NSF Funds Research on DPI

 

The Internet Governance Project website reports that "Syracuse University Professor Milton Mueller was awarded $304,000 by the U.S. NSF for his research on “Deep Packet Inspection and the Governance of the Internet" The research will take place over two academic years, 2010-11 and 2011-2012"

See "U.S. National Science Foundation funds research on social impact of network surveillance technologies" - here.

"The project will contribute to an understanding of how new technological capabilities interact with politics, public policy, regulation, and law. Drawing on research literatures in science, technology and society studies (STS), Internet governance studies and political science, it will test and improve theories about the co-production of technology and governance institutions, especially theories which assign agency to technological artifacts .. Mueller’s research will investigate whether the use of DPI by Internet service providers is producing major changes in the way users and suppliers of Internet services are governed"

See a Mueller's previous work on DPI - here and a related post - "The Legality of DPI - Paper by Angela Daly" - here

New Paper on "Deep Packet Inspection and Internet Governance"

 

It seems that the DPI's recent public attention attracts legal, social and political research on the subject. The latest comes from Ralf Bendrath (right picture) and Milton Mueller.

See "The End of the Net as We Know it? Deep Packet Inspection and Internet Governance" - here

Abstract:

Advances in network equipment now allow internet service providers to monitor the content of data packets in real-time and make decisions about how to handle them. If deployed widely this technology, known as deep packet inspection (DPI), has the potential to alter basic assumptions that have underpinned Internet governance to date. The paper explores the way Internet governance is responding to deep packet inspection and the political struggles around it. Avoiding the extremes of technological determinism and social constructivism, it integrates theoretical approaches from the sociology of technology and actor-centered institutionalism into a new framework for technology-aware policy analysis.

The paper covers the common DPI use cases (network security, bandwidth management, Governmental surveillance, Content regulation, Copyright enforcement and Ad injection), discusses whether DPI is a "a disruptive technology" and concludes (regarding two of the presented cases):

"If ISPs have an interest in DPI usage for bandwidth management, they can and often will go ahead and just do it. When DPI is desired by third parties like copyright holders, on the other hand, those actors must invest heavily to make ISPs cooperate. In this respect, technology determines politics "

Related post "The Legality of DPI - Paper by Angela Daly" - here.

The Legality of DPI - Paper by Angela Daly

  

Angela Daly, from the European University Institute - Department of Law, published as abstract for a new paper, discussing the legality of Deep Packet Inspection.

The paper discusses the use of DPI for network security (here), network management (i.e. QoS/traffic management by ISPs), government surveillance, targeted advertising (here) and copyright infringements (here). Aspects examined are privacy, free expression, competition, copyright and due process

Regarding network management, the recommendation sounds (to a non-legal expert like me) similar to Net Neutrality expected guidelines (non-discrimination, transparency with reasonable network management):

".. as regards network management, it seems that some use of DPI to prioritise some types of Internet traffic on a QoS basis would be desirable. However, given the potential (as well as actual) abuse of such a position of network control, it would be unwise to leave network management, even just vis-a-vis a minimum QoS solely to the ISPs: principled, clear, transparent, and ideally independent rules on such network management, to avoid free expression violations and anticompetitive behaviour, would be highly desirable here" .

See "The Legality of Deep Packet Inspection" - here ; Paper - here.