Quote:
Originally Posted by warescouse
Totally agree with your comment although I would like to try and link a tiny bit of relevance to the previous discussion.
Once a system is put in place that removes peoples privacy, another step is to control what people see and do. The big brother effect of knowing all about another persons intimate life gives that big brother person, or the organisation, knowledge and power. The abuse of this power can and very often does lead to police state like control on peoples lives within that particular society.
Censorship prevails and is used willingly to protect the already corrupt.
Maybe some phormafied ISP's are showing the first signs of this particular mindset. The censorship of what people can say or do (legally) is not conducive to a free society. Perhaps the abuse of power has already begun ?
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Comments about "another forum" fully taken on board. I certainly don't want to discuss that here. There is enough of a stink already going on about it over on Beta - thanks guys!
BUT ...
there is a related issue or two that may be relevant.
It occurs to me to wonder on what basis such a banning works. It has relevance when we think about the way Webwise will work.
By IP address? No good - BT Residential customers have dynamic IP addresses so change your IP and you are someone else.
Maybe they do it by BT account number - which they ask you for (but don't actually "require" when you sign up for BT forums - well that works for BT Forums (and I would guess was how a backup identity or two that I created earlier, but had only used once, as a test, were automatically banned along with my main one, when the ban came). But that doesn't work for Webwise either because the cookies won't contain that info.
By phone line? (BT Broadband accounts authenticate nowadays on CLI - caller line identity) But then there is no way of distinguishing who you are dealing with at the other end of that line. Which brings us right back to the cat who opts everyone in the home network to Webwise. (Sorry in advance to all cat lovers - no cats were harmed in the making of this post). Phorm have created such a privacy revolution with their boast that they don't know who you are, that they are stuck with not recognising a cat when they see one.
The Webwise cat who can change someone's T&C's.
The cat with legal powers.
McCavity the Webwise cat who isn't there.
Maybe I should research my T S Eliott.
I think that cat has a future in the campaign.
BT the company that enters into contracts with cats.
"Darling, the cat has signed us up to Webwise, and deleted all the holiday photos, and is it true I have to paint our lovely home black to match the new HomeHub? I did try to get the photos back from Digital Vault but I can't log in to Digital Vault today."
Gentle ridicule can be very effective.
The next BT survey perhaps could investigate how many cats prefer their owners to use Webwise, in fact preferred it so much that they signed them up for it because Phorm offered them a years supply of Caesar.
Can cats go to court?
Can a cat be sued for breach of contract?
Finally - BT have managed to make one of my predictions come true. I said that Webwise would simply result in more people surfing anonymously and using encryption. Now for the first time in my life I am considering the use of web proxies and a greater use of alias identities than I ever used to. This has to be a BAD thiing. I prefer to post and surf as ME except in rare situations. But now I will be thinking much more about anonymity and subterfuge and that can't really be healthy. I don't like it. But my devious, deceitful, bone-headed ISP and the powers-that-be who are somehow collaborating with them, have forced me to it.
So back to my main point. Computer use is much more complicated than Phorm seem to realise. It isn't one IP address, one computer. Most homes now have networks behind the router. Most homes are now using wireless, and many homes contain a variety of adults. BT Fon, Openzone, and a variety of other wireless hotspots exist. Phorm cannot cope with these. It can't cope with them as far as identifying people goes (hence issues around temporary black/whitelisting of IP addresses after someone opts out of Webwise) - and it can't cope with them from a security point of view - the various users of a given IP address who are either opted-in or not opted-in, ignorant or knowlegeable about Webwise, including McCavity the Webwise cat, customers of the same ISP or just piggy backing on someone elses connection (legally) - from what I have read so far (and IANAT - I Am Not A Techie) they are going to be exposed to a security and privacy nightmare. And BT don't seem to care one hoot.
Over on the BT business forums the mods are referring people to the BT Webwise FAQ. That is the one that is full of errors, inconsistencies, and hasn't been updated since early April of this year despite the various legal developments since then and the many many unanswered questions.
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