Covert BT Phorm Trial Report Leaked 292
stavros-59 writes "An internal BT report on the BT secret trials of Phorm (aka 121Media) Deep Packet Inspection has been revealed on Wikileaks today. The leaked document shows that during the covert trial a possible 18 million page requests were intercepted and injected with JavaScript and about 128 thousand charity ads were substituted with the Phorm Ad Network advertisements purchased by advertisers specifically for the covert trial period. Several ISPs are known to be using, or planning to use, DPI as a means of serving advertising directly through Layer 7 interception at ISP level in the USA and Europe.
NebuAd claim they are using DPI to enable their advertising to reach 10% of USA internet users." CT: nodpi has updated their page with a note that says that the charity ads were "purchased and not hijacked"- read there to see what the latest is.
Advertisement Injection (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that sort of like someone from the electrical company who breaks into your house to turn the lights on while you're gone?
I won't even mention the privacy issues, cause those aren't "in" nowadays, nor are they likely to be a sufficient cause to nip this practice in the bud. Cheating people out of money, on the other hand, is always a great way to apply the US tort law to the cause.
Is that legal? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like a cable company changing the channel ads with their own. I doubt any channel would sit and bear it, especially since their customers (i.e. ad buyers) won't accept that.
Um, Replacing Charity Ads? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Advertisement Injection (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is that legal? (Score:3, Insightful)
Take
Mod Parent Up! (Score:3, Insightful)
I noticed that quote too. It is completely despicable that they would remove charity advertisements. Actually, I think the entire system boils down to theft and unlawful interception of traffic.
What if the phone company inserted commercial adds when you were talking to someone on the phone?
Oxfam ads substituted (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ouch (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ouch (Score:5, Insightful)
If it doesn't exist then it's generated by this, since all it does is randomly create addresses. It'd be better if it just loaded random websites. Of course, that'd eat up a lot more of the users bandwidth though.
Re:Advertisement Injection (Score:4, Insightful)
It's 2008, why aren't most websites just using https by default? A low-volume site can handle the load with today's superfast CPUs, and high-volume sites can afford to buy one of those crypto engine thingies.
Re:Ouch (Score:5, Insightful)
Legal action strong enough to totally stop them is unlikely, as the power seekers who run a lot of countries unfortunately seem to be rushing towards building their own Big Brother, so as they make the rules, they choose whats considered legal. So they simply need to change the laws, which is what they keep doing. It seems nearly every week now we are getting ever more stories of new grabs for information and/or power over people. At this rate, 2008 should go down in history as the start of a Worldwide Big Brother.
Its ironic that our so called free countries appear to be building Big Brother as fast, if not faster than other countries. Maybe we just have better technology. Its also ironic that the war on terrorists is a war against people who wish to force others into their point of view. Yet now the people already in power are seeking to clamp down and hold control over everyone. Its like all of us who don't seek power are caught up in a power struggle between the different groups of power seekers who do seek to impose their views on everyone.
I guess the ones in power in some way fear some lost of power, as it can't be just about protecting us. Its got to be about seeking more power, which is what they do thoughout their political lives and all of us who don't seek power are not going to be heard by them. Especially as most people don't seem to even see how much harm can be done with so much power and no way to tell them they are behaving unfairly. They are becoming like a machine which is loosing its feedback mechanism and so running towards ever more extremes.
Re:Ouch (Score:5, Insightful)
It never flew, because the people I was dealing with weren't complete cunts.
From the document: The advertisements were used to replaced [sic] a 'default' charity advertisement (one of Oxfam, Make Trade Fair or SOS Children's Villages) when a suitable contextual or behavioural match could be made by the PageSense system.
So not only are the bastards hijacking our traffic, they are overwriting paid-for charity ads as well.
I repeat, CUNTS!
Re:Possible temporary fixes.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Advertisement Injection (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ouch (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the outrage following the several Audiocall staff kept 100K of children in need cash for itself [thisislondon.co.uk], I hope BT get the same treatment.
Re:Advertisement Injection (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is that legal? (Score:3, Insightful)
So I could take a song, add "Buy Coke" in the middle, and release that? No, especially not for commercial gain.
Some derivative works are protected by fair use, but they generally have to be mostly newly created content, and can't just be the website with a little bit changed, per Wikipedia [wikipedia.org].
Re:For the uninitiated (Score:2, Insightful)
Pot calling the kettle black? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Advertisement Injection (Score:3, Insightful)
This is nothing more than the ISP asking for a blank check from the customer, while stealing ad revenue from the visited websites. But it would be very hard to detect from the website. How would you know your ads are being intercepted?
Another scenario. What is to stop the ISP from being paid by a political action group to simply replace all instances of an opposing group's ads with their own? Seems to me that is left up to the integrity of the ISP, which from my experience is not very high. These are the folks who will sell your phone records to the first PI that pretends to be you, and also to the first G-man to merely ask.
Another scenario. NOw that it has been demonstrated that every packet can be read and that this can be used to generate profits, what level of responsibility does the ISP take upon itself for the contents of the websites? ARe they liable for every underage relationship transmitted across their lines while they serve ads for condoms next to the sex talk? What about those instance where websites are serving information that could be used to commit a crime? Shouldn't the ISP, with it ability to completely read the subject's searches KNOW or should know that a crime is being researched? How many times will the internet be blamed for harm to a minor before the ISP gets held partially liable, or required to monitor the internet by the government?
Re:Ouch (Score:3, Insightful)
Atleast when certificates are properly checked it shouldn't be possible.
Re:Ouch (Score:5, Insightful)
Something tells me that if I did the same thing with a billboard - charging customers for me to go out and paste their adverts over the top of paid for adverts at night - Clear Channel would quite quickly be attempting to sue me.
Re:Ouch (Score:3, Insightful)
You just explained how it's possible.
Re:Advertisement Injection (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you will see more lawsuits.
Advertisers paid for their ads to be served. Phorm is theft.
Re:For the uninitiated (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it doesn't (anymore). The whole brand and company is "BT". They dropped the British bit (I forget when) when trying to become a global brand.
The full name of the company is "BT Group", but typically when naming companies you don't include the "group" or "plc / ltd. / llc" bits.
The website is also www.bt.com - check out the page, no mention of "British" whatsoever.
If you wanted to identify the company better, for folks that don't know it, you could say "BT - a major UK telco & ISP -
Re:And created a copyright violation (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Is that legal? (Score:2, Insightful)
this is the biggest problem with an ISP switching ads to their own. In the end, it's a destructive practice:
1) advertisers will start to understand that ads they pay for on site x are being over-ridden
2) advertisers start paying ISPs for advertising
3) site x, now not able to support its costs through advertising, closes up shop
4) rinse, repeat, until
5) there's no longer any sites that users want to visit, and ISPs are getting less money from advertisers, and are loosing subscribers cause there's less demand
6) everybody looses
Re:Ouch (Score:2, Insightful)
This is only what they tell you to obfuscate that you are on the way to enlightenment
CC.
Re:Ouch (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ouch (Score:3, Insightful)
121Media, who ran the trial, placed charity ads (at its own expense) on a number of websites, and then intercepted them and replaced them with commercial or other charity adverts on the fly. Thus they were replacing their own adverts
Thus there is no question of damage to charities, quite the contrary; nor to websites advertising revenues.
There is, though, the privacy issue.
It would be helpful if we could hang them for what they are guilty of, rather than making unsupported allegations.