We have been following the Phorm controversy for some time now and now some new developments have emerged. These developments consist of a leaked internal report which suggests that Phorm broke the law 113 million times during the controversial trials.Wikileaks has freshly leaked internal report which says some very interesting things. Here's the Wikileaks summary of the report: The internal British Telecom report shows that the carrier committed at least 18,875,324 allegedly illegal acts of interception and modification during its controversial covert "Phorm" trials. The report concludes that the "opt-out" system would not work, since BT customers find themselves opted back in every time they changed computers or wiped their cookies The report is currently making the rounds on various news sites including Open Rights Group which points to Alexander Hanff's analysis. Hanff notes the following: There were a number of things in the report which left me believing that BT had misled ICO (and the public) with regards the covert trials. He then notes that there was a claim that the trials were trivial, but after a look on page 45, he notes that nearly 19 million tags were inserted into users web pages. He then does an analysis of British law with specific references to the following:
He then tallies up the total number of "highly probable" law infractions and comes to a total of 113,252,124. "still think that looks trivial?" asks Hanff, "And that is just in 8 days." Hanff isn't the only one that took notice of these developments. Ryan Singel of threat level noted these developments as well and finds that the Phorm technology also causes web browser instability. Those boxes inserted JavaScript code into every web page downloaded by the users. That script then reported back to Phorm the contents of the web page, which Phorm used to create ad profiles of a user. Additionally, Phorm purchased advertising space on prominent web sites, showing a default ad for a charity. But when a user who had previously looked at car sites visited one of those pages, he instead got an advertisement for car insurance. Think all of this is just an issue with British users and not U.S. users specifically? Think again. The report also notes an earlier report which points to a company called NebuAds attempting to do similar things in the US with US ISP Charter only to be asked to stopped by Massachusetts Democrat Edward Markey and Texas Republican Joe Barton saying it would be a violation of the Communications Act. Wired obtained a copy of the letter which can be read here (PDF) No word yet on what the next move would be by NebuAds or Charter. It's interesting to note that there seems to be a similar trend to what happened previously in another major incident in the past. First secrecy, then covert implementation (though, in this case, "trials"), discovery by advocates that laws are being broken, etc. may sound familiar to those who followed the Sony Rootkit fiasco. If one were to look at it from this angle, there may be a happy ending for consumers in the future. One can only hope the same will be said for those facing Javascript intercepting technology for the purpose of pushing ads. |
 
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And, if all else fails people will start disabling JavaScript in their browsers. It might reduce the functionality of some web pages, but that might be better then getting spied on, and having your browser hijacked.
Many articles here about Phorm: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/29/phorm_roundup/
The only real way to be safe is to switch to an ISP that doesn't use Phorm.
Try this site: http://www.antiphormleague.com/
Click on "ISP" for a list of ISPs that have explicitly stated they will not use Phorm, and also click on "PhormWatch" for other ISPs that have promised not to sign a contract with Phorm.
I left Virgin before this controversy erupted - though in Britain, the apathy is so widespread, "controversy" is really too strong a word - anyway, I'm with a smaller ISP now, and the speed of my connection at peak times is much better.
I was nervous about moving to a smaller ISP, but after reading other people's reviews, I jumped ship and happy that I did so. Though I'm paying a little more, the contract is monthly and speeds are much improved, and Phorm is nowhere to be seen!