James Delahunty
21 Jan 2010 5:50
Virgin is planning to use packet sniffing software in order to measure the amount of illegal file sharing on its network. The software is called "CView", and it will be used to monitor traffic from about 40 percent of Virgin customers in the UK, none of whom will be notified prior to the test. However, the ISP stresses it is only measuring the amount of illegal sharing on the network, and it will not be collecting data that could identify an individual user.
The system uses Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) to sniff files being shared through P2P networks, which can then be matched against a third-party database of music tracks to flag copyright violations. Customer's IP addresses will automatically be stripped from each packet of data and replaced with a randomly generated identifier instead. Virgin claims that the system will keep individual file sharers completely anonymous.
CView, the ISP claims, is being used simply to provide a statistical view of digital piracy on the network as opposed to becoming an anti-piracy tool aimed at identifying individual sharers for litigation. As for the law, Virgin Media does not consider the system to be in violation of UK or European legislation that protects Internet users' personal information because the system keeps each user anonymous.
While the system might not be used to identify individual sharers for legal purposes, it could be possible that the recording industry could cite the statistics that result in anti-piracy cases when determining damages.