http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7619297.stmQuote:
Originally Posted by News.BBC
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7619297.stmQuote:
Originally Posted by News.BBC
I feel a many brown envelopes traded hands somewhere....
:angst:
Phorm is evil.
So what's the problem, just opt out if you don't like it.Quote:
But any future deployments of the system must be done with consent and make it easy for people to opt out.
Because it should be opt-in for starters.
Wait, how can this be legal? you have someone watching your online moves and best of all its a person who used spyware to his advantage, good joke. Why do ISP need this? they dont, they just need to increase their prices or accept that they need to sort them selves out instead of selling as much as they can. Im with virgin atm and im glad they havent decided yet, how can they say it doesnt get website information? if the adds are going to be targeted by what you visit then how the hell can they do it without knowing the website in the first place. The whole system just sounds like an annoying pop-up program designed to annoy people but its going on a huge scale approved by the government.
This country has gone mad, is phorm out in america and stuff?. Guess ill have to get my pop-up blocket ready and ask royal mail to store all post at their depo to stop me filling my recycling bin with spam.
Beaten by Steve,
although by this
'But any future deployments of the system must be done with consent and make it easy for people to opt out.'
Im assuming its gonna be in some small print that you give consent unless you say otherwise, hoping the masses simply wont read the T+C's and just sign away?
As long as there is a list of isp's using phorm published (loudly) and be informed who to avoid..
Isn't already illegal under European law?
No, seriously, are you really going to put up with this crap?
i think there was a poll on skyuser forums that basically said if sky started using phorm then 70% or so of it's user base would leave them instantly...Quote:
Originally Posted by santa claus
Stopping it before it starts might be better, before we run out of options. A migration may just perpetuate things.Quote:
Originally Posted by TAKTAK
yeah but how many sigs did the initial petition have?...Quote:
Originally Posted by santa claus
and that was just ignored...
i hope it would be about the same with Be*. or any isp that doesn't have the userbase of tiscali, talktalk, orange etc http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/j...ileys/spaz.gifQuote:
Originally Posted by TAKTAK
Any company that forcibly throttles the users which use it's products the most (most ridiculous fuzzy logic ever i feel - "oh lets cut the bandwidth of the people who're using it so that the people who aren't going to use it get more than they need!") is on it's arse by my grounds anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hicks12
It's all very well saying you'll leave if Phorm takes hold, but in practice a lot of those people will grudgingly stay - and at the end of the day it's a fraction of Sky's userbase. Sadly, it's unlikely to make much of a difference - the information needs to be made much more publicly available rather than a few geeks (sorry, but that's all we are at the moment) on the internet.
Switch to talktalk? Isn't the guy there dead set against it all?
This story needs to be elevated on the beeb at least - it's not even on their RSS feed :( Or on the top read as far as i can see!
IIRC Be* (O2), and ADSL24 were one of the first to reject the idea, with sky sitting on the fence and a few others just jumping in...Quote:
Originally Posted by MadduckUK
True. The petition made the top 5 too so it's two fingers up to thousands of people. Looks to me like the Gov want out esp with this financial crisis. The going is rough and it's about to get rougher.Quote:
Originally Posted by TAKTAK
think so, id go wherever i needed to though, even if its back to adslmaxQuote:
Originally Posted by TAKTAK
They way you opt out is kind of annoying, you must have a cookie on your computer or browsers that you may have and it reads that and knows if you've opted out. Why don't they have it that if you have that special cookie then they know you've opted in instead of us having to keep the cookie there. Unless it's changed thats how I last read they would be dealing with the opting out. I really don't like that method anyway. Glad we're not getting Phorm.Quote:
Originally Posted by Craig321
Phorm has to interrogate your cookie to establish if you are opt-in or opt-out so either way you will have visited their server technology. 'Course, they won't track you if you're opt-out because they have said they won't and they are nice.:rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by moogle
yeah, even if you opt out your still being snooped on too much...Quote:
Originally Posted by santa claus
Indeed. The problem is, how many current virus and adware checkers remove cookies? What's the betting that this cookie will also be removed along with these.Quote:
Originally Posted by moogle
And I don't wanna go to their site to get a new cookie each time I delete mine, that's a major pain in the arse! As said somewhere else, it should be OPT-IN, no questions about it. I thought the OPT-OUT system was a legallity these days!
