Big Brother Uncovered UK » monitoring

BT sees ad sense and abandons Phorm

paul — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:52:26 +0000

The Register reports today that BT has abandoned plans to rollout its controversial Phorm web advert targeting technology.

BT was planning to go into partnership with web tracking technology company Phorm to deliver targeted ads at its customers. The technology is suspect because Phorm would track all of your activity on the web to determine which ads to display to you on its partner sites. Up to now ISPs have been relatively benign in analysing their customer’s surfing activity.

Privacy campaigners have vigorously questioned how user’s data and privacy would be protected. The debate also spawned a petition on the Prime Minister’s No 10 Petitions website.

It is understood that Virgin Media and TalkTalk both still have the option to deploy the Phorm technology.

Will BT’s decision affect them?

CCTV Cameras will soon be listening to you as well

paul — Wed, 06 May 2009 21:12:27 +0000

The BBC has reported that trials have recently occurred in Scotland of using street based CCTV cameras that monitor sounds as well.

The trials have been performed by a Dutch company called Sound Intelligence. As you pass by, the CCTV camera analyses the tone of your voice rather than what you are actually saying. Presumably if you sound stressed then you are likely to be a terrorist or mad, upon which the Big Brother police can swoop down and take you away for the good of society.

What’s next – listening in on your conversation on the street listening for significant words – like “bomb” or “airport” ???? Or maybe tapping into your phone calls or e-mails for stress or significant words. Oh, I forgot, they are already planning to do that.

Maybe they decided to trial it in Scotland to see if it could cope with the strong Scottish accent!

Via BBC

Spy Chiefs Plan to Monitor Internet Traffic

paul — Mon, 04 May 2009 22:43:29 +0000

Yesterday (3rd May 2009) The Register, a UK online technology publisher, along with the Sunday Times published details on how the government’s surveillance service GCHQ is building a system to monitor all UK internet traffic and telephone calls.

The GCHQ project is called “Mastering the Internet” (MTI) which sums it all up perfectly!

The articles quote sources as saying that the UK Government through its various agencies is spending up to £1 billion on MTI projects – just to keep an eye on you and the bad guys!

The Register article says “It will grant intelligence staff in Cheltenahm complete visibility of UK Internet traffic, allowing them to remotely configure their deep packet inspection probes to intercept data – both communications data and the communication content – on demand.”

Since the revelations GCHQ has issued a press notice today (4th May 2009) denying that it will track all UK internet and phone usage. It said “GCHQ is not developing technology to enable the monitoring of all internet use and phone calls in Britain, or to target everyone in the UK.”

Well that’s OK then! Let’s not worry about this again.

Via The Register, Sunday Times Online, BBC