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Paul Ohm*
Nothing in society poses as grave a threat to privacy as the Internet Service Provider (ISP). ISPs carry their users' conversations, secrets, relationships, acts, and omissions. Until the very recent past, they had left most of these alone because they had lacked the tools to spy invasively, but with recent advances in eavesdropping technology, they can now spy on people in unprecedented ways. Meanwhile, advertisers and copyright owners have been tempting ISPs to put their users' secrets up for sale, and judging from a recent flurry of reports, ISPs are giving in and experimenting with new forms of spying. This is only the leading edge of a coming storm of unprecedented and invasive ISP surveillance. This Article seeks to help policymakers strike the proper balance between user privacy and ISP need. Policymakers cannot simply ban aggressive monitoring, because ISPs have legitimate reasons for scrutinizing communications on an Internet teeming with threats, so instead policymakers must learn to distinguish between an ISP's legitimate needs and mere desires. In addition, this Article injects privacy into the network neutrality debate—a debate about who gets to control innovation on the Internet. Despite the thousands of pages that have already been written about the topic, nobody has recognized that we already enjoy mandatory network neutrality in the form of expansive wiretapping laws. The recognition of this idea will flip the status quo and reinvigorate a stagnant debate by introducing privacy and personal autonomy into a discussion that has only ever been about economics and innovation.
* Associate Professor of Law and Telecommunications, University of Colorado Law School. Versions of this article were presented to the Privacy Law Scholars 2008 Conference; Computers, Freedom, and Privacy '08 conference; and Telecommunications Policy Research Conference 2008. Thanks to Brad Bernthal, Aaron Burstein, Bruce Boyden, John Chapin, Samir Chopra, Danielle Citron, kc claffy, Will DeVries, Susan Friewald, Jon Garfunkel, Dale Hatfield, Stephen Henderson, Chris Hoofnagle, Orin Kerr, Derek Kiernan-Johnson, Scott Moss, Deirdre Mulligan, Frank Pasquale, Wendy Seltzer, Sherwin Siy, Dan Solove, Gerard Stegmaier, Peter Swire, Phil Weiser, Matt Yoder, and Tal Zarsky for their comments and suggestions.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ................................................................................................ 1420 I. Privacy Online and How It Is Lost .................................................. 1422 A. The Changing Nature of ISP Surveillance: Means, Motive, and Opportunity ....................................................... 1422 1. Opportunity: Where the ISP Sits on the Network ........ 1423 2. Motive: Extraordinary Pressures..................................... 1425 a. Pressure to Upgrade Infrastructure and Obtain ROI .............................................................................. 1425 b. Google Envy and the Pressure to Monetize ........... 1426 c. All-You-Can-Eat Contracts and Network Congestion .................................................................. 1426 d. Outside Pressures ....................................................... 1426 3. Opportunity: Evaporating Technological Constraints.. 1427 a. Personal Computer to Pre-Commercial Internet ... 1428 b. Dawn of the Commercial Internet ........................... 1429 c. The Present Day ......................................................... 1430 d. The Future .................................................................. 1431 B. Signs of Change ....................................................................... 1432 1. AT&T's Plans for Network Filtering .............................. 1432 2. Phorm ................................................................................. 1433 3. Charter Communications and NebuAd.......................... 1434 4. Comcast Throttles BitTorrent ......................................... 1435 C. Forecast .................................................................................... 1436 D. Measuring and Comparing the Harms of Complete Monitoring ............................................................................... 1437 1. Measuring What ISPs Can See ........................................ 1438 a. Visual Privacy as a Metaphor for Online Privacy... 1438 b. What ISPs Can See .................................................... 1438 c. What ISPs Cannot See: Encrypted Contents and Use of Another ISP.................................................... 1439 2. Comparing ISPs to Other Entities .................................. 1440 a. ISPs Compared to Google......................................... 1440 b. ISPs Compared to Google Plus DoubleClick ......... 1441 c. ISPs Compared to Spyware Distributors................. 1442 d. ISPs Compared to Offline Entities........................... 1444 E. Harms ....................................................................................... 1444 F. Conclusion: We Must Prohibit Complete Monitoring ........ 1447 II. Weighing Privacy ............................................................................... 1447 A. Theories of Information Privacy ........................................... 1448 B. Analyzing Privacy in Dynamic Situations ............................ 1449 1. ISPs Have a Track Record of Respecting Privacy ........ 1450
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2. Constraints—and Signs of Evaporation ......................... 1450 3. Thought Experiment: What If Microsoft Started Monitoring? ....................................................................... 1451 III. Regulating Network Monitoring...................................................... 1452 A. Abandoning the Envelope Analogy ..................................... 1453 B. Anonymization and Aggregation Are Usually Not Enough ..................................................................................... 1455 1. No Perfect Anonymization .............................................. 1456 2. Anonymous Yet Still Invasive ......................................... 1458 3. Conclusion ......................................................................... 1460 C. Reasonable Network Management ...................................... 1460 1. Network Management Defined ....................................... 1460 2. Why Providers Monitor .................................................... 1462 a. The Necessary, the Merely Convenient, and the Voyeuristic .................................................................. 1462 b. Different Networks with Different Priorities.......... 1463 c. The Purposes of Network Management .................. 1465 d. The Rise of Deep-Packet Inspection ....................... 1468 3. Reasonable Network Management: Provider Need ..... 1468 a. A Hypothetical Negotiation...................................... 1469 b. NetFlow ....................................................................... 1469 c. NetFlow as a Ceiling on Automated Monitoring ... 1472 d. Routine Monitoring Versus Incident Response ..... 1473 D. Rethinking Consent ................................................................ 1474 1. Conditions for Consent .................................................... 1474 2. The Proximity Principle.................................................... 1475 3. ISPs and Proximity ............................................................ 1477 IV. The Law .............................................................................................. 1477 A. The Law of Network Monitoring .......................................... 1478 1. ECPA: Prohibitions .......................................................... 1478 a. Few Obvious Answers ............................................... 1478 b. Wiretap Prohibitions.................................................. 1478 c. Pen Registers and Trap and Trace Devices Act ..... 1479 d. Stored Communications Act..................................... 1481 2. ECPA: Defenses and Immunities ................................... 1481 a. Protection of Rights and Property ........................... 1482 b. "Rendition of Service" .............................................. 1484 c. Consent........................................................................ 1485 3. An Entirely Illegal Product Market ................................ 1486 4. Assessing the Law ............................................................. 1487 B. Amending the Law ................................................................. 1487 V. When Net Neutrality Met Privacy ................................................... 1489
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A. Flipping the Status Quo.......................................................... 1490 B. But Is This Really Net Neutrality? ....................................... 1491 C. Resituating the Net Neutrality Debate ................................ 1493 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 1496 INTRODUCTION Internet Service Providers (ISPs)1 have the power to obliterate privacy online. Everything we say, hear, read, or do on the Internet first passes through ISP computers. If ISPs wanted, they could store it all, compiling a perfect transcript of our online lives. In fact, nothing in society poses as grave a threat to privacy as the ISP, not even Google, a company whose privacy practices have received an inordinate amount of criticism and commentary.2 Although Google collects a vast amount of personal information about its users, an ISP can always access even more because it owns and operates a privileged network bottleneck, the only point on the network that sits between a user and the rest of the Internet. Because of this fact about network design, a user cannot say anything to Google without saying it first to his ISP,3 and an ISP can also hear everything a user says to any other websites like Facebook or eBay, things said that are unobtainable to Google. The potential threat to privacy from unchecked ISP surveillance surpasses every other threat online. A potential threat to privacy, however, is not the same thing as a likely invasion, and to distinguish between the two we must make predictions about the future evolution of technology. In this case, the evidence points in opposite directions: on the one hand, historically, ISPs have respected user privacy.4 On the other hand, evolving technology has cast aside hurdles that once prevented providers from monitoring invasively.5 A deeper look at the evidence shows a numbers of signs all pointing toward a coming wave of more surveillance: online wiretapping used to
1. This Article defines ISPs as the telecommunications companies that route communications to and from Internet-connected computers. The best-known ISPs are the cable companies that connect users through cable modems, such as Comcast, Cox, and Charter, and the telephone companies that connect users through digital subscriber line (DSL) connections, such as Verizon, AT&T, and Qwest. In addition, mobile carriers such as Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, and AT&T Wireless are increasingly important ISPs. Lesser known ISPs serve institutional customers, providing Internet connectivity to companies, universities, and other ISPs. For a more detailed description of the various types of ISPs, see Part III.C.2.b. 2. E.g., DANIEL J. SOLOVE, THE FUTURE OF REPUTATION: GOSSIP, RUMOR, AND PRIVACY ON THE INTERNET (2007); Oren Bracha & Frank Pasquale, Federal Search Commission? Access, Fairness, and Accountability in the Law of Search, 93 CORNELL L. REV. 1149 (2008); James Grimmelmann, The Structure of Search Engine Law, 93 IOWA L. REV. 1, 17–23, 39–41, 56–58 (2007). 3. There are a few exceptions, for example, when a user encrypts communications. These exceptions are discussed infra in Part I.D.1.c. 4. See infra Part II.B.1. 5. See infra Part I.A.3.
DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No.9 Although the ECPA likely prohibits many of these forms of ISP surveillance.6 Easier wiretapping has made possible the disintegration of user privacy.d. because of some uncertainty in the meaning of the law. I connect the wiretapping laws to the network neutrality debate. the worst forms of ISP monitoring must be regulated. ISPs oversell their ability to anonymize the data they collect to reduce potential harm.10 If pro6.0 50 (2006). ISP surveillance has and will continue to harm individuals.8 Given this confluence of technological and economic forces.7 ISPs are desperately searching for new sources of revenue. a debate about who should control innovation on the Internet. I foresee a coming storm of unprecedented.C. §§ 2510–2712 (2006). I focus on the harm to individual users. especially given the increasing invasiveness of the surveillance. Congress has already regulated ISP surveillance with the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). Even if users have not experienced harms from yesterday's forms of ISP surveillance. and copyright owners are offering to supply that revenue in return for access to user secrets. the rise of invasive ISP surveillance invites connections to the network neutrality debate. 10. Thus. technologists.3. In fact. Third. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1421 be easy. I skeptically and critically evaluate arguments about the benefits of more ISP surveillance. To decrease the harms of ISP surveillance through regulation without unduly harming other things we value. In this Article. First. Second. LAWRENCE LESSIG. arguing that security and necessity tend to be exaggerated. Although nobody has discussed the potential clash between wiretap laws and the net neutrality debate. invasive ISP monitoring. but these claims are tenuous. See generally Rob Frieden. and users will suffer dire harms. Rob Frieden has discussed the mostly neglected privacy implications of the debate. and today it is easy again.A. while markets have accelerated the trend. we can make confident and well-supported predictions that they will suffer significant individual harm from today's and tomorrow's new forms of surveillance. 18 U.2.OHM. See infra Part I. 9. To measure the costs of regulating ISPs. 8.A. but such claims do not hold up to close scrutiny. If ISPs continue unabated. and advertisers. they will instigate the greatest reduction of user privacy in the history of the Internet. providers claim the technical need to monitor user communications more deeply and thoroughly than they have in the past. 7. and how do they compare to the net benefit to user privacy? To measure the benefits of regulation to reduce invasive ISP surveillance. below I recommend a few amendments to clarify necessary protections. something nobody else has done. Finally. and focusing in particular on three often-heard defenses.S. then it became difficult. See infra Part I. we must engage in a costbenefit balancing: what are the costs of additional regulation. ISPs claim that their users have consented to invasive surveillance. CODE: VERSION 2. Internet Packet Sniffing and Its Impact on the Network Neutrality Debate and .
Daniel Berniger. Motive. L. as also described below.com/articles/culture/Deep-packet-inspection-meets-netneutrality. demonstrating how each argument has been oversold.ars.J.com/2007/01/14/forget-neutrality-keep-packets-private/. A private network is a more neutral network. See infra Part I.B for a summary of recent stories. The motive to engage in invasive new forms of surveillance comes from many sources. Part II advances a better way to analyze privacy problems in dynamic. focusing in particular on the ever-changing history of network monitoring of the situation. 2007. The Article proceeds in five parts. Forget Neutrality—Keep Packets Private. . The ISP operates the network chokepoint—its computers stand between the user and the rest of the Internet—and from this privileged vantage point it has access to all of its users' private communications. Parts IV and V compare the conclusions of this analysis to two features on the policy/regulatory landscape: the ECPA and the network neutrality debate. 2007. and Opportunity This is a story of means.11 These news stories paint a picture of an industry recently. and sharply veering off of a long track record of respect for customer privacy. PRIVACY ONLINE AND HOW IT IS LOST Not a week seems to go by without the newspapers revealing a new form of invasive ISP monitoring.B. These new forms of invasive ISP surveillance have harmed and will continue to harm users in significant ways. In order to increase the revenues the inthe Balance of Power Between Intellectual Property Creators and Consumers. Also. See infra Part I. July 25.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1422 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. 14. This Part concludes by calling for a ban on at least the most invasive forms of ISP monitoring. Deep Packet Inspection Meets 'Net Neutrality. Part III applies this analysis to the three defenses usually lodged in support of unfettered ISP network monitoring. several non-academic commentators have explored similar points of view. from dire financial need. ARS TECHNICA. to hear them tell it.OHM. 2009 viders cannot scrutinize user communications closely—because of the wiretapping laws—they also cannot discriminate between different types of traffic. and opportunity. http://arstechnica. 633 (2008). A. motive. Jan. suddenly. GIGAOM BLOG. are in an industry fighting for survival. An ISP's opportunity to invade user privacy stems from network architecture. but most importantly. 18 FORDHAM INTELL. Nate Anderson. http://gigaom. PROP. complex situations—one focused on well-grounded predictions about future harm and great skepticism about claims of the benefits of increased monitoring. 11.12 This Part relates some of these developments and offers a few explanations for the sudden change. 12. I. ISPs. CALEA. The Changing Nature of ISP Surveillance: Means. MEDIA & ENT. Finally. Part I offers a descriptive and predictive account of the threat to privacy posed by ISP surveillance.
DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. and Supreme Court case law. or after receiving the express. 16. . and vice versa—and it performs this role by literally stringing cables between its facilities and each of its users' premises.S. 15.A. ISPs are not the first entities with centralized access to all of a customer's communications. 41.S. 1. ISPs only recently have acquired the means to engage in massive and invasive surveillance because surveillance tools have recently become much more powerful. In the history of telecommunications law. 47 C.2.R.C. 14. The chokepoint makes the ISP not only the single point of failure for the network. Centralized control spawns surveillance power. 735. It owns the point on the network between a user's computer and the rest of the Internet. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1423 dustry needs to survive. Compare 18 U.A. This point on the worldwide map of the Internet. oral. it makes it also the single greatest point of control and surveillance. 745–46 (1979) (holding that the use of a pen register device did not constitute a Fourth Amendment search or seizure).2005 (2007) (permitting limited use for marketing of certain information relating to a customer's telephone services). Compare Smith v. Opportunity: Where the ISP Sits on the Network An ISP controls a valuable and privileged bottleneck. Finally. with Berger v.OHM.17 telephone companies have never 13. 442 U. See infra Part IV. device" to a misdemeanor prosecution). 58–60 (1967) (requiring heightened procedural requirements in order for the government to . most lucratively by selling user secrets for cash. is a unique and critical point: the only point through which all of a user's communications must pass.1.13 Telephone companies caught recording in other circumstances have been punished severely for illegal wiretapping. they have tended to listen to conversations only when they have been checking the line. Although telephone companies have always had surveillance capabilities. if need be) communications. online wiretapping used to be difficult and now it is easy. Its principal role is routing—it receives communications from its users and sends them out to the rest of the world.F. investigating theft of services. . largely in line with federal legislation.S. § 64. § 2511(1)(a) (2006) (subjecting those who intercept "any wire. 17. as demonstrated by a survey of the evolution of computer architecture. with § 3121(a) (subjecting those who use a "pen register . assisting law enforcement. the ISP's connection to the end user. See infra Part IV. 388 U. it would like to turn to new forms of moneymaking. at least since Congress first regulated telephone wiretapping and up to the present day.14 At the same time. because they would like to be for all of their citizens what an ISP is for all of its users—the single best place to listen to (and stop. It is no wonder that totalitarian regimes try to direct all Internet traffic through single. telephone companies have respected subscriber privacy. time-limited consent of those monitored.15 regula16 tion. Maryland. or electronic communication" to a felony prosecution and civil lawsuit). telephone companies control similar privileged points of access on the voice network. government-run network chokepoints. But. New York.
up until a few years ago. ISPs had respected user privacy. They preserve privacy by keeping a shallow. Thus. 2006. Tim Wu. the line between permissible and impermissible telephone monitoring has been drawn through the metaphor of the envelope. United States. an automated security monitor (such as a so-called intrusion detection system) might alert an operator of a suspected attack by a hacker.18 From the dawn of the commercial Internet in the mid-1990s until the very recent past. with "non-content addressing" information outside the envelope and open to scrutiny and the "content" enclosed within the envelope and off-limits. ISPs turn to targeted monitoring to respond to incidents.S. Broadband Discrimination. limited view. 18. a packet sniffer obtain an order to wiretap). to use another important metaphor. 20. "deeply" within packets. 353 (1967) (prohibiting the use of a recording device to monitor telephone calls). and security). which will peer deeply into packets and store everything it sees. the second narrow and invasive. our privacy online has ended up mirroring the kind of privacy we expect on the voice networks. & HIGH TECH. 141. just as their telephone company forebears had. ON TELECOMM. or at least it had. looking for troublesome communications and acting in response to concerns. Network providers conduct this kind of broad automated monitoring for five reasons: to gauge the health of the network. Compare the relative invasiveness of automated and targeted monitoring. limits on bandwidth usage. ISPs deploy automated computer programs that scrutinize all of the communications—in Internet parlance. Targeted monitoring is often triggered by something an automated monitor has noticed. detect spam. secure the network. The Impact of the FCC's New Broadband Regulation. Apr. Jonathan Jacob Nadler. When a network engineer suspects trouble on the network20—such as a suspected breach of network security by a hacker or unusually heavy congestion on the line—he will often switch on a targeted tool called a packet sniffer. http://telephonyonline. quality of service. 2 J.OHM. In contrast. Cf.19 Although automated monitors scan broadly. and Katz v. . 25. L. one broad and noninvasive. ISPs have used two modes for monitoring user communications. 347. 389 U. First. detect viruses. and police bandwidth.com/regulatory/commentary/fcc_broadband_ regulation_042506/ (stating that the FCC asserts a right to impose regulations on ISPs "that 'mirror' those traditionally imposed on telephone companies"). 166–67 (2003) (proposing network neutrality principle with six exceptions including protecting the network. they are not very invasive because they are discriminating: they tend to ignore content and other information packed. 19. Network Neutrality. 2009 hesitated to collect the non-content information relating to telephone calls: principally who called whom and for how long. Although targeted monitoring with a packet sniffer invades individual privacy much more than an automated monitor. For example. tracking communications in a broad way but not in a deep way. Through a set of very important (mostly accidental) circumstances. spam and virus delivery. TELEPHONY ONLINE. the packets—passing through critical points in a network.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1424 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol.
OHM. 23. TELECOMMUNICATIONS PREDICTIONS: TMT TRENDS 2007.lightreading. http://www.com/document. The Ambulance.asp?sku_id=1974&skuitem_itemid=1060 (last visited Aug. Motive: Extraordinary Pressures Shifting monetary incentives are the most important forces pushing toward greater ISP surveillance. at 7. Telcos Show Their Google Envy. 8. LIGHT READING. Deep scrutiny was rare.21 Many economists say the deck is stacked against them.25 21. Increasing bandwidth requires a huge capital investment and customers have been reluctant to pay more each month just for a faster connection. such that network operators and ISPs can continue to invest in new infrastructure and maintain service quality."). 24. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1425 rarely scrutinizes the data of many users. See DELOITTE TOUCHE TOHMATSU.com/insider/details. most of the time had been subjected only to automated. most users. Susan P. 877–78 (2006) (describing woes of telephone companies in part from competition from VoIP). Id.. a. 2009). http://www. is "accelerated erosion of the revenue per bit earned.J. something has to change in the economics of Internet access. Until things began to change not too long ago. Hulu streams. ISPs have a great motive to pay a little more attention than they have before to their users' secrets. Light Reading Insider. Deep Packet Inspection: Vendors Tap into New Markets.22 New Internet applications like virtual worlds and video delivery (in the form of YouTube clips.23 The result. they have recognized the emerging market for what I call "trading user secrets for cash. may be the only way they can guarantee their survival. Pressure to Upgrade Infrastructure and Obtain ROI ISPs are struggling for survival. and consumers can continue to enjoy the Internet as they know it today. See DELOITTE TOUCHE TOHMATSU. 31. automated monitoring protects privacy by "forgetting" much more than it remembers and targeted monitoring by being rare and temporary. supra note 22. 2008. the Squad Car & the Internet. and what has changed? 2. 21 BERKELEY TECH. 873. see also DELOITTE TOUCHE TOHMATSU.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. L. and BitTorrent downloads) are bandwidth hungry and burden the existing infrastructure. Why did users once enjoy this much privacy. at 7."24 Broadband ISPs have responded by searching for new sources of revenue. because it is usually deployed in the network where the information of only a few users can be seen and collected. By doing so. at 7 (2007) ("Clearly. . Thus. heavily filtered monitoring. 22. lightreading. which given their precarious situation." which Google has proved can be a very lucrative market.asp?doc_ id=150479. Crawford. Raymond McConville. Apr. they can tap new sources of revenue. as one industry analyst puts it. 25. supra note 22. To this end.
If they wanted to. they might lose customers and thus revenue. Anne Broache. They tend not to take this straightforward and privacyrespecting approach. and instant messages—flowing through their networks.cnet.html (reporting Recording Industry Association of America's President Cary Sherman as "encouraged" to see that ISPs were experimenting with filtering technology). a byproduct of the fact that today ISPs sell service on an all-youcan-eat basis. Peter Svensson. 30. ISPs could identify the heaviest users without invading much user privacy by simply counting bytes on a peruser basis. wondering if they can turn it into advertising money. CNET NEWS.com/id/21376597 (stating that Comcast chose to limit access rather than cut off heavy users completely). c. ASSOCIATED PRESS. Cf. d. available at http://www. 30.27 Google's success has redefined expectations for both profitability and privacy online. ISPs have realized that by invading privacy a bit more by tracking and blocking problem applications. ISPs can make a few users unhappy but not so unhappy that they will flee to a competitor. McConville. RIAA: No Need to Force ISPs by Law to Monitor Piracy. e-mail messages. . however. 2008. The recording and motion picture industries view ISP monitoring as an avenue for controlling what they see as rampant infringing activity. All-You-Can-Eat Contracts and Network Congestion Another way ISPs might try to forestall the need to invest in expensive network upgrades is to reduce the use of the network. particularly on peer-to-peer networks. Outside Pressures Increasingly. ISPs trying to replicate Google's performance eye the treasure trove of behavioral data—web transfers.30 Government agencies want providers to assist in law enforcement and national security surveillance. Oct. Id.com/8301-10784_3-9861460-7. Id. http://news. 29.29 Through this approach.OHM. third parties have exerted a great deal of pressure on ISPs to spy on their users. 27. supra note 25. Some users and some applications cause a disproportionate amount of the network traffic. Google Envy and the Pressure to Monetize Providers have what some have called "Google envy. Comcast Blocks Some Internet Traffic. Jan. in their case by displaying advertisements matching a users' recent search queries.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1426 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. In 1994. 2007.msnbc. they can free up bandwidth without barring any user from using the web and e-mail entirely."26 Google has demonstrated how to grow rapidly by monetizing user behavior. 2009 b.28 Instead. because if ISPs were to cut-off heavy users altogether.msn. 19. 28. the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) successfully lobbied 26.
