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

I gave up on VM after almost 15 yrs phone then Internet since 2000, just do not want to have them anymore. the cables are around 4ft down and uner my garden so will just ignore the fact they are there and put a planter over the box outside wuth an evergreen plant in.

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

I've just started reading that pdf, and the first thought that came to me was - how did the Phorm Boss confuse 80/20 Thinking with Privacy International. The document mentions 80/20 Thinking a total of 31 times, including in the Introduction, this statement which cannot in any way be misunderstood - Also, interestingly, Privacy International are not mentioned even once! Sorry Mr Phorm boss, I don't believe that you made a innocent mistake, you knew exactly what you were saying.

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

Thanks Popper - I've saved that pdf.

It seems the report has posed the same questions that many frustrated customers have been asking over the last few weeks. I wonder if they've had any more luck getting unequivocal answers?

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

The Guardian blog post that pdf comes from has some initial observations.
It'll be worth checking the comments (where reviews of the report are being posted) -- Simon Davies says he's got "some announcements that are imminent".

Wonder if he's having second thoughts?
:angel:

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

Can we cancel our vm contracts because of this?

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

are you really suprised that Charles at the guardian got the report first, like i asked before, do you really trust him to report this properly, they are Phorm clients after all, Charles has been soft soaping this story from day one, and he or his team have been deleteing legal comment points according to some.

its not like they were going to give the register the scoop, so you have to ask if the more revealing posts havent even got aired on Charles so called tech blog.

you have to wonder why it was posted so late in the day too, perhaps they hope this so called 'some announcements that are imminent.' story will replace the report thread in the morning when all the markets and boardroom types are reading.

OC Simon Davies is going to talk his double talk there, especially after his AKA'ed co-worker (or was it really SD , we shall never know) blabed and insulted the reg thread ( i forget which one now, one of the early ones) posters.

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

I keep getting spam mail from asda, tesco and sainsburys and load more companys is this the PHORM ??? really doing my head in I open emial and there there waiting to suck me in lol.

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

I see BT have now stopped answering any questions on Phorm in this and any other thread.

http://www.beta.bt.com/bta/forums/th...t=270&tstart=0

Have you also noticed how Phorm seem to have stopped posting there lies on forums all over the Internet and have instead stopped posting answers full stop. ?

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

Why would you cancel your services for a company thinking about doing something? I bet there are thousands of proposals that never get off the drawing board. Fair enough if they actually implement this, but if you've been reading this thread you'd have noticed that VM have gone very quiet on this and their logo has been removed from the phorm website which suggests that they are slowly backing away from it.

It sounds like you wanted to cancel anyway and are using this as an excuse as they havent made any changes, just suggestions.

Also they wont remove the cable, you can provided you dont damage the cable in the street but they wont send someone out to remove it for you.

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

That's my stance as well. I will cancel the second they implement this or send me a letter to say they are going to do it.

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

Phorm just announced a £32M equity boost after a share deal with Morgan Stanley and Canaccord Adams Ltd. So we need to work extra hard to drop the share price even more so that equity vanishes as quickly as they managed to make it appear.

Keep up the good work. Share price is down another 7.91% since opening this morning.

Fight the good fight!

Alexander Hanff

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

ISP revenue from selling out your customers privacy rights to spyware-writing, rootkit installing, Phorm: Millions.

Numbers of customers going to change ISPs to escape this invasion of privacy: Thousands.

Revenue due to be lost by customers changing to a non-Phorm ISP: Millions.

Watching Phorms share price collapse: Priceless.

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

Woah share price falling at > terminal velocity at the moment. 9 trades in the first hour of trading and only 1 buy. Currently down 245p (11.4%) since trading started.

Alexander Hanff

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

[QUOTE=lucevans;34509543]In the absence of any information forthcoming from Phorm or Virgin Media, here are some more questions:

Tucked away in the small print of the scheme is the fact that a far more detailed record of the online activity of every customer will be stored in a "debugging" log for 14 days by Phorm, than will be stored in the "digest" (i.e. the aggregated, anonymized record they plan to hold on each of us for the purpose of targetting adverts at us).

What data fields will the debugging log contain? Will it include a user's IP address? Will it contain any of the information that was stripped-out of the digest to preserve the individuals anonymity or security? (By this I mean data like form fields, numbers, names, webmail data, etc.). Will it contain the raw data of encrypted pages that pass through the profiler?

It seems to me that by concentrating on the "anonymity" of the digest record of every customer, Phorm may be seeking to divert our attention from another, far more detailed, far less anonymous record that will be held "purely for administration and troubleshooting purposes"

Even if their intentions are honest regarding use of the debugging records (something I find hard to believe), surely these files would present a much more attractive target to hackers or criminal employees within Phorm or the ISPs, as they would contain lucrative personal information.

