It’s great when the tech community comes up with a method to keep potential monopolists in check. From Computer World, a security researcher has developed a software tool to evaluate ISPs treatment of various kinds of traffic.
Kaminsky calls his technique “TCP-based active probing for faults.” He says that the software he’s developing will be similar to the Traceroute Internet utility that is used to track what path Internet traffic takes as it hops between two machines on different ends of the network.
But unlike Traceroute, Kaminsky’s software will be able to make traffic appear as if it is coming from a particular carrier or is being used for a certain type of application, like VoIP. It will also be able to identify where the traffic is being dropped and could ultimately be used to finger service providers that are treating some network traffic as second-class.
Passage of net neutrality protection or no, this tool (if it works as promised) will give interested users an opportunity to track which kinds of packets and which services carriers may be hobbling. This will help testers duplicate results for improved documentation and move past potential claims by carriers that degraded service of VoIP or video streaming are the result of bad user or service provider configuration. Groups of activist customers will be able to apply pressure to their carriers.
Tags: Net Neutrality
