Implications of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) Internet Surveillance for Society

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Implications of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) Internet Surveillance for Society The Privacy & Security Research Paper Series Implications of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) Internet Surveillance for Society issue #1 The Privacy & Security - Research Paper Series ISSN 2279-7467 Implications of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) Internet Surveillance for Society Christian Fuchs Research Paper Number #1 Date of Publication: July 2012 Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala University Kyrkogårdsgatan 10, Box 513, 75120 Uppsala, Sweden [email protected] http://www.im.uu.se Edited by Centre for Science, Society & Citizenship Co-edited by Uppsala University - Department of Informatics and Media Acknowledgement: The research presented in this paper was conducted in the project “PACT – Public Perception of Security and Privacy: Assessing Knowledge, Collecting Evidence, Translating Research into Action”, funded by EU FP7 SECURITY, grant agreement no. 285635 The Privacy & Security Research Paper Series, Issue # 1 Implications of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) Internet Sur- veillance for Society Christian Fuchs Abstract: This research paper analyses societal implications of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technologies. Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) surveillance technologies are communications surveillance tools that are able to monitor the traffic of network data that is sent over the Internet at all seven layers of the OSI Ref­ erence Model of Internet communication, which includes the surveillance of content data. The analysis presented in this paper is based on product sheets, self­descriptions, and product presenta­ tions by 20 European security technology companies that produce and sell DPI technologies. For each company, we have conducted a document analysis of the available files. It focused on the four following aspects: 1) Description and use of the Internet surveillance technologies that are produced and sold. 2) The self­description of the company. 3) The explanation of the relevance of Internet surveillance, i.e. why the company thinks it is important that it produces and sells such technologies. 4) A documentation of what the company says about opportunities and problems that can arise in the context of Internet surveillance. The assessment of societal implications of DPI is based on opinions of security industry representatives, scholars, and privacy advocates that were voiced in white papers, tech reports, research reports, on web­ sites, in press releases, and in news media. The results can be summarized in the form of several impact dimensions: 1. Potential advantages of DPI 2. Net neutrality 3. The power of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) for undermining users’ trust 4. Potential function creep of DPI surveillance 5. Targeted advertising 6. The surveillance of file sharers 7. Political repression and social discrimination The conducted analysis of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technologies shows that there is a variety of po­ tential impacts of this technology on society. A general conclusion is that for understanding new surveil­ lance technologies, we do not only need privacy and data protection assessments, but broader societal and ethical impact assessments. Keywords: surveillance, DPI, Deep Packet Inspection, Internet surveillance, societal implications, tech­ nology assessment, society, information society, Internet Studies Short biography of the author/s: Christian Fuchs holds the chair professorship in Media and Com‐ munication Studies at Uppsala University’s Department of Informatics and Media. He is chair of the European Sociological Association’s Research Network 18 – Sociology of Communications and Media Research and co‐ordinator of the research project “Social networking sites in the surveillance society” (funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF). He is co‐ordinator of Uppsala University’s involvement in the EU FP7 projects “PACT – Public Perception of Security and Privacy: Assessing Knowledge, Collect‐ ing Evidence, Translating Research into Action” and “RESPECT – Rules, Expectations & Security through Privacy‐Enhanced Convenient Technologies” 1 The Privacy & Security Research Paper Series, Issue # 1 2 The Privacy & Security Research Paper Series, Issue # 1 1. Introduction The Wall Street Journal wrote in August 2011 that the French company Amesys, a unit of the firm Bull SA, sold deep packet inspection technologies to Libya, where Gaddafi’s regime used them in an Internet spying centre in Tripoli to monitor the Internet usage of Libyan citizens and political opponents (Wall Street Journal Online, Firms aided Libyan spies. First look inside security unit shows how citizens were tracked. August 30, 2011). The