Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Sorry I have been quiet everyone I have been studying for an exam. I am still watching the thread / reading all news etc. and if anything comes up I will post it. Should be more active again in about a week once this exam is out of the way.

I am working on some other stuff in the background too (some very exciting stuff actually, although not directly Phorm related) so will post some news on that in the next week too.

Telegraph and FT pulling back is a good bit of news, might be a good idea for people to write to them and commend that decision, just so they realise it is the right decision.

Speak to you all soon,

Alexander Hanff

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

And the super six are....

Britain’s six biggest service providers - BT, Virgin Media, Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse.

All have signed up to the scheme. In return, the Government has abandoned a controversial proposal to disconnect broadband services for users who had been caught out three times.

Hmmm... didn't TalkTalk say it is their role to 'protect the rights of their customers'?

Also no coincidence that Orange, Tiscali and BskyB have been 'looking' at behavioural advertising.

Orange, which occupies the number six spot in the UK broadband league, said: "We're always looking at ways to make the internet experience safer and more relevant for the individual. We have been in discussions with a number of companies - including Phorm - about this very interesting area."

Tiscali, which has more than two million broadband customers, told The Register it has looked into Phorm's system, but no decisions have been made.

Sky, the UK's fastest growing broadband network with about 1.2 million lines, said: "Sky is interested in exploring the potential for targeted online advertising and is talking with a number of companies operating in this area.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

are they thinking of becoming content providers then ?

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

have a look at http://blog.quinthar.com/2008/07/sec...t-economy.html

seems an interesting take on things

peter

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

From the Reg.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/23/berr_isp_mou/




its our friends in BERR time for a FOI request. Who is going to FOI them ?

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Actually they don't need to intercept anything for this. The RIAA have been finding illegal music sharers in the US for years without installing kit in ISPs. This is how it works for bittorrent - similar methods work for most P2P apps.

1. Search for torrent which looks like one of there copyrighted works
2. Connect to bit torrent swarm
3. Download the files whilst logging IP address/time stamp of any peers.
4. Verify that downloaded file is a copyrighted work by an artist they represent.
5. Get ISP to reveal name & address for each IP address.
6. Send the offender a nastygram
7. If they don't pay up, sue them.

There are certainly problems with this approach but intercepting communications isn't one of them. Using encrypted bittorrent won't stop this for the same reason. Using an anonymous P2P system should stop this method (but don't come crying to me if it doesn't).

(There are variations on this such as not downloading the whole file and hence not doing step 4 at all)

One of the biggest problems with this is how easy it is to frame someone for copyright infringement.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

BT are selling something that can deal with this and the only down side is they will not put customer security / privacy at risk as there would be n o middle company with links to hacking/spyware/adwear etc...

ZYWALL USG 1000 http://www.shop.bt.com/productview.aspx?quicklinx=53TX

other downside for BT it wouldn't get payments for pimping customers.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

I think I'd add to previous questions suggested

- What is the content of that MoU

I'll certainly bang off an FoI tonight.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

I'll just make the point at this time that as I understand it the latest moves between the ISPs, BERR, and BPI, etc, with regards to the sharing of illegal content are very unlikely to be using the Phorm technology ;)

That means that all the current line of discussion is accomplishing is that it's diluting the discussion of Phorm, and it's taking this thread off-topic.

There are other threads already discussing these issues on Cable Forum, maybe it would be best to take this discussion there?

Unless I've completely misunderstood something that is ;)

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

I completely agree Rob M.

Unless we learn otherwise I would assume that this will not involve any dpi kit or any interception.

So getting back on topic:

Kent says, "We now exclude over a thousand webmail sites from being processed rather than the largest 25".

How many web mail sites are their in the world? Well lets look at my personal favourite webmail system: squirrelmail. It's relatively obscure so likely only represents a small to tiny portion of webmail deployments. The recent version was been downloaded over 117,000 times from sourceforge. That doesn't include people using older versions, or who download it via other routes (it's in the ubuntu repositories for example).

25 was pathetic. 1000 is an improvement, but it is far short of a complete list.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

One point to note:

With Google, content ads are usually cheaper than ads displayed on the search results. The revenue from these content ads has reached a point where many web sites are giving up displaying them.

Now, with Google effectively failing the content providers, the other ad networks are going to be selling content ads at a premium?

The only sustainable business model I can see for that is for content to buy a click for less than the revenue earned from displaying ads. Google is already dropping selling clicks for this model so who is going to be selling the ads?

Are the ad networks saying that they are going into a market which Google and other search engines found did more harm to their business than the revenue earned? The big problem with this from the point of view of the content providers is that the lower they bid for a click, the lower the quality of the site where their ad will be displayed, the lower the quality of visitor coming to their site.

Is someone really hoping that everyone will be clicking on ads leading to more pages filled with ads, earning revenue for everyone on route and maybe getting a conversion to a brand at the end of the line.

The brand advertising departments welcome this model?

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Some newer versions of traceroute can do this as well :)

traceroute -T -p 80 nodpi.org
traceroute -T -p 443 nodpi.org

This doesn't apply to the windows tracert though.

(It is possible though unlikely that you could trigger some intrusion detection systems on the host you are doing the traceroute to with this)

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

There is always the other side also with the higher inflation more wil be window shopping to try to build up esteem, dreaming of what they would have if they could afford it. These with what BT has planned would lead to a large number of adverts for say a new car that the person cannot afford to buy thus wasting the time of the ad, bandwidth up and down since BT add in both on your paid for capped limits for no end result since you were only sort of window shopping not actual shopping.. The present credit crunch will stop many actually buying online we all might look but then before you click any buy button you always do a quick check can you afford it.. Credit cards will start to tighten the purse strings if more and more people get into debt issues from over spending online..

