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Re: [LUG] Petition against on-line advertising....

 

Neil Williams wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:21:17 +0000
> Simon Waters <simon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
>> Andy Smith wrote:
>>> A lot of people objecting to Phorm already have suppliers that do
>>> similar.  A good example would be Google.  I assume all those who
>>> object to Phorm do not use Google Mail, Google Checkout and if they
>>> use Google Search they delete all cookies etc. afterwards.
>> I'm with Clare and Eion, I delete cookie every time the browser closes,
>> the only sensible way unless you want to spend eternity deciding whose
>> cookies are doing something useful for you.
> 
> Deleting cookies does not protect you from Phorm - in fact, deleting
> cookies *prevents you using the opt-out* that Phorm 'offers'.

We appreciate this - just Andy was asking if we were that paranoid that
we delete cookies - and the answer seems to be "yes".

> The Phorm attack happens outside your own browser, it is a routing
> issue, not a cookie issue.
> 
> The only safe method is to block or redirect to localhost all traffic
> to and from any Phorm machine via DNS and/or iptables.

The data collection is done by intercepting the HTTP request, so the
only by pass is to tunnel out to a place that doesn't intercept your
HTTP requests (for which - switch ISP is easier).

I don't think the end user can route or block this at all.

Throwing the cookies out might reduce their ability to track - if the
details I've seen are right, but my ISP isn't interested from what I can
gather.


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