UK ISP Admitted to Spying on Customers 163
esocid writes "BT, an ISP located in the UK, tested secret spyware on tens of thousands of its broadband customers without their knowledge, it admitted yesterday. The scandal came to light only after some customers stumbled across tell-tale signs of spying. At first, they were wrongly told a software virus was to blame. BT said it randomly chose 36,000 broadband users for a 'small-scale technical trial' in 2006 and 2007. The monitoring system, developed by U.S. software company Phorm, formerly known as 121Media, known for being deeply involved in spyware, accesses information from a computer. It then scans every website a customer visits, silently checking for keywords and building up a unique picture of their interests. Executives insisted they had not broken the law and said no 'personally identifiable information' had been shared or divulged."
Idiots... don't do it client-side (Score:5, Insightful)
The only difference is that you don't have access to encrypted data and "other applications" installed by the user. The stuff they claim to have logged and analyzed is more easily obtainable from their own side.
Re:Idiots... don't do it client-side (Score:3, Insightful)
Even doing simple L3 inspection on the dataflows that ISPs like BT deal with would require insane amounts of hardware, let alone inspection on the application (5/7) layer.
Re:An ISP? (Score:2, Insightful)
safe assumption.... (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the Worst Providers in the UK (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:class action lawsuit? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's the best method of defeating all this ** (Score:3, Insightful)
They are also relatively honest and havent done anything immoral in regards to privacy to date.
Re:An ISP? (Score:4, Insightful)
Average people I will allow some lenience towards. Leaders I have no sympathy for; they all too often make excuses for their behavior and have the power (lawyers, political, etc) to get away with it.
Re:What's the best method of defeating all this ** (Score:3, Insightful)
2) because they dont charge me, in exchange for good search results they track me and give me non intrusive ads.
3) because its very easy to switch, if they change their privacy policy im not tied to searching with them for another 6-12 months
4) because they do good stuff with the money ( FF, SOC, etc)
5) because theyre geeks, the main way the information is mis used is if somebody hacks in and steals it, i doubt this will happen with google, but after BT pushed out insecure linux routers to thousands of homes, i cant say id have faith.
5) be
Traffic encryption? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:An ISP? (Score:3, Insightful)
Retroactive laws make it impossible to know whether some behavior, which is perfectly legal when it was committed, will get you thrown into prison nonetheless. This makes a mockery of the rule of law, and can not be tolerated.
The only known alternative for the rule of law is the divine right of kings. We have already taken too many steps to that direction, and must not take any more.
Re:An ISP? (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with you on those people deserving jail, but not at that price.