ISPs and full packet inspection

Keith McCallion keith at mccallion.com
Tue May 29 20:36:36 UTC 2012


On Thu, May 24, 2012 7:36 pm, Jay Ashworth wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Justin M. Streiner" <streiner at cluebyfour.org>
>> Aside from all of the business and legal sticking points that others
have
>> mentioned, there are also the technical aspects of capturing, storing,
transporting, analyzing, and managing those packets, and the appliances
that do the heavy lifting. As your traffic grows, that problem scales 1:1
linearly, at best, and more likely n:1 linearly, or worse. The added
overhead of the infrastructure needed to support this will also make
>> it more difficult to be price-competitive with your peers.
> TL:DR; The reasons for doing this on any kind of general basis have to
be *EXCEPTIONALLY* compelling to make a business case for it, apart from
any possible legal ramifications.
> I used asterisks *and* capital letters; that's about an order of
magnitude.
> Don't forget staffing.

I am a little surprised no one has referenced Wired's recent article about
Libya's Internet Surveillance systems:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/ff_libya/all/1

It's good reading and I think does a good job of summarizing both the
technical challenges but also the political implications of such a system.

-Keith









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