Quote:
Originally Posted by isf
Which is fine unless users are sharing a single user account and browser profile.
diagrams The bigger question is, why would the ISP even do packet inspection on every request instead of simply creating a VLAN trunk (or equiv) to bypass the system for those who opted out?
I'm cooked  but there's some reading material here
---------- Post added at 22:16 ---------- Previous post was at 22:14 ----------
It's an opt out system, no cookie and phorm get your clickstream. See the register article (with diagrams) I linked above. |
In no way am I trying to defend Phorm, but if you've never allowed the cookie that contains your unique "anonymyzed random ID number" onto your hard drive, how will they know which ID record on their server to add your browsing behaviour categories to? In other words, how will they know which anonymous user is requesting the webpages you are viewing? They claim to only store 3 types of data - Your anonymous ID number, category tags and timestamps for the date/time you viewed pages containing those categories. They also claim that there is no overlap between Phorm's data system and your ISP's identifiable data about you (such as your IP address, your modem's MAC address, your name, your VM account No., etc.) so if they're not lying, without that anonymous ID number, they've got no way of knowing which user record to assign your page categories to.
Now, if we assume they
are cheating, lying, underhand b*****ds, and plan to aggregate data on even those people who have opted out by blocking oix.net cookies, they would have to identify your browsing record on their server using some
other unique identifier which could be positively tied to your connection's clickdata - and that, presumably, would have to be one of those personally-identifiable pieces of data from your ISP that they claim not to have access to. If it turned-out they
were doing this, not only would
they be in deep trouble, so would Virgin for supplying them with that personally-identifiable information. Probably to the tune of bankruptcy once class action law suits and regulator fines had been accounted for. Not even Virgin Media are
that stupid.
(And I still don't want this damned system...)