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Sandvine CEO Says Internet Monitoring a Necessity
Khalid Baheyeldin writes in with a CBC interview with the CEO of Sandvine, Dave Caputo (bio here). Sandvine is the Waterloo, Ontario-based company that provides the technology that Comcast and other ISPs use to overrule Net neutrality by, for example, injecting RST packets to disrupt Bittorrent traffic. Caputo says, among other things, that Internet monitoring is a necessity. Some of the comments to the interview are more tech-savvy than the interviewee comes across.
Yes, Internet monitoring is a necessity.[1] No, injecting anything into someone who doesn't wish to have his stuff interfered with is not only not a necessity but quite frankly an outrage. Remember people, just because one thing is a necessity doesn't mean that something more must also be necessary. This is a slippery slope. To be honest I was expecting more logical integrity from Dave Caputo whom I've always respected and liked personally but who has apparently started to be blinded by his corporate agenda. What a shame, Dave. What a shame.
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
I am shocked because Sandvine is a frequent supporter of Open Source Operating Systems and has contributed to BSD Conferences. I would have thought that they would support the openness of the internet too. Apparently, their monetary sponsorship of open source conferences are just a PR Stunt.
How about just telling the customers EXACTLY what they're paying for?
For $40 you get a guaranteed MINIMUM bandwidth of X with a potential to burst to Y.
If you want more, you pay for more.
Sandvine is one of many telecomm gear companies that strongly support OSS. I used to work at a similar company with at least one ex-Sandvine co-worker. Basically, they build "devices" which they sell to ISPs and other big network operators. They build those devices with custom or off the shelf hardware combined with on OSS operating system, toolchain, and applications, plus a few closed source applications that contain their core competency and money proposition. This is often referred to as the "secret sauce" code.
These companies do support OSS and build their entire business model around it (in combination with some closed source). They aren't OSS zealots, but most of the employees are strong supporters of OSS and the companies are very good about contributing code back. A lot of the code in Linux and the BSDs is contributed by these companies. They support OSS conferences and the like, because they want to promote OSS, because it is a good way to recruit new talent, and because the improvements that come out of those conferences are often beneficial to their bottom line. A lot of people think OSS is created by hobbyists, but really Sandvine is a good example of who really makes up the OSS community and contributes code. It is mostly businesses who use it to make money in conjunction with hardware, services, or additional closed source software.
Screenshot Link
His first sentence is that he thinks looking at everyones digital-internal communications is the most difficult, and therefore he wanted to do it because of it being the most difficult problem to solve.
From the article:"CBCNews.ca: During the panel discussion, you sounded more like a technologist than a business executive, where you're more in tune with what you're actually making as opposed to selling it. What do you consider yourself? Caputo: I'm very passionate about our technology and I'm pretty passionate about the concept with which Sandvine was founded on, and that was to improve the quality of the experience on the internet. When we first set down that path, the idea of looking at every packet⦠we said this is the most difficult problem that we could possibly imagine. The internet is so big, so vast, so continuous. And then we said that's "cool." We're going to attack a problem where we can't imagine there's a more difficult problem. I take nothing away from rocket scientists or biologists who are trying to cure cancer, but in our domain we really couldn't think of a more difficult problem, and that really excited us."
What the hell is that about? Did anyone jump when they read the first part of the article and saw that?
As to the earlier Mr. Coward...This is how the wall works.It isn't some giant "great firewall" that you bash against,they simply starve you out for bandwidth for anything that isn't "approved". And I have read several whitepapers and discussions by the telecos about how tiered pricing will work and they are all quick to point out that Microsoft updates will be given a free pass,either by a locally hosted WSUS server or having the Microsoft IP range not count towards your total. Which of course gives the public one more reason to use the "approved" OS,as it won't count against them when it updates. The telecos know pulling a "great firewall" will lead to bad press,so instead they will spin it about "local content" gets priority and the use of the "extremely limited" non locally hosted content will be punished.
And don't forget Mr. Coward,these "shills" have priority passes through the halls of congress and enough money to get their views heard. After all,it is their network,who better to "optimize" the traffic for the good of all? But that is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
That's not what I'm advocating at all.
Civility means getting what you pay for. Civility means behaving when there's a traffic jam. Civility means not having what you bought and paid for surreptitiously examined, weighted, and thwarted.
I'm not interested in jamming my neighbor's pipe. I AM interested in not being lied to, and for getting what I paid for, and not having my information sniffed by a cockamamie CIVIL liberty-avoiding bone head that calls him/herself a service provider.
Where, praytell, is the civility in THAT?
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Yeah, easily the most ridiculous statement in the interview. They're basically telling me that if I as a programmer put in the ability to change a port I am "dishonourable". News flash: every single network application worth its salt lacking "honour". Your web browser, by allowing you to connect to http://foo555/ is unethical!
I really liked what you said, and I agree with your insight into the situation and especially why Japan has better Internet. I have always disagreed with the comparisons between Japan, South Korea, and the US.
That being said, your very first sentence explains the problem quite succinctly.
How the HELL did we get to the point in this country where you can sell anything but the truth?
I don't even think it is up for debate. You have to sell the truth. All the time. No exceptions. Serious consequences when you don't.
I have always been completely amazed that you can oversell something in this country and not tell the truth when marketing. It is pandemic in our corporate culture in my opinion and has caused me to be disillusioned and pessimistic about our society, culture, and potential to evolve into something better.
I know that may sound like hyperbole to some people, and I might be playing a drama queen, but seriously... how did it get this bad?
Why do we even have billboards for Cricket advertising "real" unlimited? Clearly we all have reached a point that we cannot believe anything coming out of the mouths of these corporations and a new skill set for survival in the future will be translating market-speak bullshit into plain English.
I don't care how hard it is to explain something to Ma and Pa, or "Joe Sixpack". I don't really agree that it is that hard in the first place. Since when is understanding your Internet contract a prerequisite to signing it and paying for it? I would bet that 5% or less actually read the whole contract or even have more then a basic understanding.
It should be a matter of law, and last time I checked it really is, that you have to market the truth. Now maybe there is some room to fudge it here a little for the ISP, but it is grounds for a class action lawsuit. Deliberately interfering with packets and injecting other packets designed to deny a customer their paid for service is criminal. I do mean criminal too. As in fraudulent to the point that a district attorney should be filing charges.
The way out is simple. Tell the truth. Will it be hard at first? Will there be a tumultuous transition? Most likely. What we will end up with will be worth it.
Actually you can wire a neighborhood for 20 Mb/s traffic. Even more than that. You could wire them for 1 Gb/s traffic. How?
Real simple:
1) Give everybody a big fat pipe. The same size as the pipe coming into the whole neighborhood. I know, I know, let me further explain... :)
2) Set them up on a few bandwidth tiers. Obviously you cannot have the floors of all these connections be more than the whole pipe coming into the neighborhood. Stick to that rule, and you will have no problems at all.
3) Set them up on some transfer tiers. Let them know by telling them where they are during the month and give them options to self-throttle when they reach their set limit. This way nobody goes over $100,$200, or whatever their limit is.
If you did this, then people would get their floor guaranteed. There is the truth. They would get their super fast transfers whenever it was possible and during off-peak hours. There is the possibility they are paying for. The transfer limits would make them pay progressively higher costs the more data they end up transferring. There is the bandwidth hogs subsidizing the rest of the users.
I strongly believe that it is possible to do this. It is being done in major data centers. No reason why you cannot put in residential settings.