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[AdrianH]

BT cheerfully admits snooping on customer LANs 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/24/bt_snooping/


For the good of the customers, of course

(By Bill Ray)

BT reserves, and makes use of, the right to remotely detect all devices connected to LANs owned by its broadband customers – for their own good, of course.

BT Broadband customers can expect to have their network checked any time the operator feels it needs to take a peek to help it provide the service, or when the safety of the customer is in doubt – the latter being the motivation behind the only instance where we know the capability has been used.

That happened last week, when some BT Broadband customers received letters about the kit they had plugged into their networks.

The kit in question were powerline networking (PLT) boxes originally supplied by BT.............. (more)

[roseway]

For the good of the customers, of course

Of course it is.

[BritBrat]

This seems to be related the the BT home plugs but I thought they had a security option.

This is another reason not to use a ISP's supplied router and could be why Sky try and force you to use their router. (you never know!!)

[HPsauce]

Surely this is a blatant breach of RIPA 2000? 

[razpag]

I may be wrong, as this isn't my department at all, but I thought most routers were 'locked in' to the ISP's these days I'm aware that some routers can be flashed, but how many users are aware or capable of doing so ??

The BT Hub V3 is extremely hard to crack.

[BritBrat]

Yes O2 routers are locked but you can extract the user name and password then put it in another cheap router from Ebay, it can be the same make and model as the O2 router or a different one all together.

I think if the ISP supply Netgear routers you can export the cfg file and view it with notepad to get all the details you need.

[razpag]

Point made. I didn't know that, and I sort of work on the periphery of routers/Hubs.

BT's latest Hubs are very secure to a point where I have found a crack, but its that deep and user unfriendly, I daren't attempt it. I'm afraid for the vast majority of users, they'll have to put up with snooping.

[BritBrat]

Yes you are right the general public would just switch on and leave it.

There is another option, get a second none ISP router and piggy back off the ISP's router so the first access is the ISP's router then it goes through the second router that has user / password and wireless setting all changed from any defaults.  You also then have two firewalls in tandem.

But joe puplic whould not do any of that.

[CurlyWhirly]

BT cheerfully admits snooping on customer LANs 

Wasn't BT involved with that Phorm snooping experiment that was ruled illegal by the EU ?