Filed under: Security, Windows
Is your ISP using Phorm on you? Get AntiPhorm!
by Jay Hathaway May 16th 2008 at 9:00AM
This is primarily for our readers in the UK, but it's part of a growing trend that should concern Internet users everywhere. Phorm is a notorious advertising system that tracks the browsing activities of customers of huge companies like BT (a major British ISP) and Virgin Media. The data is collected and used to sell targeted advertising, which has a lot of people up in arms over privacy concerns. Information rights activists aren't known for sitting idle when their privacy is threatened by spyware, and that's where AntiPhormLite comes in. The program, available for Windows XP and Vista, runs as a standalone up or within a second browser of your choice. It calls web pages on its own, generating a fake trail of browsing activity that should make Phorm's data completely useless. AntiPhormLite won't hit your bandwidth, because it only grabs the HTML from each page it hits, leaving out the heavy stuff like Flash, and avoiding any dangerous executables.
You can run AntiPhormLite as a standalone app or within a second browser of your choice. The AntiPhormLite has a thorough, and entertaining, FAQ that should address any concerns you might have about running the app. Our favorite bit? "Just run it and go and watch TV if you want. Someone somewhere will assume you like to shop for red shoes and caravans and be rubbing their hands with glee."
[via BoingBoing]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
keeves said 9:42AM on 5-16-2008
For starters i thought Phorm was just in the testing stage, and except for a few secret BT test's which have been discovered was not yet being used by ISP's.
Also, when (or if) Phorm does get implemented all the ISP's involved have stated they will offer opt-out methods (i think one has said it will only be opt-in anyway)
this seems a bit of an over-kill to a problem that doesn't yet really exist.
Phorm may yet be classed as illegal before it is released, so we may never even experience it.
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RP said 12:41PM on 5-16-2008
Antiphorm complains that DirectX 9.0c is not installed. But I run dxdiag, and my version is 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)! Must be a bug.
The message Antiphorm shows is: "DirectX Error" -> "DirectX 9.0 installed (589824). Requires DirectX 9.0c (December 2005) or later."
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mbirrane said 4:59PM on 5-16-2008
Does anyone know of a good website which lists the IP address ranges of servers that banner ads (or any type of ads for that matter) are served from? I'm thinking about adding these IP address ranges into my firewall to kill those ads in their tracks.
Those ads for Messenger icons really p**s me off.
Cheers
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RP said 5:19PM on 5-16-2008
For blocking by hostname, just search google for "hosts block ads".
Here is one example: http://everythingisnt.com/hosts
Or if you surf with Firefox, install the AdBlockPlus add-on.
keeves said 6:47PM on 5-17-2008
Defiantly go for firefox with adblock plus, no adds ever and much easier than blocking IP address
James said 10:13AM on 5-19-2008
I just upgraded at work to Vista and had no choice but to download MSN Messenger (I used to use Windows Messenger, which didn't have ads). Well some searching led to http://www.apatch.org/, whose free patching software lets you configure a ton of stuff in MSN, including turning off all the ads. :)
C Charles said 12:01PM on 5-25-2008
Unfortunately, you're all missing the point. The spying happens at the server level, every byte you send or access through port 80 is available to the snoopers. The only way to stop them is to dent their profit margin.
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