EFF has releases ISP-checking tool for to control your connection

'Switzerland' lets users probe for net neutrality

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has released a new software tool to let users keep an eye on their ISPs.

The 'Switzerland' tool probes the user's network connection and checks to see whether or not the service provide has put restrictions on peer-to-peer traffic. Release of the tool marks a rare foray into software development by the EFF, which normally provides legal services.

"Until now, there hasn't been a reliable way to tell if somebody, a hacker, an ISP, corporate firewall, or the Great Firewall of China, is modifying your Internet traffic en route," explained Peter Eckersley the EFF Staff Technologist who designed Switzerland.

"Switzerland is designed to make general-purpose ISP testing faster and easier."

The release of the tool comes on the heels of the FCC's ruling that ISPs in the US cannot purposely restrict certain types of traffic. The decision came as the result of a case brought against Comcast for its limits on the amount of bandwidth afforded to traffic for peer-to-peer services.

According to the EFF, however, the task of keeping an eye on the ISPs may still fall down to the individual user.

"The sad truth is that the FCC is ill-equipped to detect ISPs interfering with your Internet connection," said Fred von Lohmann, the group's senior intellectual property attorney.

"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."

Got to the Developer Website HERE for more info's and to download the Tool.

Just for information: before installing that program you need to take a very close look at the two Readme files: README and INSTALL (open with Word or Wordpad). You need to follow tha dvice exactly and download the named other Utility programs as mentioned.

Please keep in mind that this program isn't easy to use and you should only use it id you know what you're doing.

I'll attach both files to this Post.

Cheers.

README.txt

INSTALL.txt

Read about this yesterday. Isn't this still just a command line tool? I'll wait for the GUI. Have you tested this yourself? What are the results you ind with your ISP?

There is another tool for doing this stuff on the torrentfreaks site, but it required Java and I didn't bother.

Nice app, thanks...

iirc Comcast was the same isp that was intentionally adding latency to VoIP traffic if the customer was using a provider other than the Comcast. Disturbing other service of other companies in order to make your own services appear to be better quality - that's quite a business model.

It's interesting to note that EFF.org was a prohibited site here {owing to privacy tools} for yonks.

Regards

Go here http://broadband.mpi-sws.mpg.de/transparency/

More easy.....

Go here http://broadband.mpi-sws.mpg.de/transparency/

More easy.....

More easy Alex, you're right! But unfortunate that server isn't available most of the time (if I was try to testing never get a result)! With the EFF software you can use your own server!

Cheers.

EFF has releases ISP-checking tool for to control your connection

'Switzerland' lets users probe for net neutrality

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has released a new software tool to let users keep an eye on their ISPs.

The 'Switzerland' tool probes the user's network connection and checks to see whether or not the service provide has put restrictions on peer-to-peer traffic. Release of the tool marks a rare foray into software development by the EFF, which normally provides legal services.

"Until now, there hasn't been a reliable way to tell if somebody, a hacker, an ISP, corporate firewall, or the Great Firewall of China, is modifying your Internet traffic en route," explained Peter Eckersley the EFF Staff Technologist who designed Switzerland.

"Switzerland is designed to make general-purpose ISP testing faster and easier."

The release of the tool comes on the heels of the FCC's ruling that ISPs in the US cannot purposely restrict certain types of traffic. The decision came as the result of a case brought against Comcast for its limits on the amount of bandwidth afforded to traffic for peer-to-peer services.

According to the EFF, however, the task of keeping an eye on the ISPs may still fall down to the individual user.

"The sad truth is that the FCC is ill-equipped to detect ISPs interfering with your Internet connection," said Fred von Lohmann, the group's senior intellectual property attorney.

"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."

Got to the Developer Website HERE for more info's and to download the Tool.

Ah yes ... a cut and paste VNUNet news story.

I'll wait for GUI version too.

This link though -> http://broadband.mpi-sws.mpg.de/transparency/ is helpful.

How To Encrypt BitTorrent Traffic

http://torrentfreak.com/how-to-encrypt-bittorrent-traffic/

Seemed to work for me!