Even if ISPs have wished they could completely monitor.aspx?fileticket=6N3WtkLD5Ws%3D&tabid=122 (last visited Aug. 1936 (1996) (codified as amended in scattered sections of 29 U. and most privacy-invasive form of network monitoring imaginable: a packet sniffer that is always switched on. Speaker of the House (Apr. No. PCI. http://www.S. 100 Stat. CrossTec Corporation. I will return repeatedly to this possibility.activeworx. 37. 34. 2006).DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No.38 Each of these has helped restrict the frequency and invasiveness of ISP monitoring. 16 Stat. L. 113 Stat.). http://www.C. No.S. 36. providers are obligated to configure their networks to be able to quickly assist law enforcement monitoring.S. 104-191.S. 12.pdf (transmitting the amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that had been adopted by the Supreme Court of the United States pursuant to 28 U. HIPAA.36 Vendors of monitoring products bolster these views by touting their deep-packet inspection (DPI) products as legal compliance tools. 38. perhaps out of a sense of civic obligation or to stave off future regulation. supra note 7. Pub. See Letter from Chief Justice John Roberts to Representative J.). ISPs have publicly conceded the limits of monitoring technology.S.OHM. & 42 U. §§ 1001–1010 (2006)). 108 Stat. Product Flyer for Activeworx Enterprise. law. 2009) ("AE includes over 200 reports for Sarbanes-Oxley. 35.31 Under CALEA.37 3.33 Graham-Leach-Bliley. but technology has played an important role. Users have enjoyed privacy because the devices that monitor networks have been unable to keep up with the amount of data crossing networks.gov/orders/courtorders/frcv06p. com/LinkClick. Dennis Hastert. Pub. . L."). No. storing every packet crossing a network forever.C. in response to calls from the copyright content industries to better police their networks. For example.S.supremecourtus. Pub.35 and recent ediscovery changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. 745 (2002) (codified as amended in scattered sections of 18 U.34 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). No.C. and technology. which I call complete monitoring. Id.32 Already saddled with the requirements of CALEA. norms. many providers view new forms of network monitoring as a way to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley. GLBA and more. Opportunity: Evaporating Technological Constraints Professor Lawrence Lessig has identified four regulators of online conduct—markets. L. 107-204. Consider the simplest.). they lacked the computing horsepower to analyze and capture information quickly enough to do so. 4279 (codified as amended at 47 U. "ISPs are no more able to inspect and 31.C. 33. providers may feel ongoing pressure to develop and deploy sophisticated network monitoring tools to help law enforcement stay ahead of surveillance challenges. § 2072). Pub. the British ISP Association complained. 31. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1427 Congress to enact the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). most effective. 32. L. 103-414. 106-102.C. 1338 (1999) (codified as amended in scattered sections of 15 U. until very recently. at 123.C. LESSIG. Finally.
stm (quoting the Internet Service Providers Association). by assigning him a partner. 19. Over the past twenty-five years both the speed of residential network connections and the power of monitoring hardware have significantly increased. replacing a two-lane country path with a superhighway full of cars moving at top speed. the lead has changed hands twice.3. & TECH. scanning the passing traffic for drivers swerving or speeding or for cars with outdated license plates. If we "upgrade" the police officer.3.42 a. 2008. the fastest consumer modem was the Hayes Smartmodem 1200. if we upgrade the road. picture network monitoring like a police officer on the side of a road. . Eleanor Dallaway. The last scenario—of simultaneous improvement—describes network monitoring. 12. 495 (1997) (describing the early days of online communities). Illegal Downloaders 'Face UK Ban.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1428 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. "None of the technologies proposed by the ISPs to intercept or scan traffic as it travels across the network are proven to work at scale—the electronic equivalent of a 'stop and search' of all media files transmitted on our networks would not be a feasible solution. computers running monitoring tools are like the police officer and the rate of the network traffic flowing past the computer—the flow rate or bandwidth—is like the volume of cars passing on the highway."39 An executive for British Telecom concurred. so named 39. 41. See infra Part I. The Rise and Fall of Sysopdom. J. INFOSECURITY. Personal Computer to Pre-Commercial Internet In 1984. Feb. Music Piracy Born Out of a 'Something for Nothing' Society. On the Internet. 43.uk/2/hi/business/7240234.co. 2009 filter every single packet passing across their network than the Post Office is able to open every envelope. If we upgrade both the road and the officer. On the other hand. http://news. See infra Part I.. Think about what happens to the officer on the side of the road over time. dialing bulletin board systems to chat with other users or transfer files. Apr. 42. to other computer modems. 40. How thoroughly the officer inspects the passing traffic depends on two metrics: the volume of traffic—the number of cars that pass by each hour—and the efficiency of the officer—how quickly he can inspect a single car. which were still in their infancy. British Broadcasting Corp.' BBC NEWS. See generally Jonathan Zittrain.43 At the time.A. 2008. users were already connecting personal computers. at 17.A. 10 HARV. training him to work more quickly.L. the officer will probably falter. he will be better able to keep up.OHM. at very important historical junctures. then success or failure depends on the relative rates of improvement. or giving him scanning technology.41 In the race between the fastest computer processors and the fastest residential network communications."40 To better understand why the relative slowness of computers has constrained ISP surveillance.bbc.
48.OHM. The zip file version of the King James Bible downloadable from the Project Gutenberg archive measures 1. http://computer.modem. This is almost certainly not literally true because of the back-of-the-envelope nature of the calculation. CNN.000) = 5 cable modem connections.com/analog/an19/hayes_1200. 1. equipped with the Intel 80286 processor. also.5 Hayes Smartmodems.htm (last visited Aug.old-computers. http://www.asp?c= 185 (last visited Aug. available at http://www. Magid. 1982.48 The police were dim witted. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1429 because it could send or receive 1200 bits of data per second. DIGITAL CROSSROADS: AMERICAN TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY IN THE INTERNET AGE 136 (2005). while connection speeds had increased ten thousand fold since 1983.000 bits per second = 4. or millions of instructions per second.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. 44. or million bits per second. in 1997. 50.org/etext/7999 (last visited Aug. Oct.45 Suppose the telephone company of 1984 had decided to monitor all of the digital bits traveling to and from all of its customers' computers over its lines.cyberroach.94 hours. Intel's fastest processor was the Pentium II.000 / (20 * 1200) = 62. The number is nevertheless useful to compare to the calculations from other eras that follow. 31. could wiretap 1.59 megabytes. enjoying an exponential gain in bandwidth to speeds approaching three megabits. Because modems were so slow.590.000 bytes x 8 bits per byte / 1200 bits per second = 10.52 Thus. 1997. 2009). Using the same back-of-the-envelope calculation. A single PC AT.000. 2009). Dawn of the Commercial Internet Let us jump ahead thirteen years. Most likely. 1.html.590.org/ark:/ 13030/kt7h4nc9c2/?layout=metadata&brand=calisphere (last visited Aug. IBM PC AT. 51. rated at 300 MIPS. Marshall Brain. b.50 At this rate. processing power had increased only 200 times.000 bytes x 8 bits per byte / 3. NUECHTERLEIN & PHILIP J.5 MIPS. Tony Messina. Imagine it had done this monitoring using personal computers. ANALOG COMPUTING. a Pentium II could monitor 300.000.500.htm. which in 1984 meant the brand new IBM PC AT. Complete Contents. gutenberg. it would have taken nearly three hours to download the text of the Bible. The Bible. 45. customers began using cable modems to access the Internet49 for the first time. 31. . 80286 Microprocessor Package. King James Version. Review—Hayes Smartmodem 1200. June 1984. How Microprocessors Work. 2009). 46.com/microprocessor1. http://www.47 Assume for argument's sake that a processor needs twenty instructions to capture and store a single bit of modem data. 49. 16. 47.com/TECH/9710/16/cable. 52. working at full capacity on this task. WEISER.com/museum/computer.46 The 80286 could calculate 1.24 seconds. it would have taken only four seconds to download the Bible. but they could keep up with the limited and pokey traffic on the road.000.com. howstuffworks.44 At that rate. Old-Computers. http://content. Lawrence J. 2009). 31. 31. In 1997. the telephone company could monitor more than sixty users using a single personal computer without difficulty. HOWSTUFFWORKS. JONATHAN E. http://www.600 seconds or 2. A Cable Modem Puts Surfer in the Fast Lane. Calisphere.lat/index.cnn.cdlib. the estimate of twenty instructions per bit copied is inaccurate.000 / (20 * 3.51 Meanwhile. some other computing bottleneck may have limited monitoring long before a processor.
B. Verizon now offers their FiOS fiber optic service to the home and already claims 1. http://www. 2009). the Eternal September. Susan Gregory Thomas. http://arstechnica.org/jargon/html/S/September-that-never-ended. Brad Reed. malcontents—spammers and virus and worm authors—were attracted. The smarter police were having trouble keeping up with the exponential increase in traffic flow. however. Jan. June 19. ST. The Jargon File. in 1997. NETWORK WORLD. the 1997 users were less technically savvy and more ignorant of the informal etiquette that then governed the Internet. a decade after the dawn of cable modem. 1999. .54 Worse. Comcast Pump up the Bandwidth. at 125 ("[T]he total number of Internet users . 2009 From the earliest days of the PC to the dawn of the commercial Internet. .networkworld.ars/post/20070510-verizon-comcast-pump-up- .html (last visited Aug.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1430 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. See NUECHTERLEIN & WEISER. See Patricia Yevics. According to our review of the history of the processor-bandwidth race. Instead. our privacy has not been selected out of a concern for user rights or to forestall regulation. Netiquette—What Is It and Why Should You Care?. providers would have found it difficult to monitor the masses with ease. 2007..org/departments/loma/articles/officemngmt/netiquette. but because of the race they were losing between processing power and bandwidth.com/news/2008/061908-verizon-fios. 2008.html?hpg1=bn. U.56 Providers must have feared these daunting new threats on the network. like flies to honey. In 1997. supra note 50. Eric Bangeman.catb. Some called this the dawn of the "Eternal September. the year the cable modem made it much more difficult to wiretap users.57 The fastest FiOS connection sold today delivers a blistering fifty megabits downstream. in the mid-1990s. 31. 54. Verizon Expands 50Mbps FiOS Footprint. ASS'N BULL. Oct.com/news.53 Compared to the kind of users who had logged on in 1984.msba. http://www. NEWS & WORLD REP. c. double[d] each year through the late 1990s. 56. the Internet boom was in full swing. Consider for another moment 1997. Verizon. May 10. 57." a wry reference to the previously only once-a-year influx of clueless college freshman that used to bedevil Internet veterans. there were too many new users to educate. http://www. ARS TECHNICA.htm.OHM.55 Even worse. MD. Eternal September was coined in 1993 when America Online first allowed its millions of users to have access to parts of the Internet. providers wanted to monitor invasively but had no choice but to monitor sparingly because they were losing an arms race. Home Hackers. at 52 (noting how hacking of home computers had increased with spread of cable modems and DSL). at the dawn of both the commercial Internet and the Eternal September. and users were logging on in unprecedented numbers. 55. 4. The Present Day Today. September That Never Ended. 1999. to the clueless hordes and their always-on broadband connections. we are witnessing another order-of-magnitude bandwidth gain.8 million subscribers. and a massive increase in new threats. Where's AT&T?. providers had become more than ten times less effective at monitoring their users.58 Cable companies promise that a new kind of cable 53.S.").. 58.
d.OHM. despite the order of magnitude increase in bandwidth. the Bible can be downloaded in about a quarter-of-a-second. at 64–66 (listing 27. Apr. Sept.org/portal/cms_docs_societies/sscs/PrintEditions/ 200609. Halfhill. http://www.000. .61 Thus. at 21. 63. transistor density translates directly to computing power.nytimes. Apr. Id. Brad Stone. CPU's Core 2 "Extreme Machine. IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS SOC'Y NEWSL.. Moore. and today it is easy again. then it became very hard. Moore's law traces back to a 1965 magazine article by Gordon Moore in Electronics Magazine in which he noted that the number of components that could be put on a microchip had been doubling each year." COMPUTER POWER USER. rates just shy of 30. Like the traffic cop assigned a partner. 2. 19. and will bandwidth improvements outstrip processing power again in ten years? This is unlikely.000 bytes x 8 bits per byte / 50.000) = 30 FiOS connections.blogs."). today's chips not only work more quickly. TIMES BITS BLOG. http://download.com/research/silicon/moorespaper. Gordon E.Y. See Tom R.pdf ("The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year.000 MIPS.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. 59. ELECTRONICS. 2006. one formal.ieee.000. and providers today can monitor 30. so a processor with twice as many transistors will be twice as powerful and have twice the MIPS rating. Intel's fastest consumer processor. 2008. 22. 60.000 / (20 * 50.intel.60 Meanwhile. suggest that the growth in the rate of residential bandwidth is similar to Moore's Law and perhaps a bit the-bandwidth-wheres-att. predicted that innovation in his industry would continue to progress quickly enough that the maximum number of transistors that fit cheaply on a silicon microchip would double every two years.59 Over such a connection. 61. one-half the ratio they enjoyed between the PC AT and the Hayes Smartmodem in 1984 and six times the less favorable ratio of the late nineties. Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits.000. Gordon Moore.com/ 2008/04/02/comcast-to-bring-speedier-internet-to-st-paul/. http://bits.051 MIPS for the "Dhrystone ALU" processor arithmetic measure). Marco Chiappetta. Sept. The relative progress between bandwidth and processing power has see-sawed. N.0—will deliver up to fifty megabits downstream as well. 1. Comcast to Bring Speedier Internet to St.000 bits per second = 0. The Future The discussion thus far illuminates an interesting trend: highbandwidth packet sniffing used to be easy. 1965. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1431 modem—based on a standard called DOCSIS 3.62 Others claim the doubling occurs every eighteen months. processors have done much better than keep up. How does the growth in the rate of residential bandwidth compare? Two studies.000. one informal.html (claiming theoretical FiOS speeds up to 400 megabits after system upgrade). (noting DOCSIS 3. the cofounder of Intel. 62. But is this an oscillating pattern. Paul.25 seconds. but they can calculate multiple instructions in parallel using what are called multiple cores—essentially more than one processor on a single chip. 2006.pdf (seeking to correct misconceptions about Moore's Law).63 Roughly speaking. The Mythology of Moore's Law.590.0 demonstration speed of 150 megabits). Moore's Law is a famous prediction about the computer chip manufacturing industry. the Core2Extreme.
Nielsen's Law of Internet Bandwidth. Signs of Change Because ISPs have the means.com/technology/content/nov2007/tc2007116_145984. 5.68 In January 2008. 1999. ISPs will continue to have the advantage in the battle between speakers and sniffers. President of AT&T Labs.html. infra notes 68–93 and accompanying text. and Disney had invested a combined $10 million in a company called Vobile.. In 2000. useit. See. e. In 2007. IEEE SPECTRUM. that telecommunications data rates are rising at exactly the same rate as Moore's Law). 7. 1998. Peter Burrows. In a paper from 1999. Jakob Nielsen. July 2004. Is There a Moore's Law for Bandwidth?.. leading him to conclude that "bandwidth grows slower than computer power. In the past year in particular. 68. Jakob Nielsen. A technological constraint that used to protect privacy has since evaporated. GEORGE GILDER. AT&T's Plans for Network Filtering AT&T's executives have not been shy about their plans to begin monitoring their users in new ways.htm (reporting that AT&T."66 These studies suggest that today's lead in processing power over networking will not diminish and may continue to widen. predicted in 1998 that a highend user's bandwidth grows 50 percent per year.. Id." an AT&T 64. If these predictions hold. This prediction inspired Gilder to speculate about a world of infinite bandwidth.67 This has happened at a breathtaking pace and suggests an undeniable trend. George Gilder predicted that the total bandwidth of the entire network would double every three to four months. at 117–21. Note that Gilder's measurement factors in the number of users connected online.. Nov. Id. 2007. the headlines have been filled with stories about ISPs conducting or proposing invasive new monitoring. BUS. Eldering et al. Oct. 2009 slower. reports emerged that AT&T was in talks with movie studios and record producers to develop new monitoring and blocking technologies. three analysts looked at historical modem technology and predicted that residential bandwidth to the Internet would grow at roughly the same rate as Moore's law. see also Steven Cherry.65 slower than the eighteen-month version of Moore's Law. Charles A. http://www. ALERTBOX.g. .DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1432 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. motive—financial turmoil coupled with pressures to use new technologies to raise revenue and assist third parties—and opportunity—ownership of the network bottleneck—they have begun to embrace new forms of aggressive monitoring. 65. a web usability expert. 1. WK. Apr. http://www. B. 67. 66. which may explain why it is so much faster than the rates recited in the text. which develops a content recognition system). AT&T to Get Tough on Piracy. IEEE COMM. NBC.OHM. when asked about the prospect of ISPs using "digital fingerprinting techniques on the network level. Edholm's Law of Bandwidth.64 At around that time. at 10.com/alertbox/980405. MAG. thanks to recent advances in monitoring technology. businessweek. at 58–60 (citing prediction of Hossein Eslambolchi. then at least in the near term. TELECOSM: HOW INFINITE BANDWIDTH WILL REVOLUTIONIZE OUR WORLD 11 (2000). during a panel discussion on digital piracy.
cam. 13.com/2008/09/25/hollywood-tries-to-get-support-forhaving-isps-block-copyrighted-files/. justifying higher advertising rates and earning 69. at A1 (stating further that "[t]he company has since clarified its position. 8. Saul Hansell. http://bits. and Universal. Id. "As you browse. analyze. supra note 74. N. 72. http://www. 2008. http://bits. Louise Story. 78.70 In 2008. we're able to categorize all of your Internet actions. AT&T and Other I.74 British ISPs British Telecomm. several copyrighted content owning companies like Viacom.Y. 2008). and Virgin Media reportedly plan to work with Phorm to target ads based on a user's Web surfing habits. which also include Microsoft. LOUIS POSTDISPATCH. Carphone Warehouse.76 If a user visits many travel-related websites. ST.nytimes. the former press secretary under President Clinton. THE PHORM "WEBWISE" SYSTEM 11 (May 18. and Mark McKinnon. Phorm will be able to access. AT&T CEO Randall Stevenson confirmed that the company was evaluating whether to undertake this kind of monitoring.blogs.com/2008/01/08/att-and-other-isps-may-be-getting-readyto-filter/. 20.Y. We actually can see the entire Internet.nytimes.pdf.71 Although the mission of the collaboration is still a bit unclear. 74.73 2.uk/~rnc1/080518-phorm.blogs. and categorize websites users have visited into separate advertising channels. TIMES BITS BLOG. 25. Story. 73. Sept. Brad Stone. AT&T entered into a new collaboration called Arts + Labs headed by Michael McCurry. former media adviser to the younger President Bush. 71. has bragged."69 Later that month. Feb. N. 76. Phorm's COO. Hollywood Wants Internet Providers to Block Copyrighted Files. TIMES. Id.72 What all of these parties hold in common is an interest in increased ISP filtering. 2008.'s May Be Getting Ready to Filter. 75. AT&T's Idea to Monitor Net Creates Web of Suspicion. 77. 70. one can make educated guesses based on the identities of the collaborators. consumers will be more likely to click on them. TIMES BITS BLOG.Y. and Cisco. Phorm A company called Phorm markets a plan for a new method of providing targeted Internet marketing.77 Virasb Vahidi. N. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1433 senior vice president said.P. saying it does not plan to play the role of Internet cop"). "We are very interested in a technology based solution and we think a network-based solution is the optimal way to approach this. Tim Barker. and McCurry has admitted that the group would try to prevent Congress from enacting new laws prohibiting ISPs from blocking copyrighted material. the world's leading vendor of networking hardware.cl. . she will begin to see more travel-related ads at Phorm-affiliated websites. 2008. Mar. 2008. NBC.S.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. Id. Id.OHM."78 Because these ads will target to behavior. Jan. A Company Promises the Deepest Data Mining Yet.75 By reconfiguring the ISPs' servers.ac. RICHARD CLAYTON. at C3.
82. supra note 84.3. an office sponsored by the UK Ministry of Justice. Phorm sends bogus "redirect" error messages to a Web browser in order to send traffic through a Phorm-run server..g. and the website hosting the ad. NEBUAD AND PARTNER ISPS: WIRETAPPING. Information Commissioner's Office.uk/1/hi/technology/7289481. E. ROBERT M. BBC NEWS. Comm.html. in part.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1434 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. 2008. Charter Commc'ns (May 14.uk/about_us/who_we_ are. GUARDIAN. The Information Commissioner. Mar. For example.net/files/NebuAd_Report. Ranking Member. Edward J. said.gov. There may be some technical differences under the hood. Users Offered Ad Tracking Choice. Senior Vice President. it inspired a fury of commentary and criticism in the UK. http://www.86 Congressmen Edward Markey and Joe Barton wrote a letter to Charter's CEO arguing that the plan might violate federal law and urging the company not to act until it had consulted with Congress. Charter Communications and NebuAd In May 2008. an expert in security engineering. Web Users Angry at ISPs' Spyware Tie-Up. Charter Communications announced its own plan to partner with a company called NebuAd. at 3.edu/furdlog/docs/2008-04-08_uk_ico_phorm_finding. Charles Arthur. Charter was criticized following its announcement. 85. Letter from Joe Stackhouse. Mar.80 assessed the program and concluded. http://msl1.uk/technology/blog/2008/mar/10/talktalktomakephormuseopt. Jim Armitage.thisismoney. Customer Operations. 10. whereas NebuAd injects code into a user's Web browsing stream.stm. British Broadcasting Corp. President . 2008).79 When Phorm's business model was revealed. Chairman. the ISP. Mar. COMM'RS OFFICE. to Mr.B. and Joe Barton. Subcomm. EVENING STANDARD. 2009 more money for Phorm. INFO. 87.ico. 80. H.mit. Neil Smit.uk/bargains-and-rip-offs/broadband-and-phones/article. some of Phorm's ISP partners have decided to require customers who want Phorm-targeted ads to opt in.com/packages/pdf/technology/20080514_charter_ letter. supra note 76.co.freepress. http://www. 6. 31. http://news. Letter from Rep.84 Charter's Senior Vice President sent a letter to customers informing them of the plan and giving them instructions on how to opt out.co. FORGERY AND BROWSER HIJACKING 2 (2008).85 Like its industry peers.pdf. The potential earnings might be significant.co."81 Professor Ross Anderson. Not Opt-Out. see also discussion infra Part I. 84. PHORM—WEBWISE AND OPEN INTERNET EXCHANGE 2 (2008). 86.aspx (last visited Aug. The public advocacy groups Free Press and Public Knowledge hired a technical consultant to produce a report dissecting NebuAd's methods. 81. 2008. CLAYTON. which sells an advertising model very similar to Phorm's. "The message has to be this: if you care about your privacy. http://graphics8.OHM. 2008. 2009)."82 In response to this type of criticism and government scrutiny. Who We Are.pdf. Virgin or Talk-Talk as your internet provider. http://www.87 79. that their analysis "strongly supports the view that Phorm products will have to operate on an opt in basis. do not use BT. TOPOLSKI.guardian.pdf.83 3. on Energy and Commerce. some have suggested that British Telecomm alone will earn eighty-seven million pounds per year from its proposed deal with Phorm. 83. Markey. 11. and the Internet. TalkTalk to Make Phorm Use Opt-In. TOPOLSKI.nytimes. http://www.bbc.. on Telecomms.
. Oct. available at http://www. Letter from Kathryn A.g. Microsoft Set to Testify. Stephanie Clifford. at C1. http://markey. Charter Drops Web Tracking Plans. 94. 92.C.org/deeplinks/2007/10/eff-testsagree-ap-comcast-forging-packets-to-interfere. Web Privacy on the Radar in Congress. Associated Press. available at http://www. 93. F.usatoday. TORRENTFREAK. 91. supra note 28.").89 In the face of this criticism. Nov. 95. subscribers to Comcast's cable Internet service began having trouble transferring files using the BitTorrent peer-to-peer protocol.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=84513. 90.. NebuAd has partnered with other.g. Comcast Throttles BitTorrent In August 2007. 2008). 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1435 The Senate Subcommittee on Interstate Commerce. smaller ISPs. about a month after announcing the plan. E.97 Throughout the ensuing firestorm.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. Seeding Impossible. Comcast Corp. to Marlene H. Aug.88 Connecticut's Attorney General also released a letter urging Charter not to implement the program.eff. Web Tracker NebuAd Sued over Privacy Claims.cgi?native_ or_pdf=pdf&id_document=6520033822 ("[T]he current network management technique implemented by Comcast was reasonable in light of available technology . http://gullfoss2.house. 2008). . Jim Salter. FCC. 19. 89.pdf. Trade. ASSOCIATED PRESS.msnbc. N. Dortch. 98. TOPOLSKI. ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUND..com/index.94 Eventually. Svensson. 97. Jan. Id. Aug. ONLINE MEDIA DAILY. http://www.gov/docs/telecomm/letter_ charter_comm_privacy.Y.. to Look at Complaints Comcast Interferes with Net. EFF Tests Agree with AP: Comcast Is Forging Packets to Interfere with User Traffic.OHM.com/id/25368034. http://bits. Vice President. http://publications. Ernesto. 2007. TIMES. 2008.. 2008.com/2008/06/24/charter-suspends-plan-to-sellcustomer-data-to-advertisers/. Senate Slates Online Ad Hearing. 88. http://torrentfreak. Paul Elias. ASSOCIATED PRESS. Reg. Comcast's techniques seemed more aggressive and harder to evade.93 Although BitTorrent users had long suspected that ISPs had been slowing down particular types of Internet traffic. See. 2008. Seth Schoen.cfm?fuseaction= Articles. at C4.Y. . Charter Suspends Plan to Sell Customer Data to Advertisers. supra note 84. 11.blogs.Y. 2007. N.92 4. Zachem. See Saul Hansell. Sec'y.com/comcast-throttles-bittorrent-traffic-seeding-impossible/ (first public posting related to controversy). 14. June 25. TIMES BITS BLOG.msn.htm.mediapost. June 24.91 In November 2008. at 6 (July 10. 9.98 and CEO of Charter Commc'ns (May 16.90 In the meantime. the techniques were confirmed by the press95 and activists96 and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) opened an investigation. and Tourism held a hearing about interactive advertising prompted by the controversy. 2008.com/tech/products/2008-11-13-2070037456_x. 96. Comcast has repeatedly defended its actions as necessary steps to manage its network. June 12.C. 17. Wendy Davis.gov/prod/ecfs/retrieve. N. six ISPs and NebuAd were sued by fifteen of their customers seeking to represent a class action of tens of thousands of customers for alleged violation of state and federal privacy laws. 2008. Charter abandoned it. TIMES. Aff. 2008. Comcast Throttles BitTorrent Traffic.nytimes. some of which have already implemented the program.fcc. e. .