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

One positive for phorm:

With the credit crunch interest rates are higher. Phorm's main income in 2007 was credit interest. They should ditch the whole advertising ploy and just lend their cash out. Just a pity they didn't do it sooner. They've waisted most of their capital on R&D.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

For any tech head like me who was thinking trace route apps use ICMP echo packets over IP, see here

tcptraceroute is a traceroute implementation using TCP packets.

The more traditional traceroute(8) sends out either UDP or ICMP ECHO packets with a TTL of one, and increments the TTL until the destination has been reached. By printing the gateways that generate ICMP time exceeded messages along the way, it is able to determine the path packets are taking to reach the destination.
<snip>
By sending out TCP SYN packets instead of UDP or ICMP ECHO packets, tcptraceroute is able to bypass the most common firewall filters.

You learn something new every day. Interesting. That could come in very handy. :scratch:

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Yes. I posted that same link a few pages back! ;) The same functionality is now integrated into recent versions of traceroute though. You just need to use the -T option and set the destination port with -p :)

---------- Post added at 12:21 ---------- Previous post was at 12:04 ----------

I've edited my previous post here: http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/34...post12610.html

There is evidence that squirrelmail is used on over 117,000 sites! That's an awful lot of webmail sites phorm is still to exclude. :dunce:

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

I must have an old version

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Must be. This is mine:

$ traceroute -V
Modern traceroute for Linux, version 2.0.9 Sep 28 2007

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

There's also a dedicated tcptraceroute, most linux/BSD distros should have it in their repos.

It's hardly as if squirrelmail has the monopoly on webmail. I've used mhonarc in the past to briefly provide external web access to private mail archives. And while Phorm say they won't profile sites using HTTP auth, almost nobody uses it. I've been disabling the Apache module for years in favour of cookie based authentication.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Yup. Ubuntu 7.04 doesn't have the capability built into traceroute, but 7.10 does. Both have tcptraceroute in their repos though.

For Macs, you need to compile tcptraceroute from source. Not that hard see http://www.qsyssoft.com/machaxor/?p=4

For windows there is http://tracetcp.sourceforge.net/

Yeah. The 117,000 will only be a fraction of the global webmail sites. Many of them will be private (i.e. not open to the general public). SquirrelMail was just an easy example to get some figures for and it doesn't use "basic authentication".

1,000 excluded webmail sites is only scratching the surface. The Earl of Northesk said it better than I could - "There's a fundament issue there as soon as you start talking in those terms. If you've got to indulge in exceptions and abstracts to make the system workable then the system almost by definition has to be wrong."

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

A general request for the tech-experts (texperts?)

Can one of you post a laymans explanation of the use of traceroutes and how it relates to this issue? It may help some of the non-techys amongst us to understand the significance of all of these posts.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

waypoints on route from A to B one could say. no me not texpert:)

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Every packet you send out on the network has an associated TTL (Time to Live). This is typically set to 30 so that in the event of a routing loop that packets will eventually die off.

Every layer 3 (IP)device in the chain will decrement this TTL by one. If the packet should die, it is usual for the layer 3 device to send an error message to the orininating device.

In the case of traceroute, these tcp packets are sent with each packet incrementing it's ttl by 1.

So, first packet TTL=1
Second packet TTL=2
etc.

Traceroute can then compile a list of layer 3 hops by using the returning error message (which comes from an IP address). If there is a reverse-dns lookup available for that IP address it will also list it's name (not always configured).

If you get * * * as a response from a hop then it means that the device is prevented from sending error responses back to you. That also explains why traceroute can carry on because after it times-out 3 packets in succession it moves on to sending the next packet out with an extra +1 to the TTL (so the packet dies at the next hop).

Does that help? :)

EDIT:Doh! just re-read your request for a laymans explanation...it's all done by magic (and pixies) :)

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

How does knowing the route relate to Phorm or DPI?

Is it a matter of looking for a certain IP address (or number of them) or is it simply a matter of the number of hops that is affected?

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Adding a new device (hop) into the network path, or a strange path taken by packets, might indicate something interesting was going on.

Particularly if the path goes out to a third party and back for example.

Its a way of assessing how efficiently your packets are travelling to the destination, and who is handling them.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Thanks Pete.

How can you tell if these hops relate to Phorm (or any other form of intervention/diversion by ISPs)?

Is it just a matter of constantly looking for a problem or do you only need to check when there are specific signs of a problem such as slow connections?

How usual or unusual are the results being posted here lately?

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

If you see a lot of hops in within the same subnet range that could indicate that some re-direction was going on (proxies basically).

Having said that, traceroute is a diagnostic tool. In of itself it just gives you something to work with regarding where the packets are actually going, how many hops. It really needs to be used in conjunction with a detailed network diagram to say for sure what was going on.

---------- Post added at 14:08 ---------- Previous post was at 14:06 ----------

I'm not personally going to analyse the traceroutes provided so far as I was recently in a contract with BT that effectively means I can't use proprietary knowledge and it could be argued that I am using priveledged information (even though I didn't work in this area of BT).

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Important to note there are two levels of 'redirection' that might relate to Phorming.

There's redirection at the application (http web) layer - which is what Phorm described to Richard Clayton. You'd see this in your web browsers as an unexpected page load from webwise.net (used to set phorged cookies).

Then there's redirection of packets at the transport/network (TCP/IP packet) layer - which is what is being discussed with respect to trace routes.

