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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.
So if I blog something, and title it a 'call to arms', am I suddenly relevant too?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Someone needs to tell Charter that you don't "enhance" suck.
The enemies of Democracy are
Does that mean that the ISP will be altering the copyrighted material sent by the websites? Surely this would create an unauthorised derivative work?
ISPs that modify HTML content going over their network are scummy operators. It breaks web pages, it denies revenue to the websites, and is unethical in so many ways.
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?
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.
The McDonald's Corporation has begun sending letters to its customers informing them that, in the name of an "enhanced user experience," it will begin using cat poo on their hamburgers as condiments and inserting...
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
The "enhanced user experience" is nothing more than a smoke screen to spy on you, and get more ad revenue for their own personal gain. It's utter bullshit. Recently COX communications implimented nation wide DNS poisoning similiar to what versign does on domains it can't resolve.
http://support.cox.com/sdccommon/asp/contentredirect.asp?sprt_cid=e047dc81-18c4-485f-bcf3-1263d0b7b904
How to opt out of the "enhanced user experience"
How does injecting ad's into my browser "enhance" my experience? Give me more fucking bandwith you money grubbing cheap fucks, and that MIGHT enhance my experience.. I hate them.
Some things call for the proverbial nuclear response: boycotts, lawsuits, all-out opposition. This is one of them. Once one of these corporations gets away with this, it's game over for those of us who want a corner of our lives that doesn't have some lying prick forcing his way into it to sell us something, spin the information we get and otherwise screw with our reality in a way that works to somebody else's advantage at our expense.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
This new system seems very simplar to Phorm, so here are details. The Phorm "Webwise" System - Richard Clayton. Seems you can avoid being monitored by blocking Phorm's cookie.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
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!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Margaret Thatcher and Stephen King on the same day? What are the odds?
If anyone is using charter (or just suspicious of things), please visit our tripwire server:
http://vancouver.cs.washington.edu/, to (hopefully) detect in-flight page changes.
Test your net with Netalyzr
I don't want all the worlds wealth. Just a very small percentage will do. There is plenty to go around for everyone on /.
I'm not trying to troll here but these questions will surely sound like it.
Now copyright infringement is a major deal? So the RIAA was on to something when decided to try to protect their copyrighted materials after all?
You're nothing; like me.
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.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Second, how is this any different than Google? They track my online activity then target me with ads that I might find interesting. Am I even given the option to opt out of Google ads? (serious questions, not flame-baiting)
If you want internet access and are satisfied with this, then I will sell you $100 Red Sox tickets for $10. It will look just like you are at Fenway, but you will actually be seeing the game with ads on a TV screen.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Well, how does it work?
MICHAEL
It's pretty brilliant. What it does is where there's a bank
transaction, and the interests are computed in the thousands a day in
fractions of a cent, which it usually rounds off. What this does is it
takes those remainders and puts it into your account.
PETER
This sounds familiar.
MICHAEL
Yeah. They did this in Superman III.
PETER
Yeah. What a good movie.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
....and the thought of that scares me. It got the attention of another blogger who sees this as a slippery slope in Canada since Bell Canada uses DPI to throttle users:
http://itnerd.wordpress.com/2008/05/13/charter-uses-dpi-to-spy-on-its-users-canada-are-you-paying-attention/
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
For web content that doesn't need to go over SSL/TLS, I wonder about some way of having webservers sign the HTML of the get request with their SSL key, and cache that signature, so subsequent requests of that HTML page have almost no overhead incurred.
Then, on high volume servers that are not needing the security of SSL, the core HTML page that gets to the client can be verified (using the client's CPU time) if it was modified in transit, without the server needing to spend the CPU time for SSL's overhead. If the HTML doesn't match, then offer the user a mechanism to browse the site entirely using SSL.
The only issue is for dynamic content that can't be cached, this will add a cryptographic signing step for each page.
An example:
Someone browses www.foo.com
the webserver at foo.com grabs index.html, signs it with www.foo.com's SSL key, saves the signature in a cache that is reset if someone legitimately edits index.html on the server, then sends the web browser index.html and after that, index.html's signature, perhaps in OpenPGP format. After the first signing, all the webserver is doing is sending two files (index.html and the cached signature.)
The web browser compared the received index.html to the signature, and alerts the user if it was tampered with.
As for my stuff, for low volume web servers such as my home domain, I just automatically redirect the user to the SSL server, because that stops this problem cold. If an ISP is able to intercept SSL traffic, (especially with an EV certificate), they are so advanced at crypto, they deserve to be able to insert ads.
I have a feeling that it will only be a matter of time before not just ISPs that people are subscribed on, but large volume peering nodes will try their hand at inserting ads, so might as well just force as much traffic to SSL whenever possible now, although for high volume sites, this is far easier said than done.
"Second, how is this any different than Google?
You can choose not to use Google. You know up front, before you use their site, what Google does. You either decide if the loss of privacy is worth it or not, and then choose appropriately. You can use any number of competing search engines.
