February 2014
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Greetings! Enjoy another issue of NetEqualizer News! This month, we preview our new Software Update 8.0 Beta (which includes Protocol Tracking reports), as well as our new Mogicho licensed movie content service for customers with our caching option, and lastly we remind you about our NetEqualizer trade-in policy. As always, feel free to pass this along to others who might be interested in NetEqualizer News. |
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A message from Art…
Art Reisman, CTO – APconnections
As we move into February, we have been glued to the TV watching the Olympic games – well, actually glued to “on demand” video replays on our iPads and laptops. We love that there are no commercials and that we can watch whenever we want! If you find yourself doing the same, you will not be surprised that more and more customers mention that video is a huge percentage of their Internet traffic. We love it when we hear back from you – so if you have a story you would like to share with us of how we have helped you, let us know. Email me directly at art@apconnections.net. I would love to hear from you! |
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In This Issue:
:: Software Update 8.0 Beta: Protocol Tracking Reports |
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Software Update 8.0 Beta: Protocol Tracking Reports We are excited to announce the 8.0 Beta Release for NetEqualizer where we introduce Protocol Tracking reports! Protocol Tracking reports extend our Dynamic Real-Time Reporting (RTR) – Traffic Reporting capabilities. Through Protocol Tracking, we enable you track various Internet protocols (Hulu, YouTube, Netflix, iTunes, Pandora, etc.) and then view these protocols and bandwidth usage for an IP or your entire network in a pie or bar chart format.
We built our RTR tool last year, and based on the feedback that we received, we have continued our investment in visibility and reporting in 2014. As many of you note that you need to better understand how much video is on your network, and what types of traffic are consuming your bandwidth, we felt that the time was right for Protocol Tracking reports.
When we introduced our NetGladiator IPS in mid-2012, we built it out with a powerful Layer 7 engine. We have now incorporated this engine into our NetEqualizer code base, so that we can offer you a way to report on protocols on your network. We see this as a complementary component that enhances our NetEqualizer shaping features, and we are excited to offer you this additional visibility into your network traffic. How to Participate in the 8.0 Beta The 8.0 Beta is subject to availability. If you are interested in the Beta, and meet the following requirements, please contact us to see if this is a good fit for your situation. Beta requirements: – must be current on NSS – must be running NE3000 or NE4000 – must be on Software Update 7.5 – must be available to provide feedback on the 8.0 Beta features Once 8.0 reaches GA, these features will be free to customers with valid NetEqualizer Software and Support who are running version 7.5. If you are not current with NSS, contact us today at: -or- 303-997-1300 Trade In Your Old NetEqualizer! Many of you may not be aware that we offer a generous trade-in credit when it is time to retire your old NetEqualizer. We will give you 50%* of the original unit price plus 50% of any license upgrades towards a new unit. We believe that this offer is unmatched in the industry. Why do we do this? Because we believe that bandwidth shaping should be affordable, and as part of that, we help you to protect your original investment. How to know if you need a new NetEQ? 1) You can no longer run our current software. NE2000’s earlier than August 2011 cannot run 7.0+. 2) Your hardware warranty has long expired and your unit is over five years old. We offer four years of hardware warranty (NHW), which must be purchased each consecutive year from your original purchase. If you are outside of warranty, your unit is probably past its useful life. 3) You want the faster processors and more memory that new hardware can give you. Just like a PC or tablet, the hardware that we offer today is faster and has more memory than older boxes. 4) And the most important reason, because you want one! And remember, while we will continue to offer license upgrades on our NE2000 series as needed, if you have a NE2000 purchased before August 2011, it will only be supported through 12/31/2014. If you have an older NE2000, please contact us sometime in 2014 to discuss your options. If you have questions on trade-in units, feel free to contact us at: -or- 303-997-1300 * This offer does not apply to POE or Lite units. Coming Soon: Mogicho In addition to our other projects, we are also progressing with our “Mogicho” offer to bring an amazing assortment of licensed movie content into our NCO caching server. We will be finalizing the license with the content providers next month, and we are excited to say it will be a nice value-add to any ISP needing to enhance their offer to their constituents. We think Mogicho will be especially of interest to ISPs with less than a 5Gbps Netflix stream Where will this be available? Mogicho is a new distribution channel for unique online movie content, targeted at rural and remote users not served by Major Internet Providers (M-ISPs). We are initially releasing Mogicho within the United States and Canada. There are millions of consumers in the United States and Canada who are served by second-tier Internet providers. These second-tier providers (2T-ISPs) include small town cable operators, small town phone companies, and independent rural WISPs. How does Mogicho work? Mogicho movie content is secured & stored locally on the NetEqualizer at the 2T-ISP NOC. Video is streamed through the 2T-ISP Access Points directly to customers. Video is available at higher speeds than today, as each customer is not competing with all customers for video to come through the M-ISP throttling point.
