The Brooks Review

Month: January 2014

  • ‘AT&T launches “Sponsored Data”‘

    Kevin Fitchard:

    > AT&T launched a new billing program called Sponsored Data Monday at its developer conference at CES, which shifts mobile data costs from the consumer to the content provider. The idea is to create a two-sided charging model for mobile data, letting app developers and content providers foot the bill for their customers’ data use. That kind of the model has the potential to save consumers money, but as we’ve pointed out before it also messes with some of the foundational principles of the internet.

    This kind of stuff makes me nervous, and Fitchard does a really good job pointing to the good and bad sides of a move like this.

    > But one of the foundational principles of the internet is that it’s neutral, that no content is prioritized over other content. While AT&T stressed it won’t actually prioritize traffic in the Sponsored Data program — apps and content will work the same on the network no matter who’s footing the data bill — this type of program creates a kind of de facto hierarchy from the consumer’s standpoint. If all other things are equal, why not watch the video or use the app that doesn’t drain your data plan?

    It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

  • ‘The Psychological Dark Side of Gmail’

    Stellar article on Google’s spying machine, by Yasha Levine:

    > The fact that the biggest, most data-hungry companies in Silicon Valley joined up in a cynical effort to shift attention away from their own for-profit surveillance operations and blame it all on big bad government is to be expected. What’s surprising is just how many supposed journalists and so-called privacy advocates fell for it.

    I’d urge you to read it if you use *any* Google services.

  • ‘Sen. Paul says he’s suing over NSA policies’

    Senator Paul meanwhile had decided to sue over NSA spying. We’ve hit a nice precipice of outrage and I doubt people stop making noise until the Supreme Court weighs in.

  • ‘NSA statement does not deny ‘spying’ on members of Congress’

    The NSA was asked by Senator Sanders whether or not the NSA, in any way, spied on members of Congress. Senator Sanders also outlined what he meant by spying. It was a great letter which left little wiggle room.

    The NSA response was predictable and a non-answer answer. In short the NSA did everything it could to not have to admit that, under Senator Sanders description of spying, the NSA *does* spy on congress.

  • ‘App Store ratings are broken, let’s get rid of them’

    [Peter Cohen](http://www.imore.com/its-time-admit-app-store-ratings-are-broken-and-get-rid-them):

    > My preference is to get rid of the rating system all together. It’s too easy to abuse and provides no useful context to inform App Store customers. I’d love to see it abolished all together, because I don’t see a way to make it work.

    [Marco Arment commenting on Cohen’s post](http://www.marco.org/2014/01/03/app-store-ratings-are-broken):

    > Eliminating the star ratings but leaving the written reviews would eliminate a lot of developer headaches and much of the motivation behind the annoying “Rate This App” epidemic that’s interrupting and annoying iOS customers and infecting, embarrassing, and devaluing almost all modern iOS apps.

    Yeah, it sounds great, but would make for a horrible experience for the users. The App Store is so chocked full of shit apps that there are usually only four ways to find the good apps:

    1. Reviewers
    2. Top Paid/Free/Grossing
    3. Main App Store screen
    4. Searching and looking at star ratings

    Your typical user will do all of those except `#1`. And`#4` is something that I would guess *everyone* does. I do that every time I do app round ups. Removing ratings leaves only two ways for users to discover apps — and developers are already having a tough time with discoverability.

    Getting rid of star ratings would only make discoverability harder in the App Store as *no one* wants to read a bunch reviews and try to parse for themselves if the app is good or not.

    There *must* be some kind of glance-able method for users to quickly determine if the app is good.

    Here’s a few alternatives that *might* work, but that I haven’t fully thought out:

    1. Replace star ratings with a favorite/reccomend button. Have no mechanism other than a written review for not liking an app. Thus users can get a sense of how many people think the app is worth a favorite. This takes away the ambiguity of 1-5 and instead makes it: do you like it or not?
    2. No ratings, only written reviews. BUT each app gets a little badge showing how many users *currently* have the app installed. Therefore you can judge the popularity of an app by installed base. And thus deleting the app from your phone is voting for the app in dislike.
    3. Allow all ratings, but force users to show their real names as shown on their credit card which is linked to the account. Therefore you cannot rate as “angrymofo10”, you instead see your name next to your shitty review. This is obviously highly unlikely.
    4. [Do this](http://blog.jaredsinclair.com/post/70498658794/solving-the-app-store-discovery-problem-with-app).

