Can ISPs be trusted?

[Daniel B. Thurman]

On 10/09/2009 12:36 PM, Bruno Wolff III wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 09, 2009 at 14:12:32 -0400,
>   "Dr. Michael J. Chudobiak" <mjc at avtechpulse.com> wrote:
>   
>> Anyway, it is unlikely that your ISP is messing with you (has such a
>> case ever been reported?), but it is technically possible.
>>     
> I think what you mean is that your ISP is unlikely
> to be SPECIFICALLY messing with you.
And why not?
If it's easy to do covertly, then what's to stop them?
If not your ISP, what about your phone company, if not
what about data-traffic routers, if not what about...
and keep on going - is it a labyrinth/maze that is well
hidden, globally?  You might want to ask: Cui Bono?

> If you have residential cable or dsl from the local duopoly they
> are quite likely to be messing with you. They may provide DNS with bogus
> TTLs, send RST packets intended to break bitorrent connections, throttle
> traffic based on deep packet inspection rather than say, just volume, screw
> things up with hidden proxies that make unwarranted assumptions about your
> traffic, returning bogus DNS records instead of NXDOMAIN, changing inflight
> http responses to insert ads, tracking or helping others track what websites
> you use for marketting purposes.
>   
Uh huh, that and much, much more than we can dream or
think about, after all, blackbox operations are 'classified',
and way, way ahead of civilian technology. Or so I think.