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

True - an interception can be carried out by an automated system - however, as I understand it, it is only classed as an interception if the contents are made available to human being.

That still leaves uncertainty as to what counts as making available and what counts as "some or all of the contents of the communication".

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

No there is no such clause in -any- of the legislation which even hints at this let alone makes it a requirement.

Alexander Hanff

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

Not to mention the 958 independantly verified anti-phorm answers to the poll on this thread alone, and the 15642 signatures on the petition at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/ispphorm/ calling for the relevant authorities to investigate the issue

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

More 'they said' !

It will be up to a Court of Law to prove the illegality of the case, not those who 'state' that it is illegal ... that's if it ever gets to court, which is very unlikely.

D_A

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

RIPA 2000 Part 1, Chapter 1, Section 2, Paragraph 2:

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

Worth noting that, in intercepting the communication and sending it to the Phorm servers, they are making it available to the Administrators of those servers (who would presumably be neither the originating sender, or the intended recipient of the original transmission).

Just a thought ;)

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

It makes no difference whether the machine or a human being performs the interception. The key fact is that personal communications are being "made available" to a third party.

Consider this argument, which I hope will stand up in court.

A person has a job they want doing - classifying users according to the content of the web pages browsed, so that they can sell targeted adverts.

The result is achieved. The content of web pages MUST have been available for this person to achieve this result.

To my mind it makes no difference whether this person who wants the job doing works for BT or Phorm, BT have no right to intercept your communications just because they happen to be your ISP just as the Royal Mail can't offer a targeted ads service based on a postmaster opening your mail.

The only time a postmaster could legally open your mail is for miss-addressed items. At this point the result the postmaster wants to achieve is routing the communication (or returning it to sender), so the contents are not being "made available" to anyone else.

And it makes no difference that this person employs a machine to achieve the result he wants. The key is that someone wants to do something with your communication that goes beyond routing it to it's destination.

There is one way BT can clear this whole mess up definitively: submit to a test case in the high court to get a ruling on whether intra-ISP profiling constitutes interception as defined by RIP.

If BT are sure it is legal, then this is an opportunity for them to shut the protestors up and severely limit any future risks from legal action.

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

The data is made available to potentially an unlimited number of people as it is made available to Phorm and OIX partners, I would suggest you read the notes that go with the Act too rather than just the Act itself. As for the Computer Misuse Act it very clearly states whether it is a person or automated system responsible for the violation (and even if I remember correctly any party who provides any equipment which is used to commit a breach of the Act).

Alexander Hanff

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

Who truly represent the majority of UK broadband users ? Methinks not.

Yeah .. people love petitions - they are so easy, but mostly ineffective and subject to abuse by those with many throw-away email addresses. Just look at many other petitions on there ... nuff said.

D_A

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

D_Advocate - you know and I know that a certain person under another name, and I (under my own name in both places), have rehearsed all these arguments over in the BT internal newsgroups. I already know the arguments that a certain person used there and this is looking very familiar. I have an idea how long the argument will take and how unproductive it is likely to be. Would it help if I just print that certain person's replies from there, over here, all in one go to save time? I've got the archive and I promise to remove personally identifiable information in case that person objected.

At the moment we are on the argument where no one is allowed to say that anything is illegal because only a court can say that it is illegal. Let's take that as read shall we and move on. It is beginning to feel a little like baiting, which is not a recommended activity here.

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

I'm certainly convinced by that argument. Unfortunately, it is only the opinion of a court that really counts. (Well maybe the majority of consumers who will leave there ISP if it adopts phorm count too :) )

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

I'd really rather you didn't ;)


Sound advice indeed :)

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

I believe it is made available to several people too. However I'm trying to see how phorm might argue that it isn't an interception. I will have a look at the notes as you suggest.

I'm only looking at the RIPA perspective at the moment. I know that's only 1 of half a dozen.

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

It represents the view of a portion of the UK broadband users who are savvy enough to realise that this is a system that's open to abuse, and who are willing to do the research on such matters and find conflicts with the letter of the law. Especially when also compared to other polls on other websites such as the one on ISPreview (http://www.ispreview.co.uk/cgi-bin/p...?archive_id=60)
To disregard it simply because it's based on the opinion of the technosavvy would be like (dipping into my own area of expertise here) disregarding the dangers of E. coli gaining pYV simply because it only concerns microbiologists and doctors.
For those of you who don't know, pYV is the genetic element that gives the bacteria that causes plague its ability to infect people.



The key thing about this site is that as each online signature is linked to a UK address, it's entirely possible to confirm the signatures by checking against the voting registers. The data is verifiable, even if it has yet to be verified. Another thing to remember would be the number of people who have written repeatedly to assorted figures of authority (transcripts of letters and other communications are lurking in the many pages of this thread). I myself have written many letters, but did not attend the protest due to financial issues (having graduated from my BSc course today and being hit in the face with the full realisation of the student debt, coupled with current unemployment), health issues (I don't recall who it was, but I recall one of our posters pointing out that they had a hospital appointment that could not be postphoned on the day of the protest) and other issues.

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

But we can, with one clear voice, call on BT to submit to a test case to get a ruling either way.

The idea of a test case was raised in the House of Lords by Lord West of Spithead in response to a question from Baroness Miller, see here:

http://www.badphorm.co.uk/e107_plugi...topic.php?7402