Covert BT Phorm Trial Report Leaked

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.

Comments

Advertisement Injection

[TheMeuge]

So let me see - if I am paying for bandwidth (which will soon be metered), and my ISP in injecting its ads into the webpages I am requesting, then the ISP is running down my bandwidth on purpose?

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.

Re:Advertisement Injection

[QUILz]

They could still hijack SSL/TLS sessions if users aren't paying any attention to warnings.

Re:Ouch

[Dark Kenshin]

Of course is won't. If a private person were to develop and test this out, he would likely be spending the next 20 years in prison (looking less and less "exaggerated" as time goes on.) The fact that this is for cooperate gains; it will be largely over looked. Yes, I might be lost in cynicism, but life seems to be supporting my case thus far.

Re:Ouch

[aproposofwhat]

I came up with this as a concept in 2000, when layer 7 switching was just becoming economically feasible for a startup ISP.

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!