Internet Traffic Identification using Machine Learning

We apply an unsupervised machine learning approach for Internet traffic identification and compare the results with that of a previously applied supervised machine learning approach. Our unsupervised approach uses an Expectation Maximization (EM) based clustering algorithm and the supervised approach uses the Naı̈ve Bayes classifier. We find the unsupervised clustering technique has an accuracy up to 91% and outperform the supervised technique by up to 9%. We also find that the unsupervised technique can be used to discover traffic from previously unknown applications and has the potential to become an excellent tool for exploring Internet traffic.