BT's secret Phorm trials open door to corporate eavesdropping

Sad but true!

It seems that its time for a fundamental change to the system of governance in this country. The current system just doesn't work anymore.

err..

> "I'm absolutely sickened and appalled," Pete John, who has tried to interest authorities, told The Register this week.

Get a grip, I told Pete John this week. With all that goes on in the world, if that's the kind of thing that sickens and appalls you then I'm surprised you have the wherewithall to get out of bed in the morning.

That said, keep up the good fight (when you've got your health back, naturally :)) !

Cop Out or corruption?

Can we start taking bets on how long it is before certain key people in government departments that seem to muddying the waters on purpose jump ship and join Phorm?

That bloody "Consent" thing keeps coming up.

I run websites - I DO NOT give consent for phorm (and BT, Talk Talk or Virgin) permission to intercept my traffic.

Mabye if a lot of website owners blacklisted the entire BT, Talk Talk and Virgin IP address ranges so they get a message that says something like "Your ISP is a leeching parasitic scum merchant who would sell his granny for a snort of Cocaine" they might get the message?

Actually even better - a redirect so that they get a page full of the nasty truth about Phorm and then topped up with choice keywords would be good (it would certainly screw up the Phorm profilers.) before they get to the actual website.

No more writing letters.

Anyone willing to put their name on the line and march on Parliament? Peaceful protest my left ass cheek; Through the doors and into the PM's private chambers, so he knows just HOW pissed off the informed public are.

Anonymous? No point. They can track it all anyway.

Me to :(

I have an extremely dismissive letter from Tony McNulty which more or less says "It's not my problem. It's the ISPs responsibility to make sure they don't breach RIPA"

I'm drafting a suitably worded reply, but it's taking a while, since I'm having difficulty framing a sentence without using the phrase "greasy shiteweasel".

As of today, sadly, the position seems to be that public bodies can breach RIPA, in which case they'll be investigated, but this will never come about since everything they do that's covered by RIPA will have been rubberstamped (see Reg passim), that individuals can breach RIPA, in which case inspector knacker will stuff them in chokey for five years, and that corporations can breach RIPA and no one will give a flying fuck.

Fortunately, I can't see this position lasting long, there's to much for the opposition parties and the tabloids to get their teeth into. I mean come one, NuLabour allows big corps to trample over "terrorism"* legislation is a big stick with which to beat an already embattled Prime Minister.

So, on with the fight. The failtrain is still en route, it's just delayed by red tape on the line.

*I know, it actually has very little to do with terrorism, but no one tell the Daily Mail that just yet, eh ?

A new RFC is needed ...

Putting an MD5 hash for every page a server creates in the HTTP header. Clients could perform a matching hash, and if they don't match refuse to display the page. I'm sure Amazon and eBay would be thrilled to know customers were unable to view their pages because of phorm injected crap .....

This is great news, they've just made themselves liable.

Anyone who has had any kind of response from the Home Office, hang on to it. Could come in handy as evidence. Now the Home Office are involved, they have brought the matter within the scope of a Judicial Review. Fatal error. We've just seen how Judicial Reviews feel about the government illegally granting impunity to private corporations in the matter of SFO vs BAE - and they do not like it.

Didja know it only costs £100 to apply for a Judicial Review?

No reply from the home office

I've still not had a reply from the home office about this.

I'm genuinely at a loss as to why this is being ignored.

I have no words!

There are no words that I can find that express how rotten this makes the the country look!

I think I'll pack my bags and move to Zimbabwe - it's starting to look like they have a more moral and trustworthy government.

@b

It's being "ignored" because;

a) There's a LOT of money involved, and / or

b) Someone (maybe more then one) senior in the Home Office / ICO / Ofcom / Media are in this up to their mucky little neck(s).

Like you, I'm baffled why this hasn't hit the tabloids (see post above yours, then refer to 'b' above!!).

Looks like a snoopers charter.

We're all FUCKED!