But most places have no more than three choices of broadband access, with expensive satellite connections one of them. In reality, if customers really won't stand for Charter's actions on this, it means changing their ISP to whoever their local DSL provider is.
I'm fairly sympathetic to ISP companies trying to get the most revenue out of customers in different ways, as long as its not a matter of forcing something on customers... after all, those networks, with a lot of physical infrastructure, in addition to network administration and staffing, cost a lot of money to set up and operate. And these companies are for-profit businesses, after all, not charities. But this goes way too far. This isn't just violating a customer's privacy. That's too simple. It's violating their very user experience. Not what I'd call "enhanced" at all.
Look at an analogy from the old phone company days, pre-Internet. Imagine talking on your phone to friends or family about, oh, say a camping trip, and then having an operator break into your conversation to sell you tents and sleeping bags. Not only would it annoy the hell out of you, you certainly wouldn't like the idea of always having an operator listening in on you during every phone call.
This is going to be a situation where my Congressman and Senators and various FCC functionaries get letters from me.This crosses the line.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I went to Charter's contact page and selected the option to chat live with a Customer Care Representative:
You have been connected to TTD JomarMe: I just read an article stating that Charter 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. Is there any truth to this?
TTD Jomar : Thank you for contacting Charter High Speed Internet Technical Support. My name is Jomar. How may I assist you today?
TTD Jomar : I'm so sorry, but this is already beyond our scope of support. Please call 1-888-438-2427 for further assistance.
Me: Thank you.
TTD Jomar : Again I apologize for the inconvenience you've experienced, but if there is anything further I can help you with please, let me know.
That kind of response doesn't sound like "Customer Care" to me.
Anyway, I called the number and spoke to someone who didn't have a clue what I was talking about. He transferred me to someone else.
The second phone rep said she hadn't heard about the new "enhanced user experience" feature, so she put me on hold to ask someone else. After she came back on the line, she said that she wasn't able to find out anything about it, so said to go to charter.net to stay informed about new features and services.
Naturally, there doesn't appear to be anything on Charter's site about the new "enhanced user experience."
the JoshMeister on Security
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!"
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.
A representative will be with you shortly. You have been connected to TTM Mike .
TTM Mike : Hi this is Mike from Charter. How may I help you today?
Robert Hafner: I read an article online, and the followed it to the Charter webpage, which states that Charter is going to be monitoring my surfing habits and placing ads into pages I'm viewing. I am wondering how soon this will happen to me personally.
Robert Hafner: http://connect.charter.com/landing/op1.html
TTM Mike : I do apologize but let me transfer you over toour internet support line.
TTM Mike has left the session.
Please wait while we find an agent from the CHAT - DUMA - HSD Support department to assist you.
You have been connected to TTD Grah .
TTD Grah : Hi, this is Grah. Thank you for contacting Charter's High Speed Internet support. How may I be of assistance to you today?
Robert Hafner: I read an article online, and the followed it to the Charter webpage, which states that Charter is going to be monitoring my surfing habits and placing ads into pages I'm viewing. I am wondering how soon this will happen to me personally.
TTD Grah : One moment please.
Robert Hafner: http://connect.charter.com/landing/op1.html Contains the information
Robert Hafner: that I am basing this question off of.
Robert Hafner: As well as http://consumerist.com/5008801/charter-to-begin-tracking-users-searches-and-inserting-targeted-ads
TTD Grah : Yes, that is our new update.
TTD Grah : One moment please as I download the document.
TTD Grah : Charter has formed a partnership with an industry-leader in online advertising, NebuAd (www.nebuad.com). NebuAd, through their advertising network, will display targeted advertisements to Charter High-Speed® Internet customers while they are surfing the Web. NebuAd does not collect and use personally identifiable information to deliver advertising. Customers will not see more ads - just ads that are more relevant to their interests that have been expressed through their web-surfing activity.
TTD Grah : The feature will be activated automatically for Charter HSI customers beginning in June 2008 in the following four Charter markets:
Newtown, Connecticut
Fort Worth, Texas
San Luis Obispo, California
Oxford, Massachusetts
Robert Hafner: So the ads are placed directly into websites I would normally view?
Robert Hafner: How do I opt-out for an entire household, with multiple computers and browsers?
Robert Hafner: Currently the only way to opt-out is by placing a cookie under each browser of each account of each computer, which is absolutely insane.
TTD Grah : The technology can actually often distinguish between different users on a shared computer and, therefore, can serve different ads to different users. Only a portion of the ads you see will be a function of the enhanced service - you will still see some ads that are served based on other criteria.
Robert Hafner: The question was were are those ads being placed- are they replacing other ads on websites, for instance?
Robert Hafner: And if so, how is the owner of the actual website going to be compensated?
TTD Grah : This site may appear depending on what are you trying to view online.
TTD Grah : This site will give you options on what to have according to what you need.
