Egan Orion is an anagram of Oregonian - Egan Orion
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Talk Talk starts rolling out network snooping
BROADBAND PROVIDER Talk Talk has announced it will continue rolling out a traffic monitoring system that it claims will protect its customers.
The opt-in Virus Alerts Service (VAS) was recently likened to the now banned traffic snuffling operation Phorm by the UK Information Commissioner's Office. It claims to track URLs visited by Talk Talk customers and warn them if a website harbours malware.
This does have the hallmarks of the traffic snooping system Phorm that British Telecom (BT) allowed on its network and which gave widespread offence by being thrust upon BT's users without notice. While the public outcry over VAS has yet to hit the same heights of outrage, there is some concern that URLs are being sucked up by Talk Talk.
Previously Clive Dorsman, managing director of Talk Talk had said, "the system [VAS] simply records the destination website URLs; it does not record who sends the request or other personal data with the URL." He also claimed that the system does not monitor HTTPS traffic.
Dorsman's comments do not clear up the question of whether Talk Talk strips the URL to barebones top level domain names or leaves them intact with all of the HTTP POST data. Recently the issue of privacy associated with HTTP POST data hit the headlines with the news that Facebook data was being harvested and sold on along with all of the information gleaned from the URL request.
The problem for Talk Talk, as with BT and its Phorm system, is the less than transparent nature of the deployment. Customers are quite rightly unwilling to take Dorsman's words at face value and while Talk Talk's intentions may turn out to be noble, its execution has led many to question just how well the firm is considering its behaviour and being transparent with its subscribers about what the system actually does.
Talk Talk expects to have the rollout completed by early 2011. µ
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TalkTalk is owned by BT's commercial arm.
First:
"It claims to track URLs visited by Talk Talk customers and warn them if a website harbours malware."
Second:
"the system [VAS] simply records the destination website URLs; it does not record who sends the request or other personal data with the URL."
If it does not record who sends the request, then how it will send out a warning to the right place?
This is an introduction to censorship.
After censorship comes arrest if you dare to keep seeking the information which is being censored.
Talktalk isn't as reliable as Plusnet or BeThere. I've tried all of them plus BT and I have to say that in my single bit of experience that BeThere was the best for speed and reliability, Plusnet was best for extras and good for speed/reliability, and Talktalk was last for reliability.
I wish they would make their network more reliable and quicker.
The privacy thing sucks too.
The essence of greed, which is merely fear expressed, fear being greed suppressed, is the foundation it stands upon. Greed has no other duty other than to be so - to make others greedy-fearful. Whatever greed does and seems to be doing, oka hypocrite-ing, it will have to refer to its principle sooner or later, sooner if possible. For those still hazing, veiwpointing and posturing, oka oozing their Fame, Fortune & Immortality, realise that a partial human/animal, when compared to the real McCoys/animals, is variable along its tme but invariably will have to revert back to its timing/reality. The ding-dong will have to surface as greed-fear in the end whilst not forgetting that recognition is a function/principle/property of the source and not its sink. Without revealing itself as greed-fear directly or indirectly, “others” will have no means for exposing the true nature of Greed-Fear.
Should the above be true, what is all this yakity-yak about “Talktalk” in aid of? To awaken its worshippers to the evil or to show that greed is what it is, or both? Sure? Wrong !! It is all done to show that reality is one self/experience/empowerment and not some knowledge about “Talktalk”. Repeat after me and for the next 1000 times, “The Sun Shines”, followed by, “Talktalk is there because of their vested interests”, and should the exercise realised benevolence, the likes of “Talktalk” will soon disappear. That is the way to dispose of concepts of greed and hypocrisy - through realising one’s hypocrisy and greed/fear - and then choosing not to be so. There will always be “others”, right until time is “recalled” and it will be “recalled”, that statement about taxes and death being inescapable, the latter being incorrect because you can escape from taxes - if you know how, from the other who knows how to. Yes, and a Merry Christmas to you too.
The issue is not just the URL, though that itself is intrusive enough.
The content returned in reply by the web server is also subject to involuntary analysis.
And, as a TalkTalk subscriber (opted in or out of the antivirus system) you CANNOT opt out of the surveillance at all.