[LINK] Internet filtering plan may extend to peer-to-peer traffic, says Stephen Conroy

[Richard Chirgwin]

Jan,

It depends on who you believe ...

"Deep packet inspection" is what has probably been pumped to Conroy as
something that rilly, rilly, trooly works.

</oversimplification>
Whereas a "web filter" looks at the URL or IP address, deep packet
inspection takes a look in the data part of the IP packet itself to
determine stuff like the protocols used and whether the data itself is
malicious.

The more hucksterish of the filter vendors will claim to be able to
identify the amount of skin tone in images, which I don't much believe...

Getting inside packets is vastly more intrusive; also orders of
magnitude more effort required.
</oversimplification>

RC

Jan Whitaker wrote:
> At 12:43 AM 23/12/2008, Kim Holburn wrote:
>   
>>> "Technology that filters peer-to-peer and BitTorrent traffic does
>>> exist and it is anticipated that the effectiveness of this will be
>>> tested in the live pilot trial," Senator Conroy said.
>>>       
>
> Does anyone know if there are 'filters' per se that can do much more 
> than block IP addresses or the full p2p protocol? Can filters do a 
> discriminating blockage within the protocol?
>
> Jan
>
>
>
> Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
> jwhit at janwhitaker.com
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>
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>
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