Who gets to see the debugging logs? (Russian spyware programmers, perhaps?) Are they exported outside the UK for "troubleshooting" by the "talented teams of programmers" that Phorm employ in the US and Russia? How do we know that they are irrecoverably destroyed after 14 days?

The questions just keep coming. Shame there are no answers.

======================

I'd be interested to see that small print, do you have a link ??

I have looked at the possibility of a link between RBN and Phorm, RBN is based in St. Perterburg, the Phorm Russian office is in Moscow, so far there is no obvious link other than 121 Media's past history.
(121 Media by the way is still an active and listed Subsiduary of Phorm)

Also worth noting is that soon after users found the oix.com server was apparently hosted on a Chinese IP, that changed quite quickly to being hosted by Fasthosts UK.

In the VM forums I issued a challenge to Phorm to allow a team of privacy and security experts to have access to several weeks worth of Phorm employees online data, including sites visited etc.

The Ernst Young audit did have some reservations about how the system could be open to abuse. Mr Davies of Privacy Internationals claimed by Phorm endorsement of the Phorm system in a BBC article he later posted that "They Had Not Endorsed Phorm" but on the face of Phorms description of how they claim it works had some good points.
But that was based on only the sales pitch being used by Phorm with no true technical analysis of the whole system or methods Phorm claim to use in public.

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

Anyone know where I can find a free javascript/html stock chart for Phorm? Yahoo Finance do a nice "badge" but they don't support AIM yet so PHRM.L charts are not available.

I want to place a stock watch chart on the Deny Phorm blogspot page.

Been looking for one for a couple of days now, so far no success.

Alexander Hanff

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

Next Chat

Date: Thursday, March 20, 2008

Time: 1:30PM/13:30 GMT (London)

Where: www.webwise.com/chat

Subject: Phorm CEO Kent Ertugrul and SVP Technology Marc Burgess will answer questions LIVE about Webwise fraud protection, relevant advertising and user privacy.


Be there or be square!

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

add this to your page

<img src="http://uk.ichart.yahoo.com/b?s=PHRM.L" alt="http://uk.ichart.yahoo.com/b?s=PHRM.L"/> does todays
<img src="http://uk.ichart.yahoo.com/w?s=PHRM.L" alt="http://uk.ichart.yahoo.com/w?s=PHRM.L"/> does last 5 days
<img src="http://ichart.europe.yahoo.com/c/3m/p/phrm.l" alt="http://ichart.europe.yahoo.com/c/3m/p/phrm.l"/> does last 3 months

edit :
alternatively have a look here http://www.vss2000.com/financial/content.asp

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

Yes...mmmm....only....they do just answer the easy questions, don't they?
I was on the last webchat with them and asked them some pretty difficult questions which were duly ignored. Granted, they were as carefully crafted as their responses to other questions, and loaded with booby-traps. Maybe they saw the trip-wires and decided to side-step them :angel: :D

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

I have also started the proces to move away from VM Their total lack of communication for so long leads me to remember the start of the capping on VM, yes our pressure had it removed in the end but it was still worked back in slowly. As this will be worked back in slowly they are only seeing the pounds sign this might generate and still show the normal contempt for customers.

Since speed isnt a problem for me then I am happy to move where phorm is not welcome.

I have access to Admin areas on forums where sometimes information that isnt to be shown to genral public is on view I just cannot trust VM wil not sneak in this phorm so to protect the forum owners and myself i quit VM as soon as the BT line is in and ADSL is activated.

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

Does anyone know when there talking about this going live hope it isnt already or im off too?

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

My view on this as regards VM is now they are not devious they are incompetent. I think they truly were fooled by phorm about this whole thing and had no idea of the storm that was about to break. Now like a scared person in a hurricane they are desperately trying to take cover till the storm passes. I cannot see another reason why with everything that is going on they have not come out oneway or another and are relying on platitudes to any customer that does enquire.

For me this has massively dented in my confidence in VM as a company and if they do implement this after everything that has come out i like many other thousands will cease all services with them. This is a bonanza for other company's by no fault of their own BT, TT and VM have handed them a priceless marketing ploy "We will not use phorm come to us".

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

i still dont understand, how do we opt-out? do we call them and say we wanna opt out?

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

Hi all

Apologies for recent absence - as per some news stories that have broken over the past few hours, we are pleased to be able to release the interim Privacy Impact Assessment that we've referred to in interviews and our live chats on Webwise. Simon Davies, Managing Director of 80/20 Thinking, conducted the Privacy Impact Assessment with his colleague Gus Hosein, who is Visiting Fellow, Information Systems Group at the London School of Economics.

