Uk Users: Beware Of Phorm The Spy Your Isp May Adopt Phorm will spy on every page you visit and target adverts at you paid

[shadowx 0]

Hello everyone, this applies mainly to UK users but overseas users might be interested too.

I have an RSS feed to the BBC website in firefox and i spied an article about a company named Phorm. You may know Phorm by another name...121Media. The company that bought us spyware and adware that we never wanted in the first place. Phorm is the next generation in remote spy/adware hosted at your ISP. Let me explain.

3 ISPs in the UK are in talks with Phorm about introducing this system: Phorm will intercept every web request made using your ISP (so that includes every webpage you visit) by scanning port 80 at your ISP. It will take the URL and some header information then scan the website for keywords and content. Using these results it will then target adverts at you.

It may not sound bad, you get adverts youre interested in. but look at it another way....The post office opening every letter you ever receive, reading it, saving some details in a file and then sending you "targettted" Junk mail to your doorstep. A clear Invasion of Privacy and in direct conflict with the data protection act.

The reason this is so freaking annoying is because BT made trials of it on thousands of household without telling ANYONE. The scandal was only noticed by one BT user who thought he had been infected by ad/spyware when his browser kept loading a specific URL before loading pages (In FF it made a connection that he noticed in the status bar while loading his page) BT denied the scandal and only recently admitted it. Another reason why BT are one of the WORST ISP's anyone could ever choose. This "company" who previously created spyware and adware and infected millions of computers with it are now going to "infect" your ISP and remotely spy on you with what is effectively spyware and then use adware against you, yet you have no control over this, you cant scan for it or remove it. But you can make it harder and possibly stop it.

As of yet no ISP has officially made a deal however given BT's scandal i expect many of us are being spied on already so its time to take action. If you use firefox there is a nice addon called dephormation: https://www.dephormation.org.uk/index.php

Because Phorm works by using a cookie and is an "opt-out" System you can automatically, and permanently opt out of Phorm with this addon. It creates the opt-out cookie so you wont be harvested, it also alerts you of any Phorm related ads (EG the ads that Phorm has "targeted" to you) and i think it also alerts you of any re-direction to Phorm related sites. I did find a list of Phorm related URLS from which to block cookies but i cant find that site anymore. You can also modify your HOSTS file to redirect all phorm related websites to your localhost loopback address.

So far BT, talktalk and Virgin (all terrible ISP's and companies anyway, they didnt need to prove it by doing this) are "in talks" with Phorm and BT are set to retail test it with thousands of users. If you are a customer of any of these ISP's i suggest you go on their forums or call them and DEMAND to talk to someone in charge. If you phone them dont talk to the person that answers the phone, DEMAND to talk to a manager and then ask to go higher until you are talking to someone you can really get answers to. If you contact them state that Phorm violates the data protection act and the law:

But FIPR says the system's monitoring of web traffic may violate the UK's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000. The act makes it illegal to monitor communications between two entities without consent. The group also contends that Phorm conflicts with the Data Protection Act, which also says personal data can't be processed without consent.
Since the content of many sites requires registration, Phorm may need the consent of those sites before monitoring the communication, said Nicholas Bohm, FIPR's general counsel.

A further concern is the possible linkage of personal data with a real person. "There's a lot of sensitive personal data washing around of an identifiable kind," Bohm said.

And state that you wish to not be opted in and if you are opted in it will be a violation of your human rights and of the data protection act and that will terminate your service and any related services (state a competitor that doesnt yet have Phorm and say they offered you a much better deal and you are telling everyone you know to switch and starting a petition/website/awareness group to raise the issue)

If you are with an ISP that doesnt yet have plans (or we dont yet know of them) to implement Phorm write to them too and state your objections, visit their forums and join in with the numerous discussions on the subject and let the ISP know that its customers do not wish to be spied on. There is an E-petition to the prime minister (not that he cares, he just wants power the ******* If you have a high powered rifle and sniper scope....) at: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ (yes i have signed it)

Bt have called the "service" WebWise so if BT contact you regarding webwise firmly tell them know and speak to a manager higher up in the chain of command.

Show your support for the Anti-Phormers and destroy all Phorm supporters in anyway possible. As noted on many websites the only chance we have of stopping phorm is to make it loose money, and the only way of doing that is stopping ISP's adopting it and not clicking any Phorm ads (they can be identified using the firefox addon but i dont know any other way) If you see a product you like google it directly, do not click Phorm ads. they will loose a lot of money and hopefuly go bankrupt, ruining the lives of the employees.

Thank you for your time! Spread the word and be careful! Any other ways of blocking Phorm are definitely welcome here so please do tell.

(Mods: I realize this is rant-like however i would like this to become a full discussion on Phorm and inform more users about its "service" and as such i would be grateful if it wasnt moved to the rant section. Im also not sure if this forum is the right one but its the closet i could find to the right forum)

[gameratheart 0]

I read about this about 48 hours ago on BBC myself. I am OUTRAGED how such a deal could even be considered by the very companies many of us trust to give us safe, reliable internet connections every single day. Not only that, but it's completely breaking the law - the ISPs are installing Spyware on their servers, that track your browsing habits, saves the data to their computers, then sends it to an Adware service, which sends you adverts, without your permission!

 

I have already installed the Dephormation Firefox Add-on, and I hope that this deal NEVER goes through. 121Media caused enough legal trouble, and I don't know how they've been able to continue operations to this date. Please, God, get them shut down! Otherwise, no-one will ever be able to trust the internet again, and what next?

[shadowx 0]

Otherwise, no-one will ever be able to trust the internet again, and what next?

Well there was talk of ISP's spying on us for legal reasons like to "stop child porn" yeh...because they wont find ways around it... Like passworded encryption maybe?

 

At the end of the day its all word games for what is essentially spying and making money from spying. I wouldn't mind if it was an Opt-in thing (Eg i have to say yes before they can do it, rather than opt out where they automatically enter me for it and i have to say no in a most likely long winded write to us, email us, phone us and send us 3 horse drawn carts proclaiming you dont want to partake Sorta thing.)

[tricky77puzzle 0]

It may not sound bad, you get adverts youre interested in. but look at it another way....The post office opening every letter you ever receive, reading it, saving some details in a file and then sending you "targettted" Junk mail to your doorstep. A clear Invasion of Privacy and in direct conflict with the data protection act.

You ever heard of Google? They do the same thing to emails. Of course, they don't do it at the same level; they only do it on their servers, which is completely legal.

I think this is bad enough. But one thing I am confident of is that I am safe, because the Free Communications Act in Canada contains the following ground rules:

The user of the computer and internet connection is allowed, without restriction, to:
1. restrict access to and from the computer.
2. modify any information sent directly from the computer to any outside connection, except where this would infringe right c) below.
3. modify and expect the integrity of any information coming into the computer, except where this would infringe any licensing restrictions that the computer has.

(I'm not quoting this from anywhere. I'm not sure if it's even right.)

Phorm pretty much violates all three rights.