International Federation for Human Rights and the Ligue des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen filed criminal charges against Amesys (FIDH, FIDH and LDH File a Complaint Concerning the Responsibility of the Company AMESYS in Relation to Acts of Torture. October 19, 2011). Similarly, it was reported that the British firm Gamma International sold its FinSpy software to Egyptian secu‐ rity authorities and the Italian firm HackingTeam surveillance software to security agencies in North Africa and the Middle East (EUobserver.com, EU Companies Banned From Selling Spyware to Repressive Regimes. October 11, 2011). The Dutch MEP Marietje Schaake commented that the EU must make “the new technologies are not systematically used to repress citizens. […] There are standard lists of military tech‐ nology banned for export during an embargo on a country. But this is not updated to include online weapons” (EUobserver.com, EU Companies Banned from Selling Spy‐ ware to Repressive Regimes. October 11, 2011). In September 2011, the EU Parlia‐ ment passed a resolution suggested by the Austrian MEP Jörg Leichtfried “with 567 votes in favour, 89 against, and 12 abstentions” European Parliament News, Control‐ ling dual‐use exports, September 27th, 2011 that bans the export of IT systems that can be used "in connection with a violation of human rights, democratic principles or freedom of speech [...] by using interception technologies and digital data transfer devices for monitoring mobile phones and text messages and targeted surveillance of Internet use (e.g. via Monitoring Centres and Lawful Interception Gateways)" (EU regulation no. 1232/2011, European Union General Export Authorisation No EU005, annex IIe) from Europe to certain countries. The export regulation was passed in the form of the EU General Export Authorisation No. EU005 that concerns telecommuni‐ cations. The regulation banned the export of IT surveillance systems to Argentina, China (including Hong Kong and Macao), Croatia, India, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, and the Ukraine. This report will focus on the analysis of the societal implications of the production and selling of Internet surveillance technologies using Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) by European companies. There has been an increase and intensification of surveillance after 9/11 (Lyon 2003b, 2007). “Data mining, a technique for deriving usable intelligence from the analysis of massive amounts of computer‐accessible information, became increas‐ ingly attractive to the government as a resource in the war on terrorism, although its strategic use within business for marketing and risk assessment had long been estab‐ lished” (Gandy 2009, 136). 3 The Privacy & Security Research Paper Series, Issue # 1 Also in the European Union the belief that security, understood as “the protection of the individual, but also of the collective self, the nation state”, “is a core value threatened by ‘global terrorism’ has spread” after 9/11 (Bigo 2010, 263). The EU FP6 CHALLENGE research project (The Changing Landscape of European Liberty and Se‐ curity) concluded that after 9/11 “the framings of the relationship between liberty and security” has been redefined “in favour of control, surveillance, policing, and war” (Bigo, Guild and Walker 2010, 12). European security politics have therefore “been mainly oriented towards the right for governments to strengthen coercive and sur‐ veillance security measures” (Bigo 2010, 265f). At the same time, the focus on secu‐ rity and surveillance policies have brought about concerns about the power consti‐ tuted by the employment of new surveillance technologies and the implications for privacy, data protection, human rights, freedom and equality these technologies have (Ball and Webster 2003; Bigo 2010; Gandy 2009, Jewkes 2011; Lyon 2003a, 2003b; Monahan 2010, Webb 2007). We live in times of heightened attention to surveillance, privacy and data protection. This situation is the context for the study of new surveil‐ lance technologies. 2. Deep Packet Inspection Internet Surveillance and the European Security Industry 2.1. Introduction In 2011, 71% of the individuals aged 16‐74 living in the EU27 countries accessed the Internet (within a 3 month period; data source: Eurostat. Internet use by indi‐ viduals). This shows that Internet use has become an everyday activity for the major‐ ity of Europeans. The topic of Internet surveillance matters because it much affects the lives of humans in contemporary societies. Scholars in surveillance studies and information society studies have stressed the importance of computing for conducting surveillance since more than 20 years. This has resulted in a number of categories that describe the interconnection of computing and surveillance, such as the new surveillance (Marx 1988, 2002), dataveillance (Clarke 1988), the electronic (super)panopticon (Poster 1990), electronic surveil‐ lance (Lyon 1994), digital surveillance
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