Deep Packet Peering

[AbbieRose]

I read an article recently that stated that Virgin were planning on investigating how much of its traffic was illegal peer to peer stuff. They will look into data packets to see if the stuff is copyright.

Can they really tell from this? I do so much legal downloading-mostly from places like iTunes-can they really tell the difference between a file that is legally bought and one that is not?

What of encryption-can illegal files not simply be encrypted to prevent this?

 

[SenseiSteve]

I'm not aware of any data packet inspections that can determine if the content violates copyright law.

 

[Artashes]

If its not ISP providers, then someone else is definitely watching the traffic http://www.hostingdiscussion.com/general-discussion/21909-cease-notice.html So there could be a way to "flag" traffic based on server connections...

It has been months since I've purchased music online. With services like imeem.com, last.fm etc. it seems like you can get similar results than downloading. From time to time I'd buy music, but from services like LegalSounds.com or GoMusicNow.com where the cost of each track is roughly 10 cents, not 1 dollar.

 

[AbbieRose]

Here is the original article if you want to take a look.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/26/virgin_media_detica/

I can see why they are doing it and I appreciate that at the moment they are claiming that the data is anonymous. My fear is simply that it won't remain that way forever, and I don't trust them to tell us when they change that.

For the record I'm with Virgin.

 

[handsonhosting]

I guess since it's their network, they have the right to police it any way they want to. If you don't agree with it, you don't use them (harder to do in areas where there's only ONE provider).

Deep packet scanning I've not heard of before or know of any way to determine that an MP3 that I've sent to someone includes a song or my voice.

Scanning and blocking of destinations has been done for years, and there are active lists built based on the IP number and domain names of places that house material (which is where many of those "cease notices" get their data from.

Wonder how they'll do it and how long before others jump it and start to use the data for more than just detection of activities. It'll be used similar to cookies so they can issue advertisements and targeted material.

 

[AbbieRose]

Yeah, we are in that situation-not quite only one provider but huge costs to move to an alternative because there are no lines down for BT here, so we can't get anything else.

For now at least we will simply have to put up with it. My worries are that I buy so much legal stuff online-26 hours of video in the last two days alone. I only hope they will recognise it as being legal.