DPI, NSA, and Your Privacy

Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology has emerged as key feature and innovative advancement in firewall technology. Firewalls in the past have only been able to monitor and control traffic based on the destination, source, and state information that packets contain. More modern firewalls are implementing DPI as a base feature, allowing network administrators to take an extremely close look at the data segments of IP packets and perform complex analysis on what exactly is traversing across their networks. (Porter, 2010) While this feature evolved as a way to combat malware, it is quickly turning into a surveillance tool, which if abused, can have significant negative impacts on our privacy.

                A perfect example of this abuse can be found in tumultuous Libya. The infamous dictator Muammar Gaddafi implemented technology supplied by French firm Bull to track internet traffic for the entire country. (Gallgher, 2012) More examples of internet tracking and filtering are surfacing in countries such as China, North Korea, and Iran. While these methods to deter western influence on extremely conservative countries seem like radical ideas to our American free world ideals, to eastern viewpoints, our western ideals seem radical. Americans would consider this huge breach of privacy an unethical abuse of government technology and power.

                Unfortunately, Americans may be surprised to know that the National Security Agency (NSA) may be guilty of these same monitoring and surveillance practices, which is illegal in the United States. The EFF was issued evidence by AT&T employee Mark Klein that the broadband megacorp was working in conjunction with the NSA to direct an entire fibre optic line to a special analysis location controlled by the NSA. (Electronic Frontier Foundation) As the saying goes “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire”, there is sufficient reason to believe the NSA conducts other clandestine monitoring of the nation’s citizens.

                Is networking analysis and monitoring unethical? In cases such as the aforementioned fibre splitter, copying citizen’s internet data without warrant is illegal. In countries where monitoring and filtering is widely acknowledged and practiced, should global organizations make efforts to combat the abuse of technology to subvert privacy? One must look at the context of these two drastically different implementations. In America where privacy is greatly protected by law, actions such as the NSA’s are extremely unethical, regardless of cause. In eastern countries where culture, religion, and tradition are paramount, internet access control and monitoring may be seen as a necessary precaution to the ruling body.  It is difficult to determine whether internet traffic monitoring is strictly unethical, but in the United States, the law slims down this shady area of grey.

Electronic Frontier Foundation. (n.d.). AT&T's Role in Dragnet Surveillance of Millions of Its Customers. Retrieved September 3, 2012, from www.eff.org: https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/att/presskit/ATT_onepager.pdf

Gallgher, S. (2012, August 29). Big Brother on a budget: How Internet surveillance got so cheap. Retrieved September 3, 2012, from Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/08/big-brother-meets-big-data-the-next-wave-in-net-surveillance-tech/

Porter, T. (2010, October 19). The Perils of Deep Packet Inspection. Retrieved September 3, 2012, from Symantec Connect: http://www.symantec.com/connect/articles/perils-deep-packet-inspection