Deep Packet Investigation
Chair: Joseph Savirimuthu: Liverpool Law School, University of Liverpool, UK
In today’s highly networked society, the music industry faces a degree of uncertainty in the face of growing concerns about illegal filesharing and the difficulties in enforcing copyright rules and norms. Deep packet investigation (DPI) is the latest engineering solution for enforcement. The benefits DPI services offers to the music industry are likely to be significant, and not least will reinforce the current ideological or individualist view that the copyright rules and norms have a broader social or public value. The Panel adopts a different lens through which the role of copyright rules and norms can be understood. Do copyright rules and norms trump privacy concerns? How do we ensure that copyright enforcement through algorithmic surveillance does not risk undermining privacy values at the “design” phase? What policy issues emerge from juxtaposing two sets of engineering solutions: ‘privacy by design’ and ‘algorithmic surveillance by design’? This is the discussion project of the Panel.
Session Plan
Privacy, Preservations of Dignity, and Deep Packet Inspection: Conditioning Algorithmic Network Surveillance for Copyright Enforcement, Klaus Mochalski: IPOQUE, Germany
Deep packet inspection has been subject to controversial debates about network neutrality and online privacy. But DPI is a neutral technology. It depends on the application that utilises DPI if and how it will affect the Internet and our society. This presentation will focus on Internet bandwidth management based on DPI. After an explanation of what DPI is – and what it is not –, we will straighten some myths and untruths. Future discussions, particularly in the area of bandwidth management, should not focus on DPI as a technology, but on its specific applications. To facilitate these discussions, we will propose a simple system of categories that classify different Internet traffic management schemes according to their impact on net neutrality, market competition and online privacy.
Deep Packet Inspection: Technology, Applications and Net Neutrality, Christopher Parsons: University of Victoria, USA
Privacy operates as an umbrella-like concept that shelters liberal citizens’ capacity to enjoy the autonomy, secrecy, and liberty, values that are key to citizens enjoying their psychic and civil dignity. As digitisation sweeps through the post-industrial information economy, these same citizens are increasingly sharing and disseminating copywritten files using peer-to-peer file sharing networks. In the face of economic challenges posed by these networks, some members of the recording industries have sought agreements with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to govern the sharing of copywritten data. In Britain, file-sharing governance has recently manifested in the form of Virgin Media inserting deep packet inspection (DPI) appliances into their network to monitor for levels of infringing files. In this presentation, I argue that ISPs and vendors must demonstrate technical and social transparency over their use of DPI to assuage worries that communications providers are endangering citizens’ psychic and civil dignities. Drawing on recent Canadian regulatory processes concerning Canadian applications of DPI, I suggest that transparency between civil advocacy groups and ISPs and vendors can garner trust required to limit harms to citizens’ psychic dignity. Further, I maintain that using DPI appliances to detect copyright infringement and apply three-strikes proposals unduly threatens citizens’ civil dignities; alternate governance strategies must be adopted to preserve citizens’ civil dignity.
Some Remarks on DPI and Liability of Intermediaries, Dr Paul P. Polanski: Director of Electronic Publishing, C.H. Beck Publishing House, Poland
In the initial design of the Internet no global control at the operations level was envisaged. However, with the progress of time technology used initially to screen the flow of packets within closed networks started to be used in open networks for variety of purposes, especially security. Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) is an application of old low-level screening technologies in the new settings (targeted advertising, copyright protection) raising serious concerns particularly about privacy of users. DPI technologies can become really powerful in the hands of Internet Service Providers. ISPs are structural middlemen, who – with the help of DPI – can easily discover the content of packets (both headers and payload), and are thus in the best position to assemble vast collections of sensitive information about its subscribers actions (e.g. downloads) and habits (e.g. visited websites). They are also in the best position to take actions of their choice (e.g. blocking of access to certain websites, revealing the identity of users to right holders) based on their own policy. The use of DPI technologies is controversial not only from the perspective of privacy law but also may affect the application of liability regime to ISPs. One of the key prerequisites for the exclusion of ISPs liability under E-commerce Directive is lack of modification of data passing through the network, which surely cannot be met by those service providers re-route packets as a result of DPI screening.
