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ISP Is Bypassing Firefox's Location Bar Search
It was only a matter of time before ISPs began doing more than just redirecting failed DNS requests to their own pages.
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like the largest ISP in Hong Kong has started bypassing search results from Firefox's location bar (which typically uses Google), forcing their own search provider (yp.com.hk) onto their users. ... Can an ISP just start re-directing search traffic at will?"
It looks like the largest ISP in Hong Kong
I never knew that Hong Kong was in the United States.
And that's why we should start using encryption for everything...
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
The article is a single post on a forum from one user with no follow-up. Can anyone else confirm the allegation?
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
As shown by the recent Comcast - FCC ruling, ISPs can barely be regulated at all (and therefore can do anything they want).
Well, as someone else pointed out, this is an ISP in Honk Kong, not the US. While most of the "harmonizing" efforts of the Chinese government have been passive toward the consumer of the "non-harmonious" content, I would fear that this is a sort of precursor towards ISPs in China being required to pass search terms linked to individuals/accounts/addresses to the government for non-harmonious search terms indicating a level of dissent associated with that individual. Call me a tin foil hat but I haven't been too impressed with what's going on out in China. While you might claim it's overhead and too expensive, I guess we might start talking about https (port 443 secure) traffic even for search terms to avoid this inspection? Even that's naive though as the government could just ask the inside search provider for the data ... or failing that block the that port on that provider.
My work here is dung.
Most people still believe that just because you can legally do something, doesn't mean you should. When businesses do every sneaky, duplitious thing they can to make a buck, they push that natural tendency toward expecting civility and something resembling high-mindedness in civilized people straight into the Socialist camp.
As a Capitalist, that really offends me. If businesses want to be treated laissez faire then they damn well better learn to make society not feel like they're a bunch of crooks who care so little about the common good that if regulators aren't going Big Brother on them every nanosecond they'll steal everything that isn't nailed down and cheat everyone who isn't paying 110% attention to every detail of their lives.
Who knows? They have been quite responsive to complaints about services in the past. Even if I don't get an immediate response my voice was heard. They do know at least one of their customers was angry about their conduct. Should I just silently accept them screwing with me and not voice my concerns? That seems to me a guarantee that they won't change their ways.
From your post it seems that you think not standing up for yourself is the way to change things. Don't vote. Don't express your opinion. Be a martyr. How's that working for you? Effecting a lot of change in society are you?
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
A perfect example of why we need net neutrality rules in place. An ISP should not be allowed to modify packets or redirect packets to/from known destinations.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Do you really believe the average firefox user has the technical know-how to even understand what a DNS server is, let alone how to setup and configure one, even if it is "trivially easy" for you? Please...
Le français vous intéresse?