    I vote for `#4`.

    Star ratings *can* work and I would use Amazon as the prime example. I don’t take star ratings as gospel, but you cannot ignore a product with 500+ ratings that has a 4.5 star average.

    There’s a problem in the App Store ratings and there always has been, but I don’t think getting rid of star ratings solves the problem.

  • ‘Re/code and web design’

    Watts Martin:

    > All poking aside, the big problem with this design—which is not unique to them—is that it’s awfully hard to figure out what’s important here. If layout is supposed to lead the eye, this is a hedge maze painted bright red.

    To my eye the entire main page looks like an assortment of advertisements — and not a grid layout of articles.

  • When Anonymous Isn’t Really Anonymous

    Over the past couple of weeks there has been a little website making the rounds. [On the site the user is asked just 25 questions](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/20/sunday-review/dialect-quiz-map.html?_r=0) — each question about word choice. It’s a multiple choice quiz for U.S. residents that seeks to identify where your language most likely comes from — and the questions are innocuous enough: “What do you call that strip of grass between the street and the sidewalk?”

    Nothing about the quiz makes you think they are actually going to be accurate. And yet, the site is stunningly accurate. It reminds me of yet another quiz — a [little electronic toy that plays the 20 questions game with you](http://www.20q.net). All you need to do is to think about something — hell tell the crowd in the room what you are thinking of, the toy can’t hear — and then truthfully answer its questions. I’ve only seen it fail to get the answer once, and that’s because the word was an esoteric Japanese tradition.

    Both of these tools are a bit of engineering amazement, but they also both foretell how powerful computational power can be. If you have a large enough database to query, you only need so many search parameters before you get *the* answer you were looking for — it seems logical, but in practice feels a bit magical.

    So, if a website can narrow down where you likely live, or grew up, by only asking 25 questions about your word choices — then I think you have to seriously wonder how close someone can get to actually identifying you if they are given the “anonymized” data that Google holds on users.

    The question: can we truly anonymize data?

    It seems like it would be a trivial task for Google/NSA to go from an anonymous user ID to ‘Ben Brooks’ if they properly mined my data — and if we can accept that as a given (I think it is hard not to believe that is possible), then the question really becomes: is assigning a user ID truly a means of making something anonymous?

    I’m not sure it is.

    Let’s just take what Google knows about you and strip it down to the bare minimum data that *I* (not having any targeted advertising knowledge) would guess a marketer might want to know to better target their ads at me:

    – Interests
    – Keywords from email
    – Keywords from Social Posting
    – Keywords from Searches
    – Location
    – Age
    – Sex
    – Sexual Orientation (gleaned from correspondence and searches)
    – Occupation
    – Marital Status

    That’s a fairly intrusive list, but I highly doubt exhaustive of all the data points Google is tracking for every user they have — and seemingly innocuous when looked at point by point. I’d wager that given that data set you could match my data with my name and I don’t think it would take long, or be hard to do — even if the data is only shown to belong to user #110923849108234098.

    Again a $20 toy can “read your mind” asking only 20 questions. A website can effectively know where you developed your language patterns from asking just 25 questions.

    How hard do you really think it would be for the computing power of any large company to reverse all the thousands (millions?) of data points they have and find *you*?

    That’s part of the problem with data collection: that no matter what it’s not a truly anonymous data set — it’s just a slightly less _identifiable_ data set. You are effectively throwing a blanket over and object you want to hide instead of actually hiding the object. You can still see the size and shape, so educated guesses are fairly easy.

  • Quote of the Day: Michael Lopp

    “You’re fucking swimming in everyone else’s moments, likes, and tweets and during these moments of consumption you are coming to believe that their brief interestingness to others makes it somehow relevant to you and worth your time.”

  • Long Live the Camera

    Craig Mod, [in an article he wrote for *The New Yorker*](http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/12/goodbye-cameras.html):

    > But I returned with the unshakeable feeling that I’m done with cameras, and that most of us are, if we aren’t already.

    I was getting all worked up at this point — I am passionate about cameras, photography, and well camera gear — but Mod went on:

    > But it seems clear that in a couple of years, with an iPhone 6S in our pockets, it will be nearly impossible to justify taking a dedicated camera on trips like the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage.

