Mobile Phone News:

[This blog post is the sole contribution of WinstonSmith, and all views expressed are those of the contributor, and not necessarily the views of MobileShop.com. However, Technical Markus agrees with him, 100%…]

By now, you’ve probably heard about an advertising system called Phorm, a system, that profiles web browsing, in order to deliver people ‘targeted advertising’ (and if not, you NEED to read about it… for full info, check out BadPhorm). But why do I think it’s wrong? And why do I think that Britain, as a nation, is sleepwalking into a state where personal liberties and freedoms mean precisely nothing? By now, people should be aware of the company Phorm and their Open Internet Exchange/Webwise advertising system. But you know what? A lot of people aren’t. And one has to wonder whether this is down to people burying their heads in the sand, or people not understanding the implications, and if it’s the second, is someone deliberately misleading them? Let’s look at the evidence…

Well, first of all, there’s little doubt that people, when they do know the issues involved in something, are smart enough to make an informed choice. Just look at the storm of protest that’s rightly been sweeping across the internet in the wake of the Phorm news. People are saying they don’t want it on their broadband connection, and it’s eminently clear that when it’s explained to them, even people who don’t fully understand it soon go, “Hang on, what the hell are you doing with my internet??”

Which leaves us with the nasty possibility that people are deliberately trying to mislead the entire country, to get it active and watching us, without people having a say in the matter. The worrying thing with that idea is that, quite frankly, it’s the most convincing explanation of what we’ve seen. The companies involved, most notably Phorm and BT, clearly don’t want to give us the chance to say no without a lot of hassle, because Phorm’s whole business model falls down if we do! Only the criminally insane, and irredeemably stupid would say yes to a system THAT ACTIVELY SPIES ON THEM.

I’ll say that again, in case anyone’s missed the point. With the Phorm system, they are spying on us. Plain and simple, no weasel words, no marketing speak, they are taking OUR privacy, gleefully tearing it up, and wiping their nose on it. They don’t care about what we think, because human beings like us are just a commodity to them. And frankly, it makes me sick.

“Oh, but we anonymise it, no-one can tell who you are,” they always say. Well, as dubious as that claim is, I couldn’t give two flying figs whether it’s anonymised or not. You, Phorm, BT and anyone else involved, if you’re reading this, are destroying our freedom, our essential liberty. You seem to think you’re above the law and can do what the hell you like. Your arrogance is both galling and astounding. And then, then, you have the bare-faced nerve to say that you’re spying on us for our own good!

And if you want an easier-to-understand example of the implications, here, imagine it’s not your broadband connection, but your phone, and someone is listening in, without your consent, to every single phone call you make. Once they’ve made notes on everything you talk about, they try to sell you things. All using a unique, non-identifiable ID code, of course. Surely I can’t be the only person who can see that ‘unique’ and ‘non-identifiable’ are completely contradictory?

So, why isn’t the government stepping in and stopping this obvious breach of our human rights? Why are they turning a blind eye to you and me and everyone in the UK being spied on?

Has it never occurred to people that just maybe they want the system to go live as much as Phorm do? Imagine politicians rubbing their hands together in glee at the thought of always knowing exactly what we’re saying, seeing, doing and thinking. Even if they don’t use that power to abuse our essential freedoms, do you really trust a group that seems to lose some more critical and private data every other week?? That’s why we’re sleepwalking into a state where we, as humans, become less than human, become a commodity to be bought and sold. This is the thin end of the wedge, if it happens, and if it’s not stopped, we will have no freedom, no rights, no privacy. We will lose everything that makes us human. The right to free speech will go pretty quickly, I would imagine, so good luck posting articles like this in future.

Of course, another standard argument that Phorm and the ISP’s involved uses is that Google already profiles us, to deliver targetted marketing, as if 2 wrongs somehow make a right. Besides, there is a crucial difference. With Google, if we use it, it’s a free service, and it provides a VERY definite service. We as consumers know not to expect a free lunch. We search on Google, Google monitor what we search for. Fair enough, we have the option of using a different search engine if we don’t like that. At least Google aren’t charging users a monthly fee, then trying to tell them it’s a good idea to sell their details and their entire browsing history onto a marketing company with dubious backgrounds (and whose product is formally classed as Spyware by security vendors, despite the mewling protestations Phorm make to the contrary). And with Google, at least they’re looking at ways to ensue users DO have some privacy, in a clear cut way, according to the Financial Times, using ‘crumbled cookies’ and so on.

Phorm don’t even have the common courtesy to do that.

“Oh, your data is anonymised,” they say. “We can’t see everything online, we can’t see encrypted pages.”

And then, not 3 seconds later, their representative in America smugly boasts that they CAN in fact, see everything online, and steal your bank details and all your passwords if they want. In an age where the government are constantly warning people about the dangers of identity theft, the fact that they themselves have buried their heads in the sand, when a company formally sets up a system that will make it EASIER to steal identities, indicates that maybe, just maybe, the government and Her Majesty’s police force actually want this to happen. They want people to willingly give up their freedoms, to bring round the clock surveillance that little bit closer.

And what, you may ask, has this got to do with mobile phones? Well, come on, do you really think they won’t be next? They’re aiming for our broadband at home first. That’ll be Phase 1 in the grand master plan. Phase 2 will be mobile broadband. Phase 3 will be mobile phones. You want evidence? Look at the Blue Book system run by O2, a system that automatically stores all your messages, contacts and so on online, in a database, so that you can access them later. It may have been set up for the best intentions, but you KNOW it’ll store all our calls, next, and it won’t be so WE can access them later…

In conclusion, our very future is under threat. First, from Phorm (a company who, despite their assertions otherwise, were classified as generating Spyware, by security firms such as F-Secure. To my mind, that makes them Spyware-peddlers, no matter what PR-rubbish they spin. You made Adware? Fair enough, I’ll go with the security companies who say you actually made Spyware, thanks very much).

And then one day, we’re going to wake up, with the secret police banging on our door, and wonder where our freedom went…

Join the debate, and say what YOU think about Phorm, before it’s too late!