As an end user you have no control over packet routes, the route your packet takes is determined by routers. However if you see packets taking a strange route, such as bouncing around a set of IPs in a subnet, or in/out/in/out of a given subnet... you might infer that route wasn't 'optimal' (for want of a very different word).

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Here is my attempt at a layman's guide to traceroute. It omits many details, to the point of being technically incorrect, but hopefully not in a way that matters.

The Internet

The internet consists of hundreds of millions of computers all connected together so they can talk to each other. That's a lot of computers! Therefore it should be obvious that it's not practical to connect every computer directly to every other computer. Instead, the internet is designed a bit more like a phone system. Your computer is connected to an exchange. That exchange is connected to some other exchanges. Some of those exchanges are connected to cables that run under the sea to exchanges in other countries. To phone someone in another country your call will have to pass through a number of exchanges. Some clever stuff is used to determine how to get your call to the destination you desire. This is known as routing the call (finding a route). The internet is very similar. Calls are replaced by "packets", phone numbers are replaced by IP addresses and exchanges are replaced by "routers" which route your packet to its destination.

However, the internet is not exactly like a phone system. In some ways it's more like a postal system. Remember I said calls are replaced by packets? Well you can think of them like a postal packet or a letter. You decide you want to send a message to someone. You write what you want to say, in a language that your intended recipient will understand. Then you put your letter inside an envelope and write the address on it that you want to send it to. If you're worried it might not get delivered you might also write a return address on the back. When you're done you pop it in a post box and forget about it for a while. All being well you get a reply delivered a few days later. You might have a lengthy exchange consisting of several letters both ways.

Every time you send a letter or packet you dispatch it and hope/assume it reaches it's destination. You have no idea how it reaches it's destination but it usually does. Sometimes, however, it doesn't. There are two possibilities: it simply gets lost never to be seen again; or it gets returned to you with some explanation as to what went wrong. I'll cover a particular way in which things can go, which is required to understand traceroute.

The internet was designed to be robust and fault tolerant. One fault that can occur is when the routing stops working and sends packets round in a loop. this would cause the packet to continue hoping around, never reaching its destination but forever using resources such as bandwidth. This would not be good. So a feature was included to prevent this. Every packet has a number associated with it called its "Time To Live" or TTL. The TTL starts at say 100. Every time a packet passes through a router the TTL for that packet is decreased by 1. When it reaches zero the router gives up trying to get it to its destination. It then sends a special packet back to the return address that says "Your packet's TTL reached zero so I stopped trying to send it." This prevents your packet from going round in an endless loop.

Trace Route

I said earlier that you don't care how a packet gets delivered. Well sometimes it can be useful to track a packet on its way to it's destination. This might be to locate where a fault or bottleneck in the system is. It might also be to investigate potentially illegal practices of your ISP. :D This is quite a common requirement for some techy people so there are software tools to help. Normally they are called something like traceroute. Here is how traceroute works. It sends a series of packets to your chosen destination. However it does something a little unusual with them. The first packet it sends doesn't have a TTL of 100 to start. It has a TTL of 1! This means it will only go as far as the first router it encounters before being returned with an error. Sounds pretty pointless, but you can get two bits of information from that returned packet: which router it got to and how long it took for the packet to get there and back. The second packet that traceroute sends out has a TTL of 2, so it gets as far as the second router before being returned. The next has a TTL of 3 and so on. Eventually your packet reaches its intended destination and you get a normal every day response from it. At this point traceroute stops sending packets. It then prints a list of all of the routers that it found between you and your chosen destination, along with the trip times measured for each.

Problems With TraceRoute

1. Some packets might take a different route to the same destination. It's not possible to track a single packet from start to end using the traceroute method so this can cause errors in the results.

2. The packets that get sent by traceroute can't be blank. They must contain something. Usually they are what are known as ping packets. This are like writing "Are you there?" on a piece of paper and posting it. Normal you get the response "Yes, I'm here", unless the recipient is too rude to reply (quite common these days). For our purposes, we don't want to send a ping packet because it may be identified as such and routed past the phorm stuff without touching it. We want to send what looks like the start of a web page request. To do this we need to send a TCP packet to port 80. This can be done with new versions of traceroute, or a separate program called tcptraceroute.

Hope that helps :)

P.S. It might be interesting to compare a standard traceroute using ping packets with a tcptraceroute on port 80.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

great means slower web access more bandwidth used and all for what freaking adverts we all avoid.
we do not want your service of added value it is not from any ISP

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

That just about sums it up in a nutshell looking at BT tracerts at present seems BT customers are already getting a raw deal they are already batted from piller to post with IP's very close together and all in BT midband range also shoddy work none resolve to any n ames so can't say what they are but a waste of space...

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

I see we have about 57 guests. Welcome aboard and great to see you. Don't panic if it all looks rather technical. I don't understand this stuff either!

:welcome:

If some of you are here after hearing about Phorm/Webwise for the first time, and want to do a bit of reading on the subject, then there are some links here which will get you up to speed quite quickly.

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/34...post11849.html

Remember - don't just read- but join in, and make contact with your ISP, your MP, your MEP and all your friends who might be affected if the three current "interested" ISP's, BT, Virgin Media, and TalkTalk, decide to go ahead and implement Phorm/Webwise using DPI technology.

And if you are an MP, or an MEP, (or one of their Lordships - nearly forgot you, which would be very remiss - you've been working the hardest on this!) very pleased to have you aboard - if all you've read so far is the Phorm PR, then there's a lot to learn. Don't get DEphormed, but get INphormed, by the information we can give you.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Very helpful. Thanks. Can someone now explain what a proxy does please, and why they are used?

