GNG News Guy
05-30-2008, 03:01 PM
When Comcast was discovered using forged TCP packets to throttle upstream connections, it spawned a flood of new user diagnostic tools aimed at helping users detect what kind of tomfoolery their ISP is up to.
First came the EFF's Test Your ISP Project (http://www.thegng.org/shownews/89789), which walks users through using Wireshark (http://www.wireshark.org/) to detect packet forgery. Then came an Azureus plugin (http://www.thegng.org/shownews/93955), though it could't differentiate between intentional or circumstantial RST resets. Most recently came the Glasnost Project (http://broadband.mpi-sws.mpg.de/transparency/), a more sophisticated test that uses multiple criteria (http://broadband.mpi-sws.mpg.de/transparency/results/detecting.html) before accusing an ISP of interfering with BitTorrent traffic.
The latest tool comes courtesy of the "Network Neutrality Squad," who you'll recall I first mentioned last November (http://www.thegng.org/shownews/89211). According to the project website (http://www.nnsquad.org/agent), the NNSquad Network Measurement Agent (NNMA) is based on the open source "Buster" network management and security program. The new tool was designed to look for and flag a variety of ISP throttling efforts. Keep in mind it just entered beta.
"The idea is to *try* to highlight resets that seem out of place in terms of timing, which could be one indicator of an injected reset," Network Neutrality Squad's Lauren Weinstein tells me. "But none of this is 100% of course, there are lots of issues, and this is beta software to be pounded on in the field so we can learn more and build on the platform," he says.
I can't vouch for quality since I just installed it myself (I have concluded my Wii is getting unfettered access to the Interwebs!), but perhaps some of you can lend your tweaking and testing help to the project.
First came the EFF's Test Your ISP Project (http://www.thegng.org/shownews/89789), which walks users through using Wireshark (http://www.wireshark.org/) to detect packet forgery. Then came an Azureus plugin (http://www.thegng.org/shownews/93955), though it could't differentiate between intentional or circumstantial RST resets. Most recently came the Glasnost Project (http://broadband.mpi-sws.mpg.de/transparency/), a more sophisticated test that uses multiple criteria (http://broadband.mpi-sws.mpg.de/transparency/results/detecting.html) before accusing an ISP of interfering with BitTorrent traffic.
The latest tool comes courtesy of the "Network Neutrality Squad," who you'll recall I first mentioned last November (http://www.thegng.org/shownews/89211). According to the project website (http://www.nnsquad.org/agent), the NNSquad Network Measurement Agent (NNMA) is based on the open source "Buster" network management and security program. The new tool was designed to look for and flag a variety of ISP throttling efforts. Keep in mind it just entered beta.
"The idea is to *try* to highlight resets that seem out of place in terms of timing, which could be one indicator of an injected reset," Network Neutrality Squad's Lauren Weinstein tells me. "But none of this is 100% of course, there are lots of issues, and this is beta software to be pounded on in the field so we can learn more and build on the platform," he says.
I can't vouch for quality since I just installed it myself (I have concluded my Wii is getting unfettered access to the Interwebs!), but perhaps some of you can lend your tweaking and testing help to the project.