Robert Hafner: What site are you referring to?
TTD Grah : Say for example, you are surfing because you wish to purchase shoes online, this site will pop up and give you options to chose from.
TTD Grah : That is how it works.
TTD Grah : That is how it works.
TTD Grah : The site will not pop up everytime you go online.
Robert Hafner: So this only affects my traffic to
(1) I don't enter that kind of data over an unencrypted link.
(2a) Google tracks my online activity when I'm not using Google's servers?
(2b) Charter pays the site that's getting their "deep inspection" ads inserted?
Time to start using it... Even if you just sign your own certificates, thus making the whole thing completely vulnerable to man in the middle attacks, these ISPs would be guilty of rather serious violations of cybercrime laws if they started sending your clients fake SSL certificates. I.e, if you just want to prevent the ISP from doing this you don't even need a secure session, you just need one they can't interfere with without incriminating themselves.
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.
The https protocol is fundamentally broken because of a serious flaw in the way it was designed. It is impossible to use virtual hosts with separate certs via https. This has pretty significant ramifications in terms of the number of additional IP addresses it would require for everyone to switch to https.
The alternative, of course, would be for the HTTP protocol to be redesigned to either A. allow an unencrypted request containing only the host part to be followed by a switch to an encrypted stream on the fly or B. allow an encrypted request with a generic host key to be followed by a switch to the host key of a specific VHOST on the fly after identifying the host but before making the actual request. Unfortunately, both of these are completely upside down from the way the HTTP protocol works, which sends the most specific request data first, followed by the host data. This is because support for VHOSTS was basically hacked onto the HTTP standard. Poorly.
While such a thing would be nice in theory, in practice, unless we move to IPv6 first, it isn't practical.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
SSL costs CPU time (that's part of why it's secure). When you have a busy site like Google, that CPU time costs money. They won't implement encryption until the Spy-SPs hurt their bottom line enough to make it worth their while.
(And even then, there may be cheaper solutions to this particular problem, such as signing pages instead of encrypting the whole lot.)
Obviously this is a "bad thing" but I predict "good things" for consumers out of this. Consumers will learn they can avoid extra ads by using https. Content providers will learn they can improve their customer's experience by removing ISP ads by using https. Sites will have to have signed certificates, and users will have to import them. Phishing ends (well of course not because of Cook's Law and the web becomes a much safer place, because no more unencrypted traffic!
And seriously -- we've got the bandwidth -- why not encrypt it all now? Maybe not mobile bandwidth, but ok, we'll live. Maybe this is the draconian kickin the ass we need to get more serious about our own privacy??
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
One wonders how easy it would be to make an FF plugin to just replicate the cookie content.
With the "deep packet inspection" technologies, conceivably ISPs can just replace, in real-time, our Google AdSense pubisher IDs with their own.
Increasingly, I'd expect https sessions will be necessary for sites with any form of confidential information - not just sites with more sensitive financial, social security or other higher sensitivity levels. Consider that the ISPs are leveraging confidential session information to exploit the web sessions elsewhere. ISPs are also harvesting web traffic data and selling it to others for data mining utility. As a visitor to google, yahoo, whatever, my identity and usage is confidential information of financial value. It's time encapsulation and encryption be utilized by these firms to protect that information - otherwise they'll see further encroachment and loss of revenue due to this technique.
I do find it reprehensible that any ISP would violate the integrity of traffic I've requested from its source. It's a sense of forgery through a MITM activity I have not consented to (oh I'm sure they'll put that language in my contract so that I do consent, but you get the point).
Who's the chairman of Charter? Paul G. Allen, of Microsoft fame. here's his picture. If any of your out there work in food service and Paul Allen happens to come into your establishment, remember to spit in his food. Strictly for "enhanced user experience", of course.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Oh, and they do offer an "opt-out" -- in the form of a website that you have to visit in the clear (no https), and fill in your information, resulting in... a cookie.
Which means that you now have to make sure to opt-out in every browser you ever use, including wget and lynx. Anything which doesn't support cookies is fucked. In particular, not everyone uses XML for AJAX -- some people use XHTML for their web services. And not all web service clients are browsers that you can stick cookies in.
And, for that matter, how are they checking the cookie? Only way I can think of would be to insert some sort of hidden iframe on every page, linking to their domain, which can then check the cookie. Therefore, even if the cookie is present in every appropriate HTTP request, they're still having to fuck with most of the internet to even be able to check that cookie.
So, to summarize: They offer "opt-out", but not really. And support net neutrality legislation.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
"Common Carrier" status is something the ISP's want, so they don't have to be held responsible for subscribers' actions. If they demonstrate the capability and willingness to monitor subscribers' actions, they abandon any safe-harbor provisions the law now gives them.
If I was the legal eagle of an ISP, I would grasp the Marketing Steph-equivalent in my claws and squeeze until he admitted this is a bad idea.
Well, apparently, you only have to fool the majority of people for a little while.