The Guardian reports BT drops Phorm!

The Guardian has today reported that BT have decided to drop Phorm due
to customer opposition and public concerns over privacy.

Follow the link for the full story:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jul/06/btgroup-privacy-and-the-net

This is excellent news for the anti-Phorm campaign. With many other websites
opt-ing out from being scraped, it won't be long before Phorm model is completely
unsustainable.

Next up, Virgin Media (who are still sitting on the fence).

ORG reports LiveJournal has 'opted-out' of Phorn

The ORG is carrying an article here which points to a blog called MickeyC’s Interweblog.

The blog explains how the author managed to convince the people at LiveJournal to block Phorm. It begins:

Today I convinced the good people at Livejournal to request that livejournal.com and all of it’s subdomains be added to the Phorm Webwise exclusion list. I contacted their privacy department, expecting a boiler plate non-informative response, but it went quite differently. I got a direct response from their Director of Engineering and Operations (Tupshin Harper), and permission to quote him. Here’s what was said:

Follow the links above to read the full story.

BT Community Forums locked due to data leakage

In case anyone is a regular on BT's Community Forums, found here:

http://beta.bt.com/bta/forums/index.jspa

and was wondering why they have been unable to post, the answer can
be found here:

https://nodpi.org/forum/index.php/topic,304.0.html

I suggest reading the whole thread. Basically, BT's forum software was
found to be leaking personal profile information. After frantically trying
to disable each feature which leaked information, the mods (or someone higher
up) decided to make the whole forum read-only until they resolved the issue.

It you are a member, it is possible that your email address was leaked and is searchable on Google.

Technological Solutions

The following technologies may be helpful in preventing Phorm/OIX from building up a profile of your browsing habits:

Check out a very exciting prototype encryption technology called Obfuscated TCP!

• Dephormation Firefox add-on: http://www.dephormation.org.uk/
• TrackMeNot Firefox add-on: http://www.trackmenot.org/
• SquiggleSR Firefox add-on: http://squigglesr.free.fr
• ScrabblePhorm Java and Python programs available here:

http://phormwatch.pastebin.com/f1ba5bd43
http://phormwatch.pastebin.com/f143224db

• Use Google Scraper: https://ssl.scroogle.org/ to make encrypted Google searches so Phorm cannot intercept your search terms.


• Encrypt and anonymise your web surfing with JAP: http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/index_en.html or by using TOR: http://www.torproject.org/


• The creators of Dephormation have created some PHP code which dynamically tests whether a user's connection is with a Phorm-participating ISP, OR whether a user has a Phorm spyware cookie on their computer. An green, yellow or red image is displayed accordingly.

Readme file is here: http://www.dephormation.org.uk/server/cookie_test/readme.txt
Zip file of the code is here: http://www.dephormation.org.uk/server/cookie_test/cookie_test.zip

Phorm-free UK ISPs

I've decided to compile a list of UK ISPs who currently do not use Phorm technology and have given me assurances that they currently have no plans of doing so. I will email various ISPs and ask them what their position in.

I also intend to ask them if they will offer incentives for people to switch from BT / Virgin / TalkTalk.

Aquiss.net: http://aquiss.net/ - Aquiss is strongly against Phorm spyware technology: "Aquiss is not working with Phorm, never have and never will. This would be considered a breach of our own trust and privacy guidelines with customers."

SurfAnytime: http://www.surfanytime.com/html/phorm.asp - declare unequivocally that they "are not, have not and will not work with Phorm or any similar organisation who blatantly invade the privacy of unwitting customers."

Eclipse: http://www.eclipse.net.uk/ - have confirmed to me via email that they neither use Phorm nor have any current plans to do so. UPDATE: A poster recently sent me an email regarding an exchange they had with Eclipse. They told him or her: "We've had some preliminary discussions with Phorm but have not committed to anything at this stage."

Plusnet: http://www.plus.net/ - UPDATE: Neil Armstrong, Products Director of PlusNet sent me an email with an official company statement: "We have not trialled Phorm and have no plans to do so."

Zen Internet: http://www.zen.co.uk/ - have stated in an email that: "...we have no plans to perform customer URL stream monitoring, nor enter into contract with Phorm."

IDNet: http://www.idnet.net - I have received an email from a former Virgin customer who says that he contacted IDNet and they assured him they do not use Phorm. Confirmation from IDNet and their future plans to follow shortly.

Demon: http://www.demon.net - Customer services has assured me that they 'currently do not have any relationship with phorm'.

Namesco: http://www.names.co.uk/ - I received an email for a namesco customer with a copy of an email from Customer Services where they state unequivocally that 'Namesco do not use Phorm and have no intentions of doing so'.

AAISP: http://aaisp.net.uk/ - Have a look at their front page. ;)