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Dutch Provider KPN Under Fire Over DPI
An anonymous reader writes "After Dutch internet/mobile provider KPN announced they were going to blatantly do away with the idea of net-neutrality by charging their customers for using text message replacements (such as WhatsApp) to make up for diminishing use of traditional text-messaging, it has now been revealed that they have apparently employed deep packet inspection (DPI) to monitor customers' use of WhatsApp (and also VoIP services) — which happens to be illegal in the Netherlands. Many national news outlets are now finally reporting on the issue. Some doubts exists on whether it was actually DPI that was used to measure WhatsApp use (and not just IP/TCP header inspection), while some KPN insiders suggested it is actually an outsourced operation run by Alcatel-Lucent." Update: 05/13 20:26 GMT by S : The Dutch equivalent of the EFF has recommended that users report this to the police, and explained how to go about doing so (Google translation of Dutch original).
Switch provider, next case.
KPN are thieving cunts.
Trolling is a art,
Do the Dutch not have as many choices as everyone else? My first instinct would be to drop them and go with another company. When they ask why specify exactly why. Suing them to stop the ordeal just feeds money to the lawyers, who will continue to advise them ahead of time that its a Good Idea
Secondly, communications apps really need to start taking encryption seriously. The fact that any intermediate party knows anything about your communications other than where they need to route it always resorts to problems. Save us all the hassle, please.
I read DPI and thought dots per inch.
I don't know how expensive a text is in the Netherlands, but if it's anything like in America I can't blame them for wanting to text less. Or was it that this alternative offered better features? Either way, the correct response from the provider is to respond to demands of the customers; if demand goes down, price should reflect that.
Excuse me, but since when is using WhatsApp and Skype illegal? They have deminishing profits from text messaging, so they want to charge for specific kinds of data traffic.
All Dutch (and European?) ISPs are required by law to retain e-mail headers and URLs accessed for a number of years (anti-terrorism, anti-pedophiles, the usual reasons), which I think is only possible with DPI, so I suppose all Dutch ISPs are doing DPI, in a far more intrusive way than KPN and Vodafone are using it for their own interests. I'm sad that it is only now that people are suddenly outraged, but I guess its better than nothing at all. I'm far more concerned about KPN trying to make a profit from other people's services (WhatsApp) just because people are realizing traditional text-messaging sucks balls.
Could you explain what was illegal about not using text messages?
(If you are reading it from the summary, the 'illegal' in the summary refers to the use of deep packet inspection.)
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Read the Fine Summary. It is illegal in the Netherlands.
And I take issue with your idea that banning DPI for the purposes of violating Net Neutrality is bad for consumers. I think it's great for consumers, as it greatly increases competition for those services. Without it, the ISP knows that you can only really use their SMS and VoIP solutions, so there's no incentive to price them competitively or to keep innovating them.
Ummm ... what exactly are the people doing that is 'illegal'??
Reading the linked articles, it would seem that people are using their data plan to provide an IM alternative to SMS, as well as to provide VoIP ... are either of these things illegal? Or just not making profit for the company? (Boo hoo, you used our network bandwidth we sold to you for something we'd normally charge you for ... so we're going to charge you anyway.)
If you're selling me access to the internet, you don't get to decide which sites I visit. You certainly (so far) don't get to decide to charge me $5/month for Slashdot or Google.
What, exactly are the users doing that is 'illegal' ... I'm not getting that from any of the articles. The only thing that I see that is illegal is that it might be a violation of Dutch law for KPN to use DPI ... which is precisely what the articles say.
It isn't the customers of KPN who are breaking the law.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Well, that will teach me always to RTFA before i write a comment... I thought VoIP and text messaging apps were illegal in the Netherlands (damn ambiguity). Anyway, in Sweden using your data connection for VoIP is against the EULA in all carriers I know of so I figured it could very well be illegal in the Netherlands.
It's a badly phrased summary - it makes is ambiguous about what is illegal here.
Using text messaging apps and VoIP isn't illegal in the Netherlands, by the way. It's the Deep Packet Inspection that's illegal, in the opinion of a lobbyist quoted in one of the linked stories.
As one of the sources for this is the Wall Street Journal maybe net neutrality issues are finally getting proper coverage, instead of the Rush Limbaugh style of this is the "fairness doctrine" coverage it has gotten in the past.
Time to offend someone
That's like saying since I use Google Talk to send messages to my friends instead of texting, I should be charged more. Bullshit. I'm paying for the data plan, I should be able to send messages over it as I see fit. That's the whole point of HAVING a data plan. What if the next step is to charge you for every facebook update/message because it's causing people to text less? Obviously, (at least in the US) the insane fees the carriers charge for texting is no longer as viable as what they use to be able to pull off, and people have wised up.
It's kind of like in Canada... CD sales were dropping, so the recording industry claims it's because of the sale of CD-R's. To make up for the "loss" of a dying sales method, they convince the government to impose a tax on every blank CD sold, no matter what was actually being burned onto the disc (you pay if you copy a CD, you pay if you're using it for data back-up, etc).