Id. The AT&T. 2008. 102.comcast. Mar. or "reset. Net Neutrality Debate Leads to Stanford. TIMES. F. 2008). pdf. controlling network use in a "protocol agnostic" manner. at B7 (quoting Tony Warner.101 In response to the public firestorm and regulator scrutiny. WALL ST. Comcast promised it would change its network management approach. what alarmed people most was the way Comcast had handled BitTorrent packets. concluded that Comcast had "unduly interfered with Internet users' rights" and ordered the company to end its discriminatory practices. NebuAd. the inevitable result will be ISPs conducting full-packet capture of everything their users do.102 Under the agreement.C. 2009 Although this practice has become the center of attention in the network neutrality debate. Ryan Kim. N. Comcast to Appeal FCC Web Traffic Ruling. the FCC. at D1. Comcast.com/html/businesstechnology/2008158470_webfcc04. Ernesto. but the first steps in a steady expansion of industry practices. Commission Orders Comcast to End Discriminatory Network Management Practices (Aug. FCC. and Phorm examples will prove not to be outliers.nwsource. Comcast. Apr." packet. Associated Press. supra note 93.106 C. Press Release.fcc. Network Architecture and Content Distribution (Mar. 104. but not until the end of the year. 2008). 2008.com/About/PressRelease/PressReleaseDetail.OHM. Vishesh Kumar. the FCC launched an investigation100 and held two hearings. 101.Y. Feb. 1.103 Specifically. sending a forged RST. J. 103. Comcast and BitTorrent Form Collaboration to Address Network Management. in an unprecedented and landmark ruling.104 On August 1. SEATTLE TIMES.105 Comcast has appealed the ruling. will continue aggressively to expand network monitoring. and disclose details about its replacement practices. Its computers would masquerade as the computer on the other end of the communication. Unless some force—regulatory or non-regulatory—intervenes. BitTorrent to Work Together on Network Traffic.99 After reports of this behavior emerged.C. in March 2008. disclose more details about its practices. had to monitor user communications in search of BitTorrent packets.F. 2008. 4. Comcast now plans to manage traffic based on bandwidth usage rather than application choice. 100. causing the user's computer to think that the network connection had failed. 2008.. 27. Press Release.ashx?PRID=740. S. 26. Forecast I predict that ISPs. CHRON. faced with changes in technology and extraordinary pressures to increase revenues. 27. Sept. 18. http://seattletimes. See John Dunbar. Weighing Limits on Slowing Web Traffic. at C3. supposedly with their users' consent. Stephen Labaton. . 106. 99. 105. Comcast.html. available at http://www. 2008. supra note 97. Although Comcast. it is only tangentially about privacy. the company founded by the inventor of the BitTorrent protocol. Charter.. Comcast entered into an agreement with the vendor BitTorrent. Chief Technology Officer at Comcast). by definition.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-284286A1.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1436 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. http://hraunfoss.
the market for DPI tools has broadened in the past year. like packet sniffers. "power to see all. 110. uses the motto. id. trumpets the loss of privacy: "See EVERYTHING on the network. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1437 As further proof of this trend. at 163–64. a Telecom industry trade publication. whether or not the ISP has specific cause. because this question focuses on the worst-case scenario. 31. Wu. http://www. every action taken on the network is recorded and stored. Endace. slow hacks.ORG. soleranetworks.108 According to a report from the Light Reading Insider. 31. and are the harms vague and abstract or specific and concrete? For now. we must analyze how that potential harm will change with less-than-complete monitoring. without proof of harm. supra note 19.109 Sales of DPI products in 2007 reached $400 million and are expected to rise to one billion dollars in 2010. 2009). but monitor at all times. even if we conclude that complete monitoring will significantly harm customers. however."112 The "power to see all" will eviscerate user privacy. 108. at 163 (predicting future restrictions providers might impose on network neutrality by surveying "the marketing efforts of equipment vendors who target the cable and DSL market"). http://www. 28. Measuring and Comparing the Harms of Complete Monitoring Significant increases in ISP surveillance would not matter. How is anybody harmed by packet sniffing and deep packet inspection.php (last visited Aug. Let us now look closely at the privacy interests implicated. You can go back in time to watch network breaches. Solera Networks. and network slowdowns unfold. . To assess the harm caused by ISP deep packet inspection. 2009). we must first understand how much information an ISP can access and compare 107. Cf.com/solutions/top-ten. a vendor of DPI devices. How are customers harmed when ISPs begin capturing every single inbound and outbound packet traversing their networks? How does this threat compare to threats to privacy raised by other entities—online and offline—that have been the subject of much more prior commentary and regulation? Admittedly. 112."111 Another vendor.OHM. With a complete historical record.com/ (last visited Aug. D. Kyle. Solera Networks.dpacket. Light Reading Insider. 2007. consider the rise of the DPI industry.org/articles/deep-packet-inspection-vendors-tap-new-markets (summarizing Light Reading report). Top 10 Reasons for Complete Network Visibility. Endace.110 The vendors in this new submarket are not shy about the impact their tools have on privacy.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. DPACKET. let us take the worst case scenario—complete monitoring.107 These companies sell hardware and software tools that consume packets voraciously. 109. https://www.endace. Deep Packet Inspection: Vendors Tap into New Markets. Cf. Nov. a topic considered in Part II. supra note 23. there are no more secrets. 111.
for example. ISPs can view our online activity across the Internet landscape. b. no other online entity can watch every one of a user's activities. Visual Privacy as a Metaphor for Online Privacy We first need a way to discuss—qualitatively if not quantitatively— how much privacy an entity can invade. on the other hand. so too can privacy in the virtual world be violated by packet observation.OHM.000 feet in the air?—and on his viewing technology—is he using the naked eye. For example. but fixate on a narrow part of the landscape. our online privacy varies based on the observer's vantage point—is he running code on my computer. In fact. a. views broadly but shallowly: it can view an entire landscape. provide fine detail of distant objects. inside my home. spyware. 2009 that to the amount of information accessible by other entities that may threaten privacy. the nature and magnitude of a visual invasion depends on at least two things: the vantage point of the observer—is he situated across the street. we tend to think of breadth and depth of view. Just as privacy in the real world can be invaded by visual observation. It includes a replica copy of every web page visited and every e-mail message sent or re- . In addition. making the ISP's viewpoint uniquely broad. What ISPs Can See Because the ISP is the gateway—the first hop—to the Internet. a telescope. like a telescope. or cookies? Moreover. Binoculars or telescopes. almost no other entity can access as much personal information. seeing everything we do regardless of destination or application. Visual privacy is a useful analog to online communications privacy. The naked eye. sitting at an upstream spot on the network. Imagine that an ISP conducts complete monitoring on one user for one month. but it cannot make out details in far away things. ISPs can view our activity deeply. or a thermal imager? Similarly. because packet sniffers can store everything. or watching the log files of the websites I visit?—and the tools he wields—is he using packet sniffers. Measuring What ISPs Can See How much personal information flows through an ISP's wires and is stored on its computers? In modern connected life. Like the naked eye. with visual privacy. or on a satellite 30.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1438 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. binoculars. The data stored comprises a complete transcript of everything the user has done on the Internet for the month. 1. almost any communication sent to anybody online is accessible first by the ISP.
an ISP cannot decipher encrypted communications.2 (2009). even if a typical user splits her browsing into three equal parts. and encrypted data doesn't travel across the internet as efficiently as unencrypted data. SSL requires the use of an SSL certificate.google. According to the Official Gmail blog: We use https [which indicates a website protected by the SSL protocol] to protect your password every time you log into Gmail.com rather than http://mail. Ariel Rideout. WEB SITE COOKBOOK 206 (2006) ("SSL certificates are not cheap. and although some of these are available for free. obtaining one from a reputable vendor can be expensive. nielsen-online. Id. 114. http://gmailblog. That's why we leave the choice up to you. blogspot. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1439 ceived. for example. See DOUG ADDISON. For example.html. but we don't use https once you're in your mail unless you ask for it (by visiting https://mail. A2/M2 THREE SCREEN REPORT 4th Quarter 2008. First. THE OFFICIAL GMAIL BLOG.116 Gmail. NIELSEN. An ISP can obviously not see the packets sent through another provider. SLIGHT PARANOIA BLOG. http://paranoia."). so unlike Google. perhaps at home. on their mobile phones. Still.pdf. which can associate behavior at each of these three connections to the same unique login ID. What ISPs Cannot See: Encrypted Contents and Use of Another ISP An ISP's broad and deep visual field is marred by two blind spots.114 The encryption blind spot exception does not swallow the rule of broad vision for at least two reasons. 3. given the amount of time people spend online.dubfire. 116. ISPs cannot see the communications of users using a different provider. . and more. file transfer.google. Your computer has to do extra work to decrypt all that data. even though ISPs cannot read encrypted messages. 2008. Many people surf the web in different places. an ISP cannot read his e-mail messages. It includes every instant message. each part will still contain a significant amount of personal information. at 2 tbl. Nielsen reports that the average American Internet user spends twenty-seven hours online per month. and increasingly. most users and websites do not use encryption because it is difficult and expensive to implement115 and slows the user's browsing experience.113 Second. video download. disables SSL by default and sends communications "in the clear" instead.com). they can use so-called traffic analysis techniques to reveal some personal information 113.com/downloads/3_Screens_4Q08_final. July 24.OHM. c. when a user visits a website protected by the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol (signified by the little lock icon in the user's browser) all of the content sent between the user and website is surrounded by a tunnel of encryption. Feb. Why not? Because the downside is that https can make your mail slower. noting that SSL is turned off by default).net/2007/01/avoiding-nsa-through-gmail. http://www.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No.com/2008/07/making-security-easier. the residential ISP cannot. If a user visits Gmail using SSL. 115. work. VoIP conversation. 2007. book update. 117. Chris Sogohian.html (discussing Gmail and SSL. Making Security Easier.117 Second. Avoiding the NSA Through Gmail. and they must be renewed every year or two. tweet. First.
on Comm.119 2. http://www. REV. Saul Hansell. 2007. This fact counteracts. including both online and offline threats. ISPs have the motivation.. Google stores a user's search queries. 2009 from encrypted data streams. at 6. reads blogs using Google Reader. Feb. The Myth of the Superuser: Fear. supra note 93. For example. ISPs Compared to Google How does the amount of information accessible to an ISP compare with the amount of information accessible to Google.. N. tools. 7 (describing Phorm's use of search terms). a.g. IEEE Int'l Conf. N.118 Some have alleged that Comcast has been able to detect and throttle encrypted BitTorrent packets masquerading as something else. at 18. Peeking into Google's Use of Data. Maurizio Dusi et al.C. 2. http://bits.nytimes. which over time can amount to a complete intellectual profile of that user. 120. 2008. a company often scrutinized for its privacy practices?120 Today.com/content/view/33207/108/ (describing use of sniffer to grab Gmail cookies. Aug. and resources to conduct sophisticated monitoring. and behavior first through his ISP. TG DAILY. Point and Click Gmail Hacking at Black Hat. 1327 (2008). Then again. Paul Ohm.tgdaily. supra note 76. at least somewhat. 41 U. Detection of Encrypted Tunnels Across Network Boundaries.com/2008/07/30/peeking-into-googles-use-of-data/.P. requests. para. CLAYTON. TIMES BITS BLOG.OHM. Every time a user adds an appointment to his Google Calendar.Y. http://bits. Cf. this might be an example of the Myth of the Superuser I have condemned elsewhere. at 6 (describing NebuAd's interception of Google data).123 118. Humphrey Cheung. Risk. and both Phorm and NebuAd specifically ferret out Google search queries from user packets. sends or receives an e-mail message through Gmail.. Ernesto.122 Likewise. the ISP can scrutinize communications sent to almost all of Google's other services. 2008. at 1738. Italian researchers have demonstrated a method they call a "tunnel hunter. May 2008.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1440 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol.Y. 56–57. E. and Harm Online. Saul Hansell. . 1327. Address: Partially Personal Information. By raising the specter of a sophisticated ISP attack. But virtually everything Google knows about a user is also accessible to his or her ISP. TIMES BITS BLOG.blogs. I. 123. 119. edits a word processing document in Google Docs. 24. TOPOLSKI. supra note 2. knowhow. Saul Hansell has been reporting extensively about Google's privacy track record for the New York Times.121 These search queries can be sniffed by ISPs.com/2008/02/24/ip-address-partially-personal-information/. Comparing ISPs to Other Entities One way to make claims about the invasiveness of complete monitoring by an ISP is to compare it to other claimed threats to privacy. 121. Google has archived more information about an individual user's behavior than almost any other entity on earth. his computer sends copies of his messages.blogs. DAVIS L. the usually completely unsupported use of the Myth. 46. July 30. For example. 122. or views a video in Google-owned YouTube. nytimes." which can be "trained" to distinguish the ordinary use of an encrypted protocol called ssh from the use of other protocols masquerading as ssh. See Grimmelmann. supra note 84. allowing the attacker to access the user's inbox).
The ISP's potential invasion of privacy is the sum of the risk to privacy of every other website on the web. About Us. 31.127 For example.com/intl/en/options/ (last visited Aug. 127. eBay.opentracker. 2009).com is using the same computer as the person who had previously clicked on a Sony ad while surfing at AOL. 31." What started as a search company has expanded to provide (at least) dozens of different services. Amazon. So. b. 25. http://www. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1441 Thus. http://www. But this is only a small slice of the ISP's information pie. Of course.ars. Furthermore. Because DoubleClick can correlate information about user behavior across thousands of websites. or who they friend on Facebook. Jan. DoubleClick poses a similar 124. it would take some time for an ISP to catch up to Google's previously collected mountain of data. Nate Anderson.aspx (last visited Aug. Not 24. AOL. 2000. DoubleClick can know that the user who just clicked on a Nintendo ad at Nickelodeon's nick. Will Anonymize Log Files After 18 Months. Wikipedia.net/en/articles/allabout-cookies-third-party. JOHN BATELLE. More Google Products. what they read on the New York Times. Google can never know what a user does or says when he uses non-web Internet applications such as instant messaging or VoIP telephony. http://news. Google claims to store data for eighteen months. CNET NEWS. as an ISP can also access communications sent to and from Yahoo!. As time passes.OHM.128 They might even be the same person.html. DoubleClick.124 It follows that anything that can be said about Google's threat to privacy can also be said about the threat posed by an ISP. An ISP can. Google's stated purpose is to "organize the world's information.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. . Opentracker.doubleclick. an ISP can access all of the information available to Google about their shared customers. Google cannot dream of building the same type of digital dossier that an ISP can.com/techpolicy/news/2007/06/google-bows-to-eu-pressure-will-anonymize-log-files-after-18-months-not-24.com/about/about_us. 2007. Privacy Fears Raised by DoubleClick Database Plans. Microsoft.126 Many privacy advocates fret about DoubleClick because it can track the movement of users across different websites. DoubleClick is the intermediary. All About (Third Party) Cookies. see also Google. ARS TECHNICA. June 13. unless a user chooses to use Google for everything he does online. ISPs Compared to Google Plus DoubleClick Google's threat to privacy increased significantly with its acquisition of Internet advertising giant DoubleClick. and Craigslist. MySpace.com. 126.jsp. Google Bows to EU Pressure. 128. 2009). a number chosen in negotiations with European privacy officials. An ISP can. using a technology called a third-party cookie. the possibility that a user could do this becomes more likely. Facebook.google.125 Google cannot know what users buy on Amazon or eBay. http://www. in a sense. it might take a year and a half from the time ISPs flip the switch saving everything until they surpass Google's collection. the middle man that matches advertisers with websites. http://arstechnica. as well as the millions of websites unaffiliated with any of these giants. 125. THE SEARCH 248–50 (2005).com.com/2100-1023-236092. bringing users the banner and pop-up advertisements they see every day. Courtney Macavinta.cnet.
1283. 131. 132. at least for some users: the spyware distributor. DoubleClick's view is much narrower than an ISPs both in depth and breadth. at 10 (2005) (report of Committee on Energy and Commerce. search queries."). . FED. See H. Spyware and the Limits of Surveillance Law. In reality. ISPs can see a much broader swath of the Internet than DoubleClick.OHM. for example. EMARKETER. Spyware. ADWARE. 20 BERKELEY TECH. REP. and the parts taken together are still much less than the threat from ISPs. 2007. according to studies there are tens of millions of active websites in the world. 2005) ("Panelists generally agreed that reaching an industry consensus on one definition [of spyware] has been elusive because of the technical complexity and dynamic nature of software.130 the overwhelming majority of which are not DoubleClick customers. AND OTHER SOFTWARE 3 (Mar. "DoubleClick has relationships with thousands of large Web publishers. 2009) (showing 240 million hostnames in use with 73 million active websites in June 2009). noting that "[t]he Committee received testimony that spyware represents a range of software programs on a broad continuum from the most pernicious criminal activities on one end to the less threatening but still intrusive on the opposite end of the spectrum").J. and periodically "phone home. This sum is no greater than the parts. http://news. In contrast. 109-32. TRADE COMM. David Hallerman." sending information about the user's habits and communications to a third party. thus recording e-mail. Google: Tomorrow the World?. According to one analyst. monitor many of the user's activities. stor- 129.netcraft. 130. there is an entity with access to as much private information.131 but it generally describes a class of computer programs that infect a user's computer usually without consent. http://www.. in contrast. L. NO. For example. Netcraft. DoubleClick. The term spyware has many meanings.com/Article. STAFF REPORT. DoubleClick can only see activity at its clients' websites. Bellia. June 2009 Web Server Survey. MONITORING SOFTWARE ON YOUR PC: SPYWARE. Other content displayed on that page can be seen by the ISP and not by DoubleClick. An ISP can see much more deeply than DoubleClick because it can peer into the content of the packet. Even summing the threat from Google and DoubleClick presents less concern than the threat from ISP surveillance. your ISP can view information about any website on the Internet as soon as you choose to visit it.aspx?id=1004812. More importantly. can collect email as it is being drafted. c. Apr. Id. and passwords as they are entered."129 Although this is impressive. 16.html (last visited Aug. a so-called keylogger will record every key depressed on the keyboard. emarketer. 2009 threat to the one posed by an ISP.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1442 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. knows little more than that a particular user downloaded a particular ad while visiting a particular page.132 Spyware can rival and might even surpass a packet sniffer-wielding ISP. ISPs Compared to Spyware Distributors Although Google and DoubleClick cannot threaten privacy as much as an ISP can.R. Spyware uses a variety of surveillance techniques. Patricia L. 31. 1298 (2005).com/archives/web_server_ survey.
134 no single spyware distributor has access to information about every infected computer. . Botnets are networks of infected computers that can be controlled from one central source.html. http://www. theregister.J. 9. http://blog.OHM. Webroot Software Inc.com/Common/files/pdf/att_accomplishments_2007. Corporate Overview. 1437–45 (surveying state spyware laws).co. Webb.comcast. For example.137 133.ispplanet. 15:21 EST) ("Phorm or other Deep Packet Inspection is Adware or Spyware ON YOUR NETWORK . Ultimately. [whose] most notable [previous] foray online was as the founder of PeopleOnPage. First Do No Harm: The Problem of Spyware. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1443 ing messages that are later deleted. On the other hand. POST. Oct. Alex Goldman. TIMES BITS BLOG. 2007. a 2004 study found that 80 percent of survey respondents had spyware installed on their computers. 2008. L. L.att. capturing the typos and laterdiscarded paragraphs. TIMES TECH. Apr.com/corporate/about/pressroom/corporateoverview/ corporateoverview.136 The fact that they are comparable to one another supports calls to regulate complete monitoring.com/blog/2008/04/isps-behaving-like-spyware. Cynthia L. ISP Data Deal with Former 'Spyware' Boss Triggers Privacy Fears. One imprecise way to measure the number of hosts visible by any one distributor is to look at the size of so-called botnets.com/2008/09/08/dealing-with-isp-snooping/#comment-33000 (Sept.pdf. 25. supra note 135 ("At least five high-ranking employees at NebuAd . 136.Y. TIMES. AT&T and Comcast each serve more than 14 million high-speed Internet customers.html (last visited Aug. 2009). BLOG. Invasion of the Data Snatchers. http://bits.washingtonpost. NebuAd Hires Like Spyware. Susan P. at 1.135 Both NebuAd and Phorm have hired former spyware employees. an ad network that operated earlier in the decade and which was blacklisted as spyware by the likes of Symantec and F-Secure. are veterans of one of the more notorious spyware companies around.uk/2008/04/09/kraken_disagreement/.uk/2008/02/25/phorm_isp_advertising/ ("Phorm is run by Kent Ertegrul ."). The two surveillance methods have much in common. Joseph Menn. because many states have already banned or otherwise limited spyware. Apr. 7. Comcast. 2008.co. Chris Williams.com/resources/stateofspyware/excerpt. Although some studies suggest that nearly 90 percent of computers are infected with spyware. Spyware can even work while a computer is offline.Y. 31. 137. A spyware distributor needs to infect a computer before he can watch it. http://www.. 31. an ISP can watch every customer whenever it wants. 23. Acts Like Spyware. According to some experts. Spyware can capture traffic sent through more than one ISP. http://www. phoning home whenever it detects a network.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60881-2004Oct25.latimes. . 2009). 1433. spyware usually has much less breadth than an ISP's complete monitoring. ISP PLANET. 25. WASH. 20 BERKELEY TECH.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No.com/ technology/2008/06/nebuad-hires-li.A. http://www. . 2008. Posting of Dan to N. and it can even capture messages before they are encrypted. 2007 AT&T Accomplishments. . Crawford. State of Spyware Q2 2006. AT&T. Kraken Stripped of World's Largest Botnet Crown (Maybe). Jan.webroot. 8. the largest botnets contain around 400.133 these computers are probably infected with many different forms of spyware and phone home to many different watchers. ISPs Behaving Like Spyware. 2007. Dan Goodin. . http://www. whether complete monitoring is more invasive or less invasive than spyware is a close call. .theregister. Claria Corp. Experts Say. .html (last visited Aug. Feb. June 20. . N.html.nytimes. 2008. http://latimesblogs. THE REGISTER. and others have compared aggressive new forms of ISP surveillance to spyware. Although this is a large number it is much smaller than the customer population of the largest ISPs. http://www. THE REGISTER. Attack of the Zombie Computers Is a Growing Threat. 2004."). Another study performed by antispyware company Webroot found spyware on 89 percent of consumer PCs.000 infected victims."). John Markoff. 135. blogs. 134. Menn.html.
inconvenienced. §§ 2710–2711 (2006)). Someone with an embarrassing medical condition. No.139 records held by financial institutions. it nearly goes without saying that ISPs can possess much more information than the offline entities that Congress has chosen to regulate as threats to privacy. or collection under federal law. for example. No. and therapists all possess the kind of information society treats as among the most sensitive. and much scornful conduct—say the collection of child pornography—has a way of flourishing online. the amount and sensitivity of information an ISP can possess will come to outweigh the data owned by offline entities. 140. Friendships can be ruined. use. Pub. drivers' license records. L. §§ 2721–2725 (2006)). What is contained in these databases pales in comparison to what an ISP can access. Pub. . 142. or pain that could result from the trove of data of complete monitoring is limited only by the wickedness of one's imagination. L.OHM. 3195 (codified as amended at 18 U. lawyers.C. 3641 (1978) (codified as amended at 12 U. ISPs Compared to Offline Entities As people migrate more of their traditionally offline activities onto the Internet. Doctors.C. and reputations can be destroyed. The risk is ameliorated because Microsoft and Google both use mandatory SSL for their health records services. E. thus putting ISPs in a position to access this information in transit too. jobs can be lost. Google and Microsoft have recently launched services designed to warehouse medical records online. embarrassment. Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988. 95-630.S.C. 103-322. Finally.S. L. 93-380. Education Amendments of 1974. L.140 educational records. Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994.S. would probably rank her medical records as the records whose possible breach poses the single-greatest threat to her privacy. 88 Stat. or otherwise troubled when ISPs completely monitor? The potential inconvenience. For example. §§ 3401–3420 (2006)). 44 (codified as amended at 20 U. Right to Financial Privacy Act. yet today well-connected people routinely reveal the same kind of highly protected information they would have once only told these three types of professionals when communicating online. 2099 (codified as amended at 18 U. 108 Stat.C. 100-618. hardship.141 and video viewing records142 are all restricted from certain types of disclosure. but secrets increasingly get whispered in e-mail or instant message. 2009 d.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1444 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. No. Harms How are people harmed. Pub. 139. Any person who has ever been undone by a fact about him or 138. Pub.S. 102 Stat. 141. even those traditionally thought to pose the greatest risks to privacy. § 1232g (2006)). 92 Stat. No.138 A person with a shameful family secret or a history of some sort of scornful conduct will worry today most about breaches by his family members or by witnesses to the conduct.
