Ripe for Deep Packet Inspection

Far more interesting than the data presented by Sandvine is the fact that Sandvine has any data to present at all. How did they get this stuff? Did they buy it from Bell and Rogers? Does their throttling equipment phone home? I don’t recall giving them permission to use my data.

They claim they’re not looking at data content. Maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not. But they’ve inspected deeply enough to know that we use more streaming applications than P2P, and more Bittorrent than Gnutella. As any data analyst knows, traffic analysis of data patterns gives as much information as the data itself. Why are they allowed to gather any of this data at all? None of their business what I use on my computer.

I’m sure Sandvine is making a hefty buck selling this report, or at least using it as evidence to sell more of their DPI equipment. They’re profiting from the the data that I didn’t give them permission to use. I think the Privacy Commissioner may want to look into this.

–Bob.