BTW, does anyone know if Pipex is onboard with Phorm? If so, I'll cancel my subscription now.
But how will that affect web services? Will it slow it down even more due to the constant redirections on everything? What would happen if their servers went down? Will it affect any packets sent along the line? If so, that's internet gaming down the drain, it needs the highest ping speed available and redirecting through Phorm servers will no doubt slow it down a lot!Quote:
Originally Posted by santa claus
Quote:
Originally Posted by Allen
Quote:
Tiscali, which has more than two million broadband customers, told The Register it has looked into Phorm's system, but no decisions have been made.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02...d_isp_targets/Quote:
Sky and Tiscali both seem keen to gauge consumer reaction to their browsing habits being sold off before committing.
but that was back in february...
Phorm-free ISP's: http://www.badphorm.co.uk/e107_plugi...ewforum.php?11 (well... talk about them... and it seems to be a bit quiet as of late...)
Trials have been run by BT and Phorm in 2006 & 2007. About 118,000 BT customers were 'phormed' without their knowledge.Quote:
Originally Posted by Allen
More trials are planned. These have been postponed following representations by the EU and The House of Lords. Today's statement is therefore all the more ominous.
Phorm will impact on every aspect of your internet life. You will get to your ISP through Phorm and you cannot avoid their intervention.
i get really anoyed with all the drama about this, it is very reminiscent of the same as the people who where spouting crap about the trusted pcs.
You don't want Phorm or anything similar, don't use an ISP that has it.
Really bloody simple.
But if they all adopt this then how will that work?. The fact is that the person running it is already known for spyware and crap and that the government is allowing them to just spy on everyone and spam them with junk that they "think" they are interested in.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheAnimus
Its not really simple, it does my head in thinking that one person can do such a **** thing.
Hicks12.
Do you think EVERYONE will do it? Be clearly aren't showing any temptation any time soon.
What do you think will happen when the techies eventually explain this to the non-techies. Customer action is the simplest and most effective way to stop this.
And if all the ISPs do start using Phorm, i'll start up my own ISP, charging a loverly premium (say £10 extra per month?) and i'll really be singing phorm's phrases. Of course thats not going to happen, because not all ISPs will do it. Sure they will cost more (belive it or not phorm's techniques might make it cheaper for the subcriber) then we can see exactly how much money people put on their privacy.
A valid point but for people like me who are tied into another 12month contract it could be bad with phorm since i could change, or would it void the contract?. I think the majority will move though leaving the ones like talktalk/carephone warehouse chargin a premium to have a service. I wouldnt mind paying £18 for 10mb/s broadband but its the people sellin it off so cheap force this to happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheAnimus
If peoples privacy isn't worth £18 to them...... who are we to tell them it is?
Sure it might put our prices up a bit as we get more and more elite in club no snooping isp, but its not upto us to force them to care.
I don't buy tesco value chopped tomato's when making a bolegnase, I consider it worth it to me to buy the waitrose own brand, it looks better and even has a tiny bit of chopped basil, at a cost of almost double (ok were talking 20p here) but the majority of people don't. I really do think there is an amazing difference and in a simple base for a source, its worth it. Plenty of people would call me a twit. I could say that if they all brought my brand economies of scale could allow it to only be an extra 10p, saving me money. But should i be right to force them to buy premium to benefit me? No, They should be more than welcome to save that 10p (whats actually 20p now because of low sales), so long as i have the choice to pay the premium and get the product, thats fair.
Does that make sense?
Unforunately, I agree with Whiternoise .....Quote:
Originally Posted by TheAnimus
What will happen when the non-techies find out is that a lot won't understand it, some won't care, a goon number will get all hoy under the collar and irate about it .... but inertia will win over and they'll forget about it. And that, of course, is what Phorm relies on, which is precisely why this should be opt-in not opt-out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Whiternoise
nice post on BadPhorm
http://www.badphorm.co.uk/e107_plugi...topic.php?8089Quote:
It would be unacceptable for the Post Office to "use" the contents of mail I send/receive and unacceptable for a telephone operator to "use" the content of my telephone conversations, so why do ISPs think it OK to "use" my private Internet data?
and ISP's that have definativly said 'NO' http://www.antiphormleague.com/isp.php
the new petition: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/ispphorm/
ISPs are very competitive in the UK atm, the only people making money been BT wholesale.
