Latest News

Virgin Media to trial filesharing monitoring system

Virgin Media will trial deep packet inspection technology to measure the level of illegal filesharing on its network, but plans not to tell the customers whose traffic will be examined.

The system, CView, will be provided by Detica, a BAE subsidiary that specialises in large volume data collection and processing, and whose traditional customers are the intelligence agencies and law enforcement.

The trial will cover about 40 per cent of Virgin Media's network, a spokesman said, but those involved will not be informed. "It would be counter-productive because it doesn't affect customers directly," he said.

CView will operate at the centre of Virgin Media's network on aggregate traffic, the spokesman emphasised, and seek only to determine the proportion of filesharing traffic that infringes copyright.

The system will look at traffic and identify the peer-to-peer packets. In a step beyond how ISPs currently monitor their networks, it will then peer inside those packets and try to determine what is licensed and what is unlicensed, based on data provided by the record industry.

Virgin Media emphasised that it is seeking to measure the overall level of illegal filesharing, not to keep records on individual customers. Data on the level of copyright infringement will be aggregated and anonymised.

Nevertheless, the trial - which has no scheduled end date - is likely to prove controversial. CView's deep packet inspection is the same technology that powered Phorm's advertising system, which allowed monitoring and targeting of individual internet users. It too was trialled - by BT - without customers' consent or knowledge.

Click here to read more from theregister.co.uk