Category Archives: Privacy
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
Draft: Public Comments for CRTC PN 2008-19
( Source ) I’m in the process of pulling together some privacy-related thoughts surrounding Canadian ISPs’ use of DPI equipment. I’ve posted an early draft of the document, and invite comments and thoughts. If you want to prepare your own comments, you’ve still got until February 23rd. Continue reading
Update: ‘More Secure’ (non-EDL) Drivers Licenses Coming to BC Soon!
( Source ) This, in part, resolves a confusion over how the government might collect enough images for the facial recognition built into EDL applications to work effectively – in order to ‘catch’ people who are applying for multiple licenses it will be incredibly helpful to streamline facial capture across all licensing. … Of course, in the report over the success of Phase 1 ( summarized here ), we found that every time that the system has identified a duplicate applicant based on facial recognition that it incorrectly identified the duplicate; every ‘flag’ has actually been an error. … For privacy advocates, the integration of facial recognition at the receipt of licenses means that the state can potentially create a massive facial database that could subsequently be used for non-driver’s license purposes (e.g. running a captured image of a criminal through the standardized database). Continue reading
