Charter Is Latest ISP To Plan Wiretapping Via DPI

Charter Communications has begun sending letters to its customers informing them that, in the name of an "enhanced user experience," it will begin spying on their traffic and inserting targeted ads. This sounds almost indistinguishable from what Phorm proposed doing in the UK. Lauren Weinstein issues a call to arms.

Comments

Call to arms?

[Gothmolly]

So if I blog something, and title it a 'call to arms', am I suddenly relevant too?

Now that a precedent has been set...

[slashname3]

Now that a precedent has been set, I plan to examine and modify the direct deposit traffic found on the network. Just a few simple modifications, change the account number, add a few zeros to the amount, simple things like that.

Wonder when someone will figure out that their ad is being replaced by something else and sues?

A plugin needed perhaps?

[DnemoniX]

Here is a project idea then, somebody start up a project to write a Firefox plugin that detects the inserted ads from Charter and either filter them out or replace them with something else.

As a Charter customer I can tell you that this comes as no surprise at all. They are shady as hell and their local offices are havens for the inept.

Sounds Like...

[Nom du Keyboard]

Sounds like how Microsoft Genuine Advantage is presented as good thing for all Windows users.

The only way this will be any good is if any, or all, of the following are true:

1: You can opt out.

2: You ISP has gone to an ad-supported model that results in a drastic reduction of your monthly fees.

3: They are providing you with extra bandwidth free in order to carry the extra traffic they're generating to you (and not counting it against your usage caps).

Otherwise give them hell until they back off!

One is left to wonder how long before they start actually replacing ads on other sites with their own ads. After all, gangsters like this hate competition. Making you pay to get their ads, however, really sux!

Revoke common carrier status now

[Just Some Guy]

MP3s in the incoming folder? "Charter put them there."

Child porn in the cache? "Charter put it there."

Nuclear weapon plans in email? "Charter sent it."

Seriously, WTF are they thinking? Do they really want to be named as co-defendants in every criminal or civil case brought against their customers? Because if they modified my incoming data and I was later called in to account for anything, you can bet my first line of defense would be to blame it on them.

Re:Revoke common carrier status now

[mlts]

This brings up another concern. Even though Charter/Phorm is not being malevolent, just greedy... what happens if their proxy server/ad server gets hijacked or compromised? Such a server would make a big target for thieves because of the gains.

Should something that injects ads gets compromised, a malware distributer now would have unfettered access to every single Charter subscriber. A compromised ad server could be done in such a way where only a relatively few people at random would get exposed to zero day exploit code.

What was intended as a money stream would make an identity theft ring very happy, with not just being able to add new members to botnets, but to log traffic of subscribers for either use for ID theft, or perhaps extortion.

What is ironic is that damage caused by an ad injection server would be immediately blamed on the destination website, and in a court of law, criminal charges can be pressed and likely made to stick (because juries won't consider ad injector "services" as reasonable doubt.) Civil charges almost certainly will be able to be won. A compromised ad injecting server could easy go for months if not longer, escaping detection, as there would be zero proof that it was the ad injection "service" that did this.

Again, I posted earlier about having some facility to sign Web pages without needing the overhead of full SSL... perhaps someone should look into this, so high volume websites can still serve pages with little overhead, but offer immediate detection if the page is modified in transit.

This marks the end of what was the Internet

[a4r6]

When ISPs can actually MODIFY data that does not belong to them, a SERIOUS boundary has been broken.
It's like the telephone company talking in place of someone on the phone.

"Hey mom" "Hi Mike, how are you?"
becomes:
"Hey mom" "HI MIKE, GET VIAGRA NOW FOR $3.99/20mg!"

A threat to every publisher who uses AdSense, etc.

[GeorgeK]

I'm astonished. How is this any different from the postal service ripping out all the magazine ads and replacing them with their own ads before they get delivered to your house?

With the "deep packet inspection" technologies, conceivably ISPs can just replace, in real-time, our Google AdSense pubisher IDs with their own. Or, they could simply replace the Google AdSense Javascript snippet with something else.

I would hope that Google and other large advertising networks lead the charge against this, and that they are not partnered with any ISPs involved in this activity. A large class action lawsuit on behalf of publishers might slap sense into any ISPs using this "enhancement" to steal revenues from legitimate publishers.

This is what they are going to argue.

[Irish_Samurai]

Well, they don't have your HTML. They have a copy of your HTML.

Your original HTML is still residing on the server where you put it. They are not interfering with your data.

What they are doing is interfering with their subscribers requested copy of that data. Their subscriber has the right to render the requested HTML in any way they see fit. They can use a different CSS file that resides on their box or some other network location. They can choose not to render graphics, flash, or allow JavaScript to run.

The provider, being in contract with the subscriber, is allowed to act as their agent while the packets are being transmitted over their part of the network. During this time, the ISP exercises that contracted ability, and injects code into the packets.

The ISP will tell the subscribers that this right is part of the contract, and if they don't agree to it - they don't get service. The ISP will also tell you to shove it up your ass - you can refuse requests made from their subscribers if you don't like what they do on their network.

According to your stance, the end user doesn't have the right to modify your HTML from what was intended. This, ironically, is the same exact stance that internet marketing companies take when confronted with browser plug-ins that effectively remove their code. Unfortunately for us, we can't have it both ways. Either we are allowed to alter how the packets are rendered, allowing us them to inject into packets due to powers granted them by their user terms and conditions, or they cannot - setting a precedent that would open the floodgates to client side packet altering and rendering changes.

Another point of argument they are going to make is that they aren't messing with your copyrighted web pages because they aren't distributing it without permission. When a user makes a request for your page, and your server fulfills that request, you have distributed the materials yourself. They are merely making a "derivative work" from that material.

I'm not saying I'm down with this at all. Frankly its a scummy tact and I hope their business dies. But this is what they are going to argue, we should get ready for it.