The Privacy Impact Assessment is a review of Phorm systems and policies. Since this preliminary, initial report was written several weeks ago, we have addressed several claims in it. Among them, we have confirmed to 80/20 Thinking that Webwise does not track behaviours across sensitive sites; that anonymous cookies cannot be traced back to users; and that Webwise deliberately ignores "https" pages used by banks, and other personal data. We will work with 80/20 Thinking on an ongoing basis throughout the year to complete the assessment and ensure we confirm our leading privacy standards.

In the press, Mr Davies has openly commented: "In our view, Phorm has implemented privacy as a key design component in the development of its system. In particular, Phorm has quite consciously avoided the processing of personally identifiable information." In particular, Mr Davies told BBC News: "Phorm does advance the whole sector of protecting personal information by two to three steps."

To avoid the re-emergence of prior confusion: Privacy International, one of the leading privacy advocacy bodies, did not endorse us and do not endorse any companies. We engaged Mr Davies (founder and director of Privacy International, though not acting in that capacity to produce the report) because of his expertise and experience. He has spent decades railing against infringements of privacy. We expect that he and his team in a consulting capacity would apply the same intellectual rigour to their assessment of companies that they do in campaigning for privacy rights.

As a consultancy, 80/20 Thinking conducts audits for companies and it charges a fee to do so. Audits take time and resources, as the one conducted by Ernst & Young (View report PDF), and we haven't yet found a free audit service that is worth our trust or anyone else's.

We await a date for the final Assessment to be issued and will update this page when we know.

The full interim report is at http://www.phorm.com/user_privacy/pr...act_report.php and you can ask questions on the site too

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

Hi PhormUKPRTeam,

If the system avoids 'sensitive' sites, doesn't that imply processing them to tell whether they are sensitive? Then we only have Phorm's word for it that nothing will be done with that information.

I think a lot of the concerns come down to: "you have access to the information, and only your word that you won't do anything bad with it." How would you counter that perception? Obviously a report or two can't allay the suspicion that the system could be tweaked without anyone knowing, a fear even expressed clearly in at least one of the commissioned reports.

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

PhormUKPRTeam I will paste what I said on BadPhorm in relation to the -identical- message you posted on their forums:

PhormUKPRTeam you are lying, it is that simple. The advertisers themselves will be in a position to match IP addresses to "anonymous" cookies.

It would then be a very simple task to write a script to link every single anonymous cookie to an IP.

Epic Phail

Alexander Hanff

To everyone else who doesn't understand what I mean. According to their patent application advertisers will send the unique "anonymous" ID of the Phorm profiling cookie to the OIX server in order to grab the "relevant" ads. This means that compiling a list of IP address based on the cookie ID is a trivial matter.

This is all based on their patent application which is all we really have to go on with regards how their "proprietary" systems work.

Alexander Hanff

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

While i find what they are planning initially to be unacceptable reading the patent application gave me a lot more worries and as far as i am concerned the PR team for phorm know damn well we are not being told the whole story but as long as they get paid what the hell.

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

interestingly, most of us have already read it. while i'm at it i'll throw these 3 in i would just now...

<quote> page 4
However, despite our positive findings regarding Phorm’s
approach to privacy protection we are disappointed that the
company has not benefited from an earlier implementation of a
PIA. While we are encouraged that Ernst & Young were engaged
to perform a privacy examination, the full scope and influence of
an “early intervention” PIA has not been possible. At this late stage
of product development it will not be possible to fully exploit the
value of a PIA.
Should have done this sooner?? is PIA now useless

We broadly agree with the positive findings of the 2007 Ernst &
Young privacy examination, but remain concerned that the scope
of that report was based almost exclusively on conditions applying
to the US privacy environment. Public sensitivities, regulatory
conditions and other factors vary substantially according to
geographical location.
Riiiight... so nothing to do with UK law then... interesting

page 5
This initial assessment has not had the opportunity to examine the
privacy practices of Phorm’s partner organisations
Who could collate a database for habits ip addresses and anything else my browser wants to give up
</quote>

not exactly all roses is it??

to be honest we couldn't give a monkies what phorm has to say on this or any other matter. phorm are doing what they have always done, writing spyware..

it's the ISPs we have a problem with installing the stuff at source. If i had spyware on my PC i would and have chosen to remove it anyway i could.. right down to uninstalling the operating system .. with the spyware firmly installed in a bomb proof bunker i no longer have this option..

phorms protestations that the opt-out cookie will be effective have no impact on my view of the ISPs because as far as i am concerned my ISP should have nothing to do with russian spyware pushers, who in my eyes are about one step up from pond **** virus writers and h@xors

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

As usual they're very selective in what they post, completely ignoring the concerns even made by 80/20, no mention of the FIPR "it's illegal" report. They've lied from day one, saying they had endorsement from Privacy International, and only changing the spin when they were found out, and then blaming everyone that WE misunderstood them

Simply put this outfit will blatantly lie, not answer probing questions and behave just like someone trying to offload some dodgy goods onto someone from a pub car park.

