UK ISP TalkTalk Caught Monitoring Its Customers

An anonymous reader writes "The UK ISP TalkTalk has been caught using a form of Deep Packet Inspection technology to monitor and record the websites that its customers visit, without getting their explicit consent. The system, which is not yet fully in place, ultimately aims to help block malware websites by comparing the URL that a person visits against a list of good and bad sites. Bad sites will then be restricted. TalkTalk claims that its method is totally anonymous and that the only people with visibility of the URL database itself are Chinese firm Huawei, which will no doubt help everybody to feel a lot better (apply sarc mark here) about potentially having their privacy invaded."

Comments

Twas ever thus

[benbean]

Doesn't really sound any different to what the search companies store. Sans encryption, nothing you do on the Internet is private. Caveat Browsor. Or, erm, something.

Re:Twas ever thus

[h4rm0ny]

They should indeed report them. It was not "ever thus" and quite demonstrably so because we've only had mass electronic communication relatively recently and in a form that is easy for third-parties to record en masse for substantially less time than that.

Each time a new frontier opens in the eternal war between the rulers and the ruled, a land-grab ensues where governments and corporations try to make the public accept something as inevitable or right whilst at the same time the public realizes just because they've allowed the government to make them do something in other areas, that doesn't mean it was right.

It's vitally important at times like this to defend our rights as forcefully as possible. We did a lot of damage to Phorm when this was tried previously. In fact, Phorm turned into a ugly business black hole that no-one wanted to touch, with a reputation as down the toilet as SCO and I pity the people associated with it (except I don't). Clearly someone hasn't learned their lesson and we need to burn down a few more companies before we finally establish our right to privacy.

So let's make them regret this.

End-to-end encryption

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the only way to be sure. I know of at least one German university which also filters all external web traffic through a proxy which blocks URLs, also supposedly to reduce malware infections. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The same technology which is installed to fight malware is also ideally suited to work as censorship infrastructure. Once it's in place, the operators will undoubtedly be confronted with the question why they only filter malware and not other "illegal" content. Once they've succumbed to that, the list of URLs to block will grow to include "unruly" opinions, videos of police, etc.

End-to-end encryption. Now.