Author: Nick Feamster
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The Effects of the Forthcoming FCC Privacy Rules on Internet Security
Last week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced new privacy rules that govern how Internet service providers can share information about consumers with third parties. One focus of this rulemaking has been on the use and sharing of so-called “Consumer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI)”—information about subscribers—for advertising. The Center for Information Technology Policy and the Center…
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The Interconnection Measurement Project
Building on the March 11 release of the “Revealing Utilization at Internet Interconnection Points” working paper, today, CITP is excited to announce the launch of the Interconnection Measurement Project. This unprecedented initiative includes the launch of a project-specific website and the ongoing collection, analysis, and release of capacity and utilization data from ISP interconnection points.…
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An Unprecedented Look into Utilization at Internet Interconnection Points
Measuring the performance of broadband networks is an important area of research, and efforts to characterize the performance of these networks continues to evolve. Measurement efforts to date have largely relied on inhome devices and are primarily designed to characterize access network performance. Yet, a user’s experience also relies on factors that lie upstream of ISP access networks, which…
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What Your ISP (Probably) Knows About You
Earlier this week, I came across a working paper from Professor Peter Swire—a highly respected attorney, professor, and policy expert. Swire’s paper, entitled “Online Privacy and ISPs“, argues that ISPs have limited capability to monitor users’ online activity. The paper argues that ISPs have limited visibility into users’ online activity for three reasons: (1) users…
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How Does Zero-Rating Affect Mobile Data Usage?
On Monday, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released a decision that effectively bans “zero-rated” Internet services in the country. While the notion of zero-rating might be somewhat new to many readers in the United States, the practice is common in many developing economies. Essentially, it is the practice by which a carrier creates an…
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Who Will Secure the Internet of Things?
Over the past several months, CITP-affiliated Ph.D. student Sarthak Grover and fellow Roya Ensafi been investigating various security and privacy vulnerabilities of Internet of Things (IoT) devices in the home network, to get a better sense of the current state of smart devices that many consumers have begun to install in their homes. To explore this question,…
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How Will Consumers Use Faster Internet Speeds?
This week saw an exciting announcement about the experimental deployment of DOCSIS 3.1 in limited markets in the United States, including Philadelphia, Atlanta, and parts of northern California, which will bring gigabit-per-second Internet speeds to many homes over the existing cable infrastructure. The potential for gigabit speeds over the existing cable networks bring hope that more consumers…
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Where is Internet Congestion Occurring?
In my post last week, I explained how Netflix traffic was experiencing congestion along end-to-end paths to broadband Internet subscribers, and how the resulting congestion was slowing down traffic to many Internet destinations. Although Netflix and Comcast ultimately mitigated this particular congestion episode by connecting directly to one another in a contractual arrangement known as paid peering,…
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Why Your Netflix Traffic is Slow, and Why the Open Internet Order Won't (Necessarily) Make It Faster
The FCC recently released the Open Internet Order, which has much to say about “net neutrality” whether (and in what circumstances) an Internet service provider is permitted to prioritize traffic. I’ll leave more detailed thoughts on the order itself to future posts; in this post, I would like to clarify what seems to be a…