Big Brother on a budget: How Internet surveillance got so cheap

Big Brother on a budget: How Internet surveillance got so cheap | Ars Technica: "One failed DPI-based effort comes from a company called NebuAd. It tried to sell ISPs on this advertising idea, signing up Charter Communications and some smaller providers for a trial of a service that not only monitored the content of users’ Web traffic to target ads, but even injected data into packets, adding JavaScript that dropped tracking cookies into users browsers to do even more thorough behavior-based targeting of advertisements. NebuAd went bankrupt after it drew the attention of Congress, and Charter and the other ISPs in the trial dropped the “enhanced online advertising service” the company provided. Other behavior-based marketing companies, such as Phorm, continue to offer “Web personalization” services that include discovery of users’ interests integrated with DPI-based Web security to block malicious sites.

Another firm, Global File Registry, aims to go further, by injecting ISPs’ own advertisements into search-engine results through DPI and packet forging. The company has combined file-recognition technology from Kazaa with DPI to make it possible for ISPs to re-route links to pirated files online to sites offering to sell licensed versions of them. Comcast has already tested the anti-piracy waters with DPI, running afoul of the FCC’s efforts to enforce network neutrality. The company’s ISP business, which uses Sandvine’s DPI technology, moved to block peer-to-peer file sharers using BitTorrent as part of its traffic management. The FCC ordered Comcast to stop (primarily because Comcast was injecting forged packets into network traffic to shut down BitTorrent sessions), but that order was later struck down by a Federal appeals court." 'via Blog this'