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Geek Culture / UK ISPs selling our browsing habits to Russians with servers in China whilst government does nothing.

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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 4th Mar 2009 23:37 Edited at: 4th Mar 2009 23:51
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Yes. You read that right. If you're with BT, TalkTalk/Carphone Warehouse or Virgin Media, your browsing habits are being sold to Russians with servers based in China to present you with target advertising. The UK government, probably getting a nice cut, isn't going to do jack. Read up.

http://badphorm.co.uk/page.php?2

So not only do we get the slowest and least reliable internet on the planet, they're selling our damned details? That's it, soon as I'm old enough I'm emigrating. Don't know where, don't care.

You know what's worse? These people who are running the whole thing are notorious rootkit authors. Down with them!

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/ispphorm/

It's the last day of this petition so if you're going to sign, SIGN NOW!

I'm absolutely furious that my provider, TalkTalk, is implementing this system without bothering to tell me. I would send them a profane email had they not withdrawn their address like the moneygrabbing, scamming cowards they are. They disgust me and I will not be renewing my contract.

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Quirkyjim
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Posted: 4th Mar 2009 23:41
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Too bad I don't like in the UK...

~QJ
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Insert Name Here
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Posted: 4th Mar 2009 23:46
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Wow, my ISP told me that it would be illegal for them to sell our details.

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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 4th Mar 2009 23:58 Edited at: 4th Mar 2009 23:59
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Data protection act, giving out personal details without our permission is illegal. This is UK law.

The government SHOULD do something about it. I am a Virgin customer and I do NOT want my details sent out and that is a given right by law. At my parents' house we have Sky, so that's good there, but here we have Virgin, luckily in September I'll be renting a different house, so I'd probably get Sky broadband there if internet isn't included in my rent.

I am too, annoyed. Why do they want to sell my details to a advertisement group when I pay enough as it is for my internet?

Come on now, how many more groups with people's details or money in the UK going to do something stupid?

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soapyfish
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 01:29 Edited at: 5th Mar 2009 01:33
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Quote: "This petition is now closed, as its deadline has passed."


Well that's a kick in the gentleman's.

There was recently a number of meetings around the country to discuss this kind of thing. Not our information being sold to other people, just our information being collected in the first place.

I'll try and find the bbc article but for now here's the guardian's take on it::
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/01/civil-liberties-conference


Quote: ""There is a general feeling that in creating a climate of fear people have been writing a blank cheque to government. People feel the fear of terrorism is being used to take away a lot of rights.""



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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 01:32
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Yep, too late I'm afraid. Shame I only found out about this today when researching for another thread.

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Thraxas
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 01:38
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Quote: "So not only do we get the slowest and least reliable internet on the planet"


Until you live in Australia you don't get to complain about the internet!

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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 01:51
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Really? The DNS servers here have been flaky (and I mean half of all attempts to load a page result in a DNS failure) both here in ye olde Uttoxeter and at Stafford. For two weeks.

Pile on top of that I've never seen more than 24kb/s and you've got SUCKAGE.

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Jeku
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 02:21
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First of all, the NY Times article was written in February 2008. They also wrote this:

Quote: "Customers of BT, Carphone Warehouse and Virgin Media can opt out of the new system when it is introduced next month."


Why not just opt out? I have a tendency to not believe these kinds of stories as it would have been added to more than just the NY Times over the past year. But if it's real, just opt out or switch ISPs? It doesn't say anything about UK government being involved.

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tha_rami
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 02:53 Edited at: 5th Mar 2009 02:54
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Wow. The fact that they're Russians with servers in China makes this all so much worse, doesn't it?

As long as they're totally anonymous, untracable and statistically presented or automatically processed, I can't really care - to be honest.


A mod has been erased by your signature because it was larger than 600x120
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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 02:59 Edited at: 5th Mar 2009 03:03
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Quote: "Why not just opt out?"


I wouldn't know to if it weren't for this site. This system was stealthily added with no notification of the users.

Quote: "Russians with servers in China"


Well, I don't think it's right for ISPs in the UK to have such solid links to servers abroad when it could be avoided. What happens if these servers or the links to them go down? Will the time spent doing the three redirects the system relies on make browsing painfully slow?

If you want to see these peoples' last work on the internet, look no further than here:

http://www.f-secure.com/sw-desc/apropos.shtml
http://www.f-secure.com/sw-desc/peopleonpage.shtml

Just read the full details of operation of their Apropos rootkit. It's devious. Would you really want to have to trust these people?

Not to mention that only TalkTalk has implemented the opt out properly; BT and Virgin Media's opt out relies on a cookie and the triple redirection still occurs.

