Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
It's a Unix system - I know this.
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.
My ISP is often a matter of little choice, if I want to access the internet, I MUST go through an ISP.
I never ever have to go to google or any other domain. It is trivial to avoid any domain I wish, just put it in hosts file with local ip.
Especially since Google doesn't know my personal details. My ISP does.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Isn't passing personal information out for Europe without expressed permission a breach of the Data Protection Act? Though lets face it, peoples biggest privacy concerns here are their porn viewing habits. Perhaps some porn sites should set up shop that show up in the URL history as stocks and shares or Technology News.
Anna.Techsupport032a2.jpg, Anna.Techsupport032a3.jpg
(You may want to sit down before reading on, or at least steady yourself against something)
(Ready?)
Maybe they should change their name to Watch Watch instead.
Summation 2
Ironic this, seeing as how TalkTalk have been pushing back against almost the same things in the Digital Economy Act.
They are against the act because as itis currently written it favours smaller operators, as some of its rules such as the automatic disconnection for copyright violation only apply to ISPs with at least 40,000 customers. They are not fighting the act to protect anyone's privacy, they are fighting the act because it could make their services look less competitive.
Shame really the did look like they might be good guys.
No they didn't, not if you look into their (recent) past. They were one of the big three ISPs connected to the "ex-" spyware outfit Phorm in 2008/2009 and their past sales techniques including line-slamming (using people's details gleaned from other sales activity to switch their landline provision to them without permission) and apparetnyl deliberate ignorance of the Telephone Preference List have left a lot to be desired. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TalkTalk#Data_pimping and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Carphone_Warehouse#Data_protection respectively for links to more info.
The thing is, if you ignore the sensationalist headline and look at what there doing, it's just a list of websites that are accessed over their network, which they're using to create an opt in filtering system.
Oh no, an ISP actually doing something useful for it's customers, whatever will we do!
Stories like this are what annoy me about the press (slashdot included).
The company has been mentioned previously here on /. for its questionable relationship with the Chinese government.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/05/28/1228224/Chinese-Networking-Vendor-Huaweis-Murky-Ownership
Don't you forget!
Really, this story is Such A Shame.
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
Presumably they need to capture at least the page that the user is visiting, as checking for malware on just the root of a site is a waste of time. As most sites these days are dynamic they'll also have to capture the parameters in a GET (and possibly POST), so there is every chance they *will* be capturing personally identifiable data.