The Phorm smoke and mirrors PR stunt may have worked on ISP bosses but never underestimate the general public to discover the truth.

They're still the spyware peddlers they've always been.

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

Welcome back to the forum PhormUKPRTeam,

Nothing like a share price collapse to flush the PR people back out of the woodwork, eh? I hope you got plenty of rest during your time away from these forums as you are fighting a losing battle. Put simply: DO NOT WANT. Why not save your time and just let your client (Phorm) know that there is no way you can fix this with lies and spin?

Wonder how much further the share price will drop if those caught up in the BT trial last year report BT/Phorm to the police because of RIPA violations due to them not having gained consent for that trial.

Time to go check on the Phorm share price... Very few things have given me so much satisfaction as watching the Phorm share price fall by over 30% over the last two weeks.

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

aye but would'nt say phorm is one step up I consider there practises just as bad as hackers and as there past. They have'nt changed there still a rootkit, spyware, malware company.

The difference is they putting there dirty little laundry into ISP hardware and tryung to legalise a scummish practise on the pretence its to stop phishing and protect us.

I think they are the trojan horse to cause mayhem. As I feel they will just be an unlocked door to the hackers world to cause havoc.

I am amazed at 25 naive people who actually voted to support phorm. They could be business owners who see a good market opportunity in targeted junk.

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

http://finance.google.com/finance?q=LON:PHRM

Currently down 17%

Lots of minus figures in the Key stats and ratios section too.

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

"To avoid the re-emergence of prior confusion: Privacy International, one of the leading privacy advocacy bodies, did not endorse us and do not endorse any companies."

This is massively dishonest and patronising - you appear to be trying to imply that this "confusion" is due to public misunderstanding. It is not. This "confusion" is due to public statements made by yourselves and the management team stating in so many words that Privacy International had okayed the system.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...ternet.privacy - Marc Burgess specifically states that "Privacy International" did the impact assessment. Having read the report I cannot believe that this was a mistake - it mentions 80/20 Thinking constantly. To me this looks like a deliberate attempt to use the reputation of a fairly well-respected campaign group as a figleaf for a business which has been characterised by dishonesty and a disregard for those who are affected by their plans from day 1, although I'd be interested to know why we should think otherwise.

The public DO NOT NEED OR WANT this technology. The online No.10 petition demonstrates that pretty clearly: more than 7,000 signatures now, in a little over two weeks, is one of the fastest-growing there has ever been on the site.

Importantly, and something that must not be dismissed out of hand, I also haven't seen you or Phorm management explain why they think they have the right to use this data. It DOES NOT belong to the ISP: it's not theirs to sell. As Tim Berners-Lee said in his interview, "It's mine. You can't have it." If you want to use it you have to ask us each individually and tell us what we're getting in return. Using it without the explicitly-granted permission of every single user AND website owner is, to my mind, straight-up theft. IF I don't want what you're peddling (and I don't), then you have absolutely no right of access to anything my family or I do online, whether you use it to profile or not. Why do you think you have the right to use it without my permission?

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

Down 17% is a good start but hopefully it will fall further. We need every bit of leverage we can get against Phorm if we are to defeat it.

As for the people who voted they wouldnt leave because of phorm in the poll, they are probably shareholders crying themselves to sleep as they watch their investment going down the drain. Ain't karma a b*tch?

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

If Phorm had any common sense they would drop the UK market like a hot stone, this controversy has lost them tens of millions of GBP in share capital over the past 3 weeks. They would be better off concentrating their efforts on the US, who are bound to lap this up given their existing and historical stance on privacy. At least that way their share price -might- start to recover ;) Mind you I am waiting for them to launch in the US so EFF can take them and their partners straight to court, only the federal government are allowed to use illegal wiretaps (well they aren't really according to the Senate Oversight Committee or whatever they are called, but Bush like to think he is immune).

Alexander Hanff

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

True. But if you take a longer term view, the share price at the moment is about the same as it was a year ago. i think their share price needs to drop further before they will seriously consider moving out of the UK market.

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

Well if their Interim Accounts are anything to go by for 2007 they are looking at a pretax profit of -16.3M USD. The filed pretax profit for year ending 2006 was -11.54M USD, in fact I can't as yet see any point where they have made money.

And still the share price continues to phall. I haven't done an accurate calculation, but a quick glance of trades so far today show something in the region of £500 000 worth of shares dumped back onto the market. Shorter's seem to be jumping in now, there was just a trade for 9k shares at £164k.

