Who's your internet provider?
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I'm bringing this thread back from the past to post more up to date information for those members who might be affected by this Phorm/Webwise issue.
This link:BT, Webwise and Phorm: What you need to know has a pretty good comprehensive list of relevant links and information about Webwise.
There is also a protest meeting being organised at BTs AGM at the Barbican on the 16th of July (if you are interested click the "About" link at the top of the page to get the details)
On a personal level I've now left BT and moved to another ISP who say they have no intention of implementing Phorm, well I hope it's true but time will tell.
The interception of customer's search requests that BT have already- apparently illegally-carried out and at first denied, then reluctantly admitted, so far have gone unpunished but there is at least one court case pending.
I don't expect anyone to actually read through this:Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797] - Cable Forum thread but if you did there is more than enough background information there to keep you busy for a week
It's a 700+ page thread with 10,000 posts!
This link:BT, Webwise and Phorm: What you need to know has a pretty good comprehensive list of relevant links and information about Webwise.
There is also a protest meeting being organised at BTs AGM at the Barbican on the 16th of July (if you are interested click the "About" link at the top of the page to get the details)
On a personal level I've now left BT and moved to another ISP who say they have no intention of implementing Phorm, well I hope it's true but time will tell.
The interception of customer's search requests that BT have already- apparently illegally-carried out and at first denied, then reluctantly admitted, so far have gone unpunished but there is at least one court case pending.
I don't expect anyone to actually read through this:Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797] - Cable Forum thread but if you did there is more than enough background information there to keep you busy for a week
It's a 700+ page thread with 10,000 posts!
Last edited by Saab Dastard; 30th Jun 2008 at 23:42.
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Not being particularly au fait with internet technology I asked some of those people that are whether TOR would protect you against Phorm intercepting and harvesting practically all you do on the internet. Here are some of the quotes I received: "TOR would work, in so far as your communications cannot be traced back to you. However, at some point, there needs to be what's called an 'exit node', which means that at some point, an unencrypted request to a website needs to be made. If Phorm has its spyware software on the ISP on which this request is made, then it can be intercepted& quot; "TOR would fox Phorm, but it also exposes you to risks... If you run a TOR exit node, you would not know who was using your ISP account to surf the net (yet you would be held responsible for their traffic). And you would not know where your own web traffic was ultimately emerging" "If the exit node you are using was on a phormed ISP connection, or if phorm were to run their own exit nodes, then the Phorm Webwise UID would be unique for each person's browser, so each person would be tracked individually. Providing a Tor exit node, or running a public proxy would be a good way to test phorm - in fact the leaking javascript in Phorm's 2006 tests contained a variable which indicated the ISP that was running the test, and one of the values was "I.PUBLICPROXY". I guess you could monitor your traffic for webwise.net redirects and Nebuad faireagle.com requests and blacklist exit nodes that exhibit those symptoms, however you'll have no guarantee that the owner of the exit node isn't monitoring your activity - TOR aims to provide anonymity not privacy - Also if you intend to use a proxy such as tor it is wise to delete all your cookies first because a dodgy exit node could use man-in-the-middle type exploits to trick your browser into sending cookies for any site they are interested in so that it can capture them." On the Webwise topic again, the one ISP that finally admitted it had carried out secret tests on its customers was BT - Virgin and Talk Talk has said they are interested but have not tested the technology yet - and they had no choice since the evidence became overwhelming that they had in fact carried out testing. Someone, probably an insider, released a document pertaining to the trial and it's interesting that BT who use the word transparent a lot in their terms and conditions use it much differently in regard to their trial. When they talk about transparency there it means inserting cookies and javascript into pages you have requested that you can't see. Why is it that something like Webwise which BT/Phorm insist is really good for us, the customers, because it allegedly prevents phishing attacks and shows us "more relevant" advertising not allowed to stand on its own two feet and let us choose to use it or not. Is it because if you have to physically select to have it set for your pc most people would opt out? After all it's easy to block most ads and the main browsers have anti phishing features anyway. BT now say they are working on a new system to allow you to choose whether or not to use Webwise (at the moment even if you go through all the reluctantly given procedure to opt out you still have all your data stream passing through Phorm's profiling servers and presumably profiled but not acted upon). Of course they had to do something once they were found out conducting illegal trials and intercepting customer's data. The best way for any customer who's at all concerned about all this and uses one of the fore mentioned ISPs is simply to change to another ISP, there are some about. And here's a couple of quotes from some well regarded experts in privacy issues. “The message has to be this: if you care about your privacy, do not use BT, Virgin or Talk-Talk as your internet provider” - Professor Ross Anderson, Cambridge University, UK. Web users angry at ISPs' Phorm spyware tie-up | This is Money " I would want to use an ISP that doesn't [monitor which websites I go to]. I personally want to feel free." - Sir Tim Berners Lee, Inventor of the World Wide Web, Director of the World Wide Web Consortium BBC NEWS | Technology | Questions and answers: Tim Berners-Lee
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Thanks to Saab Dastard I've managed to make my post above more readable.
You may not be too bothered by all this BT/Phorm/Webwise issue but at least you can now read it more easily!
I just need to practice my links now...
Not being particularly au fait with internet technology I asked some of those people that are whether TOR would protect you against Phorm intercepting and harvesting practically all you do on the internet.
