Bell Canada Accused Of Privacy Invasion - Canadian group files complaint over deep packet inspection....
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Bell Canada Accused Of Privacy Invasion
Canadian group files complaint over deep packet inspection....
(old news - 07:11PM Monday May 12 2008)
tags: legal · bandwidth · Bell Sympatico
Tipped by sbrook
Several users direct my attention to a post by Canadian law professor Michael Geist. In it, Geist notes that his Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) has filed a privacy complaint (pdf) with the Privacy Commissioner claiming the use of deep packet inspection technology (DPI) is a privacy violation. DPI technology is now being used in everything from piracy filters to behavioral advertising, but in Bell Canada's case, they're using it to identify and throttle P2P traffic. But the group says Bell isn't informing customers:
Neither Bell’s Terms of Service, its Privacy Statement, its Code of Fair Information Practices, nor its FAQs state that Bell will use Sympatico subscribers’ personal information to examine the nature of the data packets they send or receive, or that it will use the information garnered from this examination to limit their ability to use the Internet at certain periods.
Keep in mind that while DPI hardware does "snoop" through packets, it has a broad range of uses. It's the communication with customers (or lack thereof) about the use of such gear that has CIPPIC upset (much like the FCC/Comcast fight).

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MarkAW @ 12th May 07:31PM:
Good about time....

...someone used Bells own bullshit against them. Who knows what else they have been using DPI for and what they have been doing with the info they have gathered.
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Kdee @ 12th May 07:50PM:
It's being picked up....

»itnerd.wordpress.com/2008/05/12/···be-bell/

Down with Bell!
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TKJunkMail @ 12th May 08:01PM:
Privacy issue just an excuse to file blocking complaint

It's the communication with customers (or lack thereof) about the use of such gear that has CIPPIC upset (much like the FCC/Comcast fight).
I don't believe that for a second. It is the blocking that has his panties in a twist, and he is using the privacy issue as the hook to try and end blocking. If Bell Canada makes the policy official and posts it in their TOS, he would find some other excuse to file a complaint.
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anon @ 12th May 08:22PM:
Re: Privacy issue just an excuse to file blocking complaint

If you lived in Canada believe you me you'd believe it.
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Devanchya @ 12th May 08:31PM:
Re: Privacy issue just an excuse to file blocking complaint

I'm not a fan of Bell at the moment. Hell I miss the old days when Bell was still a decent company.

But Michael has long, very very long, history of being anti-bell. Not all of it is justified :).
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adisor19 @ 12th May 08:49PM:
Re: Privacy issue just an excuse to file blocking complaint

said by Devanchya :

I'm not a fan of Bell at the moment. Hell I miss the old days when Bell was still a decent company.

But Michael has long, very very long, history of being anti-bell. Not all of it is justified :).
Michael is and always has been FOR the consumer and for the consumer rights. It just so happens that Bell has always been anti consumer and anti consumer rights, hence your wrong assumption.

Adi
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andyb @ 12th May 09:03PM:
Re: Privacy issue just an excuse to file blocking complaint

TK is anti consumer.He is all for companies.Just read his posts.He is allways against the consumer.

Bell's practice as it stands (only according to bell's info since they don't tell)is that they check headers.Baloney I know but if you give a corporation 1 inch they will take a mile.Stop it now before it gets out of hand.
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anon @ 12th May 09:22PM:
CDN ISP's

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Hopefully this works out for the consumer or atleast puts the light on other ISPs that do this.
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anon @ 12th May 11:23PM:
Re: Privacy issue just an excuse to file blocking complaint

said by TKJunkMail :

It's the communication with customers (or lack thereof) about the use of such gear that has CIPPIC upset (much like the FCC/Comcast fight).
I don't believe that for a second. It is the blocking that has his panties in a twist, and he is using the privacy issue as the hook to try and end blocking. If Bell Canada makes the policy official and posts it in their TOS, he would find some other excuse to file a complaint.
Read PIPEDA. Understand the complaint and its ramifications. Brush up on TCP/IP packet construction and current routing procedures. Achieve a basic understanding of federal law, contract law, and the interaction of the two.

Then, post back.
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anon @ 13th May 07:16AM:
Re: Privacy issue just an excuse to file blocking complaint

Regardless of any ones "feelings" towards bell as a company, based on personal experience or not, what they are doing is wrong, immoral, and from what I have read and understand about PIPEDA, against the law.

I hope for EVERY BODY'S sake, that this comes to a greater light and people start to realize just how dangerous it is for us to let big business to go dancing around in the average citizens "backyard". They may very well only be using this to better regulate and throttle traffic. But if they are doing it without telling their customers about it, what else are they doing without our knowledge..........
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anon @ 13th May 04:40PM:
DPI Technology

Bell transits a shyte-ton of traffic any given second through the DPI devices. From what I've seen of the current crop of DPI devices, they physically don't have the capability to "snoop" beyond trying to recognize the packet payload.

I'm not saying this isn't a genuine concern as these devices get faster and more capable, but I think at this point they can't handle more than identifying BitTorrent payload. A complaint like this could be easily dismissed because it came out much too soon, and could be easily proven false. Once that happens, it's harder to make another complaint when the devices can properly snoop/classify/identify/store desired content.
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DataRiker @ 13th May 08:21PM:
Re: Privacy issue just an excuse to file blocking complaint

said by Capitalist :

said by TKJunkMail :

It's the communication with customers (or lack thereof) about the use of such gear that has CIPPIC upset (much like the FCC/Comcast fight).
I don't believe that for a second. It is the blocking that has his panties in a twist, and he is using the privacy issue as the hook to try and end blocking. If Bell Canada makes the policy official and posts it in their TOS, he would find some other excuse to file a complaint.
Read PIPEDA. Understand the complaint and its ramifications. Brush up on TCP/IP packet construction and current routing procedures. Achieve a basic understanding of federal law, contract law, and the interaction of the two.

Then, post back.
Excellent reply, my thoughts also. But you are not familiar with our resident reactionary anti-consumer. Before you pass judgement I should defend our friend here on BBR. He is most definitely not a paid shill, as his posts are neither viral nor intelligent enough to be professional.
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anon @ 13th May 09:15PM:
Re: DPI Technology

How does Rogers inject html into people's webpages then? Sure seems like the DPI boxes can manage to understand what is coming in and have some process applied to it.
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TKJunkMail @ 14th May 12:21PM:
Re: Privacy issue just an excuse to file blocking complaint

said by Capitalist :

said by TKJunkMail :

It's the communication with customers (or lack thereof) about the use of such gear that has CIPPIC upset (much like the FCC/Comcast fight).
I don't believe that for a second. It is the blocking that has his panties in a twist, and he is using the privacy issue as the hook to try and end blocking. If Bell Canada makes the policy official and posts it in their TOS, he would find some other excuse to file a complaint.
Read PIPEDA. Understand the complaint and its ramifications. Brush up on TCP/IP packet construction and current routing procedures. Achieve a basic understanding of federal law, contract law, and the interaction of the two.

Then, post back.
I read up on it. And it looks like Canada's CRTC( »Canadian Regulators Deny Relief For Bell Canada Traffic Shaping ) doesn't think much of PIPEDA and it's application to Bell Canada's privacy policies and deep packet inspection as a blocking tool. But maybe a privacy commissioner may rule differently. But I wouldn't bet on it.
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