Quote:
Originally Posted by icsys
It would seem, at last, that mainstream media is finally starting to report snippets of the BT/Phorm scandal.
BBC News has published an extract from the HoL questions last thursday:
'Test case'
Lord West was also asked about trials by BT of an online system of advertising involving more than 30,000 of its customers, known as Phorm.
In 2006 and 2007 this matched adverts to users' web habits, although BT did not inform customers they were part of such a project.
The peer said the government was "not aware" of the tests beforehand, and an investigation was now checking if these had been "appropriate".
Since then BT had made a formal approach to begin a trial "of about 10,000 broadband subscribers", Lord West said, but he was unclear if this was "covered by law".
A test case might be needed to consider whether this was a form of "interception", he added.
©BBC News |
Yes - the message IS penetrating. And it is important to remember - these guys (who make media editing decisions - not the reporters themselves) are as yet UNinphormed, and may even have been DEphormed. But that doesn't make them enemies. We need to take it gently and not rant at them just because we have been living with this for a few months and get frustrated at the MISinphormation.
It just needs a new non techie, non patronising vocabulary, focussed on technophobes or technilliterates, that makes it clear in politically astute, PR conscious language, that ordinary people will resonate with.
So - words like
interception of your broadband line, snooping, keeping track of where you go/what web sites you visit, watching you while you are online, hitting you with targetted adverts, making the internet more complicated and more fragile, making your web pages load slower, making your browsing less safe, and less private. Exposing your children to unnecessary risk by following THEM round the internet. Assuming everyone wants this unless they actually switch it off. Justifying it by using secret unpublished research that no one has actually seen.
And for the politicians - making the internet less trusting - do the security services want to see everyone using an encrypted internet? Or will that make protecting national security a lot harder? Do they want e-commerce to become vulnerable? Do they want MP's and home workers to have their data traffic snooped on by a Russian linked company?
Meanwhile, with the more INphormed - carry on the technical analysis and really show them we (well you - I don't understand it at all!) know what you are talking about, and that the technical people are very alarmed about this vulnerable man-in-the-middle weak Phorm controlled DPI link in the infrastructure. Root out the Gibsons, the JR's, the Claytons, and keep them talking.
The downside of this is that it will probably result in "scaremongering" accusations - but I think we can live with that.