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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/1974/1939
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| Title: | Deep Packet Inspection in Perspective: Tracing its lineage and surveillance Potentials |
| Authors: | Christopher, Parsons |
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| Keywords: | digital communications data packets
packet inspection technologies
surveillance technologies |
| Issue Date: | Jan-2009 |
| Publisher: | The Surveillance Project |
| Series/Report no.: | The New Transparency Project, Working Paper
1 |
| Abstract: | Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are responsible for transmitting and delivering their customers’ data requests, ranging from requests for data from websites, to that from filesharing applications, to that from participants in Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) chat sessions. Using contemporary packet inspection and capture technologies, ISPs can investigate and record the content of unencrypted digital communications data packets.
This paper explains the structure of these packets, and then proceeds to describe the
packet inspection technologies that monitor their movement and extract information from
the packets as they flow across ISP networks. After discussing the potency of
contemporary deep 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 customer data traffic. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/1974/1939 |
| Appears in Collections: | New Transparency: Surveillance and Social Sorting
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