    And:

    > In the same way that the transition from film to digital is now taken for granted, the shift from cameras to networked devices with lenses should be obvious.

    It’s hard to read this article and disagree with it at the same time. It’s a smart article, which isn’t talking about the demise of the camera, but the resurgence and rejuvenation of the camera. As a kid I remember hearing: “Did you remember the camera?” But more and more as an adult I am hearing: “Did you post that to Facebook/Instagram *yet*?”

    It’s that distinction — of worrying not about having a camera, but about sharing — that I think really drives home Mod’s point. I can’t agree with Mod’s notion that he doesn’t notice differences in the quality of the photos, or that he finds shooting on the iPhone better, but I do agree that I will pull out my iPhone and snap a few shots so I can share them right away even if I was shooting with a camera already. And I agree that editing photos on a touch screen is far superior and _immersive_ than with a mouse/keyboard.

    Near the end Mod summarizes:

    > It’s clear now that the Nikon D70 and its ilk were a stopgap between that old Leica M3 that I coveted over a decade ago and the smartphones we photograph with today.

    In order to agree with Mod you have to forget the ‘pro’ argument — there will always be pros that need pro level gear — what Mod is getting at is that the average person will be increasingly happy with their smartphone cameras. That’s something I wholeheartedly agree with.

    If I was a camera manufacturer right now I would be looking at creating a platform that works *with* smartphones. Something like:

    1. Snap a photo on the camera.
    2. It is automagically sent to the app on your smartphone/tablet.
    3. Edit and post from the app on the smartphone.
    4. Both original and edited image are sent off to your archive location of choice.

    There’s a few things such a system would accomplish for photography enthusiasts:

    – You would get to take images with a *better* camera, but still get all the benefits of having taken that image with a phone.
    – You wouldn’t ever have to download images to a computer. They are already shared, and archived. If one needed/wanted an image on a Mac then you could grab the archive from a web service and do what you need to do.

    There are some systems that attempt this, but they are shitty. They are shitty because they don’t understand the two aspects that make such system *better*: why the user wants it, and how the service needs to act.

    The user wants this to make their life easier — in other words it should be no more complicated than remembering to shoot with your “good” camera instead of your phone. And of course in order to achieve that level of ease, the service *must* be flawless in its implementation.

    Apple’s Photo Stream works exceedingly well, and effectively what I am talking about is cameras being able to pipe *directly* into a system like Photo Stream. This is where the real challenge comes (getting a web-connection on a camera, getting a universal like system, etc.) and where I doubt this is done without a partnership between a phone maker and a camera company. But, one can dream.

  • Review: The Olympus OM-D E-M5




    The Olympus OM-D E-M5 was released a year and a half ago and is coming up on its second anniversary rather quickly, even so it is the camera I chose to replace my beloved Panasonic GX1. (You can read a great review of the E-M5 from Steve Huff.) ((Also, here’s my GX1 review.))

    Shawn Blanc and I often chat about cameras, well, actually we send links to each other and drool over new gear — that’s part of the “fun” of photography. A few months ago (maybe?) I told Shawn: “I am beginning to think the best/smartest/cheapest way to buy a new camera is to wait until it’s a year old.”

    At the time I was looking to update the GX1, but it was a half-hearted endeavor as the GX1 works phenomenally well for me and I don’t really need a new camera. But I wanted one, so I kept my eyes out for deals and kept lusting over different options.

    As luck would have it I landed the OM-D E-M5 for a great price, but before I bought the E-M5 I was seriously considering these four cameras:

    Panasonic GX7: This was the natural evolution for me as it is effectively the new model of my current GX1. I won’t lie: this was my first choice. The reviews of the GX7 are only solid and it seems a waste of money to ignore the fact that there are other, more passionately reviewed, cameras to be had. There seemed to be something intangible missing from the GX7 and that seemed reason enough to keep looking.

    Panasonic GM1: This looks like a beast of a small camera. Lots of people like it, and have great passion for it. What turned me off the camera is that this seems like a new venture: insanely small and still fully-functional. In other words it sounds like the original MacBook Air to me — which tells me to wait for the next revision of the camera. Also by the time I researched this camera I was pretty well decided on wanting to get an electronic view finder this time — instead of just an LCD display — and that’s something the GM1 doesn’t have. The one thing I really miss from a full sized DSLR is the viewfinder for composing my images. ((Though I must say, now that I have a viewfinder again I find that I am using it far less than I would have assumed.))