Btw someone on the BT Beta Webwise forum posted the following to The World at One, quoted here with permission. If more did the same, in the context of all the current publicity re ISPs and file-sharing it might help raise awareness of phorm/Webwise:

<B>Comments: Isn't it very hypocritical that whilst major ISPs are prepared to respect and protect the copyright of musicians and record companies, they are proposing to implement a scheme called Webwise devised by a company called Phorm, that has a history of peddling spyware, that will intercept the data that private individuals input in the course of their browsing, a sceme all dressed up to look like an anti-phishing package, but which will in reality engage in multiple browser redirects by stealth, and will compromise the copyright of material that belongs to millions of website owners?</B>

gnilddif

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

a proxy is a system somewhere that'll take your internet requests and issue them to the destination address as though it's thier own requests. They can be anonymous or not. The final destination therefor can only see very limited data about your system and even the IP they see will be the proxy's IP

Kymmy

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

A proxy handles a request on your behalf.

So your request for a page goes to the proxy. The proxy makes the request on your behalf, and returns the results to you.

Legitimate reasons why you might have a proxy, include security (the proxy is the exposed part of your network), or privacy (the proxy may filter out undesirable content, eg Privoxy), or speed (the proxy may cache content which is often requested).

In the case of a transparent proxy, the proxy is supposedly invisible to you. The proxy actively intercepts your network requests (you don't have the option of setting the proxy details in your browser for example) and applies security/filtering/caching measures.

Phorm used transparent proxies to capture and modify web traffic in their 2006/7 trials. In 2006 they inserted Javascript code into pages, in 2007 they captured pages for profiling.

In late 2006 I complained to Virgin that I had detected network performance characteristics which might suggest transparent proxying was going on (slow web page loading, nothing else affected). Other people complained of the same fault.

At the time Alex Brown explicitly denied that Telewest were using transparent proxies (I've still got a copy of his statements).

Virgin now claim they were using transparent proxies at that time, through til January 2007, but deny they were involved in Phorm trials.

Yet Roman Gaufmans CV mentions that he installed Phorm products in several ISPs.

So I have my own suspicions about what was going on. And it isn't the same as Virgin's, put it that way.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

..and that's what S Mainwaring experienced - but with sysip.net - bottom left of the browser window?
gnilddif

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

One of the reasons for my interest in doing traceroutes that look like http web page requests is that they might highlight a transparent proxy. Such a proxy might decrease the number of hops to a website, because you would actually only be communicating with the proxy so traceroute would never leave your ISP.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Thanks Kymmy and Dephormation for your explanations.
g

---------- Post added at 16:20 ---------- Previous post was at 16:13 ----------

Is there a program such as Wireshark that does all that tracert does, and records all the routing? I've been trying Wireshark, and recording the logs from time to time, but it doesn't seem to provide all the information that tracert or that more sophisticated version reveals.
gnilddif

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

One of the tests I coded up on Dephormation uses a deliberate delay to test the speed of a slow (3 sec) server response. If the response is returned in <3 secs you know that something en route has tried to bluff a reply.

Its a bit rough and ready at present. It depends heavily on client side code (which is always fraught with browser compatibility issues).

Try it without redirection.

Or the exact same test with a deliberate redirection.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Using the same analogies as my trace route explanation:

A proxy opens your letter, reads it, then rewrites it and puts it in a new envelope with the proxies return address. When a reply is sent, it gets sent to the proxy which again opens it, rewrites it and sends it in a new envelope to you.

A normal proxy only opens letters that are actually sent to its address. Similar to using care /off on a letter. It is also honest when it forwards replies to you, that they have come from it. A transparent proxy on the other hand opens letters regardless of where they are addressed to. It also pretends that the reply it is forwarding back to you came direct, when it didn't. The proxies used as part of phorm are even less truthfull than transparent proxies.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Has there been any trace of Webwise or Phorm in any of these traces?

If these redirections are just a "normal" part of internet usage and are not the result of any interfence from Phorm maybe it would help to make this thread a little more accessible if the trace results were only posted that are either known to be or are suspected of relating to Phorm.

It's getting increasingly difficult to find Phorm related material on this thread and general discussions about redirections really ought to be on another thread with just the relevent points being posted here.

If we are seen to be looking for Phorm connections that don't exist we will be accused of desperation - in fact we already have on a number of occasions - and we risk being painted as a bunch of over-zealous nerds if we aren't careful.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Dephormation,

I was aware of your speed trap test. It's certainly a useful weapon in our arsenal and quite a clever way of doing it. I think that the tcptraceroute is potentially a useful investigative tool too though. The "production" version of webwise may have changed significantly since the last trials. They might have got rid of the 307 redirects. (Although they might have added some more ;))

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

I think this remains a useful tool in the arsenal, if not foolproof, UW CSE and ICSI Web Integrity Checker http://vancouver.cs.washington.edu/

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Peter,

I think there are two prongs to the anti phorm campaign.

One is to inPhorm people (public, politicians and officials).

Another is technical. This includes verifying how the system works, gathering evidence and developing countermeasures. A lot of this is going to be hypothetical at the moment as webwise is not operating. We might as well be prepared though.

I'm going to risk upsetting some people here but please bear with me here. I don't think this thread is the best place to inPhorm people. Discuss methods of inPhorming poeple yes, actually do it no - this is not the best communication channel. Pointing people towards something more static like the inphormation desk is going to be much easier for them to digest.

The traces posted so far have not in my opinion suggested that phorm/webwise is present. (Not with any certainty anyway). However I've not seen anyone post a tcptraceroute result yet. That might show something else.

