[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by R Jones

You thought wrong then.

Your lack of knowledge of the details here, is leading you seriously astray. This dispute between webmasters and TalkTalk is not about privacy. It is about enforcing the terms and conditions for access to web sites.
Their are privacy and interception issues that relate to TalkTalk's programme, sure - and those are matters for the enforcement authorities (ICO, police, CPS).

But don't get confused between privacy and contracts.

Well my lack of knowledge of the dispute between Hatari, yourself and a very few others and Talk Talk. Yet to see any major websites make complaints about this which seems somewhat odd.

The privacy / interception issues, sadly I do not really have the time to investigate extensively, I not retired/semi-retired so I'll just stick with having profound doubts.

---------- Post added at 13:05 ---------- Previous post was at 12:51 ----------

Originally Posted by bluecar1

nope, it is about a webmasters rights over their own content and how it is accessed

Sorry, making it available online does give up certain things.

You're an admin on Hatari's forum, I don't for a second take your opinion as being unbiased any more than his money grab.

Originally Posted by bluecar1

wrong again, it is not the same as caching, caching data by the ISP is done on the fly while the data is in transit to the user and is allowed so that the carrier can reduce bandwidth and provide a better level of service (less latency for faster page delivery only, this is exactly why it is done by many firewalls / proxy servers in companies as well as scanning for viruses on the way through)

Depends. Given that caching is illegal though, clearly a breach of rights, it's all quite academic.

this stalking system replays the content from a different source, it is the ISP who is making this second request(using the url scraped from the users communication with the website) not the ISP customer

So block this 'different source'? It's not as if you don't know what the source is?

as to the costs, depending on the package a websites is on with its hosting provider, a number os packages have bandwidth limits or costs, whilst these may not be large to some people to smaller niche sites they could make the difference between profit and loss

I have incredible doubts on this. Small niche sites aren't run to make a profit as a general rule. I would welcome an illustration though of where this system has caused a financial loss.

nope, nothing personal just appears to be webmasters trying to uphold their rights under T's and C's , copyright etc

There is no copyright issue here. The system is not distributing the content to others, it is analysed and destroyed in an automated fashion. If there is a copyright issue here every single visit to a website is a violation of copyright.

There is a very easy way to stop this, that Hatari, et al are instead choosing to send bills and even discuss enticing Talk Talk to sites in order to bill them just undermines.

I would strongly suggest learning what the phrase 'Without prejudice' means given the approach taken.

as i have said caching is not an issue (so long as the relevant "no cache" tags etc are honoured)

Hatari, the man championing this 'cause' by all accounts, disagrees. There is no requirement to honour that meta tag as I've already mentioned.

but this system IS NOT caching pages, it works by stripping urls form a communications stream, which are then passed to another server and then the URL's are replayed to the website by the talk talk equipment to enable them to scan the pages

Which strikes me as less of a copyright issue than storing and then forwarding the pages, impersonating the origin site as a cache does.

whilst talk talk will be offering this as a "free" service to its customers it will be used as an "added feature" or "incentive for customers" and so may be seen to provide indirect revenue by the fact of more customers, businesses like talk talk will not put this sort of system in place just for its customers without seeing a clear cost benefit at the end of the day

Of course. So what?

these systems respect robot.txt entries, and use freely available lists, websites can block the ip ranges scanning them easilly as they are well know ranges, so why does talk talk need to build its own database? unless it will scan sites for more than just malware?

Sure?

Speculating is getting into tin foil hat territory, which is admittedly modus operandi but has no place here.

Talk Talk operate DPI, they can trivially play games with content through that if they so choose.

'Well known ranges'? You guys have been discussing the IP addresses that Stalk Stalk is using for months and done nothing to block them.

a patent from huawei that seems to fit the system in use seems to suggest the sytem can "categorise" pages it does not say what for though, i will leave other to speculate on that one

At a guess at least one of those categorisations may be 'malware infected or not' - as advertised.

Others could be content classification, age appropriateness, etc. They wouldn't be the first or last company that does this.

I do get what you are saying, I just fail to see the problem. You are very aware of where these connections are coming from yet, as webmasters, you jump up and down about how these systems are violating your rights yet you do not choose to take the most rapid approach to remedying the breach - block the servers - instead discussion charging for access, creating redirect loops to DDoS the ISP and other things.

Just block the damn things and get on with whatever behind the scenes. Again - modus operandi - get attention and be seen to be sticking it to the man.

In Hatari's case of course get attention then close off your forum to increase website traffic under a lame excuse of 'security'.

I'm sure it's no coincidence that the people posting on this thread are only seen for things like Phorm and CView. Any wonder I cast a cynical eye on this campaign, especially when no serious action is being taken to remedy the 'issue' but only ways that create more drama?

If you like I would be happy to assist you guys with the appropriate configuration to block the Stalk Stalk servers, just let me know. Given your profound indignation I'll even do it for free.

Yes I'm being an ass - pretty much as the other side will be when they ask 'If it was that much of an issue why didn't you take 2 minutes and block the servers from contacting your site instead of trying to extort large amounts of money for each access which would have cost far less than 1/10000th of the requested charge?' or maybe 'Could you explain why you were discussing ways to use the service to engineer an attack on Talk Talk's network?'.

TLDR

I seriously do get your point, however the legal high ground has been lost through the various emails, all usable in court, containing nonsense, and most of the moral high ground is gone through the tabloid way in which Hatari has gone about this. His cynically closing the appropriate section of the website off and advertising it to drive up registrations, the absurd level of the charge he wanted to level at Talk Talk, the poorly spelt and punctuated babble he sent to Talk Talk, even the silly way he got all cagey and tried to advertise for hits to his site on here as well.

Talk Talk were out of order with this and could have done it a lot more cleanly, the stuff I've read has been laughable and derisory. Any court action will be a mess, on what was potentially a nice, clean open and shut case that would have slapped Talk Talk in the arse for their actions. It's a shame that a real professional didn't take this up and run with it.