    Fujifilm X-pro 1: I cannot tell you how much I want this camera. By all accounts this is a fantastic camera that boasts an APS-C sized sensor — much larger than the micro four-thirds sensors — which is a huge benefit when it comes to image feel on shallow depth of field photos. While micro four-thirds cameras are getting better, nothing beats a full frame sensor, but APS-C is closer to full frame (most entry level DSLRs use APS-C sensor sizes to put that into perspective) than a micro four-thirds camera and thus the X-Pro-1 is very appealing in this size class. But the X-Pro 1, as great as it maybe, is not great looking (this matters to me) and would set me back almost $1,700, since it uses its own lens mount, requiring me to buy a new lens) and not just a camera body. The price alone was enough to eliminate this camera from the running for now.

    Fujifilm e-x2: Another great camera, but this one newer and better looking than the X-pro 1, and again with a similar large sensor. Still, though, the overall price of buying a new lens made this unrealistic this time around for me — though I still very much would love to get this camera, I had to pick buying this and not having a lens, or finding a cheaper body.

    Side note: One line of cameras I did not consider is the Sony cameras. While many people like them, and they seem to be well regarded, I have never liked them whenever I held/shot them. My father has the NEX-7 and I just don’t like the controls or feel of the camera overall. I can’t explain this better, but it’s just not a camera system that I really enjoy and therefore is not interesting to me.

    As you can see the OM-D wasn’t even something I considered while shopping. The main reason I glossed over the camera was because I thought it was too big, looked to DSLR-ish, and so forth. I thought these other offerings would be better and I came within a click of buying the GX7 — but then I stopped.

    I read reviews, I looked around, and came to the OM-D E-M5 — even with its ridiculous name — and began to see it as a great buy. It packed a bunch of features that I wanted and was missing from the GX1, would be a true upgrade, wouldn’t be too much bigger, and would fit all the gear I currently have. It sounded like a win on paper.

    Why the E-M5

    The first question you may be asking yourself is why the E-M5 and not the newer E-M1? There are three reasons:

    1. The image quality isn’t substantially better between the two as far as I can discern from reading a ton of reviews. The E-M1 is better, but I don’t think the gap in performance is enough to justify the price premium of the E-M1.
    2. The body on the E-M1 is much bigger, and that’s something I’m trying to avoid with this class of camera and the E-M5 is quite a bit smaller in use. If I was to consider the E-M1, I would also be looking at the Canon 5D/7D series as I have many excellent lenses that fit Canons — and once a camera is at a certain size getting a bigger camera isn’t that much of a difference.
    3. Price. The E-M1 is hot and new, and is priced accordingly. This time around I was trying to get the best bang for my buck, while staying as inexpensive as I could.

    The latter two reasons are why I stayed away from the E-M1. It is the better camera, but it likely isn’t the better camera for me. It costs a lot more and is purposefully built larger, and I really didn’t want something substantially larger.

    I have owned a DSLR for years and have found that I tend not to use cameras that are bulky to carry around. I love using them, but I never take them with me so they never get used. One of the reasons I love the GX1 is because it is small enough to stash in a jacket when going out — and I use the camera more because of that. Small is important to me, and it seemed that the E-M5 is in the elite ranks of quality but still small enough to carry around — though not as easy to carry around as the GX1. ((The biggest size difference is in the height, as the E-M5’s viewfinder makes it stick up quite a bit more.))

    Steve Huff, in his review of the OM-D EM-1, lists out the advantages of the EM-1 over the EM-5. There isn’t much said about the image sensor, and a lot said about the physical aspects of the camera and a lot of nice-to-haves. Huff even points this out:

    This [E-M1] is an amazing camera because the E-M5 is amazing the way it is. Add these improvements and you have something special that usually only comes around every 2-3 years.

    Seems like the EM-5 is a fantastic, top-tier camera, but smaller than the EM-1. To me that’s like choosing a slightly smaller computer with slightly lower specs than the bigger version because you know the smaller computer will fit you better.

