EFF releases Switzerland
Objective: Net neutrality
A NEW TOOL has been released by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, dubbed 'Switzerland'.
Switzerland has been released as an open source software tool, for testing the integrity of communications over networks, ISPs and firewalls.
Apparently it will spot IP packets which are forged or modified between clients, inform you, and give you copies of the modified packets.
The client should detect packets affected by anti-P2P tools from Sandvine (widely believed to be used by Comcast to interfere with Bittorrent uploads) and Audiblemagic, advertising injection systems like Faireagle, censorship systems like the Great Firewall of China, and even other efforts yet unknown to EFF.
Switzerland is a more sophisticated successor to the pcapdiff software that EFF released last year - it automates many of the things that had to be done by hand with the earlier code.
According the documentation, Switzerland uses a 'semi-P2P', server-and-many-client architecture. Whenever the clients send packets to each other, the server will attempt to determine if any of them were dropped, forged, or modified.
EFF says that one advantage the architecture of Switzerland has over other network testing tools is that it can spot arbitrary kinds of packet modifications in any protocol — it doesn't assume interference comes in the form of TCP reset packets or web page modifications, and it isn't limited to Bittorrent or any other specific application.
You can download the latest release of Switzerland here.
Along with the EFF's tool, you'll need to ensure Python 2.5.2 is installed on your system -downloads can be found here.
You'll also need to install Winpcap if you're running Windows.
More information can be found at the EFF Switzerland page.
Presumably the tool has been named after the neutrality efforts of Switzerland in the 20th century - lets just hope the banks don't get involved. µ
Comments
Switzerland neutral?
If you look up the ShareReactor project you might discover that neutrality is a farce in Switzerland. Specially when it comes to the internet. Good tool though!Silliest name yet from the EFF
Has Switzerland been captured by the EU? How is the EFF going to release it? Organize a petition?Oh wait. It's just the free software community demonstrating yet again that it can't devise names for software. This one is a contender for the title of Worst Name For A Program Ever, narrowly beating long-time champion Gimp (rhymes with Wimp) because it's more confusing.
Bad name?
Well, it may be a question of taste, but I consider switzerland a name that is in sync with the intentions of the authors.What is so bad about the Gnu Image Manipulation Program? If you want, rather rant about the GNU part of it.... if you know what that means.