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tha_rami
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 03:08
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POP and ContextPlus just sound like those annoying programs from a while back, but I don't consider them malware unless you're not notified prior to installing that its going to do what its going to do. That other one is plain evil.


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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 03:09 Edited at: 5th Mar 2009 03:12
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Exactly. Now tell me, if they were to be doing deep packet inspection from inside your ISP, would you be rather peeved? After all, that's your orders online, your credit card details, the lot. Wouldn't you want something done about it?

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Jeku
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 04:21 Edited at: 5th Mar 2009 04:22
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You still haven't given any proof that this is the government doing this, and that it's actually happening.

I consider myself fairly up-to-date with tech news, and I surely would have heard about the UK selling their population's browsing habits to a foreign company with servers in (OMGZ!) China.

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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 08:07 Edited at: 5th Mar 2009 08:08
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It's not the UK government doing this. It's the UK ISPs. It is only legal if people are notified of their being tracked by the ISPs, which they're not. Therefore this is illegal and the government should at least investigate. The EU has already expressed concerns.

This subject has been on plenty of news sites, but it has never been a headline and therefore hardly anyone heard about it.

Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/29/phorm_roundup/
BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7301379.stm
Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/02/phorm-damn-the-eu-full-speed-ahead.ars
NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/business/media/20adcoside.html?ref=business

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Jeku
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 16:54
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But again, look at the dates. Those articles are from early last year. Not saying that doesn't make it valid, but it just sounds like one of those myths that get spread around.

But yah, call up your ISP and opt out of it. Problem solved!

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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 17:19 Edited at: 5th Mar 2009 17:20
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Either way it's not legal in the UK, I mean, once they've sent your browsing habits you can't change it. I could opt out of my ISP right here, right now at this revelation, but I've already paid for the year and our house is only connected to Virgin, it'd cost over £100 to connect to a different line and well it wouldn't change the fact that things have already been sent out.

In the UK before ANY company is allowed to pass on your data to somebody else, you have to be notified and you have to give your position, otherwise it is illegal activity. The fact that our data is being sent to a server in a country with different internet laws, people may not feel their data is protected in their best interest and people aren't being told what is being done with their data.

The data protection act stands I'm afraid, which makes the whole thing still an issue and that is why the government should intervene, after all the government should stand for the laws they've made, otherwise, what's the point? When you're going to be selective with the issue.

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David R
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 17:40 Edited at: 5th Mar 2009 17:40
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Stop whining - half the things you have said are either flat out lies (Slowest internet? Are you off your bloody head?) or aren't proven. Get a grip.


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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 18:20
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I wouldn't say we have the slowest internet, well in more rural places, yes, it's slow, Nex you say you're living in Uttoxeter, well that's 20 miles up the road from me, I'm living in Derby at the moment, it took me 15 minutes to download a 1.8gb file and I find it always works. My ISP is Virgin.

If you're having problems, it might either be location or ISP, most likely ISP, because at my parent's house in a rural village outside of Cambridge were with BT, tonnes of problems, they went to Sky broadband, hardly any, though it is slower than I get here. (But still speedy)

My friend in a lecture today put on his laptop, it took him 30 minutes to download Empire: Total War through Steam (it was gifted to him from a friend in the US), which was over 10gb, though Uni internet is bound to be faster.

I think 'worst in the world' is perhaps an exaggeration, it may seem awful when you have an awful connection. Maybe I ought to recommend Virgin or Sky, but probably Sky due to this issue. Though Richard Branson has been in an around Derby for Virgin stuff, you might be lucky to find Uttoxeter is a Virgin hi-speed area.

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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 18:42
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Quote: "15 minutes to download a 1.8gb"


The 68Mb GTKRadiant 1.2.2 editor took nearly two hours last night. On 8Mb. BS. I have lived in two towns and a city, with six ISPs and three computers, and I have only once seen more than 30kb/s. Mostly it sticks under 20.

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Chris K
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 19:49
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I get about 5Mb/s

UK has something like 3rd best internet in the world.

Look this stuff up before you shout your mouth off, it makes you look stupid.

-= Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals =-
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Samoz83
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 19:55 Edited at: 5th Mar 2009 19:55
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Look this stuff up before you shout your mouth off, it makes you look stupid."


er maybe you should look it up too,



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David R
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 19:56 Edited at: 5th Mar 2009 20:06
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Quote: "well in more rural places, yes, it's slow, Nex you say you're living in Uttoxeter, "


Wait wait.. he lives in Uttoxeter? That's like.. less than an hour away from Birmingham Hardly what I'd call rural

I live out in the fens, and I get about 2MB/s, so your net must be seriously screwed if you get rates like that Nex

Quote: "er maybe you should look it up too,"


Look at the scale. This graph hardly proves the UK to be 'slow'

EDIT: Also, an average on its own is completely useless. The point is, the spread of broadband vs. the speed. A country could have one person with a superfast connection, for example, that doesn't mean the country as a whole has that net. speed.

A really good example from that graph is probably Hungary. If you've ever been to Hungary, you'll know exactly what I mean - it's not exactly an 'everyone has a computer' kind of place, let alone broadband internet


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Samoz83
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 20:00 Edited at: 5th Mar 2009 20:09
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yes but its well below third isn't it

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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 20:06 Edited at: 5th Mar 2009 20:11
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Exactly as expected. I used to live in Cannock and then Stafford, suspect that I wouldn't get any better in either of those two places either.



Note that I tried my local server and due to the DNS issues that still haven't been resolved I couldn't contact it. This forum seems to be one of the few places that isn't affected...

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Alucard94
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 20:31
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That chart is actually quite accurate surprisingly enough.


Alucard94, the member of the future of the past.
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Robert F
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 20:48 Edited at: 5th Mar 2009 20:50
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Wow, my internet is slow compared to everyone Else's. I get and average of about 650 kb/s. The Internet plan I have says the 756 kb/s but that is the max I can get. About how much are you guys paying?

I don't really see the point of having such fast internet. At a point a simple internet page is going to load about the same as 20 mb/s internet above it. My pages appear in about 1/2 second. The only reason I could see in having such fast internet is when downloading something. but do you really download that much?


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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 20:50 Edited at: 5th Mar 2009 20:51
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£30 a month for phone, internet and TV. 40Gb a month cap but I doubt I'd ever reach that in a month. And believe me, I've looked and there's nothing cheaper. BT were hopelessly unreliable so had to ditch them.

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Samoz83
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 20:51 Edited at: 5th Mar 2009 20:53
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I get around 4Mb (after changing my SNR on my router), im paying for 8Mb and unlimited downloads (which it actually is, unless i guess you download like 200GB in a month) which is around £14 a month, don't bother looking at my speed test thing it always says im getting around 30Mb

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Robert F
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 20:53 Edited at: 5th Mar 2009 20:54
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I guess thats the same as in the states. I can get TV, Internet, and Phone for about $70 a month. Its a shame my mom won't though, because it includes 6 mb/s internet...

Edit: oh, I thought your speed test was what you had.. lol!

Edit 2: On my internet I can download as much as I want with no fee. I imagine there might be a fee after a while, like if I downloaded like 500gb a month or something.


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David R
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 21:37
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Quote: "£30 a month for phone, internet and TV. 40Gb a month cap but I doubt I'd ever reach that in a month. And believe me, I've looked and there's nothing cheaper."


£19 and I get unlimited @ 2 megabit


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Encrypto Studios
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Posted: 5th Mar 2009 21:57
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how about not being able to get broadband in my area, if you think yours is slow, than dang. im measuring in the kb/s, around 20

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AlexI
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Posted: 6th Mar 2009 12:59
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Quote: "Really? The DNS servers here have been flaky "


Use OpenDNS its fast and reliable


http://www.fphosting.co.uk FREE WEB HOSTING, NO Adverts
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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 6th Mar 2009 19:46 Edited at: 6th Mar 2009 19:59
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Quote: "BS"


I'm not lying about the download speed, the 1.8gb was a game demo installer and it took around 15minutes.

You get mostly 20kbps, well, just to test mine for you, I'll download the the new Tom Clancy game demo, it'll take an hour to download: 1.25gb (not from the same website I got the Red Alert 3 demo from, which took 15minutes)



I have done multiple files of 30-40mb which only take 1 minute or 2 to download.

[In the time to write this message and get the screenshot, I have downloaded 112mb of the file]


Quote: "Quote: "well in more rural places, yes, it's slow, Nex you say you're living in Uttoxeter, "

Wait wait.. he lives in Uttoxeter? That's like.. less than an hour away from Birmingham Hardly what I'd call rural"


I've never been to Uttoxeter, I just assumed because of his crappy internet, rural places aren't necessarily the best place for internet, but he's 20mins from Derby, so I imagine the internet wouldn't be that crap, or at least based on distance.


Judging by the chart, the UK is approx. 3/4mbps, which I think is fairly accurate from my experience, though I can see more reason to live in Sweden, Finland or Japan, 3 groovy countries.

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