[Edit]
Just done a quick set of sums and so far something like 67512 shares have dumped on the market since trading started this morning. At the current mid price of 1775 thats a staggering 1.19M GBP worth of dumped shares in just 6 hours. It will actually be higher than that because most of the sells were between 1775 and 2050 but I chose the mid price to be phair.

Alexander Hanff

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

I just used the Liberty website to send them an email enquiring as to whether they are aware of this issue and whether they have any comments regarding it. I intend to follow that up with a letter too once I manage to fix my printer. It will be interesting to see what response, if any, liberty have to this whole issue of Phorm.

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

New item on the Register

Full story here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/19/phorm_8020_pi/

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

Wrong - I don't need an excuse to cancel any service with any supplier. I'm furious that they are even considering this. I don't trust Virgin any more.

I'm also well aware that i'm going to have to put my hand a lot deeper into my pocket in order to change, but i'll accept the cost. I'm not going to get 'phone and broadband anywhere else for 20 quid a month am I?

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

:clap::clap: Well said. I will wait to see if they decide to go ahead with this invasion of my privacy with the 121 media/ Phorm spyware and then i will be leaving VM for a Non Phorm provider.:Sprint:

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

I understand how angry some are but cancelling now might be jumping from the frying pan to the fire. If this is not defeated now you might well jump to an isp that within your contract time decides "if they are doing it and making money i will too". Trust me i get the anger and disillusionment with VM i feel it as strongly as anyone and feel that after all the years i have been a customer with comtel\ntl\VM i deserve better treatment. But until the market splits into the ones that have phorm and those that make a full permenent commitment not to have phorm i think jumping ship could be causing more trouble and cost then it is worth atm.

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

I agree and whatsmore I think we will be more successful if we fight from within. Stay a VM customer but downgrade your services so they lose money. Keep their customer services busy with correspondence, phone calls, questions, anything you can think of, until it becomes too costly both in time and money for them to deal with it all. Send them DPA notices then if they go ahead with an "opt-out" service report them to the police for RIPA violations. Never underestimate the power of being a nuisance.

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

Is this the same 121 that infected all of us windows xp users at one time or another with all that adware crap that you could never get off your machine with the annoying you might have adaware on your machine buy this now forever on your taskbar untill you did a full format, if it is im sorry to say i wont be keeping any of vm's services at all, that back then was one of the biggest nuisances on the net and i bet this phorm one is even bigger coming from those idiots :(.

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

On most ADSL providers that use Entanet the contract is one month yes 1month then mac and move on but Entanet have said they are not interested in dealing with phorm and the vISPs that they supply will be too small to attract Phorm. BT wholesale cannot use Phorm since this would break data protection for the companies they supply.

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

Anyone else noticed that PhormPrTeam have vanished again after only one post? Its been 3 hours since they last posted. Well, they do say that if you cant stand the heat get out of the kitchen.

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

They don't indulge in dialogue, they are just publishing prepared statements.

Could you imagine a team of lawyers and publicists sat around a PC deciding on how best to 'spin' each individual posting?

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

Why can't you stop twisting the truth and fabricating lies? It was released first to the media by Simon Davies, not by you on the Phorm website.

Do you really think we're all idiots who believe every word spouted by a 'PR' team who are, at best, delusional

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

been there, done that, got no answers to the questions put....

generic answers are such fun....
and this ones not been mentioned in a while.

1. If you are a customer of BT Retail (or of any other BT divisions e.g. BT Business) , Virgin Media or Carphone Warehouse Talk Talk, or any other company that thinks to profile your data for advertising , then you might like to write to them quoting the very clear The Data Protection Act 1998 section 11:
2. 1. 11 Right to prevent processing for purposes of direct marketing
   2. (1) An individual is entitled at any time by notice in writing to a data controller to require the data controller at the end of such period as is reasonable in the circumstances to cease, or not to begin, processing for the purposes of direct marketing personal data in respect of which he is the data subject.
   3. (2) If the court is satisfied, on the application of any person who has given a notice under subsection (1), that the data controller has failed to comply with the notice, the court may order him to take such steps for complying with the notice as the court thinks fit.
   4. (3) In this section "direct marketing" means the communication (by whatever means) of any advertising or marketing material which is directed to particular individuals.

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

Sadly, that is precisely what they think. The majority of people will be too easily fooled by their PR spin. Look at the comments posted on news websites in response to this. Uninformed people are focusing on the adverts rather than the invasion of privacy angle. That is why we need to keep on fighting to get the word out that the adverts are a side issue (still annoying but not the real issue) and that the real threat comes not only from the invasion of privacy the technology represents but also what is possible in the future if Phorm are allowed to get away with this.

I have already alerted US friends of mine to what is going on here and how it is likely to start there too. They arent impressed one iota.