---------- Post added at 16:59 ---------- Previous post was at 16:54 ----------

Yup, useful to have, but not a silver bullet.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

I'm gonna step in at this point (probably making myself even more unpopular in the process ;) ) and say that I tend to agree. My suggestion would be that the whole technical discussion of tracerouting etc should be held in a different thread to avoid diluting this one and making it impossible to pick out the facts pertinent to the Phorm discussion.

If people then want to go away and spend the next 6 months tracerouting every connection that their systems make until they find something Phorm related then that's fine, and I'll look forward to hearing about it in this thread when there's something conclusive to hear :)

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

I understand that and I've posted the same message on several occasions.

My concern is that this area of the discussion is not Phorm related as much as a general analysis of the internet's workings.

It is not an attack on the technical side of the discussions and I don't want to get into an argument on that basis because no-one is trying to put anyone elses efforts down but I believe that all of the necessary information is now available for people to run these checks for themselves and they can post any Phorm related findings if and when they are discovered. Until then it really has wandered way off topic and into the realm of a geeky chat about redirection in general.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Tend to agree and the Mod gent is right. Absolutely valid to keep hunting the issues down and as soon as we find anything which could be DPI and Phorm related - well, that's what this thread is about.

Still waiting to hear from PC Plod about my request that they investigate the issue. It was sent recorded delivery and it has been received. I don't want to waste police time - they've got a lot on their plates I know but if there is a possibility that there is a case to answer by BT for their Phorm trials in 06 & 07... well they should look into it. Lord Spithead and the ICC who they pointed me in the direction of said so!

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

An investigation of the trials would put a lot of information into the public domain and I can imagine that BT will be desperate to avoid this.

I wouldn't be surprised if they suddenly agreed to police the internet themselves despite telling MP's that this was neither possible or legal in October 2007.

Wait a minute, what's that I see on the BBC news? BT has done just that. Well I'll be blowed.

I'll risk a court appearance by saying that I believe that this deal was reached on the understanding that this corrupt government will protect the equally corrupt ISPs from prosecution and will not oppose the use of Phorm type systems and that there are other deals involving directly spying for the government and security services.

I'll also lay money on a story coming to light very soon that BT weren't the only UK ISP to have run secret trials of DPI systems in the last couple of years.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Would the European Commission follow this up?

Dear x


Thank you for your correspondence regarding the use of Phorm's targeted online advertising product.

Please accept my apologies for the delay in replying to you, our office is currently dealing with large volumes of work. This has meant that we have been unable to deal with incoming correspondence as promptly as we would like.

I understand you have read our latest statement regarding Phorm on our website. As you are aware, this statement does not cover the 2006 and 2007 trials.

The Information Commissioner's Office considered complaints from individuals who were involved in the BT trials and concluded that a breach of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 was likely but that no further action was necessary in this instance to bring about compliance. This is primarily because the trials have already occurred, that future trials of the Webwise product should be transparent and in compliance with the regulations and that there is also no indication that BT are likely to undertake secret trials of this nature again.

We will however be contacting BT on a general level to ensure we understand the involvement of any IP addresses in the trials.

We are continuing to engage with Phorm and relevant ISPs in advance of any roll out of the technology to ISP customers to ensure that any public use of the product is transparent, and based on individuals understanding what they are agreeing to.

We will keep our website www.ico.gov.uk updated with any further statements about this issue.

I hope this information is helpful.


Yours sincerely


Case Officer
DP Case Reception Unit

---------- Post added at 18:27 ---------- Previous post was at 18:24 ----------

Lay money on it if you like, but the odds I would offer you are not that good. I think the chances are looking increasingly like you are right :)

Oh dear, is that the pooping of some pants in Westminster? All this stuff about data protection, leakings, thefts and loss of data...

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

with all the FOI's going around it's hard to keep track, but has anyone asked if the ICO/Home Office have been contacted by any ISP other than BT?

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

I read in that lots they said isp`s<< not singlar is it.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

How do I get membership of this club, where although I may be guilty of a few thousand breaches of PECR, and although I was doing it under cover, and although I lied about it, and misled customers, and although some of those customers suffered actual material harm, the ICO doesn't even issue a formal notice on the matter? So my "record of priors" remains clean? No enforcement notice on my sheet?

I suppose I need to make myself more valuable to HMG by offering to do something they need me for. Like trial some technology for them, that they might find very valuable in the future?

Actually, from my viewing of TV cop shows I've just tumbled to the exact scenario needed. Isn't that what happens to snitches in TV cop dramas? They provide the authoritiies with valuable information on what is going down on the street/internet and the police make sure they don't end up in chokey unless they do something really really stupid AND the public find out.

Any resemblance between this fictional TV scenario and internet reality is purely coincidental.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

If you don't use traceroute from time to time being a BT customer how will you tell which RAS your info is passing through I disagree if this is not monitored regularly how will BT customers know if there has been a redirection every other route of mine goes to Ealing RAS which has been used for Phorm trials in the past so presumably some stuff is still there.IMHO it is the alertness and knowledge of the techies that has so far prevented BT starting there long awaited trials,and it is from them we may learn.Remember this kit is already installed an we only have the word of some untrustworthy people that we will be informed of any implementation.to my mind this is far more relevant than share prices.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

I'm not afraid to come straight out and name Virgin Media.

Their statement on the subject states that...

It may be that, as part of the evaluation process, we want to test the technology among some of our customers but we are not currently doing so and we will not conduct any such tests without individual customers' prior consent. Moreover, should Virgin Media eventually decide to roll out Webwise, customers will not be forced to use the system.