-or- 303-997-1300 Guest Article From a WISP Owner in the Trenches
By Rory Conaway – Triad Wireless
Tales from the Towers – Chapter 50: CRY ‘HAVOC!’, AND LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR Interesting fellow that Shakespeare because not only did he write plays, he also acted in them. And although Tales from the Towers doesn’t hold a candle (pre-electric times, you can groan now) to Mr. William’s contributions to culture, I have a double life too. If you haven’t guessed it yet, writing articles really isn’t my full-time job (my wife is giving me the look that says I should find another hobby), I actually run a WISP, do installs, and handle tech support calls. After 10 years though, and many mistakes and successes, I’ve decided to rethink my network from the ground up as if I was starting tomorrow and share that. The idea is to help lay out a simplified road map that will bring forth thousands of new WISPs into the market that can start breaking down the digital divide without taxpayer money and creating a new business. Since a thousand bee stings can take out the biggest animal, the more companies that jump into the industry, the better the chances of competing against the incumbents. It’s time to open the floodgates of small business entrepreneurs and begin the war for last mile bandwidth delivery everywhere. And although few outside Star Trek fans will recognize one of Shakespeare’s most famous sayings, they will recognize this modern variation, “Who let the dogs out”! Hopefully it’s the WISP industry…
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Editors Note: A great read if you are thinking of starting a WISP and need a little inspiration. Re-posted with permission from Rory Conaway, Triad Wireless. Rory is president and CEO of Triad Wireless, an engineering and design firm in Phoenix. Triad Wireless specializes in unique RF data and network designs for municipalities, public safety and educational campuses. E-mail comments to 
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Photo Of The Month
Storm Chasing Convention
Given the fact that the winter weather has been so severe this year, Art decided to check in with Greg Forbes (The Weather Channel severe weather expert) at a local storm chaser convention. Here he is with him last weekend. Unfortunately, after talking with him, he can’t make any promises about good weather in the spring.
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NetEqualizer News Blog 
A Brief History of Peer to Peer File Sharing and the Attempts to Block It
February 8, 2013 — netequalizerBy Art Reisman
The following history is based on my notes and observations as both a user of peer to peer, and as a network engineer tasked with cleaning it up.
Round One, Napster, Centralized Server, Circa 2002
Napster was a centralized service, unlike the peer to peer behemoths of today there was never any question of where the copyrighted material was being stored and pirated from. Even though Napster did not condone pirated music and movies on their site, the courts decided by allowing copyrighted material to exist on their servers, they were in violation of copyright law. Napster’s days of free love were soon over.
From an historic perspective the importance of the decision to force the shut down of Napster was that it gave rise to a whole new breed of p2p applications. We detailed this phenomenon in our 2008 article.
Round Two, Mega-Upload Shutdown, Centralized Server, 2012
We again saw a doubling down on p2p client sites (they expanded) when the Mega-Upload site, a centralized sharing site, was shutdown back in Jan 2012.
“On the legal side, the recent widely publicized MegaUpload takedown refocused attention on less centralized forms of file sharing (i.e. P2P). Similarly, improvements in P2P technology coupled with a growth in file sharing file size from content like Blue-Ray video also lead many users to revisit P2P.”
Read the full article from deepfield.net
The shut down of Mega-Upload had a personal effect on me as I had used it to distribute a 30 minute account from a 92-year-old WWII vet where he recalled, in oral detail, his experience of surviving a German prison camp.