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

Seeing as there aren't really separate threads in this discussion, thought this might be of interest to the main group here, especially in light of the privacy comments being made. Today's ICO survey (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7304455.stm) on data protection highlights why the Phorm system is actually an improvement in online privacy.

We don't store any personally identifiable information so there is nothing to lose. We can't accidently reveal what we don't have unlike the ad targeting systems of other major Internet companies which retain identifiable personal data for over 12 months before it is even anonymised.

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

More blatant lies. not once in that article does it mention Phorm and say how wonderful it is in comparison. Of course with the Phorm malware we'd be living in a privacy utopia with pink fluffy bunnies and happy smiling rainbows as endorsed by... ohh wait.. no-one!

The piece says
Hence why people don't want Phorm, or it's constant spin.

You really are getting desperate. did you also do the PR for the emperors new clothes?

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

So... are you saying that Phorm's interception of our data is actually better for our privacy than if Phorm didn't intercept it?

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

Spin, spin, spin, spin, spin.

When you've played for a local cricket club you get to see some really poor efforts at spin and this is a *really* poor effort.

Why hasn't Phorm answered the technical questions posed here or addressed the issues raised in public forums elsewhere?

There is no mention of Phorm in that report at all. If you can't or won't answer the technical questions put to you then please don't waste time here with placatory spin.

I've replied to Ian Woodham and also written to Neil Berkett with an executive management summary of why Virgin Media's brand will be irreparably tarnished by associating with Phorm. Including the very informative article mentioned elsewhere.

I'm staying Phorm phree. Not wanted, not needed.

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

Outright lies. Phorm will store data for 14 days for "debugging and research purposes." Phorm is as much an improvement in online privacy as al-qaeda are an improvement in inter-faith relations. Check back in an hours time when PhormPrTeam will be releasing a new press release praising Christmas as a way of improving the lifespan of Turkeys.

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

We know that, I fully accept that Phorm doesn't store any personally identifiable information on disk (RAM is surely a storage medium, even if it's only in there for microseconds?).

What we object to, as many many people here and elsewhere have said, is the interception of our data by your software. What also worries us is that the Phorm patents allow for storage of personal data. So although at the moment you might not store our data, software creep can (and does) occur.

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

"Phorm has agreed to allow an independent software expert to inspect its source code as it continues to battle the firestorm provoked by agreements with BT, Virgin Media and Carphone Warehouse to let it build profiles of their broadband customers' web browsing."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/19/phorm_8020_pi/

As ever, The Register's thoughts and the subsequent comments are worth reading.

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

More rubbish. It doesn't highlight anything of the sort. It highlights the fact that companies are not to be trusted with personal data. There's no good reason for anyone to trust a malware company who have consistently lied, dissembled and changed the subject consistently since their plans became public.

Luckily it looks like you're not going to get away with this. I find it particularly funny that since you apparently pulled the wool over Simon Davies' eyes, another body which he sits on the board of (FIPR) have declared your technology to be illegal. It seems fairly clear-cut that Phorm along with BT have already commited criminal acts: even if you take the Home Office advice as the last judgement on the technology (which it expressly denies itself), the trials last year were offences under the RIPA.

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

Yep, we'll finally be told by an independent expert if the Phorm software intercepts personal data or not. If it does, then that's the end of Phorm, as such interception (without the direct and explicit agreement of both parties) is clearly against the law.

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

:clap: Couldnt agree more and I hope those people involved in the illegal trials last year complain to the police about such offences committed by BT/Phorm.

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

so you're saying that having my data hijacked by phorm is good for me??

behave.. is that the best you can do??

just say, for fun, that i wanted your service, i would procure it in the standard way, by buying it.. but having it forced down my throat.. i don't think so..

i don't have a contract with phorm.. i will never knowingly have a contract with phorm.. and to reiterate i couldn't give a rats ass what you say.. the contract to move my data is with BT.. the minute it gets mirrored on to phorm kit i will take that as a breach of contract and quit..

i know how networks work.. i know what networking kit does.. i have no idea what phorm does.. but i know what it could do.. and i know phorm have form for creating spyware, rootkits, adware whateverthehell you want to call it..

stop trying to convince me that phorm is a good thing.. cos i'm NOT ****ING STUPID

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

I doubt many of us will trust another 'expert' if he or she gives it the all-clear. Five minutes later, Phorm or the ISPs could 'upgrade' the software. There is nothing Phorm or the ISPs or a PR company can do to persuade me that this interception is trustworthy. So I'm not exactly holding my breath for the results of this one.

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

The interception is already clear - both the Home Office and FIPR statements make clear that the Phorm technology IS interception as defined in the RIPA. From what I take from those statements, as far as RIPA is concerned, the nature of the data is unimportant, the fact that data is monitored at all is enough.

