14 May 2008

So, you think Ma Bell's traffic throttling...

Has nothing to do with you... well, babycakes... you'd better think again...
CIPPIC has filed an official complaint with Canada's Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, asking her office to investigate Bell Canada's use of DPI (and we're flattered to be quoted as an expert source in the complaint).

In addition, the group would welcome a wider investigation into possible DPI use at cable operators Rogers and Shaw, as well.
How would you have felt about Canada Post opening up all your "snail mail"?
Because DPI can drill down into packet headers and then further into the actual content being pumped through the tubes, it raises all sorts of questions from privacy advocates concerned about the easy collection of private personal information.
It just might be time to run out and get a copy of PGP...
Current gear is so sophisticated that it can reconstitute e-mails and IM conversations out of asymmetric traffic flows and it can essentially peek "under the hood" of any non-encrypted packet to take a look at what it contains.
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