I’m in the process of pulling together some privacy-related thoughts surrounding Canadian ISPs’ use of DPI equipment. I’ve posted an early draft of the document, and invite comments and thoughts. If you want to prepare your own comments, you’ve still got until February 23rd.
Technology
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Update: Geolocation and Yahoo!’s Fire Eagle
I try to keep abreast of mobile-enabled geolocation software, and two of the largest contenders in this space (as I see it) are Google and Yahoo!. At the moment, Yahoo!’s Fire Eagle software has been publicly available (with an open API) for over a year (I talked about it previously) and, according to Ars Technica, about 70 third-party applications have been developed.
There are major updates coming to Fire Eagle:
…users will soon be seeing an ActionScript Fire Eagle library and a Mozilla Firefox geo-plugin that locates users via WiFi MAC addresses. Also coming up are new XMPP libraries. (Source)
It’s the focus on the Firefox geo-plugin that I think will be most interesting to watch. Given the Mozilla is currently developing their Fennec browser for mobile environments, it suggests that the Fire Eagle plugin could come to phones and other mobile devices that are Internet-by-WiFi but not GPS or data plan enabled. Using a browser plugin, it should be possible to identify your location on a map simply by being in vicinity to wireless APs, regardless of whether you can actually authenticate to them (similar to how users with iPod Touches can currently roughly locate themselves on Google Maps via WiFi MAC address detection). Below is an image of Mozilla’s beta-version of Fennec.
Update: Associating Canadian ISPs with Anonymized Data Traffic Submissions
I’ve just posted a document that draws together the CRTC’s February 4, 11, and 12 filings for PN 2008-19. The document ties ISPs with categories of anonymous data for easy reference, and is also meant to contextualize each data set by reproducing the questions that led ISPs to develop these data sets in the first place.
Items of note:
- Responses to question 1 (a) show that, save for a single ISP, ISPs’ annual percentage growth of total traffic volume has decreased. ISPs required to anonymously submit data: Barrett, Bell Canada et al., Cogeco, MTS Allstream, QMI (Videotron), Rogers, Sasktel, Shaw, Telus.
- Responses to question 1 (b) show that the percentage of HTTP/Streaming traffic has increased, two companies report that the percentage of P2P traffic has increased and two report it has decreased slightly, UDP traffic has increased slightly, and the “Other” category now accounts for a smaller percentage of total traffic than in the first months measured. ISPs required to anonymously submit data: Barrett, Bell Canada et al. (for Bell Wireline), Bragg, Rogers, and Shaw.
- Responses to 2 (a) reveal the annual percentage growth of monthly average usage per end-user. We find that growth is occurring on company networks, and that this growth has been uneven (e.g. Company A experienced 16% growth one year, 47% the next, and 13% in the final year). This suggests, to me, that developing an accurate forecast of expected bandwidth growth would be challenging. Without knowing what companies are associated with each data set, it is challenging for analysts to determine if Network Management Technologies might be responsible for the changes in growth rates. ISPs required to anonymously submit data: Barrett, Bell Canada et al. (for Bell Wireline), Cogeco, MTS Allstream, QMI (Videotron), Rogers, and Telus.
- Responses to 2 (b) discuss the percentage growth for ISPs’ top 5% and 10% users. Data for the top 5% shows that two companies experienced negative growth in 2007-2008, one only 2% growth in 2007-2008, and the last a 25% growth. Data for the top 10% shows that two companies experienced negative growth in 2007-2008, one 1% growth, and the last a 25% growth. ISPs required to anonymously submit data: Bell Canada et al. (for Bell Wireline), Cogeco, MTS Allstream, QMI (Videotron), Rogers, and Telus.
- Responses to 2 (c) identify how much of the total traffic that top 5% and 10% users account for. Top 5% account for 37%-56% of total traffic. The top 10% account for 52%-74%. These are fairly damning numbers, given that they clearly demonstrate that massive proportions of the network are being used by a relatively small minority of users. ISPs required to anonymously submit data: Barrett, Bell Canada et al. (for Bell Wireline), Bragg, Cogeco, MTS Allstream, Primus, QMI (Videotron), Rogers, Shaw, and Telus.
- Responses to 2 (d) break down the application usage numbers for the top 5% and 10% of ISPs’ users. For the top 5% of users, HTTP/Streaming has remained relatively constant, P2P use decreased for only one company, UDP traffic is up, and “Other” traffic has decreased for two of three companies. For the top 10% of users, HTTP/Streaming traffic makes up a higher percentage of total traffic, in all but one case P2P traffic represents a larger percentage of total traffic, UDP is up, and “Other” is down for two of three companies. ISPs required to anonymously submit data: Bell Canada et al. (for Bell Wireline), Bragg, and Shaw.
Update: ‘More Secure’ (non-EDL) Drivers Licenses Coming to BC Soon!
As I’ve written about before, Enhanced Drivers Licenses (EDLs) are coming to British Columbia, as well as many other provinces around the country (I have a wiki page set up to collate information on EDLs). It seems that, at the same time the BC is rolling out EDLs, they are updating their ‘regular’ licenses.