    Love It

    The E-M5 blew me away on the first day I used it. Not only does the design look great, ((I am a sucker for the old-school looking silver and black cameras that are popular (again) today.)) but the image stabilization on this camera is phenomenal (more on that in a bit). Overall I have found two things to be true about this camera:

    1. It is an absolute joy to shoot with.
    2. It produces surprisingly great images. And I don’t mean that in the way that a person who just bought their first ‘real’ camera means it: “Gee, this DSLR takes way better pictures than my Nokia.” I mean it in the sense that the images feel like they should be coming from a much larger, much more expensive, camera body. They feel like they should be coming from my 5D — except there are many shots I have been taking with the E-M5 that even the 5D couldn’t capture given the relatively low ISO range of my much older 5D.

    The E-M5 is still small, but it is bigger and weighs more than the GX1 so it’s not as pocketable, but what you get in return is absolute top-notch quality. There’s a reason Steve Huff chose the EM-1 as the camera of the year (2013), and not a Lieca, or Sony A7 — there’s a lot to love about the OM-D lineup of cameras. (In case you are wondering the Sony RX1 was his 2012 pick while the EM-5 was in second place, or his “second pick” as he puts it.)

    I’ve found the E-M5 produces excellent images and is a joy to shoot with.

    Image Stabilization

    The one tech-spec that sets the E-M5 leaps ahead of all my other cameras is the image stabilization (IS). I have Canon IS lenses, but my GX1 and most of the primes I shoot with on the 5D lack IS of any kind. The IS on the E-M5 is outstanding, but keep in mind I have nothing to compare it to other than my few IS Canon lenses.

    So instead, something that speaks for itself:

    The above image was shot, handheld, with a shutter speed of 0.4 seconds (by comparison typical logic says I shouldn’t even get a crisp picture with a slower shutter than 1/30th a second). Now, my arms were supported. Basically I had my elbows propped on the arms of the chair, but no other support. The image is just as sharp as an image I shot seconds later at 1/100th of a second.

    That just blows my mind. It’s not a practical application in that most of the time I won’t be able to support my arms in that way — but I truly didn’t think that image possible before I took it.

    Practically speaking you shouldn’t expect to be able to hand hold any camera at that speed, but it’s an extreme example, that helps to show how good the 5-axis IS in the E-M5 really is. For the most part I have yet to find a situation where I got a blurry image because of a slow shutter — this takes yet another “worry” out of photography for me. ((This is not limited to the E-M5, but I am not out to compare it against all the models out there — I value my sanity too much.))

    More serious photographers may balk at this, but let’s face facts: most images that people take are going to be snapshots. Things like phenomenal IS and high-ISO are important for snapshots. The image stabilization alone has made the E-M5 worth the upgrade for me.

    Feel

    I’ve held hundreds of cameras and shot regularly with dozens of DSLRs and 35mm SLRs, I’ve held and tried dozens of small interchangeable lens cameras, and I’ve owned countless point and shoots over the years.

    I speak with experience when I say: the feel of a good camera in your hand is unmistakeable.

    To me, the Canon 5D series (I’ve shot with both my MKI and a MKII) feel absolutely perfect in my hands. Whereas most point and shoots, and cell phones are cumbersome to hold for framing a perfect shot with a steady hand. With micro four-thirds it’s been hit and miss with how these cameras feel in my hand, typically feeling too light or too small.

    The GX1 was very light, but was just about as small as I could hold stable with my hands. The GX1 always lacked good grip spots, and that too has been a complaint on the E-M5 for some. (Note: you can buy an overpriced grip to fix that issue, or just get the larger EM-1 that addresses that directly.) This is one tradeoff with smaller cameras: smaller area for large hands to grip.

    The E-M5 however feels very nice in my hand. While the front grip is shallow, the thumb grip on the rear gives you a strong leverage point over the camera — which is needed as I wouldn’t describe the E-M5 has lightweight.

    The real winner of the EM-5 is that weight. This is a camera that feels solid, well built — it feels like a tank and I love it. The GX1 doesn’t feel bad in general, but it doesn’t feel nearly as great as the E-M5 in comparison.

    Issues

    You’ll find lots of people talking about different issues with any camera. I am going to skip past the tech-spec comparison issues, like battery life (it’s not bad, but not great) and instead focus on three things: an info display issue, button and dial placement/usage, and some high ISO banding issues.

    Shutter Speed Display

    No matter how you compose your image, the camera will show you the shutter speed and aperture. That’s common on any camera, but the way the E-M5 handles this display drives me nuts. No matter the display I look at, it is often not possible to tell if the shutter is 1/4 second, or 0.4 seconds. In either of those two cases the display will simply read: 4.

