No, this isn’t a rant about how there are too many emo kids posting a bunch of useless fucking photos on “art” websites. This post is about deep packet injection and traffic throttling. Don’t get me wrong, those emo kids still piss me the fuck off… Why the fuck is THIS photo available as a print on deviantART? (especially for $149?!?!?!?! YOUR KILLING ART [and you need to comb your hair]).
Back to the real topics at hand, lets start with deep packet injection. “What is deep packet injection?”, I hear you ask. To sum it up, DPI is the act of inserting information into an open network connection without the knowledge of the server (the technical thingy that hosts the website you visit) and in most times without the consent of the client (your computer and untimely you). Now that you kind of know what it is, you might be wondering why its bad. Well, deep packet injection allows the person (or internet service provider) to place code or advertisements into a webpage you view. This could be advertisements, cookies (for tracking a users internet usage), or even information manipulation.
DPI raises a lot of concerns about copyright, privacy, and net neutrality. Companies like Phorm already implement DPI technology and are trying to work on deals with ISPs to provide targeted advertising to end users… This means they do it without YOUR permission. Why is this bad? Lets just ignore the fact that Phorm is the new name for a company called 121media, a spyware company. Lets look at it from a content providers point of view…
Most websites that provide free content generate revenue through advertising. This means that a large number of people actually click on the ads (like Google adsense) displayed on pages, these clicks give the content provider money to provide more content (HOORAY). Lets say you run a website, you’ve spent a lot of time and money building up your website and content… you’re starting to get hits and the money is starting to roll in, you might even break even with the cost of your investment soon. Along comes packet injecting ISP and all of a sudden 30% of your Canadian visitors (lets say Canada is your biggest demographic) are victims of packet injection. This ISP starts inserting its own ads into your website and people start clicking those ads instead of yours, now your ad revenue drops by 25% because the ISPs ads are getting more clicks. The ISP is modifying and making money from your website without your permission. Now your site looks ugly, 30% of your users see a website with twice as many ads and they loose interest. All of this happens without you giving permission to a 3rd party ISP and without the end user agreeing to their ISP doing this.
Some of you might be thinking some kind of bullshit like “they serve the internet, they can do whatever they want”. Well you can shut the fuck up, you don’t deserve to use the internet you dumb shit. You see, for any normal person to do widespread packet injection would most likely land that person in jail if they were caught… say for instance if I decided to do some widespread packet injection that added “Rogers Communications can suck my heat seeking moisture missile until it blows” in big bold letters on every website, I’d go to jail for hacking. If Rogers does it (and they have been doing DPI), nothing happens to them. Why the fuck should a cooperation be allowed to do whatever the fuck they want and the only punishment be either a cease-and-desist from a court or a fine… The people that make these decisions should be put in fucking jail! The people that run a cooperation need to be held responsible for the actions THEY take, not gain automatic immunity because “the cooperation” as legal entity did it.
Fuck, its 1:40 AM and I havnt even touched traffic throttaling (Bell Canada) and DNS Hijacking (Rogers). Oh well, I guess that means I have topics for another day… my readers (all both of you guys) will have to wait.
Tags: Bell, Rogers, ISP, Internet, Hacking, DPI, Deep Packet Injection, Packet Injection, Canada
