Fergie's Tech Blog

Researcher Creates Net Neutrality Test

Robert McMillan writes on InfoWorld:

A Seattle-based security researcher has devised a way to test for net neutrality. Dan Kaminsky will share details of this technique, which will eventually be rolled into a free software tool, on Wednesday at the Black Hat USA security conference in Las Vegas. The software can tell if computers are treating some types of TCP/IP traffic better than others -- dropping data that is being used in VOIP (voiceover Internet Protocol) calls, or treating encrypted data as second class, for example.

Kaminsky calls his technique "TCP-based Active Probing for Faults." He says that the software he's developing will be similar to the Traceroute Internet utility that is used to track what path Internet traffic takes as it hops between two machines on different ends of the network.

But unlike Traceroute, Kaminsky's software will be able to make traffic appear as if it is coming from a particular carrier, or being used for a certain type of application, like VOIP. It will also be able to identify where the traffic is being dropped, and could ultimately be used to finger service providers who are treating some network traffic as second-class.

posted by Fergie @ 8/02/2006 07:53:00 AM