Challenges in Net Neutrality Violation Detection: A Case Study of Wehe Tool

The debate on “Net-neutrality” and events pointing towards its possible violations have led to the development of tools to detect deliberate traffic discrimination on the Internet. Given the complex nature of the Internet, neutrality violations are not easy to detect, and tools developed so far suffer from various limitations. In this paper, we study many challenges in developing a tool for detecting such violations. We take the validation as an application of our study of challenges in TD detection systems. As a case study, we focus on the Wehe tool and demonstrate the categorized analysis or validation of traffic differentiation detection tools. The Wehe tool is one of the most recent tools to detect neutrality violations. Despite the Wehe tool's vast utility and possible influences over policy decisions, its mechanisms are not yet fully validated by researchers other than original tool developers. Our validation uses the Wehe App, a clientserver setup mimicking the Wehe tool's end-to-end behavior and theoretical arguments. We validated the Wehe app for its methodology, traffic discrimination detection, and operational environments.