home
in

Switch broadband and save money

Last post Wed, May 20 2009, 1:49 PM by Fluffykins. 1 replies.
Sort Posts: Previous Next
  •  Mon, Jan 26 2009, 4:09 PM

    Switch broadband and save money

    It’s possible to save more over £200 a year by switching broadband provider yet more than four in five haven’t done so in the last 12 months. If you’re one of those missing out on savings broadband expert James Parker will show you how to find the best deal for your needs…

    Click here to read this article


    Community
    • Post Points: 20
  •  Wed, May 20 2009, 1:49 PM

    Re: Switch broadband and save money

    Remember though; money isn't everything.

    I understand certain Internet Service Providers are looking at ways of intercepting your browsing and logging your interests, in order to place "more relevant" adverts onto sites running ads from their service.

    It's often claimed this will be done anonymously - your machine will be given a unique serial number and, although I believe the technique which will open up ALL your http data and make ALL the content available, the companies developing this promise that they won't 'peek' at any personal identifying information (honest).

    The process is a little akin to having your postman open all your mail, read it (promising not to note any personal data) and stuffing "relevant" ads through your door as well as the post. Not nice.

    Unfortunately there are a few problems with this. At least one of the companies developing this has a demonstrated background in writing and deploying, by stealth, some very insidious malware. Look up the Apropos Rootkit, for one. So, would YOU trust the word of an outfit which has already shown itself capable of a huge betrayal of trust? Would you trust the same outfit not to indulge in a little 'mission creep' later on, when the dust had settled?

    The other problem is that, although the identity placed on your PC is limited to a random serial number, the mass of data collected about you could, if there was enough of it, be mined and reverse-engineered to give a good idea of who and where you are - a technique which should be familiar to many Private Investigators.

    If you own a website, you have another possible problem, even if you don't use an ISP who subscribes to this process. It is possible that, when someone visits your site, who IS a subscriber to an ISP using this interception, the contents of your site are intercepted as it is served up to your customer and your data (including any copyrighted data) is scanned and may be used for profit, without a by your leave and with no recompense to you.

    You may also have a "thing" about leaving cookies on peoples machines. Some siteowners place a notice on their site advising they don't use cookies.

    Unfortunately at least one of these interception processes may actually forge a cookie which will look like it came from your site.

    Be warned.

    If you want to learn anything more, check out:

    https://nodpi.org/

    http://www.badphorm.co.uk

    http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1/080404phorm.pdf (truly independent analysis)

    http://www.inphormationdesk.org/

    • Post Points: 5