Black Hat: Researcher unveils Net neutrality test

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http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9002158&source=NLT_PM&nlid=8

August 02, 2006 (IDG News Service) -- A Seattle-based security researcher has devised a way to test for Net neutrality.

Dan Kaminsky will share details of this technique, which will eventually be rolled into a free software tool, on Wednesday at the Black Hat USA security conference in Las Vegas. The software can tell if computers are treating some types of TCP/IP traffic better than others -- dropping data that is being used in VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) calls, for example, or treating encrypted data as second class.

Congress is presently debating whether to enact "Net neutrality" laws that would prevent this from happening. Net neutrality would force Internet service providers like AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp. to give all Internet traffic the same quality of service. Advocates of these laws say they are essential to preserving the openness that has made the Internet a success. Broadband providers say that such laws could prevent them from developing a new generation of services.

Kaminsky calls his technique "TCP-based Active Probing for Faults." He says that the software he's developing will be similar to the Traceroute Internet utility that is used to track what path Internet traffic takes as it hops between two machines on different ends of the network.

But unlike Traceroute, Kaminsky's software will be able to make traffic appear as if it is coming from a particular carrier, or being used for a certain type of application, like VoIP. It will also be able to identify where the traffic is being dropped, and could ultimately be used to finger service providers who are treating some network traffic as second-class.

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[LisaM]

1. This is good work on the part of Black Hat

These conferences attract a lot of attention and many of the best computer minds in the country.

I have a contact at Black Hat and I recently tried to drop a bug in his ear about the voting machine issue. He was aware of it; I hope that they turn to addressing it too.

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2. I would love to go next year, if only to try to absorb some of what was

going on.

If only it were somewhere other than Las Vegas.

[LisaM]

3. I think they can do it pretty cheaply there and now people are used to it

I did look at the papers being given (the conference is actually called Def Con) and there is a paper on electronic voting being given! Everyone I know who is a computer person is on to this. I guess the trick is to get them to care.

I don't like Las Vegas either, but it's a cheap place to throw something like this, and I think a lot of the attendees come from the West Coast.

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5. Point well taken re: Vegas. And I do enjoy hotel rooms now and again.

[MasonJar]

4. Preventing them from making more money! They got that tag line

from the pharmaceuticals and the oil billionaires.

[LisaM]

6. I just talked to one of my contacts there!

I let him know about the positive press on the net neutrality, and I mentioned the voting machine paper - and he thinks that that particular session, voting machines, will be PACKED.