I should add that you can also block Phorm's technology by using SSL for all your web site pages. If you have a busy site however, you should be aware that this could cause a significant resources overhead.
Blacklisting Phorm's IPs will serve no purpose. The visits you see to your web sites will have the IPs of the ISP customers, Phorm then intercept these communications and copy the page "in transit". The only way to guarantee that your site will not be compromised by Phorm is to block all the IPs registered to the various ISPs that decide to deploy Phorm's technology.
The only other option is to use the Opt-Out mechanism that Amazon, WikiMedia and others have used; and then trust Phorm to honour that request.
Just a quick update for everyone. Today we have sent a letter of complaint to the Financial Services Authority (FSA) that Phorm's statement to markets this week that government regulators and departments support their technology as fully compliant with UK law - is misleading and possibly fraudulant.
I have added a link and summary to my firehose here:
I would like to extend my gratitude to you for supporting the campaign and opting the Wikimedia Foundation out, myself and other campaigners are very appreciative of the support.
If you would like more information on Phorm/WebWise, NoDPI.Org has been leading the campaign against them for the past 14 months (and were co-signatories to the Open Letter). We have worked on a number of iniatives including organising the House of Lords Round Table Event which Sir Tim Berners-Lee attended on the 11th March this year. We plan to take the lobby all the way to Brussels and the campaign has already led the European Commission to initiate legal proceedings against the UK Government after they failed to enforce EU Privacy Directives with regards to Phorm's covert trials with BT Group in 2006/2007. I also filed a criminal case with the police in July last year, which they closed stating that there was no criminal intent and it was not in the public interest. As a result of this I was forced to contact the Director of Public Prosecutions and bypass the police entirely - the Crown Prosecution Service are now investigating the matter and will make a decision on whether or not to prosecute. The covert trials in 2006 alone intercepted over 130 million communications over less than 2 weeks and modified those communications to insert Javascript into web pages which passed through their systems (then known as PageSense). I leaked an internal BT report which goes into a great deal of detail about the 2006 trials to WikiLeaks last summer and I also wrote my undergraduate dissertation on the legal implications of the same covert trials.
Good to see Slashdot has finally picked this up. I sent them the press release about the event last week and as one of the organisers of the event and founder of NoDPI.Org I am pleased to say the event went incredibly well and the press coverage has been amazing.
Now would be a good time for people in the UK to write to their MP's directly to discuss the event and make it clear to them that you expect them to research the issue for the purpose of parliamentary debate or you will not be voting for them in the next election.
Alexander Hanff
NoDPI.Org
I know the article here was linked directly to WikiLeaks and not my web site; however it appears part of my initial interpretation of the report regarding charity ads being hijacked was inaccurate.
I retracted that part of the article yesterday morning and have since received notification from BT PLC and Phorm's Legal Counsel that the ads discussed were purchased by Phorm for the technical trial.
Well, firstly I am glad to see that the document has forked such a debate here on Slashdot and I thank you all for that (it is long overdue).
As a result of some of my comments regarding the report, I am now facing legal threats from Phorm and BT.
Alexander Hanff
Slashdot Mirror
I am teh evil.
I should add that you can also block Phorm's technology by using SSL for all your web site pages. If you have a busy site however, you should be aware that this could cause a significant resources overhead.
Alexander Hanff
Blacklisting Phorm's IPs will serve no purpose. The visits you see to your web sites will have the IPs of the ISP customers, Phorm then intercept these communications and copy the page "in transit". The only way to guarantee that your site will not be compromised by Phorm is to block all the IPs registered to the various ISPs that decide to deploy Phorm's technology.
The only other option is to use the Opt-Out mechanism that Amazon, WikiMedia and others have used; and then trust Phorm to honour that request.
Alexander Hanff
Just a quick update for everyone. Today we have sent a letter of complaint to the Financial Services Authority (FSA) that Phorm's statement to markets this week that government regulators and departments support their technology as fully compliant with UK law - is misleading and possibly fraudulant.
I have added a link and summary to my firehose here:
http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=4200429
you can find the original article here:
https://nodpi.org/2009/04/17/phorm-protests-berr-says-we-are-fully-compliant/
Alexander Hanff
Brion,
I would like to extend my gratitude to you for supporting the campaign and opting the Wikimedia Foundation out, myself and other campaigners are very appreciative of the support.
Sincerely,
Alexander Hanff
Founder of NoDPI.Org
If you would like more information on Phorm/WebWise, NoDPI.Org has been leading the campaign against them for the past 14 months (and were co-signatories to the Open Letter). We have worked on a number of iniatives including organising the House of Lords Round Table Event which Sir Tim Berners-Lee attended on the 11th March this year. We plan to take the lobby all the way to Brussels and the campaign has already led the European Commission to initiate legal proceedings against the UK Government after they failed to enforce EU Privacy Directives with regards to Phorm's covert trials with BT Group in 2006/2007. I also filed a criminal case with the police in July last year, which they closed stating that there was no criminal intent and it was not in the public interest. As a result of this I was forced to contact the Director of Public Prosecutions and bypass the police entirely - the Crown Prosecution Service are now investigating the matter and will make a decision on whether or not to prosecute. The covert trials in 2006 alone intercepted over 130 million communications over less than 2 weeks and modified those communications to insert Javascript into web pages which passed through their systems (then known as PageSense). I leaked an internal BT report which goes into a great deal of detail about the 2006 trials to WikiLeaks last summer and I also wrote my undergraduate dissertation on the legal implications of the same covert trials.
You can find the dissertation here: https://nodpi.org/documents/phorm_paper.pdf
You can find the leaked report here: https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/Image:BT_Report.pdf
And you can catch up on the entire scandal on our blog here: https://nodpi.org/
Hope that clarifies things for those who are not aware of who/what Phorm/WebWise are/is.
Alexander Hanff
Good to see Slashdot has finally picked this up. I sent them the press release about the event last week and as one of the organisers of the event and founder of NoDPI.Org I am pleased to say the event went incredibly well and the press coverage has been amazing. Now would be a good time for people in the UK to write to their MP's directly to discuss the event and make it clear to them that you expect them to research the issue for the purpose of parliamentary debate or you will not be voting for them in the next election. Alexander Hanff NoDPI.Org
I know the article here was linked directly to WikiLeaks and not my web site; however it appears part of my initial interpretation of the report regarding charity ads being hijacked was inaccurate.
I retracted that part of the article yesterday morning and have since received notification from BT PLC and Phorm's Legal Counsel that the ads discussed were purchased by Phorm for the technical trial.
The revised article is here:
http://nodpi.org/?p=10
My public apology for the misinterpretation is here:
http://nodpi.org/?p=11
I would be grateful if people could edit their comments accordingly (for fairly obvious reasons).
Alexander Hanff
Oh and for the record, I am the one who released the report to the public domain. You can read more about it here: http://nodpi.org/
Well, firstly I am glad to see that the document has forked such a debate here on Slashdot and I thank you all for that (it is long overdue). As a result of some of my comments regarding the report, I am now facing legal threats from Phorm and BT. Alexander Hanff