£100 for a judicial review? Please, where can I contribute.

Yes. I am serious. Unlike our elected representatives.

"Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime".

Oh yes. We thought he was serious too. Now we know better.

so what

Targetted advertising - Sounds great. whats the big deal?? So they monitor your inernet use etc, only people with sometihng to hide would mind as far as I am concerned.....

Is anyone genuinely surprised........

that a government that views tracking and spying on the people it is *supposed* to be serving as its most important function supports Phorm.

The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if HM Gov views Phorm as a nice, convenient, way of spying on us that they don't have to pay (much) for.

I also wonder if Phorm has been 'in talks' with HM Gov in just this regard.

It would go a *long* way to explain the lack of concern about this from the Home Office and ICO and why BT and Virgin are pushing ahead with this despite the public's outrage.

The last time we incubated anything

It would appear that, if BT, or anyone else passed your information to another company without your knowledge or agreement, then your argument is with BT for breach of contract.

So, why anyone with a choice in the matter still signs up for a BT service totally beats me. At the end of the day, you get what you deserve for not being more discerning in the first place.

And if Virgin tries this caper, as was proposed, then my internet connection will be terminated, and it's back to POTS for this end user and my business, until legislation is evident that will protect my business from industrial espionage.

Which is how I consider this little invasion of privacy by Phorm and BT.

You know it, you are either trust worthy or you bloody well ain't.

Alf

£100 for a judicial review

Seriously? Where do we pay up?

Dont vote for the b***ds

This is typically Britsh. You moan and moan about the council, hte government the opposition your MP and then you vote them in again!

Break the cycle! Vote against the status quo.

This means NOT voting Labour or Tory and except in exceptional cases the dear old lib dems (they wont mind thye never expected annyone to vote for them anyway.

My vote goes to the Monster Raving Loony candidate as being most representitive of my contempt for the current pretend democracy.

Re: so What

So why post as AC? What have *you* got to hide?

Time to 'police' ourselves

I am not suggesting mob policing - just gently silent protests.

For those who object to having their browsing intercepted - change ISP.

BT's broadband pages are full of how they protect customers from AdWare - not true. Is this enough to invalidate their contract with you. I would argue the case if I were with BT.

For webmasters - big warning messages for all BT IP addresses + any other addresses that are tied into profilers from anywhere in the world. I don't earn any income from USA visitors anyway so warn them all.

The Sun will never do anything - look who pays for its advertising space.

Not too sure who owns the local press - the reporters can't all be such fools (Weston-super-Mare excluded from this rant). Maybe they charge BT et al enough for advertising space to cover all the costs of weekly printing so dare not say anything that could risk that income.

Next week I will see what I can get into the school's weekly rag. Even a circulation of 500 is better than none.

The internet is more powerful than this - use it. Because some of us care and have not been blinded nor made dumb.

Mine is the power jacket: power to the people.

Re: Ash

Yeah, because protest marches worked for the anti-Iraq demonstrations and the anti-hunt-ban demonstrations, which I believe were the largest demonstrations in British history. Demonstrations do not work as an expression of opinion, only as a threat of violence, and British people, unlike, say, the French, aren't currently capable of the latter. This is because the government doesn't give two s---s about what you think, only about its survival.

The good news is that BT and Phorm are private companies (in the narrow sense, not the share ownership sense), so unlike Iraq, we do at least have something of a say in the matter. Change your ISP, and if you don't want your website's traffic intercepted, block access from ISPs that use them.

Legal Begal my Ar*e

So the government asks ISP's to help police the net, in exchange for ignoring them breaking the law with this new advertising scam, they all get rich and less P2P traffic on their networks cause they busy grassing us all up for crimes that have no pysical bearing on our society, Does Gorden Brown/labour ever think of anything else but the economy?

Paris has more common sense then our MP's

£100 for Judicial Review?

Why has this not been done already? £100 is hardly breaking the bank.

Hell, i'd pay for it myself if I knew what it was and how to do it properly!

