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AntiPhormLite Kills ISP Monitoring Of User Behavior
By Dan Morrill
Expert Author
Article Date: 2008-05-19
With all the anger about Phorm and how it tracks user connections to deliver advertising to those users, it is not surprising then that someone would come up with a way to negate part of the ISP monitoring that is happening.
A new program called AntiPhormLite is available that will simulate user behavior in hopes of completely corrupting the value of Phorm as a marketing tool.
Phorm describes themselves as:
Phorm's proprietary ad serving technology uses anonymised ISP data to deliver the right ad to the right person at the right time - the right number of times. Our platform gives consumers advertising that's tailored to their interests - in real time - with irrelevant ads replaced in the process. Source: Phorm.com Phorm has had a rocky start once it was revealed that BT (British Telecom) was using the system to monitor where users went so that more relevant ads could be delivered to them. Some anti spyware companies are labeling the opt-in or opt-out cookie as spyware, much like double click or other tracking cookies are noted in some anti spyware applications.
AntiPhormLite states:
AntiPhormLite is a unique application that intelligently self surfs the internet and generates natural surfing information to confuse anyone who is spying or tracking your internet activity. It is a stand alone application that can be left to run on it's own or in parallel with your own surfing sessions and can be run as either a hidden background process, a desktop console application or in conjunction with your favorite browser, which ever you prefer. To an ISP It is indistinguishable from a real person. It performs intelligent decisions about where to surf and combines multiple search engines with millions of contextual search subjects and general interest links. Source: AntiPhormLite In what promises to become another "DRM Battle" where advertisers come up with technology hoping to find out what you are really doing and what you are looking to buy, against the privacy of people's surfing habits (we are not always looking at computers, cars, sports, and the news) systems like AntiPhormLite could become the next front line in users rights, privacy, marketing, and ISP's control of their users behavior.
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About the Author:
Dan Morrill has been in the information security field for 18 years, both
civilian and military, and is currently working on his Doctor of Management.
Dan shares his insights on the important security issues of today through
his blog, Managing
Intellectual Property & IT Security, and is an active participant in the
ITtoolbox blogging community.
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