    Sometimes, SOMETIMES, the display will put something like 2” to denote that the camera is speaking in seconds — otherwise you are left to guess. In time I hope to be able to figure this one out, but for right now it is the single most annoying and frustrating thing about this camera.

    Buttons & Dials

    Every camera — especially every camera manufacturer — has a different philosophy about how and where buttons should be placed. The GX1 had a power button in a very convenient spot, so convenient that I accidentally turned the camera on/off more than once.

    The E-M5 has a similarly annoyingly placed power switch — though it is placed in a bit more DSLR standard location. It’s on the bottom right corner of the back of the camera.

    Here’s the thing: if you use the E-M5 one-handed (which is kind of the de facto way to use it) then you pick it up right handed — making it nearly impossible to turn the camera on with that same hand. It’s a finger contortionist move of olympic-level difficulty.

    If you can’t tell, the power switch is the biggest annoyance I have with the camera. It’s just in a bad spot, with bad switch style, and annoying.

    The dials though, they confuse(d) me a lot. There are two dials on the top of the EM-5. By default the one attached to the shutter sets the exposure compensation, and the larger dial changes settings for the camera mode you are in (e.g. Aperture in Aperture Priority mode).

    The entire dial setup is changeable, but completely backwards out of the box (at least for me). I switched the dials around, and also switched the direction you turn the dials to increase/decrease the settings.

    It’s my opinion that the E-M5 would be incredibly frustrating to use/learn if you couldn’t change around these dials. So if the dials bug you (and this may be due to my Canon background) be sure to change them before you pull your hair out trying to use the camera. It’s nice that I could change these, but a very odd default setting if you ask me.

    High ISO and Banding Issues

    UPDATE: I’ve gotten word this only happens when paired with the Panasonic 20mm f1.7 lens (which was my test lens). I am testing now with other lenses to confirm. Apologies. This is great news though.

    One of the first things I noticed when I started trying the camera is under very high ISO modes (3200+) there is visible banding in the images. You can see it in this photo below:

    (Here’s the same photo edited — you can hardly see the banding once edited.)

    Now, before I talk about this anymore I want to tell you my thinking on high ISO usage/importance.

    I am a photographer that will force my camera to shoot at the lowest possible ISO for as long as possible. I hate auto-ISO. I want control over my ISO. Not too long ago ISO 1600 was considered the upper limit of a useable image, but that above example? ISO 10,000. Yeah, it’s pretty useable.

    So here’s my high-ISO theory/advice: don’t worry about the image quality, because it’s likely an image that you could only get using a really high-ISO on a camera (any camera). It’s great if the image looks like an ISO 200 image, but it’s not necessary because almost every image shot at high-ISO is a snapshot. In other words a picture for documenting/remembering a moment and not a photo for a contest. ((This is my rule, get your own.))

    In a nutshell my feelings about banding on the EM-5 are twofold:

    1. The nerd in me hates that the banding is this obvious, because without the banding the noise is well controlled even at ISO 10,000. The banding is what makes this image less useable.
    2. The practical photographer in me realizes that getting a sharp image, even with banding, is better than getting a blur of unfocused people. Getting the image versus only having the mental picture makes the banding acceptable.

    In short: I am fine with the banding because it allows me to capture an image that I would otherwise likely not be able to get.

    Some will find this banding unacceptable though, so they should get an EM-1 where the issue is fixed from what I have read.

    The Photos

    I have been enjoying the heck out of this camera and I find the image quality to exceed my expectations for the E-M5. Here’s a bunch of photos I have snapped, in no particular order. (Fair warning: I tested over Christmas so there’s many photos of my daughter doing Christmas like stuff.)
















    Buy It

    I love this camera.

    If you buy the OM-D EM-5 from this link, you help support the site — and I personally think this camera is worth every penny.

  • ‘I fought my ISPs bad behavior and won’

    Eric Helgeson found that his ISP was redirecting him to merchants using their affiliate links:

    > When looking at the URLs a little more closely I noticed fwdsnp was adding affiliate ID’s into the URLs. Did I have some malware that was hijacking my requests? I switched to Google’s DNS and the affiliate IDs were not injected into the URLs. Then I noticed one of the affiliate’s name was Arvig, which happens to be my ISP. Confirmed. It looks like I’m not the only one[1].

    Read the article for the ISP response, it’s classic.