The all-knowing digital dossiers compiled by data brokers that Professor Solove has written about at least take some effort and expense to assemble. It is not just things uttered that are put at risk. Celebrity Passport Records Popular. and very likely your credit card and bank account numbers as well. 277 U. available at http://www. or who may call him. Reconstructing Electronic Surveillance Law. and the state of your relationships. 144. dissenting). requiring money. 438. 2008. http://www.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/02/23/national/ a044051597. and everything that a person says or does"). keeping the data under lock-and-key at other times. 21.g. or send gifts to your grandfather. Nov. It is not only the user who is watched whose privacy is implicated because.com/news/story/irs-worker-snooped-tax-records-of-almost-200celebrities (tax records). Daniel J. It can learn your travel plans. There are many reported cases of bored or curious employees browsing the records of celebrities. Amol Sharma. social interaction. 2008. we would worry much less about the risk of harm. July 4. POST. it contains all of this and more. MARKETWATCH. 2008.. Charles Ornstein.145 Data brokers need to buy and mine data. and trips across town to do mundane chores. IRS Employee Sentenced for Snooping. It can know how often you call your mother. SOLOVE. L. E. ASSOCIATED PRESS. L. Mar. THE DIGITAL PERSON: TECHNOLOGY AND PRIVACY IN THE INFORMATION AGE (2004).. and human capital.146 143. buy. United States. WALL ST. at A1 (passport records).com/cgi-bin/article. J. DANIEL J. "The tapping of one man's telephone line involves the tapping of the telephone of every other person whom he may call. 1264. 72 GEO. 146. ISPs that completely monitor will promise to use the data for well-specified purposes. 20. 145. ISPs can track what third parties say about a person. And the data it collects is not limited to the things in a user's digital dossier like financial data and government-obtained data. It can know what you read. e-mail your sister.. Perfect security is impossible. Of course.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. Hospital to Punish Snooping on Spears. Aug.sfgate. 23. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1445 herself could have suffered the same fate in modern times at the hands of an ISP with a packet sniffer. 2008. 15. Foley.DTL&hw=privacy+database&sn=001&sc=1000 (public utility records). because it sends your bill there each month. even when he or she is not a party to the communication. Olmstead v.143 An ISP can track your ailments. Obama's Cellphone Account Breached by Verizon Employees. It simply flips a virtual switch and waits.OHM.marketwatch. emotions. Workers Snooping on Customer Data Common. And unlike Google. watch.S. J. 476 (1928) (Brandeis. Solove. at A1 (hospital records). and the risk of internal misuse—from bored employees for example— can probably never be extinguished. WASH. 1269 (2004) (stating that electronic surveillance "records behavior. because the ISP will also be able to compile a detailed record of thoughts and behavior as well. Feb. Ryan J. it already has an authoritative record of your home address. . none of these harms materialize from the storage of information alone. 2008.A. If perfect security could be guaranteed. technology. big dates. Andrea Coombes. however. Glenn Kessler. REV. and borrow. An ISP needs to do none of this."144 Moreover. TIMES. As Justice Brandeis put it. And it can do all of this effortlessly. WASH.
but the dissolution of the boundaries that insulate different spheres of behavior from one another.blogs. Columbia v. N. http://www. 2008. Bunnell.com/07/07/the-privacy-risk-from-the-courts/ ("[I]n the United States. Microsoft. 150. of course. 151. See infra Part II. 2009) (discussing order). 154. which can be undermined from surveillance. subpoenaed search engine query archives from Yahoo!. 1425 (2000).. 2007) (Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Plaintiffs' Motion to Require Defendants to Preserve and Produce Server Log Data and for Evidentiary Sanctions and Denying Defendants' Requests for Attorneys' Fees and Costs)."154 http://online. 844."). July 4. Electronic Frontier Foundation. July 7. sensitive and benign human relationship and action. 31. 2006. 2009 The trove of data can also be exposed to external threats. v. Cal.Y.147 In the past year. equality.nytimes.F. human relationships. and even democracy and civil society. Julie E. either as part of a criminal investigation or in some sort of civil dispute. every single harm identified by scholars is raised by the specter of ISP monitoring. 147.html (reporting unauthorized browsing of then President-Elect Barack Obama's cell phone records by Verizon employees). No. Providers will. Bunnell. and Google.A. 2008.149 and the DOJ. identified potential harms to autonomy. Cohen.pdf.150 Much recent privacy scholarship has tried to provide theoretical accounts of the potential harms of information privacy breaches. One Subpoena Is All It Takes to Reveal Your Online Life. Google Must Reveal Some Secrets: Judge Rules in Case Involving Internet Privacy but Has Concerns About Divulging Too Much. Because the data flowing through an ISP's veins is as "diverse as human thought. Examined Lives: Informational Privacy and the Subject as Object.com/article/SB122724536331647671.wsj. TIMES BITS BLOG. S. 148.Y. ACLU.OHM. one of the biggest privacy issues is what information about people can be revealed through a court process. 153. 824.153 She talks about how "[t]he injury . consider one specific harm especially triggered by ISP surveillance: the dismantling of online boundaries. Id.151 These scholars have. 842 (E. Professor Julie Cohen describes the benefits of psychological repose. org/cases/columbia-pictures-industries-v-bunnell (last visited Aug. at C1. a court ordered YouTube to produce to Viacom the viewing records for every public video ever hosted on its site. http://www. for example. 52 STAN.S. CHRON.eff. Mar. 15. at *1 (C.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1446 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. Google Told to Turn Over User Data of YouTube.D. Reno v. . Moreover. 152. . Saul Hansell.D. Verne Kopytoff. 2007 WL 2080419.eff. these databases full of ISP-collected information will prove irresistible to civil litigants armed with subpoenas. ."152 and encompasses every kind of public and private. http://bits. at C1. but there will inevitably be breaches. promise security. but for now. These harms will be considered in greater depth in Part II. 929 F. 852 (1997) (quoting district court findings of fact. L. TIMES. 149. Miguel Helft. Collections of web surfing data would be a prime target for theft and a devastating risk for loss. Pa 1996)). CV06-1093. does not lie in the exposure of formerly private behaviors to public view. Columbia Pictures Indus.org/files/filenode/torrentspy/columbia_v_ bunnell_magistrate_order. N. 1373. May 29. in a civil case.148 another court ordered a website that had intentionally declined to log data about visitors for privacy's sake to turn on logging to reveal potential copyright infringers. REV. Supp. 521 U. freedom.
let us start with a blank slate and ask: What 155. F. predictive. REV.155 These expectations are breached once ISPs begin monitoring. the hardest steps lay ahead. given the potential for terrifying privacy breaches and the evidence that the constraints protecting users from such breaches have fallen. incline choices toward the bland and the mainstream. There are boundaries the owner cannot cross. Cohen. cause alarm. This is why third-party cookies. and there are no limits to the scope of their surveillance."156 We will lose. at 1426. we enjoy very little privacy about where we go on a particular site (or family of sites) from the watchful eye of the owner of that site. Id. a law should ban ISP complete monitoring.158 Too often. 768–72 (2007).159 Before analyzing those laws.. which raises the risk of terrifying. this Article summarizes the federal and state wiretapping laws that already provide privacy protection from many forms of ISP monitoring. Thus far. Daniel J. But third-party cookies are easy to block and they reveal nothing to websites who do not deal with the third-party advertiser. and normative—has already been done. The more difficult and important question is how much other conduct—conduct that invades less privacy than complete monitoring—should policymakers regulate? II. Even unsophisticated users probably have a sense of this. but we also know that the site owner cannot "follow" us when we leave his site. and hard to articulate. privacy harms are inchoate. e. According to Cohen. Not so with ISP monitoring. understanding that the New York Times tracks which articles we read on its site but has no way of knowing what we do when we visit the Washington Post. .DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. WEIGHING PRIVACY In Part IV.g. Although much work—descriptive. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1447 The dismantling of boundaries is one of the worst effects of pervasive ISP monitoring. supra note 153. this Article has analyzed only the worst case—the risks from complete monitoring. 159. nearly boundless harm. which allow one advertiser to follow our behavior across other sites that have contracts with the advertiser.OHM. it is often hard if not impossible to opt-out. Solove. "[p]ervasive monitoring of every first move or false start will. Today. Conclusion: We Must Prohibit Complete Monitoring In sum. 158. at the margin. See supra note 92 and accompanying text (describing lawsuit against NebuAd). in her terms. Providers will likely be sued or prosecuted under these laws if they continue crossing the lines they have recently crossed. and we know it. "I've Got Nothing to Hide" and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy. 156. When ISPs monitor. 745. seemingly minor. 44 SAN DIEGO L. 157."157 The question of harm has often bedeviled privacy scholars. See. giving us the impression that we are always watched. "the expression of eccentric individuality.
UNDERSTANDING PRIVACY 1 (2008). Id.162 recommends a four-pronged approach for setting out theories of privacy. at 49. 168. expectations. he embraces a dynamic view of privacy. 2009 principles should underlie an ideal regulation of ISP monitoring. he recommends a pluralistic (as opposed to unitary).166 Solove says that we should simultaneously "resolve privacy issues by looking to the specific context."168 Third. it improves on the work of others. A. Professor Solove. SOLOVE. Id. but a cluster of many distinct yet related things. 163. 161. Solove advises that privacy should be discussed neither too specifically nor too generally."160 Nearly everybody celebrates its value. despairing at the term's vagueness and breadth."165 Second. 167. but he offers less in this work about the content of such theories. a self-avowed pragmatist who traces an intellectual lineage directly back to John Dewey. weighing the benefits against the harms of in160. at 47–49. privacy "is a concept in disarray. at least as a general matter. Id. . "Privacy is not one thing. at 74–77. See id. empirical approach to conceptualizing privacy. 165. Id. Theories of Information Privacy As Professor Daniel Solove puts it. Id.170 Solove thus provides a pragmatist's frame for developing theories of privacy in Understanding Privacy. at 46–49. at 50–51. DANIEL J. In other work. given the complexity of balancing privacy with an ISP's legitimate needs? The Article approaches this difficult task first in this Part by surveying and critiquing earlier approaches to balancing communications privacy. Id.169 Finally. 162. 169. or types of information as his organizing principle. at 42–44. he advocates a focus on problems instead of preferences. Id. 170. 164. refining a much more workable approach to weighing privacy. Although this Article proposes no new theory.161 As a way out of this morass. but many have grown frustrated trying to define it."167 while at the same time use "a general framework to identify privacy harms or problems and to understand why they are problematic. at 48. at 40.OHM. Id. he eschews searches for "rigid conceptual boundaries and common denominators" in favor of a Wittgensteinian "family resemblances" approach. at 40–41. 166. Id. because notions of privacy change over time and place.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1448 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. Solove seems to embrace a consequentialist balancing. Part III applies this new approach to offer an ideal ISP monitoring regulation. Then.164 In other words.163 most of which I adopt here. First.
future-looking analysis. because there is a risk of regulating based on idle speculation. but this is hard to do well. I follow the same essential structure of earlier scholars. Solove's third prong encourages a dynamic. The Social Foundations of Privacy: Community and Self in the Common Law Tort. offering refinements for how to measure benefits and harm. AMITAI ETZIONI. 171." then the threat of potential future harm is small and the analysis can end. When highly sensitive private information is at risk.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1449 vading privacy. But by focusing on ISP surveillance. L.173 For the most part. 173. 77 CAL. See Solove. Because at this stage in the analysis there has been no evidence of significant past harm. rapidly changing technologies. empirically sound way. we must next assess the historical record: have there been harmful breaches of privacy in the past? If the answer to the question is yes. policymakers should focus on past examples of harm. in step three. If the answer is no. The first step of the process was addressed in Part I. and most importantly. and policymakers need to base their predictions on a careful. This is the trickiest part.172 Instead of reconceptualizing privacy. 957. I can offer a refinement to their work. because ISPs possess a vast—uniquely vast— potential data reach. First. there should be a presumption that potential future harm is unlikely. REV. See Ohm. or just-so stories about what is possible. Post. I have critiqued the harmful effects of speculation and science fiction in an earlier work. When assessing the privacy of dynamic. we should look at the amount and type of information revealed by complete monitoring. one should take a serious look—an engineer's look—at the dynamics of the problem.171 Most theorists embrace the same methodology. supra note 158. Robert C. . In the case of ISPs. science fiction. 968 (1989). This step measures the worst case scenario. so long as they measure them in a careful. B. To assess profoundly dynamic situations—those in which events break weekly. the analysis must continue. as in the ISP surveillance situation—I propose a three-step process for assessing the likelihood of future significant harm to privacy. policymakers should make predictions about the future. the need for regulation is likely significant. Analyzing Privacy in Dynamic Situations Harms to privacy can be measured in two ways—by focusing solely on past problems or by speculating about potential future harm. at 1330. how sensitive is the private information at risk? If the answer is "not very sensitive. but they should not ignore undeniable indicators of future harm. rigorous assessment of the situation. then. 172. supra note 118.OHM. THE LIMITS OF PRIVACY 196 (1999).
174 Telephone companies and their employees are sued and criminally charged more often than ISPs.eff. On the one hand.g. WALL ST. 1474–75 (9th Cir. Despite the potential harms an ISP could cause. 22.2d 176.. e. however. 682 (2003). Ellen Nakashima. 992 F. 89 VA. 2006. and even occasionally for recording voice conversations in the pursuit of telephone service thieves.. Tel.3d 1. the limits of ISP monitoring technology have guaranteed users a 174. Sistok v. E. 8.. See. United States v.176 Even news accounts about ISPs collecting information were once rare. 1997). 1–3 (1st Cir. except for lawsuits against providers for supporting government monitoring. Mullins. 176.177 2. http://www.g. United States v. Tim Wu.. 957 F. at D1 (describing release of AOL search queries). See. 957 F. REV. 553. 179. Dep't of Justice. Pervaz. Aug. Hepting v. which record telephone numbers dialed from a phone.2d 1472. AOL Takes Down Site with Users' Search Data. Lex Informatica: The Formulation of Information Policy Rules Through Technology.. 1980). Feb.org/cases/hepting (last visited Aug. The tie-breaker is the overwhelming evidence of change developed earlier. WASH. On the other hand.g. but for now it is enough to note that many of these providers were vindicated because they were trying to track abusers of their systems. 1993). Joseph Pereira. Joel R. ISPs threaten privacy more than almost any other institution in society. 1997). POST. 615 P. ISPs Have a Track Record of Respecting Privacy The second step is to see if ISPs have abused their potential power.usdoj. L. Former Officer of Internet Company Sentenced in Case of Massive Data Theft from Acxiom Corporation. Inc. When Code Isn't Law. 216 (M. at 219–20. technological barriers to extensive monitoring have fallen significantly.OHM. usually for installing devices like pen registers. How Credit-Card Data Went Out Wireless Door. there are few examples of past breaches. 215. at A1 (describing loss by TJX Cos. LAWRENCE LESSIG. J. See supra Part I.179 To adapt an argument from Professor Harry Surden. 76 TEX.178 There are convincing reasons to suspect that providers have respected privacy only because they have been constrained from doing more. Reidenberg.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1450 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. Many scholars have recently focused on the role of code as a regulator of online conduct. United States v.). 178. CODE (1999). 175.B. . Fla. 118 F. This is an amazingly pristine track record. despite this potential to do harm. McLaren. e. Supp. Electronic Frontier Found. May 4. L.htm (describing conviction and sentence of hacker who stole data from Acxiom Corp. 178–79 (Mont. ISPs have a good track record for respecting privacy.. especially when compared to lawsuits and news reports about other types of online entities being careless with personal information. Supp. McLaren. 2007. 177.. 555 (1998). Pervaz.175 Some of these cases will be discussed in greater depth in Part IV.D. 2006. Constraints—and Signs of Evaporation The analysis thus far has raised contradictory signals.gov/criminal/cybercrime/ levineSent. 31. 2009 1. REV. http://www. No reported cases to date have discussed the liability of an ISP for unlawfully running packet sniffers. AT&T. 2009) (collecting materials relating to lawsuit against AT&T for assisting NSA monitoring program). Sys.3d at 6. of tens of millions of credit card numbers). 679. Nw. 118 F.
Microsoft's Windows Vista Global Usage Share Is 13. Unlike an ISP. the recent news stories about Comcast. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1451 structural constraint right in privacy. technological constraints have not fallen in recent times. Apr.181 But in this case. Id.onestat.html ("Microsoft's Windows dominates the operating system market with a global usage share of 95. at 1619. sending data back whenever it detected a connection to the Internet. Consider Microsoft.OHM. 60 SMU L. 3.B.com. and Charter prove that markets and norms have failed to prevent new breaches. Microsoft could easily circumvent encryption and track communications regardless of network provider. Thought Experiment: What If Microsoft Started Monitoring? This Article is not arguing that ISPs must be regulated only because they have the potential to access a vast amount of sensitive information.com.94 percent.182 In addition to changes in technology. AT&T. but through technology and architecture. monitoring every file saved or modified. 182. http://www. Phorm. Of course. Structural Rights in Privacy. Microsoft could do even more. 183. As the developer of Operating Systems (OS) used by more than 90 percent of worldwide users. Onestat. Microsoft does none of this even though there are no technological constraints in its way.184 Microsoft is in a position to know even more about its users than ISPs. It could even install spyware to take snapshots of user screens every few seconds. the constraint right has been recently breached.24 Percent on the Web According to OneStat. yet they need not be regulated today. and unlike what is happening to broadband. Furthermore. every keystroke pressed and mouse movement. 2008.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. we might have dismissed it as the overreaching of a bad actor. But when so many different large players in such a short period of time have begun to diverge from past practice and have been accused by others of breaching informal norms. REV. 1607–09 (2007). policymakers should consider reinstituting those rights by enacting laws. See supra Part I. Falling constraints are the critical part of this argument. 184. we need to ask if another regulatory force—the law—must fill the gap. Harry Surden. 181. Microsoft could monitor at all times.com/html/aboutus_pressbox58-microsoftwindows-vista-global-usage-share. Surden argues that as latent constraint privacy rights evaporate.180 Structural rights promise privacy not by a regulator's edict."). and when an entire industry—the DPI industry—of more invasive monitoring techniques has arisen. 1. Microsoft has made no public pronouncements and has re- 180. . It could alter its OS and applications software to give itself access to every network communication sent or received by every Windows-based computer. A few companies have access to as much or more information about users than ISPs. 1605. Id.183 If only one of these stories had emerged. Even for computers that are only sporadically online.
This leaves the question. given the massive amount of information accessible by ISPs. and we have no reason to believe those forces will not continue to hold sway.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1452 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. Finally. and it would place Microsoft in the same camp as NebuAd. Before examining these claims in greater depth. 188.188 Consent is a problematic topic. we should regulate the worst forms of ISP surveillance. See infra Part III. July 25. 2009 vealed no plans indicating the company's moves to monetize user information. Phorm. Second.OHM. AT&T. let us first dispense with an oft-used but unhelpful metaphor. This reticence is in contrast to the company's open plans to engage in behavioral marketing of those who use its search engine. TIMES BITS BLOG. ISPs argue that they respect privacy whenever they anonymize or aggregate the data they collect enough to prevent associations between the data and the user. In conclusion. technical look at what ISPs do.nytimes. and Comcast. Ballmer's Catch-22 Problem with Search Ads.186 I conclude in Section B that this is a plausible claim in theory but ultimately often irrelevant in practice. For all of these reasons. 186. III. regulators need not regulate the potential threat of OS monitoring by Microsoft today. . 185.com/2008/07/25/ballmers-catch-22-problemwith-search-ads/ (reporting that Microsoft "was working diligently on narrowing the [search query] advertising gap [with Google]"). See infra Part III.blogs. N. what can and should we regulate. ISPs claim they monitor with their users' consent.185 Evidently something—probably industry norms and the fear of regulation—has disciplined the company. 2008. and how much regulation is enough? As is so often the case with privacy. ISPs claim necessity. http://bits. and in light of the evidence suggesting that ISPs can monitor more invasively than before.187 In order to assess these claims and provide a specific prescription.Y.C. They say they cannot provide the services they are hired to provide unless they are allowed to do many kinds of monitoring.D. it comes down to balance. and I propose a novel mode of analysis in Section D. If tomorrow Microsoft began monitoring invasively—imagine it began showing ads targeted to what users were entering into Microsoft Word documents—I would urge regulators to regulate for the same reasons I urge them to regulate ISPs today. 187.B for further discussion. See infra Part III. It would be evidence that norms or market pressures had shifted. REGULATING NETWORK MONITORING Part II established that we must skeptically scrutinize ISP claims justifying their new types of invasive monitoring. First. Section C takes a detailed. There are three different claims they tend to make. Saul Hansell.
18 U. 15 (2008) (testimony of Gigi B. Telephone privacy is regulated in this manner—we vigorously protect the secrets "within. Many have done just this. purport. 193. ISPs are opening these envelopes. http://archives.193 Despite its broad adoption. on Telecomms. These laws apply to network monitoring as well. routing. protects the "content" of communications—defined as "the substance.energycommerce. The address on the outside of the envelope is analogous to the 'packet header' and the information inside the envelope is analogous to the 'payload. See infra Part IV.C. 192. 110th Cong. on Commerce. uses the analogy. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1453 A.A for more on these laws. 190.071708. or signaling information. In the quotes above. Saying that there is an "inside" and an "outside" to a packet is the same thing as saying that we need to draw a line between permissible and impermissible scrutiny. or meaning of [the] communication"189—more vigorously than it protects the non-content "dialing." and barely regulate the information revealed on the outside. Comm. for example.shtml.gov/cmte_mtgs/110-ti-hrg. but it offers no guidance about how or where to draw that line.S."190 We could unthinkingly apply the envelope analogy to the Internet. Abandoning the Envelope Analogy If we adopted the approaches of the past."192 Even those who disagree with these sentiments. Adjunct Professor. The envelope analogy states a conclusion rather than provide a tool for coming to that conclusion. Which parts should be deemed inside. 191. 31. . and Transp. there are many good reasons to avoid this analogy. For example. Reed. dpacket.OHM. But those who use it tend to treat it as an analytic tool. and the Internet of the H. . Sci.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No.DeepPacket. reading their contents. Sohn."191 Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge similarly argued that "[Deep Packet Inspection] is the Internet equivalent of the Postal Service reading your mail. Reed testified to a House Subcommittee that he avoids "defining a whole collection of technical terms by suggesting that you view these Internet Datagrams as envelopes containing messages from one host to another on the Internet. Broadband Providers and Consumer Privacy: Hearing Before the S. with non-content headers stamped outside the envelope and the content sealed within. . 110th Cong (2008) [hereinafter Broadband Provider Hearing] (statement of David P. https://www. . addressing. and keeping varying amounts of information about the communications inside for their own purposes. and which are outside the envelope? 189. every speaker assumes away all of the hardest questions by imagining packets as envelopes.org/ introduction-deep-packet-inspection-processing (last visited Aug. What Your Broadband Provider Knows About Your Web Use: Deep Packet Inspection and Communications Law and Policies: Hearing Before the Subcomm. declaring that a packet is like a closed letter in the mail. Massachusetts Institute of Technology).C. Federal law. § 2510(8) (2006). Public Knowledge)..org. Introduction to Deep Packet Inspection/Processing. which it is not.S. 18 U. such as a DPI industry-supported website. § 3127(3).dpacket. David P. Comm on Energy and Commerce. President. we would regulate ISP monitoring using the envelope analogy.. 2009) ("A packet is analogous to a physical postal mail message.'").house.
or sometimes both). the header-content line is overprotective of privacy because often the content of Internet communications are banal and not likely to cause many privacy harms. by itself. there is more than one envelope. DAVID G. especially when it is aggregated and correlated with other non-content data across time. Not so. The Problem of Perspective in Internet Law.J. and it gives rise to question-begging and difficult line-drawing. Orin Kerr generalizes the recurring problem with drawing analogies between physical spaces and online constructs. the header-content line is underprotective because often the non-content part of the packet is the part that can harm an individual. supra note 143. the line between the inside and outside of the virtual envelope is difficult if not impossible to draw. too broad. some might want to preserve it because it is supposedly easy to apply.OHM. at 1288 ("Envelope information can be quite sensitive. That said. Even though the envelope analogy fits poorly with our perceptions of communications privacy. at 13 (criticizing earlier conceptions of privacy as being too narrow. Outer layers contain many things we consider non-content—such as the addresses used to deliver a message—but they may contain content as well. although it is clearly part of the "content" of each message. content information can be quite innocuous. a signature could conceivably be very important and private. In other words. 197. Think of a packet like a Russian nesting doll. Kerr. but the solutions proposed to implement the analogy are rarely so clear. Solove. 195. if only one of my computers is configured to attach a particular signature. then the signature becomes a clue to my physical location at the time the message was sent. MESSERSCHMITT. supra note 160. 91 GEO.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1454 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol.197 The knowledge that a particular user accesses a blog at particular times that correlate to the postings of a notorious anonymous blogger may expose a closely held secret. the envelope analogy is at the same time overprotective and underprotective.196 The signature my e-mail program appends at the bottom of e-mail messages is not. 357."). at 117–21 (discussing the harms that can result from data aggregation). Second. For example. See SOLOVE. the importance of content depends on the context. In large part because of the layered quality of packets. SOLOVE.194 The innermost layer is usually what we consider the "content" of the message—such as the body of the e-mail message or the digital photograph being downloaded from the Web. supra note 160. 196. Packets are built up in successive layers of information with each one wrapped around all of the "inner" layers that have come before through a process called encapsulation. . Orin S.198 At any given layer in the Russian194. Because of the layering of network protocols. 198. in the Internet and packet context. L. For one thing. policymakers should search for an alternative organizing principle.195 For these reasons. 2009 The promise of the envelope analogy is that it is clear and easy to apply. UNDERSTANDING NETWORKED APPLICATIONS: A FIRST COURSE 519–20 (1999). terribly sensitive. First.
the line between headers and content seems so solid. http://volokh. the muddy line is muddied further. Even if we cannot produce the mathematical equations. which is usually grouped above the line with the headers.").ssrn. 57 UCLA L. From their vantage point. encapsulated layers can be called "content. com/posts/1213821576. Id.cfm? abstract_id=1450006. In fact. Broken Promises of Privacy: Responding to the Surprising Failure of Anonymization. many of us quite like— when CNN presents vote tallies and pie-chart summaries of surveys about voter sentiment. I suspect most informed commentators would still say that source/destination IP addresses are addressing info. all of the interior. at 365–68. presents the data at the individual level. He gives the specific example of comparing the privacy of online communications to physical mail. TCP port 80 at a given IP address—is 'content' from the perspective of the data link layer (Ethernet. 2008. (forthcoming 2010). we would know it is impossible for our personal viewpoints to ever be revealed as a result of these information disclosures thanks to the gross aggregation in the final report and the care with which our identity has been handled in the collection of the information. we do not care—in fact.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. then ISPs would have no business accessing the To: and From: lines of email messages. 199. IP information may seem like content.199 If this view were adopted. Even when we are one of the voters surveyed. etc. Posting of eck to The Volokh Conspiracy. On election night. Id. content or non-content? As an e-mail message is being sent across the Internet. When composed or read. Paul Ohm. Anonymization and Aggregation Are Usually Not Enough Anonymization and aggregation are techniques for protecting the privacy of people associated with data by omitting important details. REV. . even this clear line is kind of muddy: is the Subject line.201 There can be no denying that we recognize anonymization and aggregation as norms of acceptable disclosure in some contexts. Then again." Take an e-mail message.200 Anonymization. but uses techniques—most often a form of encryption called a one-way hash—to obscure the most important details. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1455 doll-like nested layers. it is even drawn as a visible line on the user's screen separating the body of the e-mail message and the header information at the top of the window.com/sol3/papers. token ring. 20:43 EST) ("[A]ll of the TCP/IP info—in your example. in contrast. 201. B. available at http://papers. For example. we have a sense that the odds of our "reidentification" from this data are slim. Aggregation is the grouping together of information to disclose facts in gross while hiding the details of individuals. only the headers in the outermost IP layer are noncontent and that everything encapsulated within is content. 200.OHM.shtml#388008 (June 18. there are layers "above" IP: the data link and physical layers. one could argue that from the ISP's vantage point. 357–58 (2003).). layer encapsulation notwithstanding.
and Surprises. intuitively if not mathematically.html (last visited Aug. The reports probably remind readers once each year about the giant iceberg of knowledge Google must possess in order to create this little tip of information. At the end of every year. Id. But most probably fret little about the tip itself. 2009). Google. 31.html (last visited Aug. 205. Google. AOL researchers released twenty million keyword searches submitted by hundreds of thousands of subscribers over a three-month period.google.OHM. Worse. What the world learned is that knowing an unidentified person's search queries is often enough to breach privacy. Hilton's arrest and imprisonment. people searched for "Britney Spears" more often than "Paris Hilton. 1. 203. had entered credit card and social security numbers. and disclosure of information. 204. Although identities could not be revealed directly. some types of anonymization and aggregation should act as exceptions to prohibitions on the collection. we know that for most of the year. We are learning that on the contrary there may be no such thing as perfect anonymization. use. Consider the America Online (AOL) data release. there seems to be a sense that aggregation can protect privacy when the categories are broad and the handling of the data is done with care. But ISPs and vendors like Phorm and NebuAd err by treating the word "anonymization" like a talisman for avoiding privacy scrutiny.202 From the 2007 Zeitgeist report. http://www. Trends. http://www. we are beginning to suspect that experts tend to underestimate how easy it is to reidentify people from supposedly anonymized data. supra note 177. Given these well-recognized norms. 2009 Even online. No Perfect Anonymization ISPs seem to think that data exists only in a binary state: personally identifiable or perfectly anonymized.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1456 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. 31. In 2006.204 Researchers had anonymized the data—or so they claimed—by replacing information which could tie queries to an individual like AOL login IDs with unique identifiers. Google summarizes trends in search in a report it calls the Google Zeitgeist. because they understand. for example." except around the time of Ms. Some of AOL's users.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2007/ showbiz.com/press/ zeitgeist. Showbiz.203 These reports (if not this specific example) offer fascinating windows into the collective mind using the Internet.205 Others had searched for child pornography or advice on how to kill a 202. Google Zeitgeist 2007. that there is no possibility their searches can ever be revealed through the study of only these graphs and tables. all of an individual's searches could be connected to one another through a shared identifier. 2009). . Nakashima. Zeitgeist: Search Patterns.google.
