Professor Ohm Writes ISP Essay for Canadian Government

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada invited Professor Paul Ohm and 13 other leading international academics and professionals working in telecommunications, law, privacy, civil liberties, and computer science to contribute to the Office’s deep packet inspection (DPI) website to help Canadians understand the impact the components of the technology that underlies networked society.

Professor Ohm’s essay, “The Greatest Threat to Privacy,” discusses the many dangers of your Internet Service Provider (ISP), from reading your emails to spying on users. Companies could pay to see what you look at on the web and use that information to place specific pop up adds on your screen.

What is DPI? This network management tool is used in targeting marketing campaigns and advertisements at specific individuals. It allows network providers to peer into the digital packets that compose a message or transmission over a network. It has been used to maintain the integrity and security of networks, searching for signs of protocol non-compliance, viruses, malicious code, SPAM, and other threats. DPI technology raises privacy concerns because it can look into the content of messages sent over the Internet.