...which carefully avoids stating that they hadn't previously run any trials and uses the phrase "not currently" to describe their involvment in the trial process. BT could make the same statement.

It may be time for VM customers to demand clarification in plain English rather than trusting their ISP. After all, those of us who are BT customers used to trust our ISP.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

What about FOI requests to ask if any other ISPs have been offered immunity from any action by the toothless ICO following a trial which they did not ask their customers about before they did it?

Names not actually required at this stage, we just want to know if they did it!

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

It's not a matter of not checking - it's about whether or not these checks need to be discussed on this thread unless and until something is discovered that relates to Phorm.

So far all this proves is that the internet is not a simple connection and that any redirection due to Webwise is no better or worse than "normal" internet use. Constantly posting proof that Phorm and BT are actually doing anything wrong at the moment is not my idea of a strong argument and risks giving Kent exactly what he wants.

It's about as useful in context as a long and winding discussion about internet advertising in general - an interesting topic that indirectly links to Phorm but not one for this thread unless it is a bit more specific.

This does not need to become and argument about which information is important ot more important than others. It's about whether anything in those traces is relevent or has any connection with Phorm, Webwise or OIX.

Please don't make this into a techy versus non-techy issue as that will only cause in-fighting.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Speaking as a BT customer (who has been harassing BT on this issue to the point of exhaustion!) - it is absolutely clear to me that VM and TalkTalk are hiding in BT's shadow, and playing a very convenient waiting game.

There is even an argument for saying that (once exposed) BT have at least been consistent - (perhaps because they unwisely signed the wrong sort of contract with Phorm, or perhaps because they have a different sort of relationship with HMG) - they did covert trials and they are planning Overt trials (once the retrophitting has been done and when the legal opinions sought, er .. obtained.. have indicated it is safe to go ahead without them getting banged up).

Whereas VM and TalkTalk have come to a smart but very quiet halt, done an about turn, then marched backwards at high speed till they reached cover amongst the long grass. Apart from the odd logo popping on or off the Phorm Webwise pages, and a few weasel words from execs behind sandbags, equipped with periscopes and press officers in full body armour - they have been remarkably free of embarrassment or scrutiny.

Maybe they are cleaner than clean. Maybe they are absolutely trustworthy. I hope so - we need trustworthy ISP's - wish I had one - but it's time to put up a few parachute flares, and aim the searchlights, and line up the artillery.

Range - HMG.
Altitude - Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR), ICO, Home Office
Munitions - the Signed for Delivery High Explosive FOI request
Target - VM and TalkTalk/CPW and any other ISP in range

So all you VM customers - FIRE!

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

I've had a recurring niggling feeling for some time that VM haven't told the truth, for some reason I seem to remember the sysip.net appearing at the bottom of my firefox window during last year. As I've always scanned for adware and malware it caught my attention.

Considering how quiet VM have been on the whole Phorm issue, and their other "ohh no we're not doing anything like that" claims about STM only to implement it soon after I'm beginning to think that the reason VM have stayed quiet is they're just as guilty as BT.

I may be wrong, but given VM's usual "honesty" on these sort of issues, makes me think that they have done a Phorm trial and used it on customers.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Anyone done a FOI request to ICO or the HO etc regarding Virgin and their involvement with Phorm?

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Almost as useless as hypothesising about what other ISP's may or may not have done at least it was a factual based discussion not a work of fiction.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

I've asked them in early May to explain who asked for the 'legal advice' that wasn't legal advice, and when.

So far, no answers, though I do know it was before August 16 2007.

Apparently I can't be told until August/September at the earliest. Which is around 6 months after an FoI request that should by law have been answered in 20 days. There's nothing to hide you understand, its all perfectly above board.

HO haven't revealed who else asked for advice, but I do know they were advising BT/Phorm throughout the period August 2007-February 2008. A period of critical/severe national security alert, when you might imagine people in the Office of Security and Counter Terrorism had more pressing things to consider than advertising for Weight Watchers and credit cards etc.

Supposedly, according to letters I've seen from BERR, advising business falls outside the Home Office remit in any case. They are supposed to handle warrants for surveillance by law enforcement bodies.

Pete

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

My post was not a work of fiction and it was not a "useless" post - it was a suggestion that we re-examine VM's role.

Virgin have a relationship with Phorm that has not yet been investigated and a number of other members have already posted in agreement - it's an area that is on-topic and needs to be looked at.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

The mods over on the BT forums, just posted outside their Webwise thread to ask when do we get answers.

Post lasted as long as 10 minutes before being erased :)

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

retrain the guns on VM and TalkTalk- the BT guys are all deep in their trenches, with field telphones disconnected.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

I was in the middle of replying to you on the mail Phorm thread and all of the last 45 minutes worth of posts have been deleted including all of yours and my replies.

Have you had your wrist slapped yet or are they going erase you completely?

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Agree, we have various complaints awaiting answer with BT, now during this quiet period we should start pushing Virgin Media and Talk Talk.

Also, I reckon we should stop referring to Virgin Media as VM and Talk Talk as TT as their full names should be out there linked with this.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

If there are any persons within the Virgin Media group who have any information on trials of Webwise within the Virgin Media Internet service and you are reading this thread now is the time to blow the whistle as was done with BT.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Having a quick glance over the Virgin world here: http://www.virgin.com/home.aspx

Thats a lot of data they can collect and share even before they plug in Phorm/Webwise.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

No, there wasn't anything to slap my wrists for. I've just been given a firm reminder that they want to keep everything in the Webwise thread because otherwise it is too 'confusing'.

I've replied asking for a Webwise thread group to be set up in that case.

Did I get a reply? I'll let you know if I ever do.

---------- Post added at 20:57 ---------- Previous post was at 20:56 ----------

Indeed.

It would be laughable if it wasn't so profoundly wrong in a completely utterly wrong kind of way of being wrong.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

They've got a damn cheek, that lot.

I got the call today inviting me to renew; I mentioned Phorm/Webwise and they claimed to know nothing about it. The guy even suggested I asked a question on the BT forum about it as he was sure they could help.

I hung up!

I posted on the forum about 5 minutes ago. I'm waiting on my warning now. :D

OB

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

What's peoples thoughts that on a specific day we all call BT pretending we want broadband but ask specifically about concerns over Phorm/Webwise. If the customer rep doesn't know anything about it, we inPhorm them. Then another day we do Virgin Media and another we do Talk Talk?

This would certainly raise discussion in the call centres.

And if these forums are watched as closely as we know they are, maybe the call centres will be briefed in advance.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

IMHO they are getting more tolerant on BT Beta (still beta ??)I did the same by starting other threads and questioning mod ethics had all my Emails ignored and got a lifetime ban Yeah dead right so much for transparency.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

You have to very careful with that sort of action. It could constitute a Denial of Service attack and apart from the possible criminal offence there is the risk of being branded as Cyber-Terrorists.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Smashing idea! In fact, we should organise I wider campaign and set a date for it. If we get a couple of dozen people doing this repeatedly and we take down the names of the people (just first names) of the people who have been InPhormed, then we know they're lying if they pretend to not have heard anything about it.

If they're not lying, then all the better.

Also, when I get back I would like to write up a two or three paragraph 'post' which I can use to spam the relevant newgroups and forums and talkboards about Phorm. I think we should always be thinking about raising the number of people who are aware of this scam.

We could title it something like: 'BT, Virgin Media, Talk Talk Customers beware! Your ISP wants to spy on you' or something like that.

We need something simple to understand - explaining the situation and how people can get more information. I can spend one day simply joining every forum I can find and post it in a relevant folder.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

As I briefly mentioned in post #12585 I suspect there is something a little fishy with Virgin Media's relationship with phorm/webwise and I think while we are waiting for BT news we could attempt to find out the bigger picture of what Virgin Media has also been up to via the FOI act.

Any idea's for good precise questions we should ask for a starter for 10?

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

I don't think a few extra calls is going to bother BT/Virgin Media/Talk talk. But if you think it's a bad idea to do it in one day, then we could spread it out. Like Phormwatch says, if we collect names, then we will know if the call centre staff are inphormed or instructed to claim ignorance.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Has anyone tried to visit www.webwise.co.uk ???

Seems the site is an educational one for languages

http://www.webwise.org.uk/

again for students

then there is

http://webwise.me.uk/

like this one he is already to stop phorm stealing his products

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

It's not about bothering them - my concern is handing them a golden opportunity to put themselves into the role of victim and us into the role of bullies. They aren't going to worry too much about the extent of any actual damage done if they use it for PR.

There's no harm in customers contacting ISPs but we must be seen to be beyond reproach or we lose. If BT had been up front about what they were doing, these discussions would have taken a very different direction and we don't want to fall into the same trap so we don't need to "pretend" anything.

Just ring around for quotes and ask straight-forward questions. There's nothing wrong with that as we are all just considering our choice of ISP like anyone else.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Well I didn't like the replies I was receiving from VM so I decided to vote with my money and took it off to another ISP. IMPO that is the only way to show them move from them to other ISPs that give you assurance they will not use phorm/webwise..

So far any ISP on Entanets network since Entanet are against phorm, Zen who have some LLU in Rochdale and own pipes again against Phorm...

When it comes to the line we pay thjem for a service if the service changes and we are unhappy with the change then we move.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

I don't really see how they could come across as the victim, firstly I can't see the number of calls being that big, secondly we will be asking legitimate questions. What would they say, "we are experiencing delays due a large number of calls about Phorm/Webwise"? This would only raise awareness amongst BT customers about Phorm/Webwise. If we drop the pretence bit and just ask legit questions then, surely thats what the call centre is there for.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

It became questionable as soon as the suggestion was made on a public forum that members of that forum should "pretend". As a suggestion that anyone who speaks to operators should swap note there is no problem.

You have to be very careful about what you post on a forum that we know is being watched and which is a matter of public record.

Stick to doing everything in an open, honest way and we keep the high ground.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Also I was wondering, why did Roman Gaufman(aka Hackeron) leave 121Media/Phorm?

He was(according to his CV) a key player in a company thats being touted as the future of on-line advertising.

From his web footprint, he appears very involved in the FOSS community. Maybe he had a conflict of ethics/opinion with Kent Ertugrul.

Why would someone leave a company in such a key role so early on, when surely it could have made them very rich? Could it be that he was made aware of the legality of what he was doing and jumped? Maybe he just wanted to be his own boss.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

In my (limited) experience standing at the entrance to their offices around the country and just giving the employees a flyer about it would be more effective. I've seen it done before and it works well. The corporation won't have any issues if it is done at the entrance (iedeally not actually on their land) but so long as done politely - no issues. And the flyer might get to more than one employee inside. It forces a corporate internal memo about the issue.