Here are some of the quotes I received:
If the exit node you are using was on a phormed ISP connection, or if phorm were to run their own exit nodes, then the Phorm Webwise UID would be unique for each person's browser, so each person would be tracked individually.
Providing a Tor exit node, or running a public proxy would be a good way to test phorm - in fact the leaking javascript in Phorm's 2006 tests contained a variable which indicated the ISP that was running the test, and one of the values was "I.PUBLICPROXY"
I guess you could monitor your traffic for webwise.net redirects and Nebuad faireagle.com requests and blacklist exit nodes that exhibit those symptoms, however you'll have no guarantee that the owner of the exit node isn't monitoring your activity - TOR aims to provide anonymity not privacy - Also if you intend to use a proxy such as tor it is wise to delete all your cookies first because a dodgy exit node could use man-in-the-middle type exploits to trick your browser into sending cookies for any site they are interested in so that it can capture them
On the Webwise topis again, the one ISP that finally admitted it had carried out secret tests on its customers was BT - Virgin and Talk Talk has said they are interested but have not tested the technology yet - and they had no choice since the evidence became overwhelming that they had in fact carried out testing. Someone, probably an insider, released a document pertaining to the trial and it's interesting that BT who use the word transparent a lot in their terms and conditions use it much differently in regard to their trial. When they talk about transparency there it means inserting cookies and javascript into pages you have requested that you can't see.
Why is it that something like Webwise which BT/Phorm insist is really good for us, the customers, because it allegedly prevents phishing attacks and shows us "more relevant" advertising not allowed to stand on its own two feet and let us choose to use it or not. Is it because if you have to physically select to have it set for your pc most people would opt out? After all it's easy to block most ads and the main browsers have anti phishing features anyway.
BT now say they are working on a new system to allow you to choose whether or not to use Webwise (at the moment even if you go through all the reluctantly given procedure to opt out you still have all your data stream passing through Phorm's profiling servers and presumably profiled but not acted upon). Of course they had to do something once they were found out conducting illegal trials and intercepting customer's data.
The best way for any customer who's at all concerned about all this and uses one of the fore mentioned ISPs is simply to change to another ISP, there are some about.
And here's a couple of quotes from some well regarded experts in privacy issues.
- Professor Ross Anderson, Cambridge University, UK.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/bbphone/article.html?in_article_id=432233&in_page_id=182
- Sir Tim Berners Lee, Inventor of the World Wide Web, Director of the World Wide Web Consortium
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7300434.stm
You may not be too bothered by all this BT/Phorm/Webwise issue but at least you can now read it more easily!
I just need to practice my links now...
Not being particularly au fait with internet technology I asked some of those people that are whether TOR would protect you against Phorm intercepting and harvesting practically all you do on the internet.
Here are some of the quotes I received:
TOR would work, in so far as your communications cannot be traced back to you. However, at some point, there needs to be what's called an 'exit node', which means that at some point, an unencrypted request to a website needs to be made. If Phorm has its spyware software on the ISP on which this request is made, then it can be intercepted
TOR would fox Phorm, but it also exposes you to risks...If you run a TOR exit node, you would not know who was using your ISP account to surf the net (yet you would be held responsible for their traffic).And you would not know where your own web traffic was ultimately emerging
If the exit node you are using was on a phormed ISP connection, or if phorm were to run their own exit nodes, then the Phorm Webwise UID would be unique for each person's browser, so each person would be tracked individually.
Providing a Tor exit node, or running a public proxy would be a good way to test phorm - in fact the leaking javascript in Phorm's 2006 tests contained a variable which indicated the ISP that was running the test, and one of the values was "I.PUBLICPROXY"
I guess you could monitor your traffic for webwise.net redirects and Nebuad faireagle.com requests and blacklist exit nodes that exhibit those symptoms, however you'll have no guarantee that the owner of the exit node isn't monitoring your activity - TOR aims to provide anonymity not privacy - Also if you intend to use a proxy such as tor it is wise to delete all your cookies first because a dodgy exit node could use man-in-the-middle type exploits to trick your browser into sending cookies for any site they are interested in so that it can capture them
Why is it that something like Webwise which BT/Phorm insist is really good for us, the customers, because it allegedly prevents phishing attacks and shows us "more relevant" advertising not allowed to stand on its own two feet and let us choose to use it or not. Is it because if you have to physically select to have it set for your pc most people would opt out? After all it's easy to block most ads and the main browsers have anti phishing features anyway.
BT now say they are working on a new system to allow you to choose whether or not to use Webwise (at the moment even if you go through all the reluctantly given procedure to opt out you still have all your data stream passing through Phorm's profiling servers and presumably profiled but not acted upon). Of course they had to do something once they were found out conducting illegal trials and intercepting customer's data.
The best way for any customer who's at all concerned about all this and uses one of the fore mentioned ISPs is simply to change to another ISP, there are some about.
And here's a couple of quotes from some well regarded experts in privacy issues.
“The message has to be this: if you care about your privacy, do not use BT, Virgin or Talk-Talk as your internet provider”
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/bbphone/article.html?in_article_id=432233&in_page_id=182
"I would want to use an ISP that doesn't [monitor which websites I go to]. I personally want to feel free."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7300434.stm
