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).

Comments

Drop & Encrypt

[Anonymous Coward]

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'm old.

[MarkvW]

I read DPI and thought dots per inch.

Re:Simple

[paziek]

After they break into your house, you also operate by this simple advice of yours and switch homes?

Re:I love hating as much as the next guy...

[gstoddart]

...but in this case KPN is actually fully authorized to do that (unless DPI is illegal in the Netherlands). After all, the customers who are hit with the extra costs are actually doing something illegal, and they could just as well be brought to court or otherwise penalized in some much worse way.

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.