@so what - anonymous coward

I know your post is flame bait, but once Phorm has invaded everything you surf, try explaining to your kids why they get adverts for viagra and hot milf hardcore gangbang on gamesmate because Phorm has skimmed these key words from your spam infested yahoo / hotmail account which you access once a week to clear down.

When the music stops, you're the one who has to deal with phorm...

What a surptise, this has been a whitewashing of concerns by every interested party. BT and phorm tell us this thing won't invade privacy, but give us conflicting reasons as to why not, at the FAQ session Simon Davies acknowledges that the big issue is legality, but then asks everyone not to talk about it, and now HMG (Who I've suspected always wanted this kind of access) won't take action on it.

It's the ISP's responsibility to make sure they don't break RIPA? That may be, but it's sure as hell this governments responsibility to intervene when they do! This is farcical, if it had been a teenager downloading a few songs that the BPI had asked them to investigate then you can guarantee they would've been knocking down his bedroom door before you could say "hasty search warrant", but because it's the citizens (who MP's are supposed to represent) complaining against big business, nothing gets done! I guess we know who makes the bigger campaign contributions!

PS, why no coverage of the phorm Q&A session?

Helicopter because, well, look around.

And now the good news.

Phorm's share price has plunged to 1275p.

Re:£100 for Judicial Review?

The only way to beat Phorm is with *organised* protests and legal action. All of the current 'pressure groups' are no more than rant shops.

What is needed is someone with PR skill and/or legal training to head up a *real* anti-Phorm organisation that we can support with real money. I would gladly stump up, say, £100 a month to fight this obscenity, and I'm sure many others would, too.

Once you have an organisation with real power (i.e. money) then you can really lay into Phorm. Legal action, full page newspaper ads, mailshots to Phormed ISP customers, intense lobbying of MPs.

Unfortunately I have no PR experience, little legal experience and absolutely no idea how to go about setting up such an organisation (would it be a charity?) Anyone care to step forward???

@Ash

" Peaceful protest my left ass cheek; Through the doors and into the PM's private chambers, so he knows just HOW pissed off the informed public are."

If you dont want to be nailed to the tower, you could always vent on an invovled companies property.. be that in there car park or on the side of a van...

As I have maintained all along...

(Tin foil hat on and special flamebait shirt done up!)

Most people use those bloody insidious supermarket loyalty cards, which in my opinion are the biggest excuse for a private company to gather personal information. TESCO, whom I believe have one of the largest customer spending habit databases in the country, but no one minds using the cards and getting their tiny little prize of a fiver off their shopping, at the end of the year do they? Before you start bleating about Phorm/BT, double check your wallet and make sure your shredding your waste paper too!

Until Joe Public actually hears anything about this, this is simply going to be a big shouting match in a quiet little geek corner. Want to make a difference? Simply tell everyone you know who is on the internet in some form or other, that basically their credit info and personal details will sold off to some ad agency in about 6 months time, unless they kick BT/VM/TT up the arse to demand Phorm be removed ASAP. Oh and ask people to stop using those nasty little loyalty cards while you're at it!

Oh Dear

"The tribunal has no jurisdiction to investigate complaints about private individuals or companies unless you believe they are acting on behalf of an intelligence agency, law enforcement body or other public authority covered by RIPA."

Do I read that right, Private individuals and companies are exempt from RIPA unless they are acting on behalf of a law enforcement agency?

well, thats all right then, I thought they were breaking the law when all the time it didnt apply to them.

I am moving house soon and going to change to one of the phorm free ISP's, once they go to phorm I'll move again until there are no more Phorm free ISP's.

Make no mistake this is going to go ahead, too much at stake for the businesses involved to let it phail, mores the pity!

Royal Mail

So the Royal Mail are allowed to open your post after all, as long as they are doing it to steal money from childrens birthday cards then it is allowed, as long as they are not a law enforcement agency... Who wants my vote? im giving in...