Thursday, October 23, 2008

CopyRouter: an ethical efficient security tool or a personal privacy violation structure?

Recently an Australian company, Brilliant Digital Entertainment Ltd., has marketed in the US a new controversial deep packet inspection technology called CopyRouter, which allows ISPs to check every file passing through their network. In fact, this technology can inspect "every image, every movie, every document attached to an email or found in a Web search, to see if it matches a list of illegal images from a law enforcement agency. This tool has stimulated a world wide open discussion about the ethical use of personal information when the company caught the attention of New York's attorney general, who has been pressing Internet companies to block child porn. He encouraged a technical discussion among larger IT companies with the aiming at strategies/tools to ways to fight child porn.
Now, since internet has always been an “open space” which, at least in general, should be a neutral instrument, objections have been raised by various privacy advocates urging that monitoring all ISP traffic would be an unconstitutional invasion of privacy.
I would ask comments about this system and the potential use that can be done.
Thanks!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Middle District of Pennsylvania Court has found that inspecting file hashes constitutes search. http://is.gd/5dRi

If it was law enforcement, sounds like wiretap to me. But a provider monitoring their own network, that's a grey area. Sure, they could call the LE, but wouldn't said LEA then need warrant to further search?

Risk Security Assessment said...

Thanks for your comment and for the interesting article.
I am wondering if a legal procedure will soon be established to inspect and review attachments and suspected document. If so, finally, I believe this deep inspection packet can be considered a great tool to fight this transversal yet dangerous battle.

brandon said...

i can see the photos but not the documents and other personal invasion that's just overkill this is surely extortion sounds to me like the NSA is expanding its reach in my opinion.