The Canadian Press is reporting that these new licenses will be available in March, and include:
holographic overlays and laser-engraving or raised elements such as the cardholder’s image and signature…The B.C. government said the cards will incorporate technology that analyzes characteristics that do not change, such as the size and location of cheekbones and the distance between the eyes. This “facial recognition technology … will enable ICBC to compare a cardholder’s image with their existing image on file and with the corporation’s entire database of millions of images.” (Source)
Deep Packet Inspection Analogies
In reading through the recent CRTC filings, something that has been striking me is that the ‘regular’ metaphor for how Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technologies work seems a bit awkward. When you send packets of data along the ‘net, they are broadly composed of a header and a payload. The metaphor goes as follows: the header is like the addressing information on an envelop, and the payload is the actual letter in the envelop. DPI opens the envelop, sees the content of the letter, examines it, reseals it, and then passes the letter along to its destination (assuming that the contents aren’t of a type that shouldn’t be sent onwards).
I like the metaphor because of its power, but at the same time I have to wonder about its accuracy, at least in the Canadian situation. When reading the ISP’s CRTC filings, I keep reading that they use DPI devices for flow analysis – they’re not looking for the content of your email, they just want to identify whether you’re sending email or an instant message. Rather than assume that the ISPs are being duplicitous, why not reconsider the metaphor to see if it can’t be developed to distinguish between different usages of DPI equipment.
Continue readingAcer Aspire One Review
I’ve recently become responsible for the upkeep of an Aspire One netbook. My thoughts, thus far: wait for a while, get another model than I did, and dump Linpus as quick as possible. First, I’ll provide the actual specs for the netbook in the house, and then outline my thoughts a bit more.
Acer Aspireone (AOA110-1531 (Refurbished))
- Sapphire Blue
- Intel Atom Processor N270 (512KB L2 cache, 1.60GHz, 533MHz FSB)
- 512BM DDR2 533 SDRAM
- 8GB SSD
- Card Reader
- 802.11b/g WLAN
- 10/100 LAN
- Webcam
- 8.9″ WSVGA (1024X600)
- 3 cell battery
- Preload with Linux
The Good
I’ll start with the good points: it’s very light, was very affordable (~$290 Cnd after taxes), and the Linpus OS boots very quickly. The screen is gorgeous, and with decent battery management you can squeeze about 2.5 hours out of it. While I’m not the biggest fan of the keyboard (I’m now very used to the ‘chicklet’ style Apple keyboards) it’s not terrible – I can probably hit about 80% of my average wpm out of it.
The Not-So-Good
Now, let’s talk about what I dislike:
- It’s a locked box. Seriously – I’ve broken down my share of notebooks, and while I’ll likely have another go in a week or two, actually accessing the SODIMM slots is hard. Really hard. Hard enough that I’d say either wait until they make getting into the AAO more reasonable, or just buy one with more memory. These little guys are not meant to be opened and modified (you can, but it’s not easy).
- Linpus is terrible. There, I said it. It boots quickly, but they’re working off a modified version of Fedora, and when I try to use the add/remove programs I consistently get dependency errors. Is this fixable? Sure. Should I have to fight with the damn OS at the command line so that I can upgrade to Open Office 3.0? No.
- Support from other OSes is still in the infancy stages. I’ve worked with Linux before, and I get the ‘Linux is a learning experience, and you can’t expect things to just work.’ That said: I don’t want to be fiddling around with the command line for a few days to get my install working properly. At the moment, I’m just waiting for some bugs with Ubuntu to get ironed out and then Linpus is being replaced.
- Linpus doesn’t connect to wireless networks. Well, let me rephrase: it will connect to non-enterprise networks. Anything WPA2-Enterprise or newer, and you’re out of luck until you replace the network manager. When you *do* replace the manager, you run into problems with it not remembering wireless access passwords when you come out of hibernation.
- Card reader memory allocation is hit and miss. Apparently, when you don’t tinker with anything, you can insert an SD card and that SD card is dynamically added to the available flash memory available to the OS. This is cool – I got an 8GB SD card to slide into the AAO, which would give it a cool 16GB of total internal storage – more than enough for casual browsing and word processing. The catch: as soon as you make the needed modifications to access the OS proper, you have to manually mount the SD card each time you turn on the computer, or bring it out of hibernation. While this wouldn’t be an issue if I didn’t want to unlock the OS, I don’t think that using the computer as a computer should mean that this breaks.
- Ships with Firefox 2.0. I mean, really – FF3.0 has been out for a long time. Why the hell is it shipping with FF2.0?
- Terrible SSD HDD. I get a 7.x MB write to the disk. Enough said.
If you’re looking to buy one of these, get a version with a spinning disk drive. That said, if you want a netbook that is just going to rock out of the box, I’d suggesting getting the HP 2140 – it’ll be a bit more expensive, but I think you’ll be a lot happier. Maybe I’ll change my tune once Ubuntu is loaded on the netbook. In fairness, I should note that I’m being picky (because it’s what I do with these kinds of things), and the person actually using the computer doesn’t have these complaints – it does what it needs to (though not being able to access WPA2-Enterprise has caused them problems). This said, I think that items (1), (2), (4), (5), (6) and (7) really are showstoppers, though (2) and (4) will both be alleviated by changing OSes, (5) is resolvable by shifting where documents and such are saved to, and (6) is solved by hitting up the command line a bit.
My rating: 3/5
Technology, Thoughts & Trinkets 