207 AOL appears to have made an honest mistake."). 208. Id. Phorm would remember only that the user visited a travel-related web page.gov/cmte_mtgs/110-ti-hrg.213 Thus.house. TIMES. at 9 (noting that user IDs can be linked to IP addresses at the ISP-run "Profiler" and "Anonymizer" machines). 9. Michael Barbaro & Tom Zeller. "What type of security measures do you have so that aggregated data is not stolen or lost?"). see also Broadband Provider Hearing. Id. 31. 209. Chief Executive Officer. because it is paired with the collection of much more information about user web surfing history than it typically collects today—setting the stage for privacy harm and raising significant questions about provider need and ISP liability. Aug. at 7. 2006. . supra note 76. NebuAd. the two services that track the websites visited by users in order to display more targeted advertising. but others missed the lesson and are repeating these mistakes. 4417749.214 This is not simply information the ISP is already entitled to view. 211. remember the identity of user 1337.071708. it just remembers the type of sites visited. 31. para. Other people provided enough clues in their search strings to allow them to be reidentified.211 Thus. 207.com/about/faq. at A1 (discovering an AOL user based on searches such as "landscapers in Lilburn. This Article uses shorter numbers for readability. rather than remember that a user entered "Hawaii Vacation" into Google.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. para. Phorm associates web surfing history with a unique identifier.Dykes-testimony. at 5. Ga" and several people with the same last name of the user). supra note 76.209 Phorm is correct that the steps it takes reduce the risk of reidentification or other harm.energycommerce. N. Consider again Phorm and NebuAd. But the ISP who invites Phorm into its network can. Both companies brag that they anonymize information to protect privacy. http://archives."210 Just like AOL. 210.417.OHM. 58.). supra note 76. Perhaps what Phorm really meant was that data "cannot be at- 206. Phorm. Inc. Id. without having any way to determine the true identity of 1337. 214. at 3 (testimony of Bob Dykes. including famous user number 4. Frequently Asked Questions. CLAYTON. CLAYTON. Phorm uses another obscuring technique: it does not remember the sites visited. Phorm identifiers are a sixteen-byte value encoded for humans as a twenty-two character string.php (last visited Aug. CLAYTON.phorm. 79. if it wanted or was ordered to do so.749. 212. Jr. para..208 I will focus on Phorm because its mechanisms are better documented.Y. tracked down by the New York Times. Id. supra note 191. but it is laughably wrong when it claims that "all data is anonymous and cannot be attached to any individual. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1457 spouse. Phorm knows that user number 1337212 has visited pages about travel. 213. 2009) (partially answering the question. http://www. A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No.206 One wonders whether the FBI submitted subpoenas to learn their identities.pdf ("[Industry-leading] privacy protections are built into our technology and designed into our policies from the ground up.
para. 56.uk/standard-home/article-23449601-details/Web+users+angry+at+ ISPs'+software+tie+up/article. at para. Phorm's systems have access to the URL being visited by a user.thisislondon. 216. Id. para. CLAYTON. or for alcohol.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1458 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. the Phorm system will still cause privacy harms. The complexity of Phorm introduces another set of privacy risks. 79.216 At some points in the complex flow of data. In an interview about Phorm. supra note 76. Anonymous Yet Still Invasive Even if we give Phorm the benefit of the doubt and assume they maintain good security and ignore the threat to privacy from the ISP itself.218 while it is held. many of these excluded categories seem to be lucrative advertising opportunities. the company refuses to keep data (or sell ads) for "adult material. 219. the search queries that led the user to the page. 2. and Phorm will no doubt be tempted to try to recapture some of this lost revenue—particularly if they hit dire financial straits—by shrinking this list over time. for anything medical. 217. This is only one of many points along the chain where much more than the ultimately "anonymized" data can be intercepted. tobacco. saying on its website that "[t]he exclusion list may be added to. her family's computers might suddenly start receiving baby ads. First. it is vulnerable to attack or accidental exposure.co. supra note 76. or subtracted from. See supra note 210 and accompanying text. 2008. Jim Armitage. and the ten most frequently used words on the page. Phorm explicitly reserves the right to change the list." a computer in Phorm's control). Web Users Angry at ISPs' Spyware Tie-Up.OHM. or politics. the service itself breaches privacy and causes harm. If she had surfed websites like Mothercare or other baby-related retailers and advice centres while making up her mind about the termination. gambling."220 This does not entirely address the risk of harm for two reasons. Because the Phorm system ties advertisements to past online behavior. 2009 tached to any individual using only our data. 80. at 7 (describing data held by "Channel Server. 58. http://www. security researcher Ross Anderson gave the example of a woman who had had an abortion without telling their partner. at 9 (listing eighty steps required to serve monitor user behavior and to serve ads).215 This omission is disingenuous. at 7. creating suspicion from the husband or boyfriend. 220. at least. June 3.219 Phorm has responded to such concerns by promising to ignore certain classes of information." but it omits the phrase that makes the statement true. Id. at 9. despite anonymization. para. .217 Although this data is eventually thrown away.do. 218. depending on the region of the Internet 215. According to an independent researcher who was briefed on Phorm. CLAYTON. EVENING STANDARD.
it still reveals the great temptation Phorm feels to define the forbidden categories narrowly." and rather than "politics. Phorm. those who promise spouses to stop coveting expensive electronics will be revealed.org/2008/05/18/twisty-little-passages-all-alike/. The second shortcoming of Phorm's exclusions approach is that it addresses only mainstream embarrassments and secrets. most people can identify at least one idiosyncratic topic which interests them and would cause at least mild embarrassment if others knew. while it utterly fails to protect idiosyncratic privacy. Phorm. PHORM BLOG. 225."221 Also. the evidence suggests that Phorm vetted Clayton's report carefully. professionals who do not want co-workers to know about their love of celebrity gossip are unprotected. People with obscure fetishes or rare addictions may be outed by the Phorm system. "Phorm's technical people" sent corrections for a handful of errors that Clayton later corrected in an amended report. 2008. lightbluetouchpaper. Critic from FIPR Supports Key Phorm Claim.223 but even if the FAQ list does not represent a shift in policy. Probably. Particularly when the anonymizing party refuses to be completely transparent about its anonymizing methods. May 18. 6. It is not the kind of harm easily offset by hypertechnical arguments about encryption and one-way hash functions. supra note 210 ("Exclusions are based on Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) advertising standards and an in-house editorial panel. 224. but a user who is embarrassed by something that Phorm's "in-house editorial panel"224 cannot predict would be embarrassing will be unprotected. Radha Burgess. 223. Users who like porn or need medical advice may be protected by Phorm's system. the sense of repose can be damaged."222 Perhaps the researcher mistranscribed his list." the FAQ promises to exclude only "Gambling (except National Lottery). All Alike. Phorm has evidently decided that this lucrative category was too good to pass up. Id. http://blog. SOLOVE. Phorm commented favorably about some aspects of Clayton's report on its own blog. "What advertising categories are offlimits?").DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. Richard Clayton.phorm. Finally. supra note 160.OHM. It can result in self-censorship. Although a gambling addict may worry about having his lottery habit broadcast to family members. instead of "gambling. LIGHT BLUE TOUCHPAPER. anonymization cannot effectively address the harm to the sense of repose. Apr. http://www. 2008. This harm comes from the fear that one is being watched. while their official FAQ recites a similar list to that reported by the researcher. 222."). supra note 210 (responding to the question. Furthermore. Twisty Little Passages." the FAQ promises to exclude "UK Political Parties. at 109 (arguing that "covert surveillance is problematic" because it can "have a chilling effect on behavior"). Phorm's exclusions-based system cannot help them.225 221. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1459 Service Provider. On the contrary. .com/userprivacy/critic-from-fipr-supports-key-phorm-claim/.
but more often. they can argue need.OHM. Powell. the what. Network Management Defined The phrase "network management" gained prominence through successive chairmen of the FCC. in 2004. First. Sci. Finally.gov/ commissioners/previous/powell/speeches. available at http://www. or for any other legitimate provider goal.' making them a part of the FCC's basic law. In order to assess need. simplistic hand-waving will not do. and Transp.fcc.html. and the future of ISP monitoring. on Commerce.227 In the speech. Conclusion Anonymization is probably never perfect. 54 (2006) (statement of Lawrence Lessig. Even experts seem to underappreciate the likelihood of reidentification as the decision to release the AOL data and the undeserved bragging of Phorm suggest. 8. which has become something of a rallying cry for net neutrality advocates. Reasonable Network Management Why do providers want or need to scrutinize their customers' communications. . a theory of "reasonable network management" is developed in Section C. how does this impact privacy. 109th Cong. Remarks at the Silicon Flatirons Symposium on "The Digital Broadband Migration: Toward a Regulatory Regime for the Internet Age" (Feb.228 Chairman Powell described four freedoms consumers had come to expect from 226. the argument will be possible to make. 228. See Net Neutrality: Hearing Before the S. 2009 3. Chairman Michael Powell made an influential speech now known as the "Four Internet Freedoms" or "Four Freedoms" speech. the Article surveys the engineering literature to explain the why. Having moved anonymization and aggregation mostly off of the table. First. Comm. Professor of Law. Stanford Law School) ("It is my view that Congress should ratify Powell's 'Internet Freedoms. claims about privacy through anonymization should not stand. 1.226 Because of these risks. Chairman of the FCC. Preserving Internet Freedom: Guiding Principles for the Industry. See supra notes 210–18 and accompanying text. 227. providers are left with only two arguments for new invasive monitoring. Sometimes. providers can argue that they have received their users' consent.")..DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1460 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. C. Consent in this context is problematic in ways that will be discussed in Section D. The provider or vendor raising such an argument must face a heavy burden to prove—backed by expert analysis—that their method reduces the risk of reidentification to some acceptably small possibility. Michael K. like in the case of Google's Zeitgeist. and does the benefit justify the cost? In this Section. Monitoring might be required to protect the network.. to provide service. policymakers should rarely take an anonymization or aggregation argument at face value. 2004).
FCC Wants to Know: Is Degrading P2P Traffic 'Reasonable'?. he explained. 2008 Comcast FCC ruling proves the concept has teeth. modified versions of the four freedoms. BENOIT CLAISE & RALF WOLTER.. Despite the vagueness. e.cnet. Jan. "The principles we adopt are subject to reasonable network management. EFF DEEPLINKS BLOG. however. Several technical books have been written about network management in recent years. "I recognize that network operators have a legitimate need to manage their networks and ensure a quality experience.isen.15. Chairman Kevin Martin. http://www. the August 1. the freedom to access content. The four freedoms are the freedom to (1) access content.g. Press Release. 230.doc.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. 231. 2008. the line of reasonable network management is vague and indeterminate. 234. FCC 05-151.eff.html.229 In elaborating the first freedom. Thus far. 7. NETWORK MANAGEMENT: ACCOUNTING AND PERFORMANCE STRATEGIES (2007).. Id. Id. FED.g.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-05-151A1."232 As a closing footnote elaborated.html. The phrase "network management" is a bit easier to define. but commentators have taken to referring to it as Chairman Martin's version of the four freedoms. if not yet regulation or law. http://news. E. "into its ongoing policymaking activities.235 The fact that "Comcast was not engaging in reasonable network management.. the FCC has given the concept of reasonable network management an oversized role as the line in the sand beyond which regulators need not defer to business judgment and technological decision making. 29. including user privacy. (3) attach personal devices. COMMC'NS COMM'N. (2) use applications. Id. EFF to FCC: "Reasonable Network Management" Requires Transparency. http://www. ISEN. supra note 227. e. at 5. 2008.g. thrust network management even more into the telecommunications policy spotlight through a Commission policy statement231 declaring that the FCC would "incorporate" four principles. 233. CNET NEWS. ALEXANDER CLEMM.com/8301-10784_3-9850611-7. supra note 105. Id. Feb. and has since become a significant topic of debate among telecommunications law and policy experts. 2005."230 Powell's successor. Aug.237 These books all struggle to de229. Fred von Lohmann. at 3 n. and (4) obtain service plan information. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1461 their ISPs. Anne Broache.com/ blog/2005/08/how-martins-fcc-is-different-from. 237. See. NETWORK MANAGEMENT .234 Since then. 15. but a policy conclusion made by weighing the legitimate technological and business goals of network management with what society deems reasonable in light of many principles. 232. How Martin's FCC Is Different from Powell's.BLOG." according to the FCC gave grounds for the order to cease throttling BitTorrent.org/deeplinks/2008/02/eff-fcc-reasonable-network-management-requirestransparency. available at http://hraunfoss. Powell. at 2. Isenberg. POLICY STATEMENT IN THE MATTERS OF APPROPRIATE FRAMEWORK FOR BROADBAND ACCESS TO INTERNET OVER WIRELINE FACILITIES 3 (2005).OHM. David S. 235. thus reasonable limits sometimes must be placed in service contracts.fcc.236 One reason why "reasonable network management" is so vague is it describes not an engineering principle. See. 236. The Policy Statement was signed by all five FCC Commissioners. at 1–2."233 This footnote enshrined the concept of network management into policy.
Comcast "managed" its network both by looking at BitTorrent packets and by throttling them.238 but they end up defining it in similar ways. configuring. no provider should be accused of laziness merely because it has decided FUNDAMENTALS (2006). AUTOMATED NETWORK MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS: CURRENT AND FUTURE CAPABILITIES (2007). supra note 237. and the phrases "network monitoring" and "network management" are used interchangeably. and network design might be mitigated instead through stepped-up surveillance. network management requires much more than monitoring. 2. administration. monitoring. the more likely he will happen to capture the information that reveals the source of a future problem or hard-to-diagnose trend. The Necessary. network management has many attached meanings. network management covers such a broad range of networks and activities that no short definition can capture the task well. monitoring. COMER.241 But every network management step either involves.OHM. Why Providers Monitor a. 28.239 This Article adopts one of these definitions: "Network management refers to the activities. maintenance. and the Voyeuristic Sometimes providers monitor not out of necessity but out of convenience. and provisioning of networked systems. procedures.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1462 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. just to name some of the most important tasks. and forethought. Because of the harm to those wrongfully monitored. and tools that pertain to the operation. operating. DOUGLAS E."240 As the definition demonstrates. at C2. additional staff. or must be preceded by."). The more data an administrator captures. convenience and efficiency must sometimes be sacrificed to enhance privacy. Mar. 2008. TIMES. supra note 237. Brad Stone. NETWORK MANAGEMENT: PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE 40 (2006) ("The goal of network management is to ensure that the users of a network receive the information technology services with the quality of service that they expect. and controlling a network to ensure that it works as intended and provides value to its users.Y. COMER. at 8. design. Policymakers should not be afraid to question whether expansive. Comcast Altering Its Method of Managing Web Traffic. methods.") 240. 2009 fine the precise meaning of the phrase."). and planning. 238. the Article focuses on monitoring. CLEMM. software update management. a network monitoring event. and changing computer networks. N. incident response. NETWORKING BASICS 386 (2007) ("Network management is the process of operating. tuning.")."). the Merely Convenient. supra note 237. 241. supra note 237. for example. . because this Article's central focus is privacy. COMER. deploying. MANI SUBRAMANIAN.. privacy-invading monitoring is truly necessary or merely convenient. CLEMM. it involves data analysis. at 26 ("Intuitively. Then again. PATRICK CICCARELLI ET AL. repairing. at 5 ("As is the case with so many words. configuration. 239. network management encompasses tasks associated with planning. at 26 ("Unfortunately. Threats which could otherwise be addressed through user education. Overcollection can make up for poor planning.
"245 Cohen questions this view. Network Situational Awareness (NetSA).html (citing studies tracking how much of the Internet's traffic is dedicated to peer-to-peer). WIRED. 31. http://upsdell. Different Networks with Different Priorities Computer networks come in many different shapes and sizes and serve many different roles. OS Platform Statistics.' withholding or concealing personal data has moral overtones. Websites cite statistics about which operating systems242 and web browsers243 their visitors use. the owner of a corporate network inaccessible from the outside world can justify monitoring that we should not permit from the owner of a popular public website. 2009).wired. the idea that network operators need to gather and mine more data to better detect anomalies.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. Professor Julie Cohen has commented that "[o]ne view.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/how-much-file-s.247 b. because our society places important values on 'sunlight.htm (last visited Aug. Other types of monitoring seem to cross a line from convenience to voyeurism. http://www. Different kinds of providers have different network management priorities. May 5. and relationships with their users.w3schools. 243. Cohen's critique is worth repeating. broadly shared among participants on all sides of the [privacy] debate . Likewise. at 1404. Browser News. 244. 31. citing the use of genetic markers of disease for insurability and employability or the "knowledge" about what a person wants to buy based on studying behavior. 247. 246. Cert/Coordination Center. http://blog. supra note 153. In addition. is that the collection and processing of personal data creates knowledge." Network security experts often talk about "situational awareness. 2009) (summarizing visitors by operating system used)." a concept borrowed from the military. at 1402. noting that information is often not the same thing as knowledge. w3schools. Ryan Singel.com/BrowserNews/stat. But ISPs make a more defensible knowledge argument when they talk about defending their network by acquiring the "big picture. Thus. 31. the website owner might be able to justify monitoring that an ISP should not be allowed to 242. Internet Mysteries: How Much File Sharing Traffic Travels the Net?.246 Insofar as ISPs argue that they should be allowed to conduct deep-packet inspection merely to contribute to our understanding of the world. 245. Network software and hardware vendors survey the applications used on their networks. Cf. 2009) (collecting browser studies). http://www. The best providers will invest both in planning and surveillance. 2008.com/browsers/browsers_os. justifications.OHM.com. Cohen. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1463 to monitor. .org/netsa/ (last visited Aug. . Id. Policymakers should be wary of claims that collection is necessary for the long-term protection and improvement of the Internet at least when the immediate goals of the study are not clear.asp (last visited Aug. .cert. Browser Stats. The voyeurs often defend what I call voyeurism as illuminating research into the nature of the network.244 Although this type of information can be vitally important for understanding the nature and evolution of the Internet. too often one gets the sense that it is gathered and cited only to satisfy curious minds.
WAN Connections. telephony—keeps a close watch on their computers. server operations.g. the WiFi wireless access point. At home. See PRISCILLA OPPENHEIMER. 251. at 179–80. of Colorado-Boulder.edu/its/networking/images/WANConnections. The largest providers in this pecking order are often called "Tier 1" or sometimes "backbone" providers. Univ. 249.. HOME NETWORKING: THE MISSING MANUAL 3–7 (2005) (describing routers designed for home use). Network Engineering & Operations. 2004) (discussing Tier 1 providers). of Colorado-Boulder. Id. and the data flowing across them all. copiers.251 My communications may be handled by two. four. in my office at the law school. Sometimes.250 In order to send my communications to destinations outside their own networks. three. Each one of these ISPs is positioned to know some of my deepest secrets. http://www. and it is a struggle for them merely to know what computers are attached to the network. They have complex and difficult jobs.OHM. In order to divide the world of online providers according to the privacy risks they raise. attempts are made to define other tiers. these ISPs purchase Internet connectivity from larger ISPs. EVI NEMETH ET AL. and the campus network connects to several major telecommunications providers—Level 3. of which there are as many as five. . LINUX ADMINISTRATION HANDBOOK (2d ed. 2006) (1001 pages).DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1464 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol.. consider this quick.colorado. I can contact computers on the Internet from both my home network and campus network because both connect directly to ISPs. colorado. TOP-DOWN NETWORK DESIGN 179 (2d ed.gif (last visited Aug. My home network connects to my cable company. networking. For a sense of the complexity of running a complex network. 2009). or more ISPs en route from my computer to some destination on the Internet. 250. I operate a small network of five or six computers. E. connections between devices. much less to keep the traffic flowing and to prevent bad things from happening. For a diagram of our wide area network including links to the providers mentioned in the text. see Univ. 2009). Because there are no agreed-upon definitions for these lower tiers. These larger ISPs in turn purchase Internet connectivity from even larger ISPs. http://www. applications development. and ICG—companies that specialize in carrying traffic for large customers with thousands of users. The center of my home network is a switch—a small silver box stuffed with inexpensive electronics—which serves multiple roles as the central connection point for the five computers.249 A large professional staff separated into highly specialized duties—security. 31. 2009 do. SCOTT LOWE. 248. 31. and other devices. first person tour of the Internet. Some of the University of Colorado's network topology diagrams are posted online.html (last visited Aug. Qwest. browse the computer networking section full of thick tomes in any large bookstore.edu/its/networking /backbone. and the gateway to the Internet. wireless access points. I run another small network connected to our campuswide network.248 Similarly. monitoring and manipulating remote devices. this Article will not use Tier 2 through Tier 5. Administrators in our campus information technology (IT) department manage this huge network with thousands of computers. printers.
we can divide the world's providers along two axes corresponding. using only the routing services. provide applications (e-mail). the more secrets belonging to more users they can access. 13. The Purposes of Network Management Networks are fragile things. Microsoft Exec Calls XP Hack 'Frightening. software crashes. 231 (2002). Matt Loney.com/2100-7349_3-5313402. services (printers).html (describing orchestrated hack into Windows XP computer that took six minutes).com/2100-7349_3-6218238. In contrast. A second axis maps the way users use various networks. http://news. 225.html (describing researchers who placed unpatched computers on the network that were compromised in twenty minutes). to the norms of privacy.255 Finally. known to the user as the company at the other end of the cable. providing backbone service while selling end-user routing services as well. Id. 54 FED. those chosen by the user for applications and services. James B. THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET: AND HOW TO STOP IT 43–51 (2008) (cataloging online threats). ISPs often provide applications as well.cnet. CNET NEWS.' CNET NEWS. 257.252 From this brief tour. I am not the only one exposed. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1465 Of course. http://news. http://old. Know Your Enemy: Statistics. L. and human beings wreak havoc accidentally or with malicious intent.OHM. 2001. Ingo Busse & Stefan Covaci.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. Aug.honeynet.org/papers/stats/ (last visited Aug. the one to whom they send the monthly check. Users expect a mixed amount of privacy from these providers. Honeynet Project. 255. upstream providers further along the chain are usually unknown to users. 254. such as my university's IT department. Hardware breaks. similar time-to-exploit statistics). treating them sometimes like a destination and sometimes like a conduit. at 179. Some providers are customer-facing. Study: Unpatched PCs Compromised in 20 Minutes.256 An unattended large network could probably not survive a day on today's Internet. The first axis maps the relationship between a user and an ISP. JONATHAN ZITTRAIN. 252. hybrid providers. See Tom Espiner. 1997). 2009) (citing older. but users may not choose to use them.. 2007. and the further along they are up the chain. . roughly. such as ISPs like Comcast and AT&T. Speta. and routing. traffic builds. 31. July 22. for the bigger the ISP. eds. COMM. users expect more privacy from routing providers which simply carry communications out toward the rest of the Internet.254 Below. in PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIFTH IFIP/IEEE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON INTEGRATED NETWORK MANAGEMENT V 31 (Avrel A. 253. Customer Facing Components for Network Management Systems. Users expect and deserve relatively less privacy from destination providers.cnet. c. Tier 1 providers may carry the communications of millions of different people simultaneously. A Common Carrier Approach to Internet Interconnection. I develop the idea that users expect and deserve more privacy from upstream than from customer-facing providers. Some providers are vertically integrated.253 In contrast. 2004. 17. such as Google for email and calendaring. Nov.257 Every network must be managed. 256. snarling packets in rush hours of congestion. Lazar et al.J.
