Phorm phans’ phoul play
p2pnet news view | Advertising:- Phorm phans have been engaging in phoul play, says anti-Phorm activist Alex Hanff.
“They thought it would be appropriate to post links to gay porn videos on NoDPI once it became clear that we would not permit them to disrupt the forums,” he says.
“The attack continued until almost 5am this morning.”
NoDPI is Alex’s anti-Phorm web site on which he says »»»
This evening our forums were placed under siege by a number of Phorm supporters – this is not the first time this has happened but tonight’s attack was the worst so far with the responsible parties posting pornographic video links into our forums and making personal attacks against members.
Phorm is all about DPI — Deep Privacy Invasion, or Deep Packet Inspection, depending on where you sit.
It’s a complicated way of using DPI to snag personal and private information for re-use in behavioural targeting, a coy phrase employed by advertising companies.
“Canadian academics at the University of Ottawa Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic have recently demanded the federal privacy commissioner to investigate online profiling of Internet users for targeted advertising,” says the Wikipedia.
“The European Commission … has also raised a number of concerns related to online data collection (of personal data), profiling and behavioral targeting, and is looking for ‘enforcing existing regulation’.”
Phorm boss and Deep Privacy Invasion pirate Kent Ertugrul (right), “is trying to take the high ground with a new site designed to out-anti Alex Hanff’s NoDPI and the BadPhorm sites,” said p2pnet recently, going on »»»
This is somewhat like George W. Bush trying to claim he had absolutely nothing to do with the world-wide recession.
Ertugrul runs Phorm, a company whose Web Wise technology lifts people’s personal and private data for resale to advertisers for use in ‘behavioural targeting’ and other kinds of unfriendly persuasion.
His anti-anti-Phorm site is called StopPhoulPlay.
‘… you have to negotiate with me’
Phorm, “which offers brands a targeted advertising system based on ‘deep packet inspection’ of web browsers’ behavioural habits, needs all the help it can get, as it has come in for heavy criticism from privacy campaigners and most sane thinking citizens,” says Bad Idea, continuing »»»
Sir Tim Berners Lee, the man who founded the world wide web, who told the BBC in March, “I want to know if I look up a whole lot of books about some form of cancer that that’s not going to get to my insurance company and I’m going to find my insurance premium is going to go up by 5%.”
Apart from the legal issue of privacy infringement, Berners Lee also pointed out that there’s also the question of Phorm’s collection of cookie data from web browsers, which is arguably theft; “If you want to use it for something, then you have to negotiate with me. I have to agree, I have to understand what I’m getting in return.”
Bad Idea also provides two extremely helpful charts showing how Phorm do what it do, and how things look when it don’t.
Below is the example sans Phorm, and under it, with Phorm.
Without Phorm / WebWise
With Phorm / WebWise
Jon Newton – p2pnet
May, 2009
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May 13th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Ok, assuming I had no privacy problems with Phorm, wanted my data to be collected so that I could be blasted with “relevant” advertising (whatever that means) and had nothing in particular to hide from them (which could be as mundane as who I have a crush on or my plans for a surprise party. No need for criminal activities to have a need to hide stuff!)…
Phorm will slow the whole phreaking web down. Each HTTP request takes time to do a TCP handshake, send cookies, receive the request in return. The Phorm server appears to take every single request from every user… which means that the entire bandwidth and speed of the system depends on a single machine’s ability to handle traffic… and using the redirector approach is obvious to the user anyway, since the browser’s going to click and blink a bunch before loading the page.
Ugh. This is a terrible idea, technologically, privacy-wise, and safety-wise. The bastards (excuse my french.)
May 13th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
“Phorm will slow the whole phreaking web down. Each HTTP request takes time to do a TCP handshake, send cookies, receive the request in return.”
This is why I keep wondering why all providers haven’t rejected the whole idea in unison.
It’s an absurd and willful waste of bandwidth, effectively doubling a network’s traffic load for nothing.
I’ve been saying a similar thing about DPI.
If half the world’s providers install it at their gate, examining every packet that enters or leaves their networks, including peered data from other providers, that’s a global shitload of packet delays.
May 13th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
As far as the providers and Phorm, it’s not for nothing. Both look to make tons of money out of it, it they could just get around those pesky “privacy freaks”.
I don’t want it. I’d change providers before I would stay for ads. Bet you that with ads, the costs of getting an internet account don’t go down. All that happens is the ISP gets to double dip, Phorm gets to double dip by collecting advertising money and selling datamining results. The ones that get left out are those who would not have any say in the matter were the two to have their way.
I hate an ad with a passion.