Oh - and of course this does not just inform the call centre front line team... it gets the message to everyone (granted some won't read it and some managers will read it later, maybe in a loo later, when no one sees them taking any interest)

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Unfortunately, the freedom of information act only applies to public bodies. Private companies are under no obligation to disclose anything they don't want to unless ordered to do so by a court or their particular industry regulator. Somehow, I don't think Virgin Media is going to volunteer any information to the public domain on the subject of it's involvement with Phorm...:erm:

---------- Post added at 23:12 ---------- Previous post was at 23:10 ----------

:clap:


{thinks: anyone reading this post might think I was Pro-Phorm. I'M NOT.}

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Agreed, I was just posting a quick idea off the top of my head, the "pretence" part was clearly stupid.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Are you saying that we cannot put FOI questions to the ICO or the HO and get them to release any relevant FOI documents that are related to Virgin Media seeking any advice or having any conversations with them via email or otherwise over the Phorm/Webwise issue??? That is what my original question was aimed at.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

You CAN ask, but they MIGHT (quite likely) decline to answer on the grounds of the commercial impact on the company concerned... So best to "start" with a less specific question perhaps.

Like: How many companies have requested advice... When was the advice requested and what date were answers provided? What advice was given? The answers you get tell a story and help you frame your next more detailed and carefully worded question to get the facts needed.

You also have to be careful that you don't ask too many questions or difficult to answer questions otherwise they can decline due to the cost of responding fully (which seems fair enough since I pay taxes!!)

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Not stupid - it's just my cynical mind that sees possible problems before they arise and like everything else on these forums it's about discussing ideas and refining them.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

That is why I initially asked for the advice regarding the precision of the questions that should be asked :)

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Has anyone just asked VM if they've conducted any trials or installed any equipment?

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Oh yes. Yes indeedy. And they deny everything.

Then they revealed that they had done a 'lab' trial. But they won't reveal what content was used to test that lab trial.

And the transparent proxies they were using up until 2007, or at least, the ones Alex Brown denied explicitly in 2006 but VM now admit were present, were nothing to do with Phorm. Supposedly.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Funny that.

Perhaps they didn't inphorm their staff cos it was a low level trial that only involved a few hundred thousand people.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

If i dont hear back in the next 20ish days im going to enquire about legal procedings i gave them long enough imo.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

I certainly won't be doing that for the next 6 months Rob ;-)
I'm just a techno-semi-illiterate and it seemed a good chance to briefly pick up on something that arose.
As a BT customer who has been lied to and whose PII has been compromised by BT inadequacies I am deeply suspicious of anything they say, and wish to forearm myself. I think questions on this forum about how to understand, recognise and interpret BT network traceroutes are very relevant.
gnilddif

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

I relied heavily on Robin Walkers web pages for quite some time pre 2006/7. As far as I was aware we did have transparent proxies. For a very long period of time my default proxy would not ever let me go to www.ebuyer.com without blank pages and very slow browsing. Every other website in the world worked fine as far as I was concerned. I could get around it by hard wiring another NTL proxy into my browser rather than my default. I reported it to NTL many times and spent many an hour trying to explain that their cache of ebuyer.com was corrupt to their support to no avail. (Their scripted replies at the time became very tedious!). Eventually I actually reported the problem directly (although sarcastically) to Ebuyer themselves and it got fixed about a month later. Co-incidence I wondered at the time?

With Phorm/WebWise in place a rogue operator could actually have the power of putting rivals off-line if they so desired.

Hence the great need for accountability.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

“We are not currently using behavioral targeting tools, either through NebuAd or with any other vendor."

That statement didn't come from Virgin Media although it is rather similar.

It actually came from an American ISP called Embarq on 26th June 2008. This company has now been given until Monday to explain to Congress why it conducted secret trials on it's customers using DPI.

Funny that.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

A Poster on the VM.Feedback NG, a few months ago, suggested that the 'Lab' Trial had taken place in 'Lab 3', and also suggested that 'Lab 3' is an area in the North of England - not a Business Premises, but a Residential Area full of paying customers!!! This has not yet been confirmed - so any ex Telewest/NTL/VM Employees wish to confirm/deny this?

Also, I experienced a considerable amount of difficulties with browsing during the end of last year, and the beginning of this year. This including webpages being stripped of all content over and above Plain text and Hyperlinks - whereas there were no issues with either the connection (visibly), browser or PC - and the issues stopped as suddenly as they started!!! Additionally the issues included a great deal of 'hanging' requiring an 'F5' or 'Ctl-R' Refresh/page reload - with a substantial amount of these leading to 404s. Oh and one more thing - particularly on Facebook and MySpace, I found alot of Visible JScript on User Profiles; this was in January/February this year - and I did not take Screen Prints as I thought this (as it may well have been) was an issue with the two named sites.

Then, I had noticed that the routing has clearly changed whilst browsing, ie most of my traffic would be routed quickly to the net, however there are additional hops; and my traffic now mostly goes through English VM Exchanges opposed to the most direct route (I live in Scotland)!! Of course this may be due to consolidation within the Network, however the questions I asked of VM have not been, or attempted to be, answered.

Of course this all may be the result of innocent actions within the VM Network, but then I ask why the secrecy?

---------- Post added at 07:04 ---------- Previous post was at 06:44 ----------

FOI maybe - but for Customers of VM who feel there may have been issues, and wish for the details, they have every right to access every piece of information pertaining to their account, via the DPA.

American data pimper exposes ad equation
 

From EL Reg

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07...s_nebuad_test/#


This was because they just made a change to the 5000 word T&C's so only 15
people spotted it.

This was the model phorm was based on , now its opt-in they will be stuffed.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

I have this posted on another forums and decided to share it with you guys I might even try sharing it with BT beta forums not sure how it will be taken since the recording of their indian tech support lasted 20 mins :D..

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
 

Just noticed on LSE £600,000 of Phorm stock changed hands late last night.
The new owner has since lost £60,000 on paper in less than 24 hrs.