260 Traditionally. Wu. FCAPS is easier to summarize. (Yakov Rekhter et al. 258. supra note 19. secure the network. Accounting. it examines the destination IP address and from it. REV. and every computer on the Internet has one. At least in the ordinary course of things. Hybrid providers also route packets. 31. REQUEST FOR COMMENTS 4271. essential level. Two of the most widely used of such frameworks are the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). layer. As the acronym suggests. calculates the "next hop" in the path to the final destination. The instant discussion avoids these jargon-laden frameworks and tries to describe network management goals in more plain language. and security. and police bandwidth. performance assessment and optimization (planning capacity and mitigating congestion). many have tried rigorously to define what an IT department does. generating an alphabet soup of "frameworks" in an attempt to bring a business-school style of structure and accountability to the field.258 The point of routing is to get a packet to the computer at the destination IP address. Security (FCAPS) system. FCAPS establishes five purposes for an IT department. see Welcome to the Official ITIL Website. Routing requires the scrutiny of only one of the outermost layers in the Russian-doll-like packet: the Internet Protocol. 653.com/ (last visited Aug. spam and virus detection. http://www. where do we draw the line for reasonable ISP inspection? What kinds of packet scrutiny must network providers perform in order to render particular types of service? What other kinds of scrutiny would a provider prefer to do if it were not forbidden? To answer these questions. thanks to automatic routing protocols.259 ii. Internet Points of Control. L. 2006). a header called the destination IP address. such as ISPs. Jonathan Zittrain. Routing requires no human scrutiny or intervention. limits on bandwidth usage. along with a lot of other important information. Of this pair. 2009). and security). at 166–67 (proposing network neutrality principle with six exceptions including protecting the network. the destination IP address is the only header it must consult. Id.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1466 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol.itilofficialsite. accounting and billing (charging users who pay based on bandwidth or tier of service). eds. 2009 i. The most important routing protocol is the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). at the most basic. and the Fault. . configuration and operation (setting up new devices and restoring lost configurations). quality of service. Performance. The IP layer contains. Recently. Cf. See generally INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE. Four Justifications for ISP Monitoring Aside from the destination IP address. we must look at what else besides routing a provider does. route packets. see DOUGLAS E.OHM. A BORDER GATEWAY PROTOCOL 4 (BGP-4). 260. When a router receives a packet.261 A few words about each are merited.C. COMPUTER NETWORKS AND INTERNETS: WITH INTERNET APPLICATIONS 536–38 (2008). 261. detect viruses. The ISP's Core Purpose: Routing Routing providers. 656 (2003). COMER. providers of every type have asserted four justifications for monitoring their networks: the need to detect spam. 44 B. at 537–38. An IP address is a unique address for a connected computer. most of which can apply to network management: fault correction (recovering from failures and crashes). Configuration. or IP. 259..
2008.ars/post/20080716-martin-be-damned-cable-ispswant-network-management-freedom. add more bandwidth. there is no limit to the amount of monitoring one can justify. at 464–68. David Davis. because given the spread of threats online. .OHM. consider bandwidth policing.264 To combat this effect. 264. at 153 (reporting that when providers bar users from providing content or providing content to the public. http://articles. supra note 118. 3. Clear Up Network Congestion. For example. has a pernicious effect in debates about online conflicts. Surveillance is necessary. the steps providers take to decrease network congestion. which I call the Myth of the Superuser. at 1330. Some of these methods work by matching known unwanted content.266 They have claimed that mandatory network neutrality will make it impossible for ISPs to cure congestion. Id. routing. users experience slow performance or worse. .267 To deal with congestion.com/5100-10878_11-5930741. This extremely broad purpose is asserted to justify a wide range of monitoring. I have written about how this style of argument. and others look less deep. destination. ARS TECHNICA. Web browsing. while others approach the problem statistically. providers can block or slow (rate-limit) traffic from the users or computers causing the excessive traffic. 268. a process known as quality of service. I have argued that parties asserting the Myth of the Superuser should be held to a high standard of empirical proof. When traffic exceeds a network's capacity. "a major goal is bandwidth management"). See Wu.com. TECHREPUBLIC. supra note 239. Providers commonly raise this justification to oppose calls for network neutrality.268 Some of these techniques require more invasive monitoring than others. prioritize packets based on application type. powerful human threat. system blackouts. if 'network management' is denied its unobstructed due" and that "E-mail. 267. 262. online commerce. 263. supra note 19. we expect all providers to monitor for the protection of their own computers and network. blocking traffic that behaves like spam or a virus. video and music will be degraded"). Cable ISPs Want Network Management Freedom. .265 Finally. regardless of whether they are customer-facing or upstream. at 1327. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1467 Spam and virus filtering come in many forms but follow the same basic model: computer programs inspect different parts of packets trying to identify spam or viruses. the network security justification applies to all providers. techrepublic. The third commonly heard and most nebulous justification is network security. Notice how the strength of all of these justifications can turn on the type of provider making the claim. Nov. http://arstechnica. providers claim. Matthew Lasar. See Ohm. 2005. at 1385–93. See CICCARELLI ET AL. to counteract the unpredictable acts of anonymous human agents—hackers and worm authors—who have guile and technical skill.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No..html. July 16. Martin Be Damned. or compress the traffic.com/news. 265. or hybrid.262 Some of these methods look deeply into packets. 266. Id.html (paraphrasing two trade association executives warnings that "[i]t's going to be Very Bad .263 The problem is that when the trigger is a vague.
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In contrast, we do not expect and likely do not want some types of providers to filter on our behalf. For example, many residential users opt not to use the e-mail account provided with their broadband connection, choosing to use a webmail provider like Yahoo Mail instead. For these users, their broadband provider should not be scanning their incoming and outgoing e-mail messages for spam or viruses. It both defies expectations and will not work well. d. The Rise of Deep-Packet Inspection Providers routinely argue that "shallow packet" monitoring is insufficient to accomplish some of these goals. Automated monitors tend to restrict their view to network-level details, at the IP layer and the nextdeepest layer, called the TCP layer, but they can capture only the fact that communications are sent and received without peering into content.269 At this level, things like spam and viruses are hard to distinguish from other e-mail messages or web surfing behavior.270 In order to detect these threats, providers have begun examining much more information, and particularly content information, using automated, always-on DPI tools. DPI tools can identify viruses, by comparing files crossing a network to a database of known viruses; spam, by analyzing the words used; and intruders, by looking at the commands they send.271 These tools are like packet sniffers because they peer deeply in packets, but they are always on, monitoring every packet passing by. 3. Reasonable Network Management: Provider Need
How do we assess competing claims of ISP need? Need cannot be understood simply by polling affected parties, because ISPs have an incentive to argue for an endless list of needs. Security experts support these arguments by pointing out the innumerable risks providers face online. There is a better way, by referencing external, objective sources like engineering principles—not merely statically as a list of norms, but also dynamically by tracing the evolution of such principles—which can give us cues about the value and content of the norms embodied. Professors Mark Lemley and Lawrence Lessig have argued that engineering design principles, "from the very beginning . . . have been understood to
269. Id. 270. See Jana Dunn, Security Applications for Cisco NetFlow Data, SANS INST., July 23, 2001, http://www.sans.org/reading_room/whitepapers/commerical/778.php ("NetFlow logs do not contain the content of the packets associated with the flow, and so are not useful for content-based intrusion detection."). 271. NetworkWorld.com, Deep Packet Inspection, http://www.networkworld.com/details/6299. html?def (last visited Aug. 31, 2009).
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have a social as well as a technological significance. They have, that is, been meant to implement values as well as enable communication."272 Claims that networks cannot be managed without peering deeply into packets are belied by the decade of evolution of protocols and standards which peer only to shallow depths yet have been widely adopted throughout the industry. If engineers have lived with little more than what these standards have provided for a decade—at least for automated, always-on monitoring as opposed to incident response monitoring—we should weigh recent claims of need to capture more with great suspicion. In order to appreciate the value of looking to engineering standards and protocols, consider instead what would happen if we asked a committee to define the parameters for reasonable network management. a. A Hypothetical Negotiation Imagine that policymakers decided to hammer out a new law restricting the type of information an ISP is allowed to collect. One approach would be through negotiation. Policymakers could gather together stakeholders, including all of the ISPs, companies like Phorm and NebuAd, destination providers like Google, the growing DPI industry, and representatives of the user and privacy advocacy communities, to decide what parts of a packet should be presumptively off-limits or fair game to ISP scrutiny. This would be a frustrating exercise. Providers would tell welldocumented tales about the many problems they have experienced that require full-content monitoring. About any proposal declaring part of a packet off-limits, providers would concoct hypotheticals describing how that information might be needed to deal with some subtle nuance of network management. Providers would urge, as an alternative, a flexible and toothless standard based on reasonableness. The exercise would likely end in nothing useful. Instead of engaging in this frustrating exercise, notice how a natural experiment has taken place over the past decade: Cisco's NetFlow protocol has been released and refined. b. NetFlow Cisco has long dominated the router market and, for many network engineers, Cisco's methods and products define the field.273 In 1996, Cis-
272. Mark A. Lemley & Lawrence Lessig, The End of End-to-End: Preserving the Architecture of the Internet in the Broadband Era, 48 UCLA L. REV. 925, 930 (2001). 273. John Leyden, Cisco Dominates Declining Router Market, THE REGISTER, Sept. 2, 2004, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/02/router_market_infonetics/.
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co created a protocol for network monitoring called NetFlow,274 building it into its routers ever since.275 According to a product overview, "NetFlow . . . creat[es] an environment where administrators have the tools to understand who, what, when, where, and how network traffic is flowing."276 A Cisco router with NetFlow enabled will monitor every packet, collecting information useful for various purposes, sending it to another computer called a NetFlow collector.277 NetFlow discards most of the details of every packet, keeping only "a set of 5 and up to 7" attributes.278 The seven attributes are: (1) IP source address;279 (2) IP destination address;280 (3) Source port;281 (4) Destination port;282 (5) Layer 3 protocol type;283 (6) Class of Service;284 and (7) Router or switch interface.285 Two other pieces of information are also collected: (8) the amount of data transmitted, in bytes and number of packets; and (9) the date and time associated with each flow.286 For most network communications, these nine pieces of information are the only pieces of information collected by an ISP. Using only these nine pieces of information, what can a network operator learn about personal behavior? Imagine a user named Eleanor, a Comcast cable modem subscriber. Every evening after dinner, she logs
274. CISCO SYS. INC., INTRODUCTION TO CISCO IOS NETFLOW 1 (2007), http://www.cisco.com/en/ US/prod/collateral/iosswrel/ps6537/ps6555/ps6601/prod_white_paper0900aecd80406232.pdf [hereinafter NETFLOW INTRODUCTION]. 275. See id. at 6. 276. Id. at 1. 277. Id. at 4. 278. Id. at 3. 279. Id. 280. Id. 281. Ports refer to TCP and UDP ports. Ports can reveal, to some level of confidence, the application (Web, e-mail, instant message, etc.) that generated the packet. Ports will be discussed again in Part V.B. 282. NETFLOW INTRODUCTION, supra note 274, at 3. 283. "Level 3" refers to the network layer in both the OSI Reference Model and the Internet Reference Model layers. DOUGLAS E. COMER, INTERNETWORKING WITH TCP/IP: PRINCIPLES, PROTOCOLS, AND ARCHITECTURE 155–71 (5th ed. 2006). Level 3 protocol type will distinguish, for example, between IPv4 and ICMP data. 284. Class of Service (CoS) is associated with Quality of Service (QoS), a buzzword in the net neutrality debates. Briefly, a network packet or frame flagged with a CoS field can be categorized as of a higher or lower priority than other communications. See generally GILBERT HELD, QUALITY OF SERVICE IN A CISCO NETWORKING ENVIRONMENT (2002). Video, for example, might be flagged with a high CoS so that a QoS system can shuttle it to the front of the line. Id. at 28 (listing seven user priority levels from 1 (background) to 7 (network control/critical) with 6 meaning "interactive voice"). 285. A router's interfaces are the ports into and out of the router. A router connected to four networks, for example, would have four interfaces. 286. NETFLOW INTRODUCTION, supra note 274. Actually, a few other pieces of information—not important for this discussion—can also be stored with an IP Flow. For example, IP Flows can contain NetFlow version number, flow sequence number (1 for the first flow, 2 for the second, etc.), aggregated TCP flags, and routing information. CISCO SYS. INC., CISCO IOS SWITCHING SERVICES CONFIGURATION GUIDE PART 3: NETFLOW OVERVIEW (2001), http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/ 12_1/switch/configuration/guide/xcdnfov.pdf; CISCO SYS. INC., NETFLOW SERVICES SOLUTIONS GUIDE (2007), http://www.cisco.com/en/us/docs/ios/solutions_docs/netflow/nfwhite.html.
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on. In a typical session, she accesses her email account several times, reading twenty messages and sending five. She also surfs the web, visiting thirty different websites and using Google's search five times. Using NetFlow data alone, Comcast can learn that Eleanor sent five e-mail messages287 and read twenty.288 For each website Eleanor visited, Comcast can note the IP address of the computer hosting the website, track the time and date of each visit, and determine how much data Eleanor downloaded. What Comcast knows is dwarfed by what it cannot know because NetFlow forgets so much. Comcast cannot know the email addresses of the other parties on the twenty-five e-mail messages.289 Nor can Comcast obtain copies of the "Subject" lines, message bodies, or file attachments for any of those e-mail messages. Although Comcast knows the IP addresses of the websites Eleanor has visited, it cannot know much else about her surfing habits. For one thing, because smaller websites often share IP addresses with other websites,290 Comcast will often not be able to infer the precise sites Eleanor has visited, even though it might be able to narrow down a list of possibilities. Even more importantly, NetFlow data does not preserve any of the information packed into the Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) Eleanor has visited. A URL is the long string of characters that appear in the web browser's address bar, such as http://www.google.com/ search?q=network+management. This is critical because often the URL can reveal a lot of personal information. For example, Comcast will not have access to Eleanor's Google search queries, New York Times reading patterns, or Amazon.com book browsing history, all of which are decipherable to someone with access to URLs.
287. E-mail is usually sent using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) protocol, which is usually sent to port 25. See generally INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE, REQUEST FOR COMMENTS 2821: SIMPLE MAIL TRANSFER PROTOCOL (J. Klensin ed., 2001) (defining ESMTP, the successor to SMTP). Because IP Flows preserve port numbers, the number (and date and time) of Eleanor's outgoing e-mail messages will be kept. 288. If Eleanor uses the older Post Office Protocol Version 3 (POP3) for reading e-mail, the provider might only be able to tell that Eleanor downloaded messages to her computer but might not be able to see how many Eleanor downloaded and read. See INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE, REQUEST FOR COMMENTS 1939: POST OFFICE PROTOCOL—VERSION 3 (J. Myers & M. Rose eds., 1996). On the other hand, if Eleanor used Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) for reading mail, Comcast might also be able to tell how many messages Eleanor actually read. See INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE, REQUEST FOR COMMENTS 3501: INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL—VERSION 4REV1 (M. Crispin ed., 2003). 289. Comcast does not know this from NetFlow data alone, but they may also run Eleanor's outgoing mail server using the SMTP protocol. See supra note 287. Most SMTP servers log the "To:" information for outbound e-mail and the "From:" information for inbound e-mail. O'Reilly Media, Getting Started with Sendmail, DEVELOPER SHED, July 7, 2005, § 1.10, http://www.devshed. com/c/a/Administration/Getting-Started-with-Sendmail/12/ (describing sendmail's logging function with default logging of "successful deliveries"); Anton Chuvakin, Anton Security Tip of the Week #5: Sendmail Log Adventures, O'REILLY SYS ADMIN, Nov. 6, 2006, http://www.oreillynet.com/ sysadmin/blog/2006/11/ (showing sample log entry for successful mail delivery under sendmail). 290. This is through a mechanism known as virtual hosting. BEN LAURIE & PETER LAURIE, APACHE: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE 86–93 (3d ed. 2003) (describing virtual hosting).
2004. at least without a specific justification. NetFlow. . For these reasons. 2009 NetFlow data will contain no trace of cookies or bookmarks. Or. the fact that she has done this is not transmitted on the network at all.. . NetFlow will not track the type and version of Eleanor's browser software nor the type and version of computer Operating System. Putting it more directly.291 provides a privacy balance. . what are the essential pieces of information needed to manage a network? If many providers over the years had needed to save the entire URL in addition to the IP address in order to manage a network. 34 COMPUTER COMM. In sum. they could have lobbied Cisco to make this change. better than the hypothetical negotiation precisely because it occurred outside the public spotlight. which is why it is a ceiling and not a floor."). 245. See Cristian Estan et al. at 245. The NetFlow list thus serves as a rejoinder to latter-day. even though Eleanor's browser reveals this information to every website she visits.OHM.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1472 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. Aug. in fact. But see infra note 294 (discussing surveys finding surprisingly low usage of NetFlow). REV. Building a Better NetFlow. 246 ("NetFlow . You don't need more than the NetFlow 291. no matter how useful it might be for some provider purposes. If Eleanor prints or saves web content. The evolution of NetFlow is. Of course. 292. Policymakers might determine that one or more of the fields in the NetFlow list reveal too much private information. Data entered into web-based forms will not be stored. The fact that Cisco never made this change suggests that the URL. policymakers should declare the NetFlow list to be a ceiling292 on the classes of data an ISP may capture automatically. is the most widely used flow measurement solution today. opportunistic claims of need for invasive monitoring. policymakers should look to the NetFlow list as a first-order cut at the type of monitoring necessary for network management. to restate it more palatably for providers. was not widely useful for network management. routing providers who gather nothing but data listed in the NetFlow list should be presumptively within their rights. the NetFlow list might be too privacy invasive. NetFlow as a Ceiling on Automated Monitoring Notice how the development of the NetFlow protocol tackles the same problem as the hypothetical public negotiation described earlier. Comcast cannot track how long she keeps her browser open to a particular page or what parts of a given page she reads. The purity of the task set before Cisco—help customers manage their networks given technological constraints—and the absence of legislators and lawyers during the process should give us great confidence that this list is an untainted distillation of engineering need. NetFlow has always been about tradeoffs: given technological constraints preventing complete monitoring. c. It gives network engineers a broad window into the activity on their networks. but it throws away much of the most sensitive data. which is the single most important tool used by network engineers today.
ietf. Any regulation of network monitoring must allow more provider leeway during incident response.296 After canvassing many alternatives. Monitoring needs change considerably when a hacker is thought to have breached network security or a worm. 2009). supra note 291. If a monitoring exception is carved out for incident response.295 Second. We must be careful not to confuse the kind of automated logging done by application providers as opposed to routing providers. http://www. http://www. 296.297 This is an external validation from a much broader coalition of scientists and vendors about the appropriateness of the design. http://www. because the hacker will usually use ordinary protocols to transmit scans and attacks.html (last visited Aug. 2009.org/html.com/netsysm/article. Oct. .293 Some providers do not use NetFlow at all. See Drew Robb.enterprisenetworkingplanet. 294.php?rfc=3955. Brad Reese. For example. virus. providers will emphasize that NetFlow is but one tool of many used in network management. . . 20.rfc-archive. at 246 ("NetFlow . June 23. the argument goes.org/getrfc. or denial of service attack is suspected."). Most providers supplement NetFlow with a host of other logging capabilities that capture other kinds of data. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1473 list. several limits should be enacted to prevent the exception from swallowing the 293. it selected NetFlow as the model for IPFIX. E-mail providers typically log a bit of information about every e-mail message sent or received.OHM. 31. But see Estan et al.charters/ipfix-charter. the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)— the organization of network researchers that sets standards for the Internet—has recently begun to develop a protocol for automated network monitoring called IPFIX. See INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE. Jan. NetFlow Is Not Being Used by 77 Percent of IT Professionals. http://www.com/community/node/29224 (reporting results of survey of 600 IT professionals. 2004. 295. 297. Leinen. php/3797511. RFC 3955: Evaluation of Candidate Protocols for IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX). THE RFC ARCHIVE. Routine Monitoring Versus Incident Response NetFlow should be used as a measuring stick for automated monitoring only. NETWORK WORLD'S CISCO SUBNET BLOG. Cisco.. and should not bind an entire industry.networkworld. d.294 Despite these true claims. because you have been able to run your networks with little more than this for a decade or more. Several objections to this proposal are anticipated. ENTERPRISE NETWORKING PLANET. can an investigator track a hacker using NetFlow data alone? It is extremely unlikely. First.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. 2008. Going with the Netflow for Network Management. noting that only 23 percent of respondents used NetFlow but noting that respondents from larger providers had a higher usage rate). providers might complain that NetFlow represents the idiosyncratic choices of one vendor. Policymakers should allow DPI during the hot pursuit of an intruder or active tracking of a worm or virus. IP FLOW INFORMATION EXPORT (IPFIX) CHARTER. no other form of automated monitoring enjoys the widespread adoption or long history of use that NetFlow has. On the contrary. is the most widely used flow measurement solution today. S. Website owners typically log every visit to the site.
. 302. at 1432–33. urges forcefully for strong data protection legislation.300 He finds instead that information asymmetries. 301. be allowed to use the data collected for marketing. 300. . Cohen. In his article Internet Privacy and the State. 2008 U. Id. and a lack of meaningful alternatives contribute to what he calls an "autonomy trap. L. the investigator should be obligated to narrow her scope by filtering out known innocuous traffic whenever possible.A. Second. The scholars who identify as the members of the New Privacy movement position themselves as a reaction to the information-commodification strain of writers who had come before and who had trumpeted the concept of consent and market alienability of information privacy. Comment. REV. 151. although collection restrictions should be liberalized. D. but she concedes that a consent exception would be appropriate in such a law because "people may have legitimate reasons for trading privacy for value in particular cases.OHM. collective action. and their associated costs and benefits. CHI.g. such as the service itself or something additional like targeted advertising."302 Still. little information about the uses of personally-identified data. 821–22 (2000). Julie Cohen. providers should be forbidden from using the products of incident response for purposes unrelated to the investigation. 815. L. REV. at 821. 299. See Paul Ohm. 22 (explaining the primary arguments of the New Privacy Scholars). In fact. Rethinking Consent Providers argue that users should be entitled to consent to monitoring in exchange for something of value. Schwartz. Internet Privacy and the State. supra note 153. INT'L & COMP.298 1. 32 CONN. L."301 These writers have not abandoned consent completely. Joann M. 303. They should not."303 In elaborating this idea. for example. Conditions for Consent Much has been written about information privacy and consent. Third.299 A fine representative example comes from Paul Schwartz. 172 (2003). 26 LOY. Paul M. Schwartz incisively critiques the idea of selfdetermination in cyberspace. See..DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1474 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. . e. Id. arguing that "the farther removed a particular use of personally-identified data is from its initial 298. incident response must be for a limited time. she uses the metaphor of distance. Wakana. in order to offset "data-processing practices [that] provide individuals with . at 1432. First. Good Enough Privacy." she would ask regulators to define in their law "the conditions for effective consent. another writer associated with the movement. 1. LEGAL F. 2009 rule. it is not much of an exaggeration to say that most of what has been written about information privacy has been about consent. The Future of Online Privacy: A Proposal for International Legislation. bounded rationality.
" the less willing we should be to recognize consent as valid."306 What are the architectural features of online consent. 19 HARV. Neil M. and do they give us reason to respect or ignore the types of consent usually used to justify ISP monitoring? 2.J. The Proximity Principle The architectural legitimacy of consent can be measured by what I am calling the proximity principle. & TECH. The Information Privacy Law Project. 1087. The first factor asks whether the customer supposedly consenting to be monitored had any meaningful choice about what provider to use. 469–70 (2006). at 1432. time. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1475 collection—whether in terms of subject matter. or the nature of the entity making the use. VoIP.307 Almost all e-mail providers offer e-mail for free.L. an examination of the structure of consent—how was it solicited? how was it acknowledged?—can be as illuminating (or more illuminating) than a study of the actual terms of consent. . 306. See Recent Development. or Yahoo!. A customer can elect to use the account offered by his or her broadband ISP. customers have meaningful choice among e-mail providers. a webmail provider such as Gmail. 305.308 They tend also to have many choices for des- 304. 308. and web hosting. and (2) the nature of the channels of communication between the provider and customer. disfavoring the use of buried privacy policies on which ISPs place great stock. 94 GEO. L. at 97. supra note 299. In some situations. 467.304 This is an intriguing idea because it looks at the consent question as an architectural question to be resolved categorically instead of an individualized assessment of the facts in a particular case.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. Ohm. or another smaller third-party e-mail provider."305 Neil Richards praises this argument for "shifting the focus of the harms caused by increased information flow from anecdotal instances of information disclosure to the power implications of those increased flows. Splog! Or How to Stop the Rise of a New Menace on the Internet. 1097 (2006). Richards. Customers also enjoy competition and choice for many other online services such as instant messaging. 307. This is consistent with information privacy scholars who urge a shift in attention from individual harms to structural and architectural problems. MSN Hotmail. supra note 145.OHM. The second factor assesses the mechanisms for asking for and receiving consent. Two factors weigh in measuring proximity: (1) the level of competition for the service provided. at 44. Daniel Solove thinks about privacy "as an aspect of social and legal structure. J. the more a claim of consent should be upheld as valid. blog hosting. The more closely related—or proximate—a user or customer is to a provider. Today. Id. SOLOVE.
