads, and don’t think that Google’s solution would eliminate all of the concerns, this is the first time that a company has offered an easily understood, easily used, opt-out system in a reasonably transparent fashion (something that certainly can’t be said about either NebuAd or Phorm). Continue reading
Announcement: Working Paper on DPI Now Available
The abstract is below: Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are responsible for transmitting and delivering their customers’ data requests, ranging from requests for data from websites, to that from file-sharing applications, to that from participants in Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) chat sessions. … After discussing the potency of contemporary packet inspection devices, in relation to their earlier packet inspection predecessors, and their potential uses in improving network operators’ network management systems, I argue that they should be identified as surveillance technologies that can potentially be incredibly invasive. Drawing on Canadian examples, I argue that Canadian ISPs are using DPI technologies to implicitly ‘teach’ their customers norms about what are ‘inappropriate’ data transfer programs, and the appropriate levels of ISP manipulation of consumer data traffic. Continue reading
DPI Deployed for Mobile Advertising
( Source ) Deep Packet Inspection is being deploying by an increasing number of operators for a host of purposes, including content analysis, flow analysis, network management (broadly stated), network management as integrated with policy management, and behavioural advertising (to name a few). … The Guardian is reporting that in a recent GSMA trial to collect information of where mobile users’ are browsing, that “the UK’s five networks – 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone – used deep packet inspection technology to collect data covering about half the UK’s entire mobile web traffic” ( Source ). … Even in the case of Phorm, there are countermeasures that individuals can take to mitigate their data being identified and sorted – what solutions will be made available to mobile consumers, or is the fact that these are ‘different devices’ mean that old solutions will be seen as not applying? Continue reading
