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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.
...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. Granted, it's a bad law for us consumers, but it's still a law - just as there are laws against piracy and RIAA/MPAA act upon those laws. KPN acts in a much more sensible way, and while I wish we could just get away with our smart solutions I think their way of doing it is a huge step up from what the others do.
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.
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.
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
What?
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?
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...