Internet Traffic Surveillance & Network Monitoring in India: Case Study of NETRA

Abstract

Internet traffic surveillance is gaining importance in today’s digital world. Lots of international agencies are putting in efforts to monitor the network around their countries to see suspicious activities and illegal or illegitimate transmission of messages. India, being a center of attraction for terrorist activities, is also working towards the development of such surveillance systems. NETRA or Network Traffic Analysis is one such effort being taken by the Indian Government to filter suspicious keywords from messages in the network. But is it good enough to be used at the highest level for security analysis or does the system design needs to be improved as compared to other similar systems around the world; this question is answered through this study. The comparison of NETRA is done against Dish Fire, Prism, and Echelon. The design of the NETRA scheme and implementation level analysis of the system shows few weaknesses like limited memory options, limited channels for monitoring, pre-set filters, ignoring big data demands, security concerns, social values breach and ignoring ethical issues. These can be covered through alternate options which can improve the existing system. The Inclusion of self-similarity models, Self-Configuring Network Monitoring, and smart monitoring through early intrusion detections can be embedded in the architecture of existing surveillance system to give it more depth and make it more robust.