If a major change to a privacy policy is needed. Broadband Options Besides DSL and Cable Emerging. for example. See Saul Hansell. not a user-by-user calculation. Many privacy-sensitive consumers. 3 J. MICROSOFT SMALL BUS.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1476 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. & TECH. When A is talking to B on a telephone. 109. and quantity of the communication channels between the user and the provider. shopping.nytimes. Take That.310 For these users. BUS. BBC NEWS. Some providers communicate in-band every time the user accesses the provider's service. there are many similar competitors who do not show contextual advertising. for example. and increasingly. . proximity turns on the nature. news. See Google's Gmail Sparks Privacy Row. by joining the conversation. 310.312 Upstream providers such as Tier 1 providers present no customer choice. http://news. require users to login every time they visit the site. refuse to use Gmail because Gmail shows contextual advertising keyed to the content of e-mail communications. of the sort a judge might undertake to measure whether a particular plaintiff consented. video delivery. L. the webmail provider could print prominent text above the login prompt that said "Notice: Our privacy policy has changed. In contrast.blogs. One way to express this is to borrow the old telephone concept of "in band" and "out of band" communications. Apr.OHM. customers have very little choice about broadband connectivity.com/smallbusiness/resources/technology/broadbandmobility/broadband-options-besides-DSL-and-cable-emerging. Web-based e-mail. http://bits. N. Second.309 Because users enjoy so many choices for all of these services and destinations. 312. at 1-2.Y. Google: No Ads from Apple. quality. or webmail.bbc. Communications that arrive through some mechanism other than the voice channel are out-of-band. Please click here to read about the 309. If a telephone operator had to break into the call to ask a question. the things they are saying are carried inband.com/2008/06/09/take-that-google-no-ads-from-apple/. In most parts of the United States. 2009 tination providers such as search. http://www. Again. uk/2/hi/business/3602745. CENTER. architectural assessment. providers. 311.co. Privacy on Planet Google: Using the Theory of "Contextual Integrity" to Clarify the Privacy Threats of Google's Quest for the Perfect Search Engine. 2008. This gives the webmail provider ample opportunity to send "in-band" messages to the user. this is a categorical. TIMES. they are likelier to consent meaningfully when using them. you have two decent broadband choices: cable and digital subscriber line (DSL). 2004. 109–10 (2008).311 Abundant choice also makes it more likely that a customer has received a genuine benefit as consideration.").microsoft. June 9. it would do so in-band. 5. With so many choices. the only two choices are DSL from the telephone company and a cable modem from the cable company.stm. A user has no say or even knowledge about the commercial contracts between her ISP and upstream ISPs.aspx#Broadbandoptionsbesides DSLandcableemerging ("In most cases. See Michael Zimmer. there is an opportunity for competition on privacy terms. Kim Komando.
and an overhaul will be proposed in Section B. perhaps by competing on price. service. These laws are imperfect. Under both factors. many of the aggressive new forms of ISP monitoring described in Part I sit beneath a legal cloud. but it still presents the opportunity to impart privacy policies at least once. ISPs are not very proximate to users." Other providers. never does the salesperson read the terms of service over the phone." like those commonly seen on free wireless and hotel networks. 3. or convenience. Providers will likely be sued and may even be criminally prosecuted if they continue to engage in the aggressive monitoring they have begun to embrace. privacy policies are included with the first bill in the mail often buried among a pile of ads. users should never be allowed to consent to wholesale ISP monitoring. This conclusion is not irreversible. ISPs and Proximity In contrast to the two in-band examples just given. Sometimes. in-band interaction with the provider during account creation without subsequent communications.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No." If an ISP refuses to take these proximityenhancing steps. and a skeptical view of user consent—are already built into one type of law. The majority of users call a DSL or cable modem salesperson on the telephone to establish service. with opportunities for consensual monitoring. customers rarely communicate in-band with their broadband provider. during account creation.OHM. An ISP could also refuse to route any packets to a user unless he first viewed a mandatory "captive portal. IV. and by logging in to your account. you accept the changes. There is little choice in the broadband market and ISPs typically do not and cannot communicate with users in-band. At least in my experience. but generally they adhere well to the principles. like some instant messaging providers. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1477 changes. providers have the power to increase their proximity to users. which first require the user to click "I agree. This is a less proximate relationship than the service that requires a login every day. . Under these laws. also out-of-band. the proximity principle. the wiretapping laws. An ISP could convince a user to begin using its e-mail service or web hosting service. require a single. THE LAW Some of the principles presented above—exceptions based on provider need. which would convert the ISP into a hybrid provider.
Pub. 1.OHM. 1998). Lifting the "Fog" of Internet Surveillance: How a Suppression Remedy Would Change Computer Crime Law.320 The rules are particularly confusing for ISP monitoring. No. 90-351. 1848 (codified as amended in scattered sections of 28 U. b. amending the law to govern the interception of electronic communications. 805. at 821.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1478 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol."318 Professor Orin Kerr blames this confusion on the unfortunate combination of "remarkably difficult statutory language"319 and the dearth of cases construing the statute. 319. 316.J. 462 (5th Cir. Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. 320.. Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986. 1055 (9th Cir. Steve Jackson Games. Some of the following discussion will be confident and certain."). But the doubt runs both ways: there is neither clear liability nor immunity for many recent provider acts under the law. Id.3d at 1055.3d at 462. The Law of Network Monitoring ECPA: Prohibitions Federal and state wiretap laws are the principal privacy laws regulating packet sniffing and automated network monitoring. No. L. The following discussion focuses primarily on federal law. Kerr. therefore. 36 F. Given the stakes. United States v. .S.C.S. Secret Serv. It is difficult. at 823–24. 197 (codified as amended at 18 U. 36 F. and because courts have had little occasion to consider ISP monitoring. U. 155 F. Pub.C. upon which many of the state laws are based. 54 HASTINGS L. because so many exceptions in the law apply to providers. but much of it will be expressed with some doubt. 820 (2003) ("The law of electronic surveillance is famously complex. §§ 2511–2520 (2006)). Congress enacted the ECPA. L. Orin S.313 In 1986. 318. 315. Smith. to make confident predictions about how courts will rule. responsible companies should err on the side of avoiding new. 155 F. Kerr. invasive forms of monitoring that raise the risk of illegal behavior. Inc. v.3d 457. Smith. if not entirely impenetrable. the ECPA is confusing.).S."317 a statement that the Ninth Circuit rejoined "might have put the matter too mildly. 1994). The Federal Wiretap Act was first enacted in 1968 at which time it regulated only telephone wiretaps and hidden microphones. Few Obvious Answers As many courts315 and scholars316 have complained. 99-508. supra note 316. The ECPA makes it illegal to "intentionally in- 313. 317. 82 Stat. 314.314 a. 100 Stat. The Fifth Circuit has complained that the Act "is famous (if not infamous) for its lack of clarity. Wiretap Prohibitions Packet sniffing falls within the prohibited conduct of the ECPA and most state wiretap laws.3d 1051. 2009 A. Steve Jackson Games.
Id. 14. 328. endeavor[] to intercept. King. O'Brien v. at *8–9 (S. and Consumer Privacy: Ensuring Adequate Disclosure and Consent Mechanisms for Emerging Mobile Advertising Practices. § 2510(4).328 Wiretapping is a federal felony investigated by the FBI with a maximum penalty for first-time offenders of five years in prison. and websites visited. 229."321 An electronic communication is. 2d 1133. 2005) (en banc). 2007 WL 539534. 325. § 2510(12). the ECPA created a separate law prohibiting the collection of non-content information. but not in the way some people think. although noncontent collection falls outside the Wiretap Act's prohibitions. 18 U. 329 F. No. § 2511. 899 So. L. Mobile Phones. Ct. . Councilman.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. United States v.000 per victim.D. § 2511(1)(a) (2006).326 These are all actions that ISPs engaged in aggressive monitoring might undertake. Id.OHM.S. signals. Direct Marketing.329 c. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1479 tercept[]. 18 U. 2003). 85 (1st Cir. Some commentators mistakenly claim that it is legal to acquire non-content information. it does not broadly protect consumers' information privacy with respect to their personal data. or electronic communication. or other device. 18 U.3d 67.S. 326. 60 FED. 331. or procure[] any other person to intercept or endeavor to intercept any wire."323 Putting these three provisions together. civil lawsuit against the wire tapper.327 Liable defendants must pay actual damages to the victims or statutory damages of $100 per victim per day or $10. 2005) (construing state statute modeled after federal wiretap law).J. accord Potter v.. in part. § 2520(c). 322. 327. Havlicek.324 to obtain a cookie from a customer's computer.C. courts have held it at least a prima facie Wiretap Act violation to copy e-mail messages before they are delivered. In re Pharmatrak. Id. images. "any transfer of signs. 324. oral.C. O'Brien. electronic. data. 22 (1st Cir. writing. Any person whose communications are intercepted may bring a federal. whichever is greater. 329. Id. mechanical. 2007) (holding use of keystroke and screen shot logging software to be likely ECPA violation). COMM. 289 (2008) ("[O]ne important limitation of the ECPA's privacy protections is that it only protects the contents of electronic communications from unlawful interception or access. 418 F. instant messages.S."). 323. 3:06-CV-211. § 2520(a). §§ 3121–3127. e-mail messages. 1137 (Fla. 330.330 On the contrary. The Pen Register and Trap and Trace Act (Pen Register Act)331 regulates the installation and use of devices that "record[] or decode[]" 321. Pen Registers and Trap and Trace Devices Act The envelope analogy is embedded in the ECPA.C.3d 9."322 Intercept means "the aural or other acquisition of the contents of any wire. or intelligence of any nature. Dist. App. Ohio Feb. sounds. or oral communication through the use of any electronic. Nancy J.325 and to install and use spyware to capture chat conversations. Inc.
This is unwise for several reasons.336 For example. 339. 1. CRIM. it is not a Wiretap Act violation to intercept communications "readily accessible to the general public" but there is no comparable exception in the Pen Register Act. which undoubtedly encompasses IP addresses.S.337 This could lead to the anomalous result of a court finding criminal culpability for the collection of non-content information that would have been justified if content information had been collected instead. § 216.C. Id. 115 Stat. 340.338 and given the lack of prosecutions under this statute—misdemeanor prosecutions tend not to motivate federal law enforcement agents339—they probably do not face criminal prosecution either. 581. §§ 3121–3127.S.C. Policing the Fourth Amendment: The Constitutionality of Warrantless Investigatory Stops for Past Misdemeanors. 288–90. with respect to non-content. one must posit that misdemeanors are universally qualitatively distinct from felonies such that the governmental interests in preventing or solving them are always comparatively lesser.R. See generally Robert Ditzion. 338. Allstate Ins. REV. law enforcement agents and prosecutors may be motivated to investigate and prosecute.D.")."333 This is a broad phrase. Worse. REV. This might embolden some ISPs to defy these rules. L. a court might rule a single act both legal. § 3121(c). or signaling information."). Second. First.D. Pub. 185 F. No. . section 216 of the USA PATRIOT Act extended this provision to devices that record or decode "dialing. Compare 18 U. 334 (2009) ("To extract a brightline rule from the Terry/Brown reasonableness test declaring all completed misdemeanor stops unconstitutional. The Pen Register Act makes it a crime (a misdemeanor) to install or use devices to record or decode such information. ISPs face no civil liability for non-content monitoring. L. 334. addressing. See Diaz v. . 107-56. 2009 non-content information. 337.S.OHM. § 2511(2)(g)(i). See MODEL RULES OF PROF'L CONDUCT R.2(d) (2004). 1998) ("Under California law. 18 U.334 The Pen Register Act is a flawed statute. 1321 (2004) (arguing that the pen register fits poorly to the Internet). an ISP's lawyer violates her ethical obligations if she advises her client to violate a criminal law. 335.335 Most notably. 309. including those that do not otherwise permit a private right of action .C. 594 (C. CODE § 17200 (West 2008). Electronic Surveillance in the Internet Age: The Strange Case of Pen Registers.340 332. with 18 U. 18 U. routing. Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001. 109 COLUM. with respect to the content captured. Note. the Pen Register Act has only three statutory exceptions while the Wiretap Act has dozens. BUS. if ISPs willfully violate the Act in order to perform some unprecedented. § 2511(2) (listing some of the Wiretap Act exceptions). 272. . Group.C. e-mail "To:" and "From:" addresses.S.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1480 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. Note. invasive monitoring. Cal.332 Although there might have been some doubt at one point whether this applied to the Internet. a private plaintiff may bring action under unfair competition statute to redress any unlawful business practice. Cf. Under California's Unfair Competition Law. 41 AM. CAL. and other non-content routing information. 336. & PROF. L. injured customers of an ISP might be able to sue to recover damages for violations of the Pen Register Act. Sameer Bajaj. § 3121(b) (listing all of the Pen Register Act exceptions). subject to a number of exceptions. and illegal. 333. .
342. and it is unlikely that the reasoning could be extended to that Act. 345. 347. because unlike the Wiretap and Pen Register Acts. 1994). Konop says nothing about liability under the Pen Register Act. Finally. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1481 d.C.348 When ISPs monitor.OHM. Stored Communications Act The ECPA also created the Stored Communications Act (SCA).3d 868 (9th Cir. I served on the Department of Justice's team representing the United States in the en banc proceeding of this case.3d 457. 346.. 18 U. may AT&T use deep-packet inspection and other network management techniques to monitor for copyrighted materials? Did Comcast break the law by peering into user packets in order to identify and throttle BitTorrent transfers? May Charter. ECPA: Defenses and Immunities Under the wiretap laws. § 2701(c)(1) ("Subsection (a) of this section does not apply with respect to conduct authorized by the person or entity providing a wire or electronic communications service. These cases.349 341.341 The SCA restricts access to some communications in storage. An Overview of the Federal Wiretap Act. Secret Service. Id. but never under both.S.3d at 878 n. 461–62 (5th Cir. Id. 2. NebuAd. NebuAd's plans have inspired dueling memos debating whether the service violates the Wiretap Act. First. when messages are still "in motion. at 82. 418 F. for Democracy & Tech." even if only for split seconds. 349. 302 F. a court could follow Konop yet rule that ISP monitoring falls on the Wiretap side of the divide. 348. however. given a series of misguided cases.346 the First Circuit en banc concluded that an act could be charged under both the SCA and Wiretap Acts. ISPs receive blanket immunity under the SCA. ISPs are not necessarily in the clear. 343. 344. Inc. 36 F.343 This blanket immunity for access to stored communications might warp into a safe harbor from Wiretap Act liability as well.342 ISPs need not worry about this prohibition. 302 F. v.6. §§ 2701–2122 (2006). 155 F.3d 67 (1st Cir. they tend to do so on routers or in firewalls.. most notably the Ninth Circuit's opinion in Konop v."). 2005) (en banc).345 The precise reasoning is elaborate. Id. Smith.3d 1051. In United States v. tortured and not worth illuminating fully in this Article.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. U. § 2701(a). 2002). Compare Ctr. Elec- .347 Even if other courts opt for the Konop rule instead of the Councilman rule. Id. at 878–79. in order to fall under the Konop rule. the monitoring must occur on communications "at rest.344 stand for the proposition that a single allegedly wrongful action arises under either the SCA or the Wiretap Act. 1057 (9th Cir. Konop. Councilman. Inc. Other cases arguably supporting this conclusion include United States v. 1998). and Steve Jackson Games.S. Hawaiian Airlines. The most recent United States Court of Appeals opinion about this issue refused to follow the misguided Konop rule." Thus.
Inc. as discussed in Part III. . Protection of Rights and Property The first two exceptions are provided in the same section of the federal statute: It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for an operator of a switchboard. One court. disclose. § 2701(c)(1). Id. http://www.OHM. or agent of a provider of wire or electronic communication service. § 2511(2)(g)(i) (2006)." This exception raises all of the issues of provider need. interception is not illegal when done to protect a provider's "rights and property. Regarding justifications.C.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1482 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. Earthlink Network. 354. There are other exceptions. has interpreted this exception much more broadly. Compare the blanket immunity found in the SCA. an interception is legal only if it is a "necessary incident" to protecting rights and property.cdt. Cir.C. however. 352. A backwater it should remain. the opinion is flawed in many ways and should not be followed. 2008).S.350 There are arguments for and against the application of these exceptions to these fact patterns. See id.. § 2510(5)." which is legal to acquire under the Wiretap Act. § 2511(2)(a)(i).pdf (appending NebuAd. at 10–18 (testimony of Bob Dykes. and State Two-Party Consent Laws of Relevance to the NebuAd System and Other Uses of Internet Traffic Content from ISPs for Behavioral Advertising (July 8. 18 U.352 The exception is structured as a meansjustifications test. 351.354 The adjective "necessary" in "necessary incident" dictates a searching and skeptical review of the fit between justifications and methods of tronic Communications Privacy Act. § 2511(2)(a)(i) (emphasis added). 2005). a. Inc. 18 U. . or an officer.351 Consider first the permission to protect "rights and property. a way for telephone companies and stores to check on the quality of their telephone support staff and nothing more. 353.S.3d 500. NebuAd. Although a full discussion of Hall is outside the scope of this Article. http://archives.353 As for means. Chief Executive Officer." "rendition of service. employee. 504–05 (2d." 396 F. Also.071708. or use that communication in the normal course of his employment while engaged in any activity which is a necessary incident to the rendition of his service or to the protection of the rights or property of the provider of that service . to intercept. whose facilities are used in the transmission of a wire or electronic communication. .energycommerce." and consent. Inc. supra note 191. memo to his testimony). Providers might argue that traffic sent onto the Internet is "readily accessible to the general public. 350.pdf [hereinafter CDT Wiretap Analysis].). This exception was always intended as a backwater. See id.gov/cmte_mtgs/110-ti-hrg. with Broadband Provider Hearing. This exception to the Wiretap Act permits customers and users to use so-called telephone extensions without worrying about wiretapping liability. In Hall v.org/privacy/20080708ISPtraffic.S. 18 U. ISPs might invoke the so-called business telephone extension exception.C. and none of these arguments are irrefutably correct. . but none that bear a lengthy elaboration." an undefined and somewhat vague phrase.Dykestestimony.house. the Second Circuit interpreted this provision to apply to any technology used in the "ordinary course of business. This exception does not grant ISPs blanket immunity to conduct any type of monitoring for any reason. 2009 and Phorm monitor the websites its users visit? At least under federal law. there are three statutory exceptions within which these acts might fall: "rights and property.
2d 176. that the monitoring of certain non-content information fit within the exception.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. 359.. 1980). Tel." . 646 (7th Cir. when an ISP is sued or prosecuted for monitoring done in the hot pursuit of an intruder. 355. obviously. McLaren. the court should find no liability for monitoring. among other things.2d 642. 180 (Mont. this probably is more monitoring than is a "necessary incident.356 a seemingly more deferential standard. 957 F." but it chose a much stricter formulation instead. even broad and somewhat indiscriminate monitoring using packet sniffers. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1483 monitoring. faulted a telephone company for recording party line conversations for six days to investigate claims of. and monitoring for a year should always be forbidden. 358. Congress could have used the more deferential phrase "reasonable incident. So long as the provider can prove to the court that it had reason to suspect an intruder in the system. such recordation and disclosure could not possibly be 'necessary' to protect the provider from such fraud. Providers should bear a heavy burden to show that their network management choices are tightly connected to their asserted justifications. The Supreme Court of Montana. 356. Sys.2d at 182."). Some courts have defined this very strictly.D. Supp. obscene phone calls. United States v. 215. Id. Somewhat indiscriminate.. recording and subsequent disclosure of complete telephone calls having nothing whatever to do with the cloning fraud under investigation was unreasonable because. crass comments. 615 P.360 Extrapolating these voice cases to the Internet. at 220 ("[T]he interception. Sistok v. but even that court suppressed some records having nothing to do with the purpose of the investigation.355 One court required a "substantial nexus" between the monitoring and the reason for the monitoring. Auler. 1976). in a state case involving the federal wiretapping statute.359 It ruled.357 Other courts have rejected provider telephone monitoring because of the poor fit between means and justifications. 360. capturing complete packets for an extended period of time. 219 (M. Fla. Inc.358 The Seventh Circuit refused to apply the exception to a telephone company's taping of conversations in an investigation of theft of service. 1997). saying that the provider must show that the monitoring "could not have been conducted less extensively and that the [provider] could not have employed other reasonable measures" to address the justification.361 Complete monitoring to find an intruder for a week seems reasonable. no provider should be allowed under this exception to run an unfiltered packet sniffer.OHM. and crackling connections. 357. 361. Nw. Still. 615 P. United States v. 539 F. Sistok. however. in response for a limited time. because there must still be limits. Id. If a network manager suspects an intruder and monitors a switch carrying the traffic of one thousand users. under these cases it should be given a generously broad reading of the "rights and property" exception. doing it for a month seems pretextual.
713 F. Network Neutrality and the False Promise of Zero-Price Regulation. § 2511(2)(a)(i) (2006). See C. 390 (8th Cir. Scott Hemphill. People v. 25 YALE J. Courts should leave the rendition of service interpretation narrow and tightly confined. not to mention what types of monitoring are "incident" to the service. 564 F. Ct. 199–200 (N. 363. 366. and push this type of analysis to the consent prong. 1973).Y. All of these questions begin to sound like questions of user consent. Taking this argument one more step.2d 728. United States. 18 U. a dot-com boom (and bust) company which provided free dial-up Internet access to customers willing to watch ads while they surfed.C. v. For example. ON REG.152 (2008) (discussing NetZero). "Rendition of Service" Providers are also entitled to intercept communications as a "necessary incident to rendition of .Y.OHM. It seems to immunize only the overhearing of short conversations by telephone company employees either inadvertently or as a quick check to ensure a line is working. 731 (5th Cir.363 For example. "rendition of service" focuses more on the type of service you think you are getting. 2d 196. viruses or spam. .364 A motel switchboard operator could overhear conversations while performing duties. providers might argue that the service provided is "ad-subsidized web surfing. CARR & PATRICIA L. JAMES G. .S.2d 389.365 A telephone company employee atop a telephone pole in response to customer service complaints could attach his device to the line. 135. United States v. From a transparency and fairness point of view.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1484 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. discussed next. 362. 364." This evokes memories of NetZero. but with a twist. 1 THE LAW OF ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE § 3:39 (2008) (summarizing cases). 173 n. Savage. They may try to strategically characterize the "service" they are rendering." then perhaps they can argue for more leeway to monitor for.366 ISPs may propose a clever argument about this exception that courts should reject. focuses on the consent to monitor. 1977). 2009 b. Sup. 365. 343 N. . long distance operators have been allowed to remain on a line long enough to ensure a connection has been established. service. if providers convince courts that they are providing "virus-free web surfing" or "spam-free e-mail. BELLIA. 1983). this exception has been rarely litigated and always narrowly construed. respectively. the consent argument is more straightforward and better captures the policy interests at stake. 367. While consent.367 The problem with allowing providers to broaden this exception to include such specifically defined services is that it turns on difficult factual questions about how a service is marketed and what customers understand they are buying or receiving. Ross.S."362 With telephone providers. Sierra.
Berry v.376 In In re Pharmatrak. 11 F. 1993).DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. Workman. Lanoue. Cir. at 282. Funk.. wiretap consent seems to embrace a form of the proximity principle described in Part III. 19 (1st Cir.3d 9. Spears. Consent The other exception that may apply to ISP monitoring is the consent exception. 374.S. 372. but only told her they might do so in order to cut down on personal calls. § 2511(2)(d) (consent by party to the communication "not acting under color of law"). 329 F. a test of constructive consent. 375. the First Circuit refused to infer consent from "the mere purchase of a service. 980 F.368 ISPs may lawfully monitor their users without violating the law if and to the extent that their users have previously consented.377 In dictum.370 Instead.3d 271. id."). 2003). Griggs-Ryan v.. 3:06-cv-211.OHM. Inc. 369. 11 F. 693 (2d Cir. 281 (1st Cir. 371. 20 (1st Cir. Inc. Even though the district court found that the CEO had been "told of the 'monitoring' of . 1996). Wiretap consent may be express or implied. but implied consent is neither a "reasonable expectation of privacy" test. Id. 71 F. Inc." it would not infer consent. 2003). .D." particularly when the purchasing parties had insisted no personal data would be collected. Consent under the Wiretap Act is very different from ordinary contract law in ways that even seasoned cyberlaw scholars and judges may not initially appreciate.3d 966. see Williams v. the question is. 981 (1st Cir. 146 F. 904 F. at *8–9 (S.C. 329 F. 370.3d 688. 2007 WL 539534. Poulos. did this particular user receive notice? In Williams v.375 The First Circuit held that without this "minimal knowledge. United States v. 368. United States v. 376. Id. Poulos373 the district court held that an employer violated federal and state wiretap laws when it monitored employee phone calls. 116 (1st Cir. .372 Courts instead ask simply. 1990).2d 1153. § 2511(2)(c) (2006) (consent by party to the communication "acting under color of law"). In re Pharmatrak. for example. 80 F.3d 1003.3d 9.3d 271 (1st Cir. 1992) ("We do not believe that Deal's consent may be implied from the circumstances relied upon in the Spearses' arguments. 1993). 1157 (8th Cir. . Id. ask what the customer must have known or assess whether the method of notification was reasonably calculated to reach customers. Deal v..369 nor a measure of whether the party simply should have known better or had exposed him or herself to some risk of monitoring. 1995). 18 U. 377. at 281 (emphasis added).2d 112. Havlicek. In particular.C. The Spearses did not inform Deal that they were monitoring the phone. implied consent requires proof that the monitored subject was aware of the monitoring yet continued using the system."374 it still found a lack of informed consent because the CEO had not been given enough information to believe that his calls were also being monitored. did the user consent in fact?371 Courts will not. In re Pharmatrak. No. 1998). 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1485 c. employee telephone calls. 373. 1011 (D. Smith.D. Potter v. Ohio 2007) (finding no wiretap consent even though monitored person had "utiliz[ed] a computer to which her husband had access and [had used] a 'remember me' feature on her e-mail account").
