• Republished: A look at BT's Trial Documentation

    Originally published on Benscomputer.no-ip.org 14 June 2009

    Now, it can hardly have escaped anyones attention that BT ran some very questionable trials of Phorms system. It's been on BBC News, as well as many other sources, including the Governments refusal to take action. This has led to the EU intervening on our behalf, not that much has happened from that so far.

    But most of the media has focused on the RIPA element of it, that is to say the Illegal Interception of the users traffic. Having read the leaked test documentation (Have a look on WikiLeaks), I'd say that there's another element to it that appears to have gone largely unnoticed.

    The original trial involved injecting Javascript into each and every page the user visited (with some unfortunate results on forums), and based on the test documentation, even users who were opted out (not that they were given the opportunity in the trials) would find JavaScript being run on every page.

  • Republished: A suggestion for BT

    Originally published on Benscomputer.no-ip.org on 27 October 2008

    Given that BT claim to be creating a network level opt-out from Phorm, I thought I would give them a bit of a helping hand. They claim that although it will be implemented, it's unlikely to be in place by the time the WebWise system is rolled out.

  • Republished: BT Finally See Sense

    Originally published on Benscomputer.no-ip.org 18 March 2008

    There have been murmers online that BT are planning to do the same as Carphone Wharehouse and make a few changes to the Phorm system, by creating a virtual wall between people who haven't opted in and the profiling hardware. They also intend to do away with the cookie 'opt-out' and create something more in line with the law. I sent BT an email a few days ago asking a variety of questions about the system (I'm on BT and don't like the system one bit) and got the following as a reply

  • Republished: Phorm your own opinions

    Originally published on Benscomputer.no-ip.org on 06 October 2008

    It has been revealed today that BT consider it the account holders responsibility to explain about Webwise to all users of their connection. BT have revealed in their revised terms and conditions that they can accept no responsibility if users of a connection are not kept informed about Webwise by the account holder.