It's them being greedy, point blank. Just as if my carrier were to decide to not only use my minutes when I call/receive a call using Google Voice, but to ALSO charge me per minute for the duration I'm using the Google Voice service. In a way, it's kind of like double charging (as in you paid for the data plan, why should sending a message over that cost *anything* extra vs loading a web page, watching a youtube video, etc, etc)
The summary isn't particularly ambiguous, the part "it has now been revealed that they have apparently employed deep packet inspection (DPI) to monitor customers' use of WhatsApp (and also VoIP services) â" which happens to be illegal in the Netherlands." is quite clear and it takes quite a lot of squinting to think the 'illegal' is somehow referring further back into the sentence.
And then there is the part where your assumed illegality of not using text messages somehow automatically justified the deep packet inspection.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
You got it wrong - DPI is illegal, using the text message replacement is perfectly legal. So KPN is breaking the law to charge more (which is legal, unless net neutrality were signed into law) to people who obey the law, but circumvent the regular text-messaging service.
Not to mention failing to adhere to the EULA is NOT ILLEGAL!!! It is a breach of contract, but it is not illegal. If it were illegal then it wouldn't need to be in the EULA since .. .well ... its already illegal.
Yes I'm being trite ... but in this war of words it is important that we don't let the various MAFIAA's (I consider an ISP like this part of the same group), twist the narrative so that people think using a new technlogy that they *don't like* is the same as doing something illegal.
If you can't be good, be good at it!
What?
Actually, rereading it ... it *is* ambiguous. What "happens to be illegal"? DPI or WhatsApp? In fact, assuming, from that sentance, that DPI is the illegal activity would likely be the wrong conclusion. Most geeks just assumed DPI was the subject illegal activity because we are trained to thikn that way. It would have been more clear had the sentance read:
"it has now been revealed that they have apparently employed deep packet inspection (DPI), which happens to be illegal in the Netherlands, to monitor customers' use of WhatsApp (and also VoIP services)"
or the more direct
"it has now been revealed that they have apparently employed deep packet inspection (DPI) to monitor customers' use of WhatsApp (and also VoIP services). DPI happens to be illegal in the Netherlands."
If you can't be good, be good at it!
The equipment vendors are aware that "deep packet inspection" has negative connotations, and at least some of them are now using the term "traffic and policy management" or TPM.
Doesn't that sound nice and innocuous?
"they have apparently employed deep packet inspection (DPI) to monitor customers' use of WhatsApp (and also VoIP services)" is a noun phrase. It isn't ambiguous.
The complexity of the surrounding sentence certainly invites poor reading.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
"it has now been revealed that they have apparently employed deep packet inspection (DPI) to monitor ( customers' use of WhatsApp (and also VoIP services) â" which happens to be illegal in the Netherlands )."
Actually, all three network providers (KPN, Vodafone NL, T-Mobile NL) in the Netherlands have admitted to using DPI. Since IAMNAL I am not sure if this is actually illegal. On another site, someone pointed out that there actually is a provision in the law that a measure like this may be legal if used to keep the network running properly. How far that provision can be stretched is another matter. As to what they actually use the data for and how they handle the data is an interesting matter as well. KPN apparently shared the data with an outside party, which may be a violation even if they can show that it is necessary for keeping the network running smoothly. If they see internet use multiply rapidly, of course they want to know why that is, as there is a maximum capacity and you can't keep adding sites or transmitters/receivers forever, not without hiking prices. So they might be able to argue that they need that information in order for them to deal with the increase in the best possible way. For those living abroad: there really is no alternative, there are no other network providers, only service providers using these three networks. So unless you are willing to shell out for a satellite phone, you're stuck with these three.
On the 20:00 TV news, they just announced that Vodafone does the same.
This is getting a lot of media coverage here.
"Money is a sign of poverty." - Iain Banks
KPN is a typical old-school telecom monopolist that, over the last two decades, has had to watch its market share and profits shrink. A few years ago their DSL network suffered a terrible outage that lasted for several weeks. The problem was their old ATM network equipment that just couldn't cope with the scale at which it was being used. Back in the end of the 90s, they had been warned by network experts that ATM was would eventually do this to them, but they didn't care. It was more important that it was cheap, and, and one KPN exec is rumored to have put it, "We zijn toch dominant" (We're dominant anyway). Since that's been their attitude towards consumers for, like, forever, so it doesn't surprise me that that they're also busy blazing new trails with DPI. Of course they want to use it to protect their investments, or else why tell investors about it?
Commenting before you RTFA should be illegal.
You must be new here, and now just because you have a seven-digit ID.
The equipment vendors are aware that "deep packet inspection" has negative connotations, and at least some of them are now using the term "traffic and policy management" or TPM.
Doesn't that sound nice and innocuous?
Great. Nobody would ever confuse it with the other TPM.
You'd hope these acronym buffoons would eventually try Googling their three-letter combinations to see if they've already been used in the computing field.
Putting moderation advice in your
Can anybody please provide a source for the claim that DPI is illegal? Not saying I don't believe it, I just haven't been able to find a source.
I don't know about KPN's contract terms (never dealt with them), but does it state anything about VoIP? Like I said I am not familiar with KPN but I did use mobile data with Vodafone Netherlands and they clearly stated you were not allowed to tether or do VoIP. I occasionally did both, and worked flawlessly - what they did once do, and that was evil, was to eat my prepaid credit after I'd gone over some download limit - a totally arbitrary amount, not specified in the terms (they are more clear now). I'm all for Net Neutrality but it should be enforced by legislation so that kind of stuff can't make it to the contracts.
This is most Likely done with SACC. It's a built in function of the GGSN...