[LINK] Deep Packet Inspection

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

> "The Telecommunications Interception Act prevents people accessing
> electronic information other than for authorised purposes" 

Hmm .. although wireless is obviously a problem, as Richard points out
it's not hard to avoid legal/privacy problems. To me, a bigger problem
is the willful (and probably illegal?) usage of Deep Packet Inspection.

World interest, and use, of DPI is now growing very quickly .. for eg:

"dPacket.org is a nonprofit corporation founded for education and 
scientific purposes to foster and support community interest and progress 
in deep packet inspection (DPI). Our mission is to be the premier global 
resource for information and collaboration on DPI related topics. 
<https://www.dpacket.org>" 

And, DPI tools are now even available as open source ..

"Deep packet inspection (DPI) hardware can identify an astonishing array 
of protocols passing across the Internet—up to and including protocols 
that are rare .. Europe's leading DPI vendor has open-sourced a version 
of its traffic detection engine. OpenDPI.org is the new home for ipoque's 
open source project; anyone interested can take a look at the code or 
contribute patches ... dPacket.org’s user-driven community welcomes 
individuals and organizations from many sectors including commerce, 
government, and education, and from diverse roles including executives, 
engineers, researchers, academia, consultants, analysts, policy-makers, 
media, and the general public." <http://www.opendpi.org>

Here's just one cable carrier that admits to using it ..
 
"Openet’s products work in conjunction with a deep packet inspection 
(DPI) box to help carriers track and enforce subscriber bandwidth usage 
policies – as well as charge for additional service and usage levels.."
<http://connectedplanetonline.com/bss_oss/news/managing-bandwidth-0115>

And, it's even now being used by mobile phone carriers ..

"With controversy over deep packet inspection (DPI) deployments on wired 
broadband networks at an all-time high, mobile operators and their 
vendors are nonetheless moving forward to deploy DPI boxes to manage 
consumption of mobile broadband data services."
<http://connectedplanetonline.com/service_delivery/news/dpi-mobile-
networks-0209/>:

For example, DPI is now being used for mobile phones by Vodaphone Hungary:

"Vodafone Hungary said today it has deployed a new bandwidth management 
system for its mobile services that relies on sophisticated policy rules"
<http://connectedplanetonline.com/service_delivery/news/vodafone-soft-
caps-0121/index.html>

Sure wireless privacy is important, but to me DPI privacy is essential.

Cheers,
Stephen