As such ANYTHING that could let them get a bigger market share would be great. If they get £2 per customer say, about £1.50 of that would be passed onto the consumer, to try and tempt more in. If all the big names go phorm, all of them will be able to lower their prices by phorm amount and still make the same revenue (or loss in the case of a few).
So those that don't use phorm, should and i'd hope would make a deal out of it, make it one of their unique selling points to try and take market share from the others, because as they'd be more expensive, they'd have to play on it.
Mabye i've just too much faith in the free market?
Erm...is there a Doctor in the house? :mrgreen:Quote:
Originally Posted by TheAnimus
Careful readers, make your own mind up about Phorm based on its impact on you not the cost of tomatoes.
Btw, on the net Phorm's product is known as "webwise". Also watch out for OIX (Open Internet Exchange) which is the planned network of participants to webwise.
Or roll over and take it up the tradesman's.
I switched from IE to Firefox with the Anti-Phorm plugin. Phorm is almost as annoying as traffic shaping :mad:
I know you are all going to hate me for saying this but I really don't see the massive issue with this technology. Very little is recorded and all users are made anonymous. Good way to think of Phorm is a fishing net that advertisers cast out into Internet traffic, people can then target based on a number of criteria.
I for one would like to have more targeted advertising.
And you honestly believe what a former spyware company tells you?Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick F
Are you aware that they want to ship the data they gather on you to outside the EU where privacy laws can not be enforced?
Have you even looked how to this is implemented at the ISP level?
Are you aware that this effectively lets them high jack your entire data stream?
If you honestly believe what they are telling you on face value, you're naive.
No, actually, that's an incredibly bad way to think of it.Quote:
Good way to think of Phorm is a fishing net that advertisers cast out into Internet traffic, people can then target based on a number of criteria.
In fact, I'm struggling to think of how that can apply to the situation at all
Here's one thing I still don't get. Who makes the money out of Phorm? The ISP's right? Do they then pass those profits on to us (who if opted in are generating it for them) as discounts in our broadband or upgrades to the network, or is it all pocketed by the fat cats?
Excuse me if I'm being ignorant but I totally forgot.
Never hate, pity maybe for not being worried about the implications. After all, the entire concept has been presented as completely safe for us by the people doing it and yet BT felt the need to conduct it's trials in upmost secrecy and even lie to customers who did notice something strange going on. Not to mention the entire idea of anonymous targetted adverts is a complete contradiction in terms!! If it was anonymous, their system wouldn't be able to tell who you were from website to website and couldn't build up a profile on you! It's hardly anonymous to strip out a couple of bits of information from the picture....Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick F
What's worse is the user isn't being given any choice whether or not they want to be monitored, because it's installed at their ISP. At least with things like Google, you can just not use their service if you're worried about your privacy, the only way to avoid Phorm is to change your ISP entirely...
The main issue here though is the tens of thousands of people out there that are less tech savvy than the average user of this forum. They haven't got a blooming clue how the "magic box" in the corner connects to the internet, but as long as they are able to view their website and their kids can download stuff they are not bothered.
Many of them sign-up for BTBroadband because they think " Oh I have a BT line, therefore I MUST get BTBroadband installed "
If half of these were told the facts about phorm, how it works and how it is going to capture their browsing habits they'd be having heart attacks :)
I've got a much better way of describing Phorm, but I'd have to ban myself if I used language like that here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick F
I don't want ANY advertising based on a profile of my web browsing. But it's more than that. I don't want a bunch of people like Phorm having ANY access to my web browsing, not under ANY circumstances. I'm paying my ISP for an internet connection, not for the 'privilege' of being advertised at.
Which means I don't want my data being routed via Phorm in the first place, and it's certainly not acceptable to have to keep putting Phorm cookies on all my PCs just to try to keep them away from me.
If users like you want their ad services, that's fine. They should design an opt-in system where your data is routed via them IF you opt-in, but don't send everyone's data via them regardless of the user's wishes, and just let them opt-out of receiving ads if they both want to avoid the ads and actually know it's happening ..... and, of course, remember to keep cookies on all their machines.
Here's a thought. What if one person is with an ISP that uses Phorm and another person isn't, if they're having a conversation on MSN will both of their data be routed via Phorm?
