Virgin to use DPI file share ‘monitor’ system
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- With entertainment cartel plans to use world governments as copyright enforcers in the background, Britain’s Virgin Media says it plans to try a DPI (deep packet inspection) system called CView.
“CView is the first commercially available solution to provide a metric highlighting the volume and nature of Peer to Peer (P2P) file sharing activity on an ISP network,” says its owner, Detica.
But it, “does not, and cannot, identify individual Internet users,” it states, boasting it’s, “The only accurate way of providing a ‘digital piracy’ index to both ISPs and CPs is to measure the actual P2P activity taking place within an ISP network.”
Raw traffic data and identification information are “deleted in the closed system and cannot be accessed by a human operator,” it promises.
The technology “analyses anonymous ISP traffic data” to supply information on the total volume of file-sharing,” says Hexus.channel.
“Understanding how consumer behaviour is changing will be an important requirement of Virgin Media’s upcoming music offering and, should they become law, the Government’s legislative proposals will also require measurement of the level of copyright infringement on ISPs’ networks,” story has Virgin’s Jon James stating, going on:
“Detica’s CView technology potentially offers a non-intrusive solution which enhances our understanding of aggregate customer behaviour without identifying or storing individual customers’ data.”
Detica says it “specialises in collecting, managing and exploiting information to reveal actionable intelligence”.
“CView is the first commercially available solution to provide a metric highlighting the volume and nature of Peer to Peer (P2P) file sharing activity on an ISP network,” says the company in Consultation on legislation to address illicit P2P file sharing.
But it, “does not, and cannot, identify individual Internet users,” it states flatly, boasting it’s, “The only accurate way of providing a ‘digital piracy’ index to both ISPs and CPs is to measure the actual P2P activity taking place within an ISP network.”
Raw traffic data and identification information are “deleted in the closed system and cannot be accessed by a human operator,” it promises.
One would assume Virgin customers being spied on by Cview would be warned.
But that won’t be the case.
There are no plans to tell the customers whose traffic will be examined, says The Register.
We’ve asked DPI expert Chris Parsons what he thinks of the system.
Stay tuned.
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Hexus.channel – Virgin Media to trial file-sharing tracking system, November 26, 2009
The Register – Virgin Media to trial filesharing monitoring system, November 26, 2009
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November 27th, 2009 at 7:19 am
Just another fancy name for a tool that is going to be used simply for spying on their customers, like every other ISP that is cosying up to the entertainment cartel for their own vested interest this attack on folks civil liberties and privacy must be resisted and I urge folks to swith now to encrypted networks and proxy their web surfing habits to let the message sink in that we the spied upon have a method of recourse and the intent to use it and further, use it to mount campaigns against those who take our money but do not defend our rights, political or commercial.
November 27th, 2009 at 7:39 am
i call this spyware and should be treated as such, everyone that is a virgin media customer should write to them demanding if they use this tool to spy on them they should be taken to court, doesn’t matter what they call it, spying is spying how would they like it if we did dpi on them and all there sensitive data huh, they wouldn’t be too pleased would they and neither should there customers.
November 27th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
As someone on a forum I help run pointed out, how do they tell the legal from the illegal filesharing activity or is the truth that they dont care as their friends in the cartel have already inked a few deals with them.
November 27th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Deep habits inspection. Deep finances inspection. Deep conversation inspection. Deep health inspection. So if any of those were done by a stranger and without your permission, how would that make you feel? Very unhappy I would guess. Deep packet inspection is nothing more than a deep invasion of privacy and I guarantee no good will ever come from it.
“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.” – Frederick Douglass