The only question really left is over how to define "explicit" consent. If you take the Home Office opinion, then it could be given in the Ts&Cs for the ISP contract. I'd guess that the only way BT could argue that their tests last year were legal would be to try and demonstrate that their existing T&C at the time allowed for this kind of interception. I'd be surprised if they did, but then it would be up to the lawyers to argue about that.

[EDIT: The Home Office advice is not the last word on the subject either. The FIPR opinion seems to argue that "explicit consent" is just that, and existing T&C would have to be updated. It also argues that the Home Office idea of "implied consent" by the owner of the web page is not enough to satisfy the requirements of the act, and consent cannot be assumed from that side. If you take this opinion, then there's almost nothing Phorm could do to be considered legal, short of contacting the owner of every single webpage on the internet and gaining their consent to intercept. Given the fact that at least some webmasters are already beginning to add Phorm non-consent notices to their websites, it seems almost impossible that Phorm/the ISP would not break the law.]

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

See this :)

http://denyphorm.blogspot.com/2008/0...ort-crime.html

But rest assured, some of the people from last summer are currently building a case to present to the police, I have that on very good authority (from the horses mouth so to speak).

Alexander Hanff

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

I wonder how 121 media/Phorm will spin over the fact that users have started to leave their target ISP's for none 121media/Phorm ISP's

Wonder how happy VirginMedia will be when their users get the letter to say they are going to sell there customers private data to a Spyware company and they all up sticks and start to leave.

If there average user spends £70.00 a month with Virgin i wonder how that equates to the average earned by each users private data. Will one be more than the other and which one will hurt more when they lose it.

If they do this and they lose me they will lose the following.

Phone

Broadband 20 meg now would have been upped to 50 meg when its ready for my area later in the year.

2 x Tvdrives and all movies and sports.


So are you happy VM to lose customers with all those products just so you can be a bunch of wasters

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

Oh, that's OK then. Thanks 'Team Phorm' for sorting it all out. My mind is now at peace.

If you could continue to be so helpful, I wondered if you could help a financially naive poster?

This morning your 'principals' (the ones you are hired to protect) announced that they would raise 32m GBP by placing 1.6m shares at 2000p a share.

Given that the share price today has dropped by over 15% to 1824p, does this still represent good value to potential investors?

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

Great news and I await further developments eagerly.

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

Hey maybe Phorm should take a leaf out of Comcast's book, clearly they have worked much harder on accessing profiling data judging by this:

http://gizmodo.com/369379/comcast-wa...your-cable-box

Lets see how long before VM decide to try this as well.

Alexander Hanff

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

Now thats just downright creepy Alexander. Whatever next?

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

PhormUKteam,

Can you explain, how Phorm will improve my online privacy? No matter how you dress it up, I just can not, see how phorm will provide an improvement to my online privacy?

How will injecting the websites that *I* view with certain ads that will 'benefit' me ? Surely, if I want to buy a shell account, for example, I would use one of the many search engines that are around.

Also most of the moden web browsers, as far as I know, have super phishing filters built in. Google, for example warns users about certain websites that might cause damage, Window's Mail in vista, also provide phishing filters.

I just can not see any benefit. Can you explain?

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

How on earth does an article that doesn't even mention Phorm highlight why it is actually an improvement? All that article does is highlight that people shouldn't trust strange organisations with their data.

Two important points here: First, regardless of what you say, Phorm has to store data that is personally identifiable. It would take a hacker a while, and two hacks, but your info can be linked to the random number used, therefore, the profile stored is accessible. If the system couldn't link data in that way, Phorm would not be able advertise to the user.

Second point, and one that the Phorm PR has totally ignored: Yes, other systems do store profiling data. But, they are OPT IN. They can also be easily blocked, even if you haven't opted out (I have still seen no actual proof that the Phorm system ignores data if the user has opted out). Finally, these system reward the user for their use. Google does target ads, but they don't count that as a reward. No, they provide free email (with potentially unlimited storage), free software (Google Earth, Picasa to name two), a news aggregation system and a comprehensive search engine. What does Phorm reward it's users with? Oh yeah, targetted ads (which I don't consider a benefit) and anti phishing protection (which is already provided by every recent browser apart from Safari).

Oh, and you may argue that Phorm has good protection (and bearing in mind the links to Russian Military intelligence of some of the programmers, I'd be surprised if it wasn't good), but the phorm system would still provide a series of nice "honeypots" to attract hackers (think of how many sets of credit card details the average hacker could get if they successfully hacked the Phorm system and implanted a nice little trojan just before the Anonymising process).

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

thats even more scary than phorms invasion of privacy.

Maybe phorm will put script code to access everybody who has webcams and do the same. :shocked: shut your mouth mertle dont give phorm idiots ideas:dunce::mad:

Where is this all going to end spy cameras in every room in, your cars.

using the cttv cameras to watch where you go and profiling your movements and habits.

