Monday, August 04, 2008

EFF's new tools lets users test for ISP interference


You may have heard about Comcast's denial-of-service attack against BitTorrent users. After initially denying that they'd done anything wrong, they finally came clean only to have their hand slapped by the FCC.

One positive coming out of the case: it no longer takes an investigation by our crack mainstream media to determine whether your ISP is picking and choosing which applications get to make it to your desktop.

In light of today's FCC ruling against Comcast, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has released a software tool dubbed, "Switzerland," for internet users to check ISP interference of their connections.

Fred von Lohmann, EFF Senior Intellectual Property Attorney says: "The sad truth is that the FCC is ill-equipped to detect ISPs interfering with your Internet connection. It's up to concerned Internet users to investigate possible network neutrality violations, and EFF's Switzerland software is designed to help with that effort. Comcast isn't the first, and certainly won't be the last, ISP to meddle surreptitiously with its subscribers' Internet communications for its own benefit."

No comments: