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

As a reminder I have asked Neil Berkett to give me his written assurance that Virgin Media have never tested Phorm or other similar technologies on their network. The letter is sent by recorded delivery and will arrive on Monday morning.

The moment I get a reply it will be posted here.

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

Thank you. I hope you get a reply. :tu:

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

Yeah, but he's one of the guys who denied that STM was being trialled just weeks before it was brought in...

Either he's a liar (an allegation that got TruxData temporarily disconnected) or he hasn't been kept informed of developments in the past.

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

Sorry, need the mods to help with that. I remember reading moans on this forum from all over the Country and I was perversely happy that it wasn't just me. December 2007 trials look more and more probable. I smell a rat.

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

I get more and more worried everyday that VirginMedia HAVE been doing things behind the scenes with this Phorm spyware and are now at the point were they know they will be up to the necks in it if they are found out.

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

You never know, maybe Alex has been offered a redundancy package too?

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

Well DfBERR seems to be where many MP's are raising our concerns. I know mine (Labour) has written to them, so I think I know what sort of answer will eventually come back. The ICO has issued quite a few statements since 3/3.

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

Can I suggest that everyone who has evidence (or stories of dodgy connections) regarding VM trials contact Chris Williams at The Register. If anything did happen (which it is becoming clearer that it did) he might be in a strong position to get a confirmation from VM and then of course publicise the issue with an article on The Register.

It is of course a very serious issue not just because they didn't obtain consent but because they have lied repeatedly with regards to customer enquiries on the matter.

Alexander Hanff

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

And should we need to know more about those discussions, there's always the Freedom of Information Act 2000. ;)

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

OK I received an email back from Nicholas Bohm regarding my legal analysis of the 2006/2007 covert trials. I am deeply appreciative that he took the time and effort to read it and provide some very constructive and positive feedback which should improve the paper. I won't post the entire email but I will now quote a couple of points he made which are relevant to the debate:

I found this particularly useful because they are points he never addressed in his own analysis so it clears up some of the differences between the two documents.

This is an important point although not directly related to the 2006/2007 covert trials, because it qualifies my concerns regarding putting users at risk of being complicit, despite it being unlikely that a user would be prosecuted.

Alexander Hanff

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

Don Foster got the same reply in the commons.

"Malcolm Wicks: The Office of the Information Commissioner made a statement on 3 March 2008 that it was in discussion with one company about the nature of its service and the way it uses information about ISP customers. My Department will consider the continued relevance of the current safeguards and legislation in the light of the outcome of those discussions. I have had no discussions with BT on this matter."

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

There are a number of BT customers with clear records and evidence relating to 2007 trials, and they were seeing dns.sysip.net in their browser status bars. Stephen Mainwaring is the one who has hit the national media. We have some info in our internal support ng archives so let me know if you want it.

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

Well we all know the one company that will be I wonder if they will be going round in the same circles we are. They never give out more than they want and never answer questions with coprrect replies. More like a stuck recording of a special sales promotion.

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

Re possible Virgin (or TW/NTL) trials.

I recall reading recently that some forum users were seeing weird code appearing in replies, when quoting in replies to posts circa 2006/2007. This was suspected to be some kind of javascript injection (I'm not sure of the exact wording) and Phorm, or their earlier incarnation, were in the frame for this.

I'm not sure how true the above is, but I certainly saw weird code appearing in quoted forum replies by myself and others.

Ex Telewest area.

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

I know this is terribly off-topic but I don't know where else to ask. Since all this began I've become more aware of cookies and blocked nearly everything. However, there is one persistent one that is simply the number "3". No .com, .net, or anything. Each time I go to exceptions in FF2 it tells me it's "allowed". If I "block" it, close the exceptions page and then instantly re-open it again it's reset itself to "allow". I've just been watching "Dr Who" so I don't need this. Any explanations gratefully accepted.

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

Sammy over on badphorm.co.uk has been trying to link those corrupted posts to VM... if you've got evidence that a post you've made over a telewest connection has been corrupted, I'm sure Sammy would be keen to know about it.
I'd be keen too, can you send me a personal message... let me know where I can see your posts, where you are, what you did to report it to virgin etc?

---------- Post added at 19:37 ---------- Previous post was at 19:33 ----------

Yes, I think you should.
Will the Police investigate? If my experience is anything to go by, they won't.
But the more people who walk into Police stations and report this, the more it will increase the pressure on the Police to act.
So DO report it, but don't be suprised by their reluctance either. Someone senior seems to be trying to prevent this being investigated by the Police.
Pete

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

Sadly I didn't really think anything of it at the time, and just edited my posts to remove the strangeness. I will still do a search for my posts though, as others may not have edited their's (and I do recall some comments about the weird code which might still be available to read.

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

Has anyone looked at http://vancouver.cs.washington.edu/ ?

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

Unusual... BT could learn from them! (Say the same thing each time asked... instead of changing the story)

(But might be nice if they did change it and let us know what is really going on...)

Hank

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

You can see an example of this here http://www.bikegirl.co.uk/forum/foru...?TID=2418&PN=1
scroll down to the post by dayglo jim, and this bit of text
< =text/>var PSpc="I.287303.1",PSsize="none"; I'll maybe give it a go. Can't find the footpegs/hangers and service manual but got seals, bearings, bushes (saves a back order from Japan) < src="http://ntp.sysip.net/tag/2.js" =text/>

But remember that Phorm/Webwise "do not inject javascript" (although their technology has patented how to do it.)

When I asked BT about injected javascript in forum posts, their reply was

"Javascript tags will not be inserted as part of the forthcoming Webwise trial." which neatly avoids the issue of whether they did it in the past.

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

A bit like the Prices & Markings/Trade Descriptions Acts. If a shop displays a price which is HIGHER than the price they accept in tender for the goods, it is in law an infringement of the law, just as if they displayed a lower price and charged more. Which local authority would take them to task for that? None - it'd be crazy. The principle is there, it's wrong, but not really going to be punished - as in your point Alexander.

Hank

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

Cabinet Office?

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

They do apply to web sites to though most get around it if third party tools like screen magnifiers or readers work with it to enable those with a disability to use the site

see http://www.smallbusinesssuccess.biz/...bility_act.htm

not sure whether the phorm site does or not as i havnt visited it yet ;)

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

Please can someone post a link to the new questions asked by the Earl of Northesk? Esp. HL3267

Can't find it listed anywhere.

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

They know. I wrote about Phorm’s logo, on BadPhorm. I’m not sure if phorm design mind all of us asking them, “do you know that your logo looks like…?â€ÂÂ� It’s certainly raised their profile though.

At that time, I thought they were both using variations of the Horatio typeface. That’s a fairly common font; it was a standard for Letraset’s dry-transfer letters. Having taken a longer look, I realise that both of them are significantly different to Horatio. The relative letter widths differ noticeably and Horatio has much longer ascenders and descenders. phorm design’s logo seems to have been inspired by Bloomindales’ in-house font, with its particularly wide ‘m’. Phorm’s logo is vaguely similar to Bayer Sans, with the narrow ‘r’ variant. But, once again, the letter widths don’t match. The ‘p’ is unnaturally narrow compared to the following ‘h’ and ‘o’. Because of this, I don’t think it’s any standard typeface. As soon as you get a word with ‘po’ in it, it’s going to look odd. But, I’d be grateful if any one can tell me otherwise.

However it came about, Phorm’s logo looks like an adaptation of phorm design’s. The major difference being the narrower first and last letters and the idea of taking a chunk out of the ‘m’, originally to accommodate the ‘©’, copied to more places.

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised at any copying. When Phorm first made an appearance, it seemed like a shocking and completely new concept. It turns out that Phorm are just one of a number of companies who have been planning their onslaught of very similar technologies, for the past couple of years. Following a New Jersey court ruling that IP addresses constitute personal information, NebuAd may find it necessary to copy Phorm’s cookie trick.

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

http://www.publications.parliament.u..._2140_wad.html may list the question in a few days time? Last date is 21 April
http://www.publications.parliament.u...08042112001130

Info here about HL3267 (obtained by a site search on Phorm
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/cgi-bin/search.pl - enter "Phorm"
then second link)
http://www.publications.parliament.u...d/ldcumlst.htm - in Cumulative list of unanswered Questions for Written Answer
then page search for Northesk - two hits

Earl of Northesk to ask Her Majesty’s Government which law enforcement agency, Department or other statutory body has responsibility for investigating and prosecuting possible criminal breaches of (a) the Data Protection Act 1998, (b) the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, and (c) the Computer Misuse Act 1990. [CO] HL3267

Earl of Northesk to ask Her Majesty’s Government whether any official or Minister in the Home Office has offered written or oral advice to any executive of the company Phorm as to the legality of their targeted advertising software product; if so, what was the advice; in what circumstances was it given; and what was the justification for giving it. [HO] HL3268

There's another link on the search age about a further question in Publications, but when clicked it doesn't reveal any of the searched text
http://www.publications.parliament.u...d/ldordpap.htm
nor does the google cached version.

That's the best I can do! HTH

He's doing the stuff!

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

There's an interesting new post on www.iii.co.uk from a poster called "Professional Party" that claims to "have had some involvement with BT regarding the Phorm business model."

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

Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.

As for how could BT do this legally, it is simple (with regards to out going communications) and his comment that there is no current technology to do this is completely wrong. If it was an option assigned at the auth level all users who have a Phorm flag on their ISP account could be assigned to a specific IP block which in turn can be custom routed to go through the Phorm kit. This is not difficult and can be done without BT needing to bring in any extra equipment, it is merely a case of configuration of existing network management tools.

This method would of course resolve all issues on the "way out" of BTs network, but would not resolve issues relating to RIPA, PECR, CMA, TG, CDP and FA with regards to the interception/copying/alteration/masquerading aspects of the technology with regards to data coming into the network from an external web site which has explicitly denied consent or indeed not opted-in (as defined by the law).

Of course the flaw in this technique is that it would pretty much decimate Phorm's revenue forecasts as very few people are likely to "Opt In" if they are given all the details of the surrounding issues (such as why they have to give informed consent in the first place and which rights they are giving up by doing so).

Alexander Hanff

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

It's a strange place for a 'network designer' to post.

Could anyone with posting rights there ask him to come over to CF for a discussion?

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

yes, and i hope he is not designing my network. As alexander said it could be done at the auth level by IP address. I dont know how it works exactly but maybe it could also be done at the DSLAM to send opt-in users down a different virtual channel.

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

As far as I am aware the BT DSLAMs (or rather the software controlling them) can't currently do this which is why many BT Wholesale ISPs can't effectively load balance their pipes. Entanet have discussed the problems with BT's load balancing at length on the thinkbroadband forums but we are probably talking 16 months or so ago now so it might be hard to find the discussions. I could email Enta directly next week if people want but I don't really think there is a need given that IP address based routing would seem to be the most obvious and probably most efficient method of routing opted in people through Phorm's kit.

Alexander Hanff

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

No need for load balancing - the pipe would only need to be extremely small to cater for the opt-ins :D

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

Oh I wasn't referring to that, more the point that BT's current kit is not very good at custom routing as demonstrated by the load balancing problems faced by BT Wholesale ISPs.

I expect a single ISDN channel would be big enough for all opted in customers ;) (and let's face it BT have plenty of them spare...oooo low blow!)

Alexander Hanff

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

I had an email today from E-Contact Team Telewest Broadband (I'm in the VM Ex NTL Manchester cable area)

It said the normal "We will soon be working with a company, Phorm, to provide some new online protection and enhancement features for our broadband customers."
It seems that VM have a few inconsistencies on the Phorm issue. Anyhow I have a direct telephone number to someone in the Dept. now so I will be asking some more questions on Monday.

Incidentally, I am fairly certain I had traces of sysip.net a long time ago in an ethereal trace I was doing to try discover why my line speed was so slow. The trace is gone and I cannot really date it accurately now. At a guess I would say late 2006 but I could wrong.

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

:welcome: warescouse

I don't suppose you could post an (anonymous) copy of the e-mail?

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

What the h3ll.
If Phorm are monkeying around with client side cookie values set by applications... then if client side code uses those cookies to manipulate values such as counters or names or shopping baskets... The client side cookies are randomly going to be prefixed by 16 bytes of random guff that Phorm insert.
Think how that would look if you set a cookie with the user's name for example. Pull the value back in Javascript and display it... yet you find the name presented is "Hello webwiseuidsf4g2+/gdsHE32q5||Pete. Welcome back to this site".
If that's what Phorm/BT are intending to do, they will embarrass and shame themselves even more than they have done already. If that's truly what they are planning its simply madness.
That piece of text either cannot be right, or reflects very poorly on the competence of the technologists behind this.

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

It would be difficult to post anonymously as it contains specific references to myself and the author within the content which makes it easily identifiable. Anyhow it contained the normal Phorm website copied spiel that I have seen on many other forums including this one. But it also did definitely state "The scheme will be an 'opt in' rather than opt out" which seemed a little more specific than the "we haven't decided yet" replies.

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

Dear f4g2+/gdsHE32q5

I reckon quite a few people are slowly starting to think that phorm/webwise and their 3 stooges might not have thought this through.;)

The recent financial paper suggests that phorm have been working on this system for seven years, which according to phorm, is the early years of the internet. Almost as far back as RIPA.

It could be that they are just tweeking the system for the upcoming BT trials but I don't think so. Lots of tweeking needed if a product has been designed wrongly over seven years. They may decide to delay things and it might be that they have finally twigged that there are 10,000 + sticks waiting to beat them. The numbers will only grow, exponentially.

Ho-hum, at least he got the money from the shareholders.

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

If Phorm are prefixing a client side cookie with their Webwise UID, many cookies contain the client's IP address (e.g. vodafone). Surely this means that the user is no longer anonymous as the UID and IP are then linked, or have I missed something?

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

Well this is where the Layer 7 technology comes into play, it strips the webwise part of the cookie out before the user is connected with the requested web site.

But as has been mentioned several times, it is very easy to circumvent this simply by using https to parse the cookie and get the Phorm UID, since the DPI kit ignores https the UID doesn't get stripped from SSL based communications.

Oh and :welcome:

Alexander Hanff

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

Has anyone else noticed that there's something on page 326 of this thread that tries to connect to www.phorm.com ?
When I load that particular page of this discussion my router blocks and logs mutliple attempts to connect to "spycentral". I'm not clicking on any of the links on that page (I know that there are several links to www.phorm.com listed there).
Maybe that Sheffield company graphic (the red Phorm logo) is the culprit?...

Doh! Just seen the placeholder for, presumably, the graphic of Phorm (Kent's) company below the link to his company - that'll be the reason.... all this stuff is starting to make me paranoid :erm:
At least it seems my router block is working properly (I'll know for certain when they start the trial - apparently, I'm likely to suffer total loss of surfing unless I unblock it... now that'll be an interesting call to customer services....)

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

I think it's the picture of the (Spyware) Phorm logo in post 4876, as it links direct to the Phorm site, we had a similar problem before when there was a pic from the webwise site.

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

Hi all,

I'd like to post a link to this thread over on digital spy to raise awareness of the possiblilty of VM doing Phorm trials.
I started a thread over there on this subject after reading the Charles Stanley document.

I hope that is OK.

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

I think we need to be realistic about the issue of VM trials and the contents of the Charles Stanley paper.

We know the paper is innacurate in places, so any quotes in it are not exactly 'evidence' for anything.

There is no 'smoking' gun for VM trials either. For example, our friend in Weston-Super-Mare in this thread :-

http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/showflat...fpart=all&vc=1

All nicely detailed and timestamped. But nothing like it can be found for VM.

Do I think VM have run trials? Yes.
Is there any evidence yet? No.

People who 'know' about trials in Scotland or for other ex NTL users; post some verifiable evidence please.

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

Can't see why not although it's for a mod to call. We can have our own little network of keeping an eye open for Phorm trials.

We can't Mark (yet). But something went on in late December 2007 and I'm pretty sure it will be confirmed by VM themselves at some stage. They trialled the system and it did not work imho.

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

Neil Berkett made some interesting comments

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/digitalt...eutrality.html
"
Virgin CEO wants to "engage" on neutrality

Thursday, April 24 2008, 12:51 BST
By Dave West, Media Correspondent

Cable providers must engage with issues such as net neutrality, privacy, copyright and child protection, Neil Berkett told an industry conference yesterday.

...
"In the UK, attitudes towards service providers are at something of a crossroads," he said. "If we can simultaneously demonstrate we're engaging with these complex issues and capture the excitement and opportunity of our services, we could emerge as the enablers of choice in an industry that is sometimes regarded as a bit sterile and remote.

"Or we could go the way of the utility companies or the financial services industry and become resented by consumers and seen as little more than a necessary evil."
....

"Vivienne Redding, the European Commissioner for Information, also contributed to the neutrality debate on Tuesday. She said traffic prioritisation practices were acceptable -..."
"

---------- Post added at 14:21 ---------- Previous post was at 12:41 ----------

interesting SSL thoughts here as regards the ISPS and Phorm, and the wireshark page linked is interesting.

imagine the extra speed the ISP/Phorm get by using the dedicated hardware instead of mear software.....

http://www.links.org/?p=321
"
Can Phorm Intercept SSL?

Someone asked me to comment on a thread over at BadPhorm on SSL interception.
In short, the question is: can someone in Phorm’s position decrypt SSL somehow? The fear is driven by the existence of appliances that do just this. But these appliances need to do one of two special things to work.

"
...

"
Could Phorm do this? Well, they could try to persuade anyone stupid enough to install a CA certificate of theirs in their browser, and then yes, indeed, this trick would work for them. More of the story: don’t install such certificates. Note that last time I looked if you wanted to register to do online returns for VAT you had to install one of these things. Oops!

Or, they could get certified as a CA and get automatically installed in everyone’s browser. I’m pretty sure, however, that such a use of a CA key would find them in breach of the conditions attached to their certification.

So, in short, Phorm can only do this to people who don’t understand what’s going on - i.e. 99% of Internet users. But not me."
...
"By the way, if you want to see this one in action, then you can: the excellent network sniffer, Wireshark, can do it. Full instructions can be found here. No need to buy an expensive appliance."

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

Well I was on Aquiss whiel family were still on Cable since the service isn't due to be switched off until 5th May but last nigth I took the decission to remove the cable equipment and only use Aquiss. Will parcel up their modem and post it back next week so they will have it before they switch it off..

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

But Neil, you aren't engaging with your customers. A letter or a couple of phone calls to the hangar doesn't amount to much in VM's abysmal dealing with this issue. You had the chance to properly issue a public statement and blew it. You had an opportunity to put the BBC right about what looked like wrong reporting. You didn't take it and now questions must be asked about the veracity of the statement that "customers will not be forced to use the [Phorm] system".

You may be excited about the possibility of making money via schemes like Phorm but you've proven nothing to the intelligent and informed customers that VM has. There's no excitement to me as a customer about adverts being fired at me. I don't want adverts, I block virtually every advert provider I become aware of.

Now VM is as resented as much as Phorm and BT are. VM's reputation is headed on a downward spiral and you've got one hell of a job on your hands to stop it from dropping any further.

You want VM to be seen as an "enabler of choice". Maybe we should have a little meeting Neil, because I've worked for a company which claimed it wanted to be an "employer of choice". Then it read what I thought an employer of choice was (I loathe spin and soundbites so had to respond in kind) and dropped the claim as soon as it was convenient to do so.

Here are a few things I expect from an enabler of choice:

An enabler of choice respects the law of the land
An enabler of choice knows that its reputation is affected by those with whom it associates and actively rejects those who are not honest, open and transparent
An enabler of choice respects my online privacy
An enabler of choice respects my decision to block adverts
An enabler of choice respects my decision to not use its proprietary software
An enabler of choice respects the concept of proper informed consent
An enabler of choice is open and honest about its Ts & Cs
An enabler of choice is open and honest about what it has been testing and what it will be testing, ESPECIALLY when it risks affecting my "internet experience"
An enabler of choice doesn't halve my bandwidth half way through my downloading the new version of my OS
An enabler of choice has competent technicians on its helpdesk who don't panic and leave me on hold the moment I mention I run Linux

Get the message Neil?

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

registered post remember Florence, you would'nt want them billing you for a non returned item without proof you sent it back...they do like Phantom billing after all.

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

I totally agree with you. Virgin Media are going to one hell of an outrage to deal with if they go ahead with this. Most people, myself included, are more or less watching to see if VM back out of this, or the inevitable injunction or court case arrives before VM's implementation.

I am not too happy now but I certainly will be voting with my feet from Day 1 of VM Phorm.

The change of conditions will be my easy all services contract get out.

I will live with JAP and Hushmail until my ADSL comes online and my VM services vanishes.

VM can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. Its no good having Phorm if you have no customers. These ISP owners who think they can hoodwink their customers must totally be out of touch with reality. Once they lose trust no amount of spin will get it back. It's gone for ever!:mad:

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

I just came back to read the thread for the first time since friday evening and have posted to iii suggesting they come over here to post.

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

the comments in this story are informative and one person compares the Phorm/Advertsing companies to a ...
well ill let you read and comment on it there, as i dont think its good to bring such things into this longest informative thread...

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/0...ref=technology

heres the 3 main US news stories ragarding the FBIs interception plans.... something to consider for the longer term, given the UK always wants to follow the US in many things.


9.
April 25th,
2008
11:41 pm
The response from the ‘Paranoia Choir’ comes in the form of:
http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-992...=TheIconoclast
"...
These are remarkable statements. The clearest reading of them points to deep packet inspection of network traffic--akin to the measures Comcast took against BitTorrent and to what Phorm in the United Kingdom has done, in terms of advertising--plus additional processing to detect and thwart any "illegal activity." (See the complete transcript here.)

"That's very troubling," said Greg Nojeim, director of the project on freedom, security, and technology at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "It could be an effort to achieve, through unknowing consent, permission to monitor communications in a way that would otherwise be prohibited by law."

Unfortunately, neither Issa nor Mueller recognized that such a plan is probably illegal. California law, for instance, says anyone who "intentionally and without the consent of all parties to a confidential communication" conducts electronic surveillance shall be imprisoned for one year. (I say "probably illegal" because their exchange didn't offer much in the way of details.)

"I think there's a substantial problem with what Mueller's proposing," said Al Gidari, a partner at the Perkins Coie law firm who represents telecommunications providers.

"He forgets the states have the power to pass more restrictive rules, and 12 of them have.

He also forgets that we live in a global world, and the rest of the world doesn't quite see eye to eye on this issue. That consent would be of dubious validity in Europe, for instance, where many of our customers reside."

..."
http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-992...=TheIconoclast
http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-992...=TheIconoclast
I’m sure these will provide the discerning reader with more than just a bit of ‘discordant harmonies’.
— Posted by J. M. Schneider, Chicago, IL

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

Someone has quoted your post over on the VM Newsgroups and Alex Brown has responded:-

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

Gosh - you mean your VM executives actually post on the VM newsgroups? We'd all have coronaries if a BT executive or even engineer posted on our support newsgroups. Support staff and customers only.

Mind you this Phorm/Webwise crisis has got the executives out of their offices engaging a bit more with customers - I've never seen this level of activity before, in terms of answering questions asked by mere mortals called paying customers. They must be really rattled.

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

Inform him i have already replied in a webmail to them the call details should be on my customer account if he wishes to get in touch with me or has contact details no problem.

I assure you guys why would i be lying to anyone im not phorm or anyone with something to hide, my wife was in the room with me when vm phoned.

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

Alex Brown and team has been asked to come over here before or as his boss Neil Berkett puts it....

Neil Berkett said:"In the UK, attitudes towards service providers are at something of a crossroads,"

he said. "If we can simultaneously demonstrate we're engaging with these complex issues and capture the excitement and opportunity of our services, we could emerge as the enablers of choice in an industry that is sometimes regarded as a bit sterile and remote."

currently and in this special case it appears he's just taking the "sterile and remote." stance, why is that Alex?, cant you find a few minutes to come here and Engage with your paying customers here in this CF forum.

an antiquated VM controlled usenet feed is all well and good, but most people prefer the easy and moden indipendant web based messageboard Forum that's easy to use, contribute to and index for reference, get with it Alex Brown, and come post your thoughts here directly if you dare!

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

Perhaps they are getting out of their offices while they can. Some of them may only be allowed half an hour exercise per day in the near future.;)

---------- Post added at 15:50 ---------- Previous post was at 15:42 ----------

Alex @ VM :erm:

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

Is Alex @ vm related to Alex @ phorm? :confused:

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

yeah... you can understand Alex Brown and team not wanting to post officially here though, they might not want their future InPhormed posts to be intercepted and used for profit, you cant blame them can you ;)

after all they know how such http based thorums can be intercepted being so close to the tech themselves...

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

Steady on guys, let's not get adversarial with our ISP at least until we know whether they intend to honour the privacy of their customers and not deploy the Phorm technology.

They may yet do the decent thing and show that their customers are important to them. Subscribers are the core business after all; a good way to engage them would be to support their point of view in relation to intrusion.

No need to throw down the gauntlet in this crusade. Not yet anyway.

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

In defense of Alex Brown if you look back thru the VM and BY newsgroups he has consistently been evenhanded and professional in his posts, especially given the difficult position he finds himself in, and the often 'colourful' way some VM customers choose to express themselves. He has also spoken of his own acquaintance with Phorm in the VM labs and personal conviction that no trials have been done on live accounts. Of course he may well be getting the mushroom treatment from VM senior management but it would not be up to him to decide whether to deploy phorm nor should he have to justify its deployment should that be what VM management choose to do.

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

Of course, if Virgin Media had actually made a public statement about Phorm rather than hoped their statement to customers would get cascaded out via forums such as CF, any VM manager sticking his head above the parapet might be looking at less of a questioning response than they are currently.

That's not Alex's fault but surely he is in a position to at least press for a public statement as he's on a front line and copping some flak. Surely he realises that as Phorm have so completely failed the HOT test (that's Honesty, Openness and Transparency), VM's association with Phorm will colour customers' perception of VM.

Straight questions, honest answers and a properly issued public statement would help a lot here.

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

Got a reply from Which?

They agree it's a 'deeply worrying development' and think its likely they'll report on the issue again and they appreciated the info on this forum thread.

Let's hope they can look at it soon :)

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

The longer VM dither on Phorm the worse their PR will get and if the announce they will roll it out it will get a hell of a lot worse. While I am certain Phorms product is illegal all the many ways Nicholas Bohm's recent letter to the home office suggests http://www.fipr.org/080423holetter.pdf there are other reasons people don't want Phorm.

One is mistrust. Mistrust in an organisation whose roots (and kits) lies in adware products involving 121 Media otherwise now known as Phorm. For years ISP's have been plagued by customers complaining about broadband problems which turn out to be not the fault of their ISP but the customer themselves having spyware, Trojans and the like. Customers then find out that the organisation behind this webwise proposed interception and profiling is a company that was possibly the reason behind a percentage of these help calls to the ISP's. It seems beyond belief that an ISP would not distance themselves from a company with this history for obvious reasons. Where is your self respect? I could go on...

Secondly, in my opinion Phorm have not been up front in some of their actions. It seems to me that they had a huge PR machine in place to regurgitate advertised blurb to people who had legitimate concerns. They seem not to directly answer questions which could put to bed certain worries and they have a politicians stance when answering difficult questions and don't answer the question (Questions are only difficult when they don't have an answer or the answer is not what they wish to say).

Thirdly, Phorm have had a long time to think about this product and we the general public have only had about ten weeks to scrape what knowledge we have so far. As new ideas are realised about the affects of Phorm directly and indirectly it becomes more and more worrying in its implications. I feel it would be wise for ISP's to ask Phorm, where is that UK legal advice Phorm claims it has (no longer the Home Office) and do what good academics should do when learning. Debate, look at all legal arguments and also consider the affect on the direct paying consumer of your services - your billing customers. You may have 95% of your customers of Day 1 VM Phorm, but you will probably lose many more over time as the Phorm business model is educated to your paying customers and they react. Customers will not trust or forgive you if you try to put this in under the horizon and they will never trust you if they are not happy when they discover the technical shenanigans that go on to make this work.

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

Yeah well strangely enough telling your senior management that they are behaving like a bunch of morons is generally not a great career move, whether it is true or not...:angel:

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

Yes but what you need to understand is that this is a new improvement in standards of moronicy. Google and Yahoos moronicism is so last century. Its old-school. Phorm takes moronicism and stupidity to the next level. They are proud of this new standard and can't understand why people are fighting it.

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

As the technical architect I would expect him to have overall responsibility for the technical due diligence on Phorm... he is responsible for approving the shambolic technology that is Webwise.

For VM to publish statements announcing that they plan to deploy Phorm, you'd assume the technical (and commercial/legal due diligence) had been 'signed off'.

And further, Nov 2006 Alex explicitly denied that transparent proxying was operating on the BY network (I have his post for reference).

When I query their relationship with Phorm in 2008 Virgin Media tell me that the problems I reported were due to a transparent proxy which was removed in 2007 (conincident with the BT trials). But see above, that proxy didn't exist, or did it?

If it does turn out that VM were trialling Phorm, it will be very hard to reconcile the statements Alex has made.

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

There are ways of phrasing statements about customers' perceptions without telling executives directly they are behaving like morons. All he would be doing is communicating the perception of customers that has been communicated to him and that is (so we are led to believe) something very important to VM.

Professionally I wouldn't call the CEO of an organisation a moron straight out. I would and have politely yet assertively challenged their views or behaviours on certain topics and got a very positive response having done so. It's all about the message and how you get it across.

VM's handling of the Phorm issue has been very disappointing in the way they have done very little to explain to their customers where things stand. How they have fallen for Phorm's moronica is equally as disappointing.

---------- Post added at 19:50 ---------- Previous post was at 19:33 ----------

Ah, yes.... that lovely phrase "due diligence".

Why is it that despite supposed "due diligence" being undertaken, completed and signed off, organisations fail to spot what are in my view quite obvious issues?

I have personal experiences (yes, more than one) of this and the question "Who was the eunuch who signed off the due diligence?" is one I have asked on numerous occasions (OK, this doesn't quite fit in with my previous point but as the poor sod who's had to implement fixes because someone didn't do their job properly vis a vis due diligence, and the server room being a confidential sanctuary, such exclamations are born of frustration and generally justified).

Therefore the questions should be who was responsible for the relevant due diligence works? Because someone somewhere missed a whole lot of stuff.

Again it's basic management but you don't announce something this major unless you are extremely confident in all areas of the intended deployment. Please don't tell me VM trusted Phorm's so called legal advice - which we still have not had published so we can verify its status - that would be so unbelievably poor words fail me.

If I went to the board of the company I work for and said "You know the deployment we announced and have been counting down to... well we've hit a rather large problem. It's almost certainly illegal..." this Captain would get his backside fired so hard you'd see him shooting towards the sky.

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

Presently looking at leaving VM. Phoned up VM and asked about Phom and was told that it had already been implmented.

Might explain a few things I have noticed recently.

Another weird thing is that my broadband speed has dropped by around 70% ever since I started getting the

Waiting for trafficserver appearing at bottom of page when waiting for a normall quick to respond web page to load.

So not only are they monitoring my web usage but by doing so they are slowing down my 20m connection to a max today of just under 4m.

Just need to find a ISP thats not Phorm anyone know if Sky is looking into phorm?

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

Can you do a few tracerts and post results please

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

Here you goes :)

tracert www.google.co.uk

Tracing route to www.l.google.com [66.249.93.104]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 9 ms 11 ms 8 ms 10.30.128.xxx
2 12 ms 11 ms 9 ms 62.31.224.xxx
3 10 ms 11 ms 11 ms pc-62-30-243-77-bn.blueyonder.co.uk [62.30.243.7
7]
4 12 ms 13 ms 14 ms pop-bb-b-ge-220-0.inet.ntl.com [195.182.178.113]

5 * * * Request timed out.
6 11 ms 14 ms 14 ms 212.250.14.138
7 12 ms 11 ms 12 ms 209.85.252.76
8 11 ms 15 ms 12 ms 66.249.95.106
9 49 ms 30 ms 32 ms 72.14.232.149
10 39 ms 28 ms 28 ms 209.85.255.137
11 32 ms 30 ms 30 ms 72.14.233.83
12 31 ms 36 ms 36 ms 216.239.47.229
13 28 ms 30 ms 29 ms ug-in-f104.google.com [66.249.93.104]

Trace complete.

tracert www.microsoft.com

Tracing route to lb1.www.ms.akadns.net [207.46.19.254]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 9 ms 10 ms 9 ms 10.30.128.xxx
2 9 ms 10 ms 8 ms pc-62-30-243-xxx-bn.blueyonder.co.uk [62.30.243.
xxx]
3 10 ms 12 ms 11 ms pc-62-30-243-57-bn.blueyonder.co.uk [62.30.243.5
7]
4 14 ms 13 ms 13 ms bre-bb-a-ge-200-0.inet.ntl.com [195.182.178.109]

5 17 ms 15 ms 15 ms 212.43.162.218
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 13 ms 13 ms 15 ms 193.159.225.237
8 163 ms 163 ms 161 ms 217.239.40.62
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 *


tracert www.cableforum.co.uk

Tracing route to www.cableforum.co.uk [87.106.129.133]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 10 ms 10 ms 11 ms 10.30.128.xxx
2 11 ms 9 ms 10 ms pc-62-30-243-xxx-bn.blueyonder.co.uk [62.30.243.
xxx]
3 12 ms 12 ms 11 ms pc-62-30-243-77-bn.blueyonder.co.uk [62.30.243.7
7]
4 15 ms 23 ms 14 ms pop-bb-b-ge-220-0.inet.ntl.com [195.182.178.113]

5 17 ms 13 ms 15 ms pop-bb-a-ae0-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.174.229]
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 29 ms 21 ms 21 ms gi9-37.mpd01.ams04.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.1
5.9]
8 60 ms 29 ms 25 ms vl3493.mpd01.ams03.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.2
.65]
9 21 ms 49 ms 41 ms te2-4.3490.ccr01.ams03.atlas.cogentco.com [130.1
17.3.105]
10 19 ms 20 ms 19 ms te8-1.mpd02.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.1.
206]
11 21 ms 19 ms 19 ms te4-1.mpd01.lon02.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.1.
202]
12 36 ms 36 ms 35 ms schlund_and_partner.demarc.cogentco.com [130.117
.240.170]
13 72 ms 72 ms 114 ms ge-2-1.bb-c.the.lon.gb.oneandone.net [212.227.12
0.25]
14 37 ms 37 ms 38 ms te-1-3.bb-c.bap.rhr.de.oneandone.net [212.227.12
0.49]
15 42 ms 38 ms 40 ms ae-7.gw-distp-b.bad.oneandone.net [212.227.116.2
21]
16 53 ms 40 ms 44 ms ae-1.gw-prtr-r211-b.bad.oneandone.net [195.20.24
7.45]
17 37 ms 40 ms 37 ms server3.cableforum.co.uk [87.106.129.133]

Trace complete.

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

gethin Have you tried loading http://vancouver.cs.washington.edu/ ?

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

Thanks for the link :)

Tested it and says all is well.

Still need to get to the bottom of the speed reduction problem and why when I am paying for 20m I am only geting 3-4m.

in fact speed check from top of forum rates present speed as

Your connection speed is 3.85Mb, you have indicated that you are meant to get up to 20.00Mb from Virgin Media

off to nag VM again ;)

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

hey guys does any one know for sure if this phorm crap is currently active on virgin ???

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

Currently getting 19kBs d/l here (Telford) & my traceroute to google.co.uk is essentially the same as yours. Personally I would take anything the helpdesk said about phorm with a pinch of salt. There has been some upgrade work with temporary outages going on for 20Mb users recently - there is a schedule on the VM website.

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

Hi All, All this phorm stuff is way above my head but I would like to thank all of you that are taking the time and effort to oppose this intervention into our privacy. I would like to particularly thank Alexander Hanff for all the hard work that he is puttng into this. keep up the good work!
Best to all. davethejag

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

Make sure you sign the No.10 petition, complain to your ISP, and let your MP know how you feel. Otherwise, its easy for people who oppose this to be dismissed as a 'vocal minority'. :)

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

Sounds like you are being "STM'd" http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html...t/traffic.html

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

No it hasn't, whoever told you that is either talking out of their behind or you misunderstood.

If Phorm had been launched, Kent, kert...whatever he's called, and his company would have been screaming from the rooftops.

If this does go ahead though, you will have few ISP's to choose from soon, as the others are just waiiting for one of the big guns to launch it.

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

RE: Sky:

YES and um... NO?

Currently not looking to deploy but i would bet my last that if and when phorm launches in the UK Sky will quicly run and jump onto the bandwagon.

IE: let someone else take the risk and do all the grunt work, then reap the benifits.

As for an ISP, i can highly recomend BE* 24mb down and 3+5mb up under optimal ADSL2+ conditions (IE: if you live next door to your BT exchange) top whack will set you back 22 quid a month, its unshaped, the fair usage policy is awesome (i download bus-tonnage of data and have never been shaped/throttled)
The greatest benifit of my ISP is that its still small, and they really do listen to customers (they have an awesome communityvia a forum, IRC server, their support is one of the best ive used and they understand that their customer base has significant power over their commercial success as a business)

The downside is that ADSL is a little glitchy at best and results will vary widely due to the constraints of the technology (IE it wont tolerate long noisy lines very well), however that being said the BT cable goes from my house, through europe to bosnia, swings up and across through russia, loops the loop round the czech republic and finaly routes back through to my excange and i get 6mb solid on my very rural connection.
I was originaly on the mid package (£20 a month and they instantly dropped me down to the base package after a 5 min phonecall (8mb @ £14 a month and refunded me six quid there and then.)
On BT i get 750kb down, (they told me my line would never push 2mb)
AOL is simmilar.
Sky again is the same.
There have been reports of glitches in their DNS servers too but there are options available to work around this.

So yeah, ive been through a good few ISP's from back when 33.6kbps dialup was insanely fast and frankly ive never been with a better provider.
Theyve publicly stated on their forums that "Theyre not looking into using phorm FOR THE TIME BEING which is less than reassuring, but im certain if they deployed the backlash would be thus that they would frankly loose their customer base.

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

You'd have such a different view of alex if you had met him or seen how he has acted on the newsgroups in the past.

Back in the good old days, when he was a nice guy and actually helped customers it was great.

