Packet Sniffing: Deep Packet Inspection and Net Neutrality

SUMMARY

Abstract

The greedy nature of many Internet-based applications and the over-subscription model of the Internet poses challenges to network operators and regulators as they strive to maintain Internet freedoms that subscribers have come to expect. At the heart of the contentious issues of Internet bandwidth traffic management and net neutrality is the technology of deep packet inspection (DPI).

"DPI will become more important to ISPs to manage online broadcasting and digital rights," states Lawrence Surtees, study co-author and vice president of communications research at IDC Canada Ltd. "At the same time, ISPs must use this technology judiciously and recognize that their role should not be to serve as content police."

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Contents

• Table of Contents
• IDC Opinion
• In This Study
  • Methodology
• Situation Overview
  • Introduction
  • Current Industry Dynamics and Internet Traffic Prioritization Methods
    • Standard SNMP MIB Monitoring
    • NetFlow
    • Figure: Cisco's NetFlow Architecture
    • Probes and Deep Packet Inspection
    • Traffic Analysis Tools
    • Table: Packet Inspection Vendors and Select Canadian Customers
    • DPI Architectures
      • In-line inspection
      • Table: In-Line Packet Capture Techniques
      • Figure: In-Line Port Aggregation Tap
      • Out of Band
  • Current Scenarios and Rationale to Perform Packet Inspection
    • Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Trends
    • Figure: Internet Protocol Application Histogram by Percentage of Bandwidth Consumed
    • Figure: Cisco Study of Consumer Broadband Traffic by Application for Three Regional Consumer Broadband Service Providers, 2007
    • Figure: Sandvine Global Internet Bandwidth Ranking by Application, 2007 (% Traffic)
    • Figure: U.S. Consumer Internet Traffic Analysis, 2007 (% IP Traffic)
      • Digital Media Applications
      • Figure: North America Digital Media Bandwidth Ranking, 2007 (% Traffic Bandwidth)
    • Network Fast Lanes: QoS and Tiered Services
    • Figure: Internet Applications' Service-Level Requirements
    • Information and Network Security
    • Law Enforcement and Lawful Access Proposals
      • CALEA
      • EU Cyber-Crime Treaty
    • National Security and U.S. Terrorist Surveillance Program
    • Figure: AT&T's Optical Splitter Rooms and Daytona Traffic Data Mining Database Enable Real-Time Monitoring of All IP Traffic
    • Figure: AT&T's Global Network Operations Center
  • ISP Implementation
  • Figure: Rogers Tiered Residential Internet Service Comparison
    • Bandwidth Shaping and the Net-Neutrality Debate
      • Bell Canada Throttling Spurs Complaints
        • Collateral Impact From Throttling
    • Verizon Embraces P2P
    • Figure: Verizon's Intelligent Routing for P2P File Delivery
      • TV Networks Embrace P2P
• Future Outlook
  • Deep Packet Inspection Drivers: Internet Traffic Forecast
  • Figure: Cisco Global Internet Traffic Forecast by Customer Type (Petabytes/Month)
  • Figure: Global Consumer Internet Traffic Forecast by Application 2006-2012 (Petabytes/Month and % Traffic)
  • Deep Packet Drivers: IP Video
  • Figure: U.S. Internet Video Site Traffic in 2007 Compared with Total U.S. Internet Backbone Traffic in 2000 (Petabytes/Month)
    • DPI and Source Identification
    • Figure: Internet Applications Automatically Detected by PacketSeeker
    • DPI for Broadcast Content and Digital Rights Management: ISAN and Digital Watermark Technologies
    • Figure: ISAN Digital Watermark and Content Monitoring
    • Figure: Application of ISAN to Video Download
      • Digital Movie Distribution
      • MediaHedge
      • Google YouTube Video ID
      • Audience Search and Targeting
      • Google and Nielsen Partner for Ad Measurements
  • Challenges
    • Cost of Measurement Influenced by Network Scalability
      • Encryption and Offense-Defense
• Essential Guidance
• Learn More
  • Related Research
  • Definitions
  • Methodology
  • Synopsis