Your View on DPI

[invalid-yPs96gJSFQo51KKgMmcfiw at public.gmane.org (Derek Martin)]

First off, for those of us not in the know, what's DPI?  The
only meaning of that acronym I know is dots per inch.  A quick google
search doesn't turn up anything obviously relevant.

On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 07:56:07PM -0500, Tom Martinson wrote:
> 1.  As a user, I find them reprehensible.  In no way should anyone be 
> able to see my data traffic,

That's just crazy.  Unless you're using encryption to prevent it.
Your analogy with the post office is a bad one... unless you want to
extend it a bit.  Data that's not encrypted is like sending a post
card.  Encryption is the equivalent of an envelope.  You don't have to
agree, but in practical terms, that's just the way it is.

> and decide for me that my Hulu download should have a lower priority
> than my email traffic, or vice versa.  

While I agree in principle, that also is kind of crazy.  QoS and other
schemes for throttling bandwidth are essential mechanisms for ensuring
that end users get a reasonable internet experience.  Streaming video
packets, in general, SHOULD have a higher priority than e-mail
traffic, so that you don't experience skips and such just because your
e-mail client is downloading an e-mail with a huge attachment while
you're watching, etc.

> Also it is not right for someone to have the ability and the need to
> "inspect" my packets and do with them as they wish, (I think that
> everyone remembers all those ACK resets to fight P2P traffic).  

I agree to an extent...  That is, I agree literally with your
statement.  But, they should be able to inspect your packets, because
the packets are going over their hardware to get to you... and they
should be able to make decisions about how to forward those packets
based on the contents, so long as it is for the benefit of their
customers.

My understanding is that the post office can and does inspect and even
x-ray packages it deems suspicious, or otherwise appropriate to
inspect. 

> DPI was also used by NebUadd to identify advertisements and then
> substitute in what they want to put in.  This screams in the face of
> privacy issues.   

If this is true, it does seem pretty unacceptable.  But not for
privacy reasons...  there's no personally identifying information in
an ad (at least, not normally).  It's more unacceptable because
someone paid for that traffic to get to the recipient, and the
recipient may even have specifically wanted it (though, if it really
was an ad, that seems unlikely).

-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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