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BlackHat: In Defense of Net Neutrality

BlackHat, the popular security conference hosted in Vegas, saw the debut of a tool that can be used to defend net neutrality. The concept behind net neutrality is that telcos and cable companies -- the duopoly that controls roughly 98% of all consumer broadband connections -- should not be able to speed up or slow down content providers based upon kickbacks.

That's the way things operate today, as mandated by the FCC. But the carriers have watched with ill-disguised envy as content-providers such as Google, Digg and Skype have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. And they ask themselves, "Why can't that be us?" But, rather than competing at layers 5 through 7 by creating new applications, they have instead spent tens of millions of dollars to lobby Congress to change the ground rules.

I'd call the carriers' scheme hare-brained, but that would be an unforgivable insult to hares. Anyhow, BlackHat saw the introduction of a tool to help ensure the carriers are following the rules by treating all packets neutrally:

...Dan Kaminsky will share details of this technique, which will eventually be rolled into a free software tool, on Wednesday at the Black Hat USA security conference in Las Vegas. The software can tell if computers are treating some types of TCP/IP traffic better than others -- dropping data that is being used in VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) calls, for example, or treating encrypted data as second class. Congress is presently debating whether to enact "Net neutrality" laws that would prevent this from happening... Advocates of these laws say they are essential to preserving the openness that has made the Internet a success. Broadband providers say that such laws could prevent them from developing a new generation of services. 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 being used for a certain type of application, like VoIP... ...He talked about how Comcast is already non-neutral, selling a premium service to allow customers to pass video or encrypted traffic without interference, and how the state of Washington had to move thousands of its employees off of Comcast because of their interference with the state's VPN. He also talked about various ways non-neutral networks could be detected, and ways to route traffic around them...

Read ComputerWorld's "Black Hat net neutrality test" - and if you're ready to take action, visit Save the Internet to find out what you can do to help preserve net neutrality. Nothing less than the future of America's technological leadership position hangs in the balance.