Assuming Phorm intercepts all data whatever you type to a "Phorm" user it will probably pass through their system. But MSN uses it's weird protocol to send messages which Phorm won't see as HTTP requests, so it won't intercept it. It might process it to check if it's a internet stream to make a profile on though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Allen
If the information that is floating around the web is true, the Phorm system will allow them to snoop on any data that passes through your ISP. From what others are saying, its not limited to HTTP.Quote:
Originally Posted by moogle
The MSN protocol isn't particularly hard to reverse engineer - there any many clients out there that can interface with it, some open source. Assuming they can snoop on any data, reading a MSN conversation would be childs play for someone in their position.
What's the level of snooping on encrypted traffic?
Ooer..Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent
I was going on what Wiki was saying. Yeah MSN protocol isn't that complicated which makes me wonder why it's so damn slow to sign in :rolleyes:
I don't see why they can't make Phorm software orientated so you have to actually opt in (download the software) instead of the way they implement it now.
Looks like SSL connections is the way?
Because that business model would fall down in seconds :DQuote:
Originally Posted by moogle
I did a quote from someone who had dealt with Phorm here. Well worth a read.
Any petitions up again?, anyone in london care to take it in person? maybe they will look at it then :P. Reading more into this phorm its making me EVEN more peed off because its based in china and russia where alot of illegal things happen and cant be done about it, why should they be able to read my "personal" emails? it could be blueprints for a new microchip or something, the business would lose money just like that because they can look at that and say " Oooo thats got money there, lets patent it before they do." absolutly pathetic, i will change ISP asap if VM decide togo because i can live with their throttling as ive got a very stable connection but this is to far.
Why does the government have to be so retarded? certainly gunna vote for another person :P.
Its like a door to door sales person asking if you want to buy something but then he just walks in and watches your every move in your own home, while this is happening he is making notes on how to sell that stuff to you next time.
I will not be using an ISP that uses phorm, if that means no internet then so be it.
Can't you just block the port which phorm uses and blacklist it on your spyware scanner?
No. Its not software on your computer, its at the ISP level.Quote:
Originally Posted by Powderhound
The only way to bypass it is to route *everything* over an encrypted connection to a secure end point.
As was mentioned before, the only way to combat Phorm is to educate the non-geek about it. Most people will either not care or dismiss it as something that has to be 'put up with' (my parents did this after a lengthy dinner-time conversation), since I bet the vast majority of people make decisions about their internet service based on cost or speed, not the privacy it promises. Something like this needs a documentary, or a very simple, well-worded article written about it.
Is that something Hexus would be prepared to do, with the help of it's forum members?
It's good to see a 'live' Phorm thread again. As I understand it:
1. Phorm is an ISP level intrusion i.e. if your ISP contracts with them, all your internet traffic goes through Phorm (webwise) servers;
2. Phorm themselves have said they can 'see the entire internet'. That is every page you visit; every search you make, every time you use your connection;
3. Phorm promise better online security; but at the expense of privacy;
4. Phorm CANNOT be blocked; not by adblocker; not by a browser plug-in; not with a butt-plug. Nothing. Encryption would ruin the internet and do you know how to do it?
5. ISP's, if any participate and it looks like BT will, would be in it for the money. I cannot see that they would be collecting that money to give to users; can you?
6. To target you successfully Phorm will give you an anonymous identification number personal to you. That's right, you are anonymous but have a personal number.
7. You will be monitored and profiled according to your interests and served relevant ads. Your net proclivities will be retained so you can be targeted effectively. Nice info to go missing on the odd CD now and again or perhaps sold to third parties voracious for our data so that they can tareget us too.
SSL Proxy to a computer or server on a non-Phorm ISP. More costs and more slower.Quote:
Originally Posted by santa claus
Apologies, the question wasn't posed to elicit a solution, it was posed to reveal some of the consequence of interception to those getting their head around the concept of the technology.Quote:
Originally Posted by moogle
I know I know, it just got me thinking how would we do it and it does look bleak for finding that easy solution.Quote:
Originally Posted by santa claus
....and why should we have to do it? Privacy used to be part and parcel of this Country - now we're all building walls. It sucks.Quote:
Originally Posted by moogle
We shouldn't. I just hope all ISP's don't jump on board. People just never listen to us..Quote:
Originally Posted by santa claus