379.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1486 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. three states home to many Internet-technology companies. An Entirely Illegal Product Market Although many of the legal conclusions in this Part have been tentative. Maryland. Connecticut.379 3. one thing can be said with confidence. at 21. but how does this interesting tidbit transform into a "necessary" step for protecting the provider's rights and property? Furthermore. contracts between ISPs usually say nothing about user privacy or permission to monitor. Even if consent could be treated like a transitive property. passed along from provider to provider through contract. Twelve states require all party consent including Washington. much less the consent of the tens or hundreds of thousands of users whose communications they are monitoring. Under such laws. recorded and cataloged all internet usage by parent and child alike. . and Washington. because DPI tools are not a "necessary incident" to dealing with the legitimate problems of Tier 1 providers like congestion.37.378 There is an even bigger hurdle lurking. ISPs will find it virtually impossible to rely on user consent if they are governed by a state wiretapping law requiring "all party" or "two party" consent.OHM. As of 2003. This is the proximity principle with a vengeance. Tier 1 providers—the providers who run the fastest networks and do not directly serve any users— are almost certainly prohibited under these laws from conducting deeppacket inspection. Illinois. See CDT Wiretap Analysis. there are vendors who spe- 378. indicating that it would interpret ISP contracts closely: [S]uppose an internet service provider received a parent's consent solely to monitor a child's internet usage for attempts to access sexually explicit sites—but the ISP installed code that monitored. the ISP would not be liable under the ECPA. the states that required the consent of all parties to a communication were California. California. Even if some of the users on the network have consented to monitoring by their customer-facing ISP. Despite the significant limits placed upon a Tier 1 provider under these laws. this will not immunize the out-of-privity upstream provider. supra note 349. Under the theory we have rejected. None of the monitored users have contracted directly with the Tier 1 provider. according to an industry analyst. New Hampshire. at 11 n. every person communicating must have given prior consent. Montana. even if we put the all party consent issue to the side. Id. Nevada. and Massachusetts. 2009 the court discussed consent in the ISP monitoring situation in particular. Massachusetts. Michigan. Tier 1 providers cannot claim to be using DPI to protect rights and property. Florida. Pennsylvania. no Tier 1 provider has valid consent from any user to monitor traffic. It might interest a Tier 1 provider to know that 25 percent of the traffic on its network is spam.
381 4. an order to wiretap is significantly more onerous to acquire. spurred by a triggering event. customer. Light Reading Insider. if Congress proposes to merge the two acts. These vendors might even be committing a federal crime merely by selling this technology! Section 2512 of the Wiretap Act makes it a felony to sell a monitoring device "knowing or having reason to know that the design of such device renders it primarily useful for the purpose of the surreptitious interception of wire. § 2512(1)(a) (2006). In fact. the "rights and property" and "rendition of service" exceptions should be split into incident response and long-term monitoring exceptions.C.S. Law enforcement agencies will howl about such a change. limited in time. Congress should merge the Wiretap and Pen Register Acts to cover all acts of network monitoring. to avoid the problems with the envelope analogy. oral. Amending the Law Congress should consider an overhaul of all three titles of the ECPA to reflect changes in technology. especially for reasons unrelated to rights.380 These vendors are selling a product that can never legally be used. . supra note 23. property. the exception could be made even more forgiving than today's "rights and property" exception by softening the "necessary incident" nexus requirement to a "reasonably re- 380." Second. 381. at least in terms of regulating private conduct. Providers who engage in too much creative monitoring. The two Acts approach regulating law enforcement court orders in fundamentally different ways. For "incident response monitoring"— which should be defined as monitoring to protect rights and property. Particularly because the wiretap laws are so sweeping and punitive and because the exceptions are muddy and difficult to understand. Assessing the Law For the most part. or subscriber. Because of this. 382." 18 U. and to amend away a few glaring inconsistencies. and non-recurring—the new exception should be expansive. in the merged new law. it should retain the differences between the law enforcement access provisions at this time.382 The new unified law should regulate all monitoring—without distinguishing between whether the monitoring is of content or not—provided it is monitoring of data "of or pertaining to a user. or electronic communications. First. These laws are very similar to one another. B. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1487 cifically sell DPI to Tier 1 providers.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. merging these provisions of the act may be difficult (not to mention politically fraught). and it is both artificial and confusing to treat them dissimilarly. with the civil verdicts and criminal convictions they suffer serving as cautionary tales to other providers. will probably be sued and may be prosecuted.OHM. for political reasons. and the rendition of service. providers have a strong incentive to avoid venturing away from the status quo. Although the value of this distinction is beyond the scope of this Article. today's wiretap laws strike a reasonable balance between network management and user privacy and incorporate many of the normative principles set out in Part III. In almost every way.
385 This is why it is likely illegal to copy commercial DVDs. This agency should be charged with considering changes in technology. given the long-term history of the protocol and the fact that it is about to be enshrined by IETF in IPFIX. 388. 273 F. Thus. and for people unlocking mobile phones to use on a different provider network. is that such a technology-specific law will quickly become outdated. Congress should codify a safe harbor for NetFlow monitoring. 383.C.OHM. 201).387 During this review. § 1201(a)(1)(C). 387. 17 U.F. 68472 (Nov. the Librarian is charged with determining whether some people are "adversely affected by the prohibition . As a model. 385. See generally Universal City Studios.C. § 1201(a)(1)(C) (2006) (instructing Librarian of Congress to engage in triennial review to identify persons "adversely affected" by the anti-circumvention provisions).R. and judges should be expected to survey such standards to ensure that the provider is not using the rights and property exception to justify unduly invasive monitoring. 2006) (to be codified at 37 C. The risk. of course. Reg. policymakers should look to the anti-circumvention exceptions provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). 17 U. v. 2009 lated" nexus. it is illegal to circumvent some types of technology used for copyright control. 389. See supra note 296 and accompanying text. 27. For automated monitoring by routing providers like ISPs. Inc. for media studies and film professors using film clips in class. Corley. 71 Fed. This is probably not a near-term concern. . Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies. an agency should be given the task of convening every two or three years to consider new expansions to the NetFlow safe harbor of the Wiretap Act. . the law will probably become out-of-date at some point. in their ability to make noninfringing uses. 386.S.S. among others. pt.389 As with the DMCA process. 2001) (discussing CSS and the DMCA).386 Persuaded that this law might have unintended and undesirable consequences. and user privacy in deciding whether to expand the list. Id. Congress should make it clear that the word "reasonably" should be interpreted to incorporate industry standards. A routing provider may capture every piece of information in the NetFlow monitoring set as a matter of course. the Librarian created new exceptions. § 1201(a)(1)(A). 384. which are protected using a software encryption scheme known as Content Scramble System (CSS).3d 429 (2d Cir. which has already occurred thrice. Congress should delegate responsibility to a regulator for expanding or contracting this safe harbor.384 Under the DMCA. Id. because laws are overhauled infrequently."388 During the last review.383 Still. . Congress delegated a triennial review of this prohibition to the Librarian of Congress with assistance from the Register of Copyrights. business needs.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1488 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol.
or net neutrality. OF STANDARDS & TECH.392 These conflicts. FEDERAL INFORMATION PROCESSING STANDARDS PUBLICATION 197: ANNOUNCING THE ADVANCED ENCRYPTION STANDARD (AES) (2001). What if a provider wishes to collect more than NetFlow information during automated monitoring? The "rights and property" exception should still apply. are at the heart of the network neutrality debate. For routing providers. Congress should overhaul consent. Providers will be allowed to aggressively monitor to detect new threats like worms.D. V. Implementing the collection overhaul proposed here would greatly reduce the potential amount of information held by ISPs. 393.gov/publications/fips/fips197/fips-197. which would ameliorate some concerns about use and disclosure. Before routing providers can capture information outside the rights and property exception.391 Finally. there are reasons why some are worried even about the ISP disclosure and use of the kind of information found in the NetFlow data set. Cf. Id. they must alert users in-band. Third.390 It also is less politicized in many ways than alternatives like the FTC or FCC.. These considerations are beyond the scope of this Article. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1489 Which agency should be charged with this review? The National Institute for Standards and Technology is a good candidate. 392. 394. broadband carriers should not discriminate in how they treat traffic on their broadband network on the basis of inter-network criteria.nist.393 The principle is based on an economic theory of innovation that Tim Wu has called "the evolutionary model. Network neutrality. at 168 ("[A]bsent evidence of harm to the local network or the interests of other users. and the Comcast affair in particular. application."). given its history of national standards setting and its access to subject matter experts. WHEN NET NEUTRALITY MET PRIVACY This Article has focused until now on the privacy implications of recent conflicts like Comcast's throttling of BitTorrent. supra note 19. See Wu. consent should be allowed only on a per-incident basis. 391. this proposal has focused primarily on collection and not on use and disclosure. See supra Parts II. and may be seen to have less of a vested interest in the outcome. albeit with the same restrictive "necessary incident" nexus requirement in today's law.OHM. or source. but the monitoring they undertake in those efforts must be closely related to the goal pursued.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. and denial of service attacks. at 145. See supra Part III. III. Still. http://csrc. . This final Part draws neglected and important connections between privacy and network neutrality. is the principle that ISPs must not treat packets discriminatorily based on content.2 (discussing "in band" communications channels).pdf (announcing widely used encryption standard selected by NIST). NAT'L INST. botnets."394 which holds that the preferred path to innovation is through maximizing the number of poten390.
399. by implementing what is called quality of service. Richard S.pdf. leading to a "meritocratic" selection of the winners.. 2009 tial innovators. they will often find themselves tripping over the wiretapping laws first. 587.org/issues-pubs/pops/pop13.g.396 The three computer scientists who first coined the term have more recently argued that the end-to-end principle maximizes distributed innovation by supporting "the widest possible variety of services and functions. See id. at 9–10. See supra note 10 (listing articles that have touched on the topic). COMM.395 This theory is seen to have much in common with the end-to-end principle of computer network engineering: innovation should occur at the "ends" of networks. This is also referred to as the "dumb network" principle because applications should be smart and the core of the network should be dumb. Flipping the Status Quo There is a close connection between the network neutrality debate and privacy which to date has received little attention. 398. 70. to permit applications that cannot be anticipated. Jackson. which make it difficult to avoid delays in the network. at 145–46.14primer_netneut. Thomas W. L. 590 (2004). that has never been acknowledged. it cannot block or slow down VoIP. A Skeptic's Primer on Net Neutrality Regulation (2006). E. As providers begin to tiptoe close to the line of discrimination opposed by net neutrality advocates.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1490 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. for example. 396. A Horizontal Leap Forward: Formulating a New Communications Public Policy Framework Based on the Network Layers Model.. As plaintiffs' lawyers begin filing class action lawsuits on behalf of customers demanding millions of dol395. which marks some packets for preferential treatment based on application or source.. if a DSL provider is prohibited from using deep-packet inspection to distinguish VoIP packets from other traffic. Neutrality opponents argue that the best way to reduce these problems is to allow providers at the core to innovate.J. 56 FED. For example."397 Mandatory net neutrality has its opponents. They point out that the Internet is inherently non-neutral. then certain categories of discrimination will be impossible to accomplish. Chen & Alden W. because it is built on so-called best effort routing protocols.OHM. The Progress & Freedom Found.398 Applications that tolerate these problems well (like e-mail) are favored over applications that do not (like VoIP). 397. If the ECPA and the state wiretapping laws prohibit ISPs from looking deeply into packets. .pff.399 A." 12 IEEE NETWORK. Kyle Dixon et al. Id. Commentaries on "Active Networking and End-toEnd Arguments. These laws already provide mandatory network neutrality. of a sort. in the applications running on end user computers. let us call the principle network non-scrutiny (net non-scrutiny) instead.400 A provider cannot discriminate between packets without scrutinizing them first. http://www. May–June 1998. at 66. Because the principles do not overlap perfectly. while ISP computers at the "core" should do little more than route packets. 400. Whitt.
8 (2008) (statement of Lawrence Lessig. The Future of the Internet: Hearing Before the S. the fit is imperfect.. Professor of Law. and slowing traffic is nearly as bad. focuses instead almost entirely on a provider's scrutiny of communications. supra note 105. existing legal rules already provide network neutrality. The burden of persuasion should be on those who argue in favor of packet discrimination. Net non-scrutiny. Net neutrality advocates usually allow for similar exceptions to the principle.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No.000). First. See supra note 219 and accompanying text. the wiretap laws must first be amended.. consider how these goals may diverge. Scrutiny without handling does not violate net neutrality and handling without scrutiny does not necessarily implicate privacy. But Is This Really Net Neutrality? Although privacy concerns overlap with net neutrality goals. See 18 U. in contrast. As described above. Comcast's throttling of BitTorrent violates net neutrality the most while AT&T's proposed packet content scrutiny violates net non-scrutiny the most. Furthermore. B. Net neutrality focuses almost exclusively on the handling of packets. wiretap law allows provider monitoring for the protection of rights and property and the rendition of service. 110th Cong. The current assumption is that mandatory network neutrality will result only if proponents convince Congress to enact it.402 On the contrary. because to allow deep-packet inspection on a broad scale. See. § 2520(c)(2) (2006) (providing statutory damages of $100 per day up to $10. This is not to say that the two principles are indifferent about the violations that alarm the other.. e.C. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1491 lars in remedies for illegal monitoring. violations of net neutrality are often violations of wiretap law and vice versa. and the FCC has carved out "reasonable network management" from its principles. on Commerce. consider the overlap.S. Under net neutrality. One important result of this analysis is to flip the status quo ante in the net neutrality debate.403 Then again.401 and as providers begin losing or settling those suits.404 Of the four fact patterns discussed in Part I. Press Release. Sci. they will be forced to abandon entire classes of application and content-based discrimination. 404. and Transp. at 2. 403. Stanford Law School). The worst thing a provider can do is scan and capture the contents of communications. . net neutrality advocates may find enforceable net neutrality through this unexpected means. AT&T's scrutiny is troubling because it 401.OHM. The worst thing a provider can do is block traffic. Without needing Congress to pass a single law or the FCC to issue a single ruling. at least in the form of network non-scrutiny.g. I say "not necessarily" because "handling" often threatens privacy. and net non-scrutiny does not lead to precisely the results urged by neutrality activists. Ross Anderson's example of the once-pregnant woman outed by Phorm is a good example. even if the provider never saves or archives the information handled. 402. Comm.
412 Tracking traffic by port can help a provider hone down the source of a sudden congestion problem. in NetFlow from its inception. 408. at 56. BLANK.407 Web servers typically listen on port 80.409 For this reason. one way Comcast could have blocked BitTorrent is by blocking packets using ports 6881 to 6900.. Id.411 Furthermore. Id. which are used for many BitTorrent transfers. outbound e-mail servers on port 25. Likewise. Comcast had to identify communications that looked like BitTorrent. 2009 puts in place the architecture for forbidden intelligence and control. 411. 409. so long as they are not discriminating against competitors. Wu. TC/IP FOUNDATIONS 57 (2004). WILLIAM VON HAGEN. provider scrutiny of a port is not a great concern. 31.OHM. for example. SETTING UP LAMP: GETTING LINUX. Few applications are so stigmatized or forbidden that knowledge that they are being used alone is a significant privacy breach. 407.406 Ports act as sorting mechanisms for incoming messages. port scrutiny worries net neutrality advocates. peer-to-peer applications or encryption might fall into this category. perhaps to the disappointment of net neutrality advocates. A spike in port 25 traffic might signal a malfunctioning e-mail server or a spammer. and inbound e-mail servers often use ports 110 or 143. called the TCP or UDP port. ERIC ROSEBROOK & ERIC FILSON. APACHE. Although the technical details are still murky. Net neutrality advocates are probably more indifferent about the actions of these companies. supra note 19. the easiest way for a provider to block or throttle an application is to search for packets headed for the port used by the application. which highlights the difference between the two approaches. MYSQL.net/How%20does% 20NetFlow%20work. http://www. ignoring packets destined for other ports. For all of these reasons. In some contexts. AND PHP WORKING TOGETHER 164 (2004).html (last visited Aug. 406. 2009). ANDREW G. Almost every Internet packet contains one particular header. .408 A wire tapper can scan the port headers of passing packets to quickly and accurately infer the applications being used on the network. applications "listen" only to particular ports. UBUNTU LINUX BIBLE 16 (2007). Id. Similarly. 405. at 167–68 (listing discrimination by TCP port as something that might cause concern). 410.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1492 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. ISPs can make convincing arguments that port scrutiny is necessary in reasonable network management. Phorm and NebuAd offend net non-scrutiny because they break down walls between websites and subject users to scrutiny they have never had before. 412. Ports have been logged. TechBrief. port scrutiny is unlikely a wiretap or pen register violation.netflow-monitor. net non-scrutiny would cast doubt on what Comcast has been doing because in order to throttle BitTorrent.535 found near the beginning of the packet.410 From a privacy standpoint. How Does NetFlow Work?.405 The port is a number from zero to 65.
418.g. See Ekr. http://consumerist. 417.. PETER ECKERSLEY ET AL. Resituating the Net Neutrality Debate The final important contribution of this Article is to resituate the net neutrality debate.13 (2006) (noting that "network neutrality proponents defend their proposals almost exclusively in terms of the economic benefits of innovation").J. . 1847. users tried to avoid scrutiny by reconfiguring their BitTorrent clients to use a non-standard port. http://www. because mere port scrutiny will often not prove useful for traffic discrimination due to the evolution of Internet arms races: users can often evade unsophisticated scrutiny by reconfiguring their applications to use non-default ports. during the ComcastBitTorrent battle. 414. thus bringing net neutrality and privacy advocates closer together. For example. THE CONSUMERIST." but by this they mean a 413. they clothe these arguments in the language of "freedom. Comcast would have had to scrutinize other. In fact.415 One company that has emerged as a likely partner is Sandvine.OHM. C. Frischmann & Barbara van Schewick. ISPs may scrutinize (and thus discriminate) between packets so long as the level of scrutiny is low. E. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1493 This is not a fatal blow to the kinship between non-scrutiny and neutrality.413 If this had been successful.sandvine.org/movabletype/archives/2007/10/traffic_blockin. Oct. 94 GEO. net non-scrutiny gives the ISP one bite of the apple.417 In a sense. 415. at 166–67.eff.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. 2007.org/files/eff_comcast_report2. 31. supra note 19. 47 JURIMETRICS 383. PACKET FORGERY BY ISPS: A REPORT ON THE COMCAST AFFAIR 5 (2007). Damning Proof Comcast Contracted to Sandvine.414 These applications use different port numbers. supra note 93.asp (last visited Aug. Network Neutrality and the Economics of Congestion. Brett M.. Network Neutrality and the Economics of an Information Superhighway: A Reply to Professor Yoo. EDUCATED GUESSWORK. Arms races tend to push ISPs to deeper parts of packets. http://www. deeper parts of packets. Ernesto.418 Sometimes. L. Yoo. some users reported throttling of encrypted BitTorrent traffic.com/consumer/bittorrent/damning-proof-comcast-contracted-to-sandvine315921. 389–92 (2007). Sandvine Inc. however. but they all exhibit similar traffic patterns. suggesting that Comcast had been using particularly sophisticated monitoring techniques. 1851 n. 27. 2009). As it turns out. Ben Popken. http://www. Comcast probably did much more than just look at port numbers.educatedguesswork. Researchers have reported that Comcast had been blocking other protocols such as Gnutella and Lotus Notes in addition to BitTorrent.416 Sandvine is a DPI vendor that sells products that scrutinize packets much more deeply than the port. Proponents of neutrality argue solely about its benefits for innovation and economic growth. 29. Oct. Traffic Blocking Evasion and Counter-Evasion. Wu.pdf.. But once low scrutiny fails to work—because users have started using counter-measures—providers lose the ability to discriminate legally. exposing themselves to potential wiretap liability. 2007. see also Christopher S. 416.com/solutions/default.html. which may work before the arms race has begun. Solutions Overview.php.
L. but also they will be able to scrutinize. Advocates on both sides argue over the necessary preconditions for innovation. market-drenched conception of freedom. BEN SCOTT ET AL. Frischmann & van Schewick. See ZITTRAIN. 2009 narrow. there is more space between competing visions of ISP behavior: doing X might make it difficult to deploy next-generation video applications. An architecture of discrimination is an architecture of surveillance. Vertical Integration. supra note 418."423 Professor Christopher Yoo criticizes net neutrality by surveying the economic theory of congestion pricing and devising what he calls "network diversity. . and subpoenawielding civil litigants to reveal everybody's deepest secrets. FICTION 3 (2006). 422. because they require predicting the effect of complex inputs on a complex industry dominated by new technology. 17 HARV.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1494 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. at 1851. 85 (2003). Professors Philip Weiser and Joseph Farrell discuss how firms might "internalize complementary efficiencies.425 Recasting the debate as one about the proper levels of privacy makes an intractable debate tractable. see also Joseph Farrell & Philip J. In this case. 1863–74."424 Professors Brett Frischmann and Barbara van Schewick rebut Yoo's theories. J. 420.422 Thus. See supra note 421. It will be easier to compare the significance of one value versus another. supra note 256. The debate has taken place almost exclusively on insular economic terms.421 Neither side has landed a knock-out punch. 419. It will be easier to make predictions about the political outcomes. and both sides admit that their predictions might be wrong. however. Farrell & Weiser. not only will they be able to discriminate. Privacy brings in an entirely different frame of reference.pdf. If ISPs are permitted to set up systems that peer into and store the full-packet content of communications on their networks. and they debate whether some types of innovation are better than others.net/files/nn_fact_v_fiction_final. one that can be lent out to intelligence agencies. http://www. Yoo.freepress. and Open Access Policies: Towards a Convergence of Antitrust and Regulation in the Internet Age. supra note 421.OHM. Stacked up against privacy. 423. 421. 425. and the net neutrality debate has devolved into a bare-knuckles economics brawl. but it will protect user privacy in return. WHY CONSUMERS DEMAND INTERNET FREEDOM: NETWORK NEUTRALITY: FACT VS. at 116–17. All of the values lined up on both sides are internal to this economic frame. one composed of values that have nothing to do with innovation and economic prosperity. These are particularly vexing economic questions. copyrighted content owners. this Article reconceives net neutrality as being about more significant and profound freedoms. Weiser. there is virtue in comparing apples to oranges. Modularity.. 424. & TECH.420 A neutral network is a more private network. See supra note 418 and accompanying text. supra note 418.419 By shifting the focus from innovation to privacy. at 101.
2008. INQUIRER. Granted. http://news. Further.427 In court. Comcast Paid to Fill Seats at FCC Hearing. On the other side. these branches of government are clumsy at gathering facts about the evolution and legitimacy of network management techniques. a debate about privacy will draw in other governmental entities like Homeland Security. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).html. revealing facts in much more detail and with much greater accuracy.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM No. Comcast tried to influence the tenor of the debate by paying people to fill seats which otherwise might have been occupied by vocal critics. Feb. Apr. they will be forced to focus on particular techniques rather than provide platitudes about network management writ large. one of their two key issues (the other being Copyright law). 17. Stefanie Olsen. the copyrighted content industries will see privacy-justified restrictions on ISP monitoring as threats against tools they could use to protect their intellectual property.426 At the second hearing. CNET NEWS. The FCC held two public hearings arising from Comcast's decision to throttle BitTorrent. providing feedback to one another. 5] INVASIVE ISP SURVEILLANCE 1495 Privacy also draws in institutions and experts who have been sidelined thus far in the net neutrality debate. and they should have much to say about the question of ISP monitoring. after the facts are revealed.cnet. Of course. at A1. 2008. Although legislatures and regulatory agencies should be making the sweeping decisions about network neutrality for both legitimacy and institutional competency reasons. Although net neutrality debates take place most often in the FCC and the competition-centric sides of the FTC and DOJ. and such cases and legislative deliberations should operate in parallel. 427. quantity is not quality. Comcast refused to participate at all. and the privacy side of the FTC. At the first. and increasing the number of participants may just make the debate noisier and more complex.OHM. including more participants in the debate can help ensure that regulations avoid unintended consequences. Wiretap law will also draw the courts into the neutrality debate for the first time in ways that can be very helpful. the FBI. EFF might not be able to resist getting more involved if the focus shifts to privacy. . with issues as important as these. 426. litigation should not replace or delay the broader political debate. PHILA. Expanding the net neutrality debate will also draw in activists on both sides who have watched quietly thus far. has mostly sat out the debate (although their technical work on the Comcast throttling was foundational). Absent Comcast in Hot Seat at FCC Hearing. Still. the criminal and national security sides of DOJ. Bob Fernandez. Another noticeably quiet voice has been the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Then. 28. engaged advocates fighting over real stakes will defend their practices before a neutral judge.com/8301-10784_3-9921945-7. for example. providers will be forced to participate in discovery.
CONCLUSION Because ISPs pose such a high risk of terrible harm to so many people. COMM. But when viewed through both of these points of view simultaneously. they must be regulated. to borrow a term from the national security and intelligence worlds. and this Article predicts a series of class-action lawsuits and.. 428. intramural. it embodies most of the principles and theories developed in Part III. intellectual property. Intelligence agencies have been criticized for collecting information insularly without sharing enough between agencies. once we recognize that the network neutrality debate is about more than just innovation and telecommunications policy. they can avoid the pain and headaches of litigation and forestall new forms of even more restrictive regulation. and it makes the intractable tractable. This can blind us to solutions visible only by breaking down these somewhat artificial barriers. ON INTELLIGENCE. better answers are visible. maintaining the information in metaphorical "stovepipes.OHM. problems are examined from the vantage point of only a single specialty. Print 1996). dividing themselves into specialties like telecommunications law. we will finally see the path to resolution. If ISPs exercise restraint and respect their past promises of privacy. to name only three. possibly. and information privacy. this Article aims to serve as a model for dismantling a technology law stovepipe. and autonomy. In particular. STAFF OF H. which until now has been a single-minded debate about innovation but has devolved into a bare-knuckled. It offers more meaningful choices between alternatives. and although it does so imperfectly and shrouded in too much complexity.DOCX 9/11/2009 2:19 PM 1496 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. criminal prosecutions for the worst offenders. The ECPA likely forbids many invasive forms of ISP monitoring. . debates about ISP behavior might seem intractable when viewed solely within the telecommunications law or information privacy stovepipe. The ECPA already regulates ISP monitoring. economics brawl. IC21: THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY IN THE 21ST CENTURY 7–8 (Comm. Privacy expands the debate into a broader discussion of freedom. 2009 Introducing privacy reinvigorates the network neutrality debate. rather than through the lenses of more than one of these. 104TH CONG. liberty. Too often."428 Technology law specialists—practitioners and scholars alike—also construct stovepipes of knowledge. and because of the unmistakable signs that things are getting worse. In particular. Finally.
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