But now, all you get out of him is "not true" "no" "yes" replies.

He lies alot on the newsgroups..denies trials being run (till he is forced to admit it when too many people know) originally denied they was even in talks with phorm (again, till forced)

Not a person you can trust.

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

VM (and other ISP's) are getting two aspects of their business a little mixed up. One is their role as a provider of basic network connectivity - IP packet delivery A to B. The other is the 'enhancement' products they can offer due to their unique position - music downloads for example.

Basic network connectivity is a 'utility company' activity and I'm afraid it isn't very exiting. There is more competition you can engage in as an ISP than as a water company but basic connectivity is a utility. My electricity company supplies me with electricity and bills me for it.

By all means VM "capture the excitement and opportunity of your other services" but the two must be kept separate. Phorm is an attempt to pollute one with the other.

My electricity supplier may well have done a great deal on new fridges with it's super new partner and they are entitled to tell me about it. The moment they make my electricity supply dependant on that deal they have crossed the line. Phorm crosses that line.

_____________________________

VM already running Phorm - doubt it very much, Kent will be holding a ticker tape parade when that happens.

VM have run 'live' tests - doubt it again. Word would have gotten out by now. I'm positive there is at least one disgruntled VM employee who is more than willing to fess up if there were evidence. I'm sure VM were up to something at the back end of last year but the only end result I noticed, beside the intermittent problems, was that my machine was eventually talking to a 10. net.

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

Anyone got a link to the no.10 signature list. Want to go add my squiggle :)

And been looking at the ADSL 2 and thinking hmmm for a while ;)

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

Its in my signature gethin. You want the second one.

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

Apologies if this has been posted already but good to see more coverage of this in the US:

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/0...ref=technology

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

Has the Virgin Media Webwise statement & FAQ been updated lately?

http://www.virginmedia.com/customers/webwise-faqs.php

In particular it now says;

Has Virgin Media ever deployed the Webwise system?

No. As part of an early evaluation of the system to understand how the technology works we have run a small technical lab test on a private internal network, not connected to the internet. We have never deployed the system, either as a trial or otherwise, and would never do so without informing our customers first.

When was that test then? Hope it wasn't prior to Feb 2008, because that's when VM's Director of Customer Relations told me they first considered working with Phorm.

Personally, I'm not convinced by anything VM say now. Why has it taken them so long to produce this new FAQ, and why haven't they answered any of the questions VM customers put to them?

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

You already know it has to be before Feb 2008 or they would still be running trials on their internal private network.

Not sure how a small test on an internal network will show much since the pressure would come from thousends asking for URL's at once and if the phorm cheap equipment can handle the request complete the hijack and pass on the phormed cookie before the customer can blink. Or crash under the pressure putting thousends offline generating loads of calls aboiut not being able to use the internet.. After all remember the proxies and the problems they caused when they failed.

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

And still no word on the 80/20Phinking site about the video from two weeks ago.

They could have uploaded an MP3 of the full audio stream, if not the final video edit, within 15 minutes of the event completing.

:rolleyes:

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

I vaguely remember alexander saying he had a phonecall from Simon Davies when Simon returned from Italy saying they hoped to release it soon.

---------- Post added at 15:05 ---------- Previous post was at 15:02 ----------

I found it. Its post #4868 on page 325 of this thread.

---------- Post added at 15:10 ---------- Previous post was at 15:05 ----------

Simon seems busy dealing with other issues right now such as local councils and their use of RIPA etc:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstor...9520-20397582/

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

Some nice whistle blowing legistlation to protect you when that happens though...

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

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

Hello everyone. Have been reading this post for quite a few days.

Has anyone thought of hoisting-phorm-on-their-own-petard?

That is taking adverts out in the local paper warning of the relationship between the spyware company, Phorm and the three ISP's.

I've had a look through the CAP codes at the ASA website, and can't find any reason why it can't be done, apart from perhaps the expense.

http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/codes/

The benefit is that it would reach a much bigger crowd of casual surfer/non techie than say this site or badphorm.

What do you think?

EDIT: Ah right it has already been thought of in the VM newsgroups, apparently it is very expensive for papers such as the Metro.

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

I think someone over at badphorm had the same idea but it came down to the expence....I vaguely remember a figure of 15K just for the locals on a full page.
bugger:(

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

Wasn't BT (when it was a monopoly) forced to allow other ISPs to have access to its network? Now that Virgin is a cable monopoly, do the same rules apply i.e. could VM be forced to rent bandwith to a putative competitor? Hmm! I think I know what the answer is, but what a nice thought! Raise a bit of dosh from somewhere and set up a guaranteed conduit only ISP? OK - let me dream.........

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

An "organic" ISP. ;)

No GM foods. No PM ISP's.

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

Okay what about a leaflet campaign on houses with cable boxes? Flyers are dirt cheap.

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

Certainly seems to have been updated. I don't remember it previously being worded with so many caveats. 'In the event we do rollout', 'Looking into the Webwise system'. Actually the updates are reasonably encouraging in that I THINK this is the first public official indication that they are only 'looking into' the system, rather than Phorm's spin that they are committed to rolling it out.

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

You got it! Green as the auld sod. No MSG, either.

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

A good idea. People could also write a letter for publication in the local paper. After all, the paper, which relies on ads, won't much like 'targetted advertising'.

I've also wriiten to the local 'parish' magazine, which is delivered to about 7,000 houses each month. These sort of things are often desperate for something to pad out the adverts.

Not much chance though if VM or BT advertise there.

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

Another possibility might be to be to persuade a popular well known person in the media (TV presenter, footballer or pop star for example) to make negative comments about Phorm on say a TV chat show.