Blocking by Signature, Alias Layer 7 Shaping, Alias Deep packet inspection. Late 1990’s till present
Initially, the shining star savior in the forefront against spotting illegal content on your network, this technology can be expensive and fail miserably in the face of newer encrypted p2p applications. It also can get quite expensive to keep up with the ever changing application signatures, and yet it is still often the first line of defense attempted by ISPs.
We covered this topic in detail, in our recent article, Layer 7 Shaping Dying With SSL.
Blocking by Website
Blocking the source sites where users download their p2p clients is still possible. We see this method applied at mostly private secondary schools, where content blocking is an accepted practice. This method does not work for computers and devices that already have p2p clients. Once loaded, p2p files can come from anywhere and there is no centralized site to block.
Blocking Uninitiated Requests. Circa Mid-2000
The idea behind this method is to prevent your Network from serving up any content what so ever! Sounds a bit harsh, but the average Internet consumer rarely, if ever, hosts anything intended for public consumption. Yes at one time, during the early stages of the Internet, my geek friends would set up home pages similar to what everybody exposes on Facebook today. Now, with the advent hosting sites, there is just no reason for a user to host content locally, and thus, no need to allow access from the outside. Most firewalls have a setting to disallow uninitiated requests into your network (obviously with an exemption for your publicly facing servers).
We actually have an advanced version of this feature in our NetGladiator security device. We watch each IP address on your internal network and take note of outgoing requests, nobody comes in unless they were invited. For example, if we see a user on the Network make a request to a Yahoo Server , we expect a response to come back from a Yahoo server; however if we see a Yahoo server contact a user on your network without a pending request, we block that incoming request. In the world of p2p this should prevent an outside client from requesting a receiving a copyrighted file hosted on your network, after all no p2p client is going to randomly send out invites to outside servers or would they?
I spent a few hours researching this subject, and here is what I found (this may need further citations). It turns out that p2p distribution may be a bit more sophisticated and has ways to get around the block uninitiated query firewall technique.
P2P networks such as Pirate Bay use a directory service of super nodes to keep track of what content peers have and where to find them. When you load up your p2p client for the first time, it just needs to find one super node to get connected, from there it can start searching for available files.
1) The super nodes do not necessarily host content, hence they are not violating any copyright laws. They simply coordinate the network in the same way DNS service keep track of URL names and were to find servers.
2) The super nodes are not hosted by Pirate Bay, they are basically commandeered from their network of users, who unwittingly or unknowingly agree to perform this directory service when clicking the license agreement that nobody ever reads.
From my research I have talked to network administrators that claim despite blocking uninitiated outside requests on their firewalls, they still get RIAA notices. How can this be?
There are only two ways this can happen.
1) The RIAA is taking liberty to simply accuse a network of illegal content based on the directory listings of a super node. In other words if they find a directory on a super node pointing to copyrighted files on your network, that might be information enough to accuse you.
2) More likely, and much more complex, is that the Super nodes are brokering the transaction as a condition of being connected. Basically this means that when a p2p client within your network, contacts a super node for information, the super node directs the client to send data to a third-party client on another network. Thus the send of information from the inside of your network looks to the firewall as if it was initiated from within. You may have to think about this, but it makes sense.
Behavior based thwarting of p2p. Circa 2004 – NetEqualizer
Behavior-based shaping relies on spotting the unique footprint of a client sending and receiving p2p applications. From our experience, these clients just do not know how to lay low and stay under the radar. It’s like the criminal smuggling drugs doing 100 MPH on the highway, they just can’t help themselves. Part of the p2p methodology is to find as many sources of files as possible, and then, download from all sources simultaneously. Combine this behavior with the fact that most p2p consumers are trying to build up a library of content, and thus initiating many file requests, and you get a behavior footprint that can easily be spotted. By spotting this behavior and making life miserable for these users, you can achieve self compliance on your network.
Read a smarter way to block p2p traffic.
Blocking the RIAA probing servers
If you know where the RIAA is probing from you can deny all traffic to their probes and thus prevent the probe of files on your network, and ensuing nasty letters to desist.
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