‘Switzerland’ ISP integrity tool released
p2pnet news view | P2P:- ‘Switzerland,’ an application purpose-designed to allow users to test the integrity of their Net communications, has today been released by the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation).
It uses a uses a semi-P2P, server-and-many-clients architecture to pinpoint modified or spoofed traffic between multiple clients.
The move comes hours before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to take action against Comcast for violating the FCC’s net neutrality principles and is in answer to formal complaints centering on Comcast’s efforts to block subscribers’ ability to share files.
Its actions, originally disclosed in 2007 by Free Press and Public Knowledge chief technology consultant Robb Topolski, the Associated Press and the foundation, led to the FCC declaring Comcast is in conflict with the Commission’s 2005 “Internet Policy Statement,” which sets a benchmark for neutral treatment of Internet traffic.
‘Switzerland’ is designed to help Net users investigate possible network neutrality violations.
“Until now, there hasn’t been a reliable way to tell if somebody – a hacker, an ISP, corporate firewall, or the Great Firewall of China – is modifying your Internet traffic en route,” saysPeter Eckersley, the EFF staff technologist who designed Switzerland.
“The few tests available have been for narrow and specific kinds of interference, or have required tremendous amounts of advanced forensic labor. Switzerland is designed to make general-purpose ISP testing faster and easier.”
Part of EFF’s Test your ISP project, Switzerland is an open source, command-line software tool designed to detect the modification or injection of packets of data by ISPs.
It zeros in on changes made by software tools such as Sandvine and AudibleMagic, advertising systems like FairEagle, and various censorship systems, believed to be in use by some ISPs, says the EFF.
Although currently intended for use by technically sophisticated Netusers, development plans aim to make Switzerland increasingly easy to use, it says.
Click here for more information and to download Switzerland.
Click here for more about Test Your ISP.
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EFF – EFF Releases “Switzerland” ISP Testing Tool, August 1, 2008
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August 1st, 2008 at 6:42 am
Congratulations to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for fielding Switzerland. When Comcast started tearing down BitTorrent connections, it didn’t tell anyone it was doing so. When Bell Canada started throttling wholesale customers, it also was an unannounced surprise. Software like Switzerland will help Internet users worldwide determine if their Internet provider is delivering the real deal or if it might be secretly delivering something else.
Robb Topolski
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:08 am
^ the guy for finding all this out