Within a year they would know what your thinking before you do it.

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

Chris - It's mentioned on page 2 of the E&Y Privacy Report, in Section II of the Management's Control Description, which can be found at http://www.phorm.com/user_privacy/EY_Phorm_Exam.pdf

(I tried to copy the relevant section into this post, but it seem that either Phorm or E&Y is not keen on people being able to quote that report - it's a protected pdf that defies cut and paste!)

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

The pdf from The Guardian blog isn't protected:

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technolo...20final%20.pdf

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

Protected my ass :) Just don't use an Adobe PDF viewer (the default PDF document viewer in Ubuntu works fine):

"II. Phorm has established industry-leading standards regarding storage, retention and deletion of data.
Storage, retention and use of consumer data are currently key concerns in the online advertising industry. Phorm’s
systems collect browsing information such as URLs visited, search terms entered, OS version, relevant keywords of a
particular page and randomly-generated unique IDs. Importantly, however:
§ This specific data cannot be accessed by our ISP partners.
§ Even this non-personally-identifiable information is automatically purged from the production system immediately.
(Research and debug logs may be kept on a separate system for a maximum of 14 days).
§ Once the system purges this data, it is not possible for us to release it, either accidentally or deliberately."

Alexander Hanff

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

Thats the key statement for me. To put it another way, for the 14 days before the data is purged, it is possible for the data to be released accidentally or deliberately.

Edit: I am referring, of course, to these "research and debug" logs of which there has been very little information provided.

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

Its the "research" part of "research and debug logs" which concerns me. They clearly stated in one of their oh so honest "Answers to Questions" statements that it was debug logs only pertaining to server information. WTF are research logs and WTF do they contain and WTF have these guys not been exiled from the UK yet?

Alexander Hanff

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

Exactly. The term "research" gives plenty of scope for all kinds of practices and there has been next to no information given as to precisely what kind of information these logs may contain and precisely what use will be made of them. An awful lot can go wrong in the 14 days these logs are kept before being purged. Thats if we even believe Phorm when they say that they will be purged.

Edit: Additionally, they do say that these logs will be kept on a seperate system. Will this seperate system be within the ISP network? If not then where will they be kept? Will they be kept in this country?

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

:dunce: I'm currently working on a Mac and it opened in Preview, which honours file locking, apparently... I'm new to Macs, so please make allowances.... :dozey:

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

carrage returns are GOOD ;)

it seems this other NebuAD outfit are in the US right now.

do the US actually have any DPA or RIPA type laws to protect their consumers data etc?.
Wide Open West Using NebuAD
Users don't get much of a heads up...
09:02AM Tuesday Mar 11 2008 by Karl
tags: business · cable · privacy · networking · WOW Internet and Cable

A user for cable operator Wide Open West writes in: "Just thought you'd like to know, that I'm suspicious of my ISP, Wide Open West.

I'm in the Chicagoland area, and it sure looks like they're allowing NebuAD to infect their network (sorry - my personal interpretation...I'm quite peeved about this) and altering pages to include their tracking cookies.

To my knowledge I received no forewarning that they'd be trying this stunt."

...
"

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

This has been posted by a BT rep on the BT webwise Beta site.

So they are still going to force there user into a OPT OUT.

VirginMedia i hope you don't do that or i can see you losing plenty of customers, Me being one of them.

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

At least BT are now saying that if opted-out, their users won't have their clickstream data mirrored or profiled. I wonder if the new opt-out system will be at the network level (as it should be), or still rely on crappy cookies. And nobody has yet answered any of the technical questions about how an opt-out would work in practice for users who block the Phorm cookies altogether...

Time to start talking, VM....

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

thats classic PhormUKPRteam, BUT you forget


"...The poll for the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) found that three-quarters of us were more worried than ever over access to personal data.
And 70% said they felt powerless over how organisations kept an eye on data...."

thats you and yours trying to take our data for your own profit.

your in effect saying 'Phorm (and its gifted kit to co-conspiritor ISPs) trying to comercially pirate your data is better than not pirating your data', errm really... for them and theirs perhaps.

our pirated data is infact paying your PR wage from the unlawful profits your clients made and hope to continue to make.

with your PR skills, you could be informing this 70% of UK Consumers of their DPA and RIPA rights and how its actually their data to profit from or not as they see fit.

would you like to be on the right legal and moral side for once in your life (or is it just money to you), and how much do you an yours charge? :angel:

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

It's Official - 80/20 Thinking DOES NOT endorse Phorm! See this comment from Simon Davies to the latest El Reg article:

The conflict of interest issue - our response
By Simon Davies
Posted Wednesday 19th March 2008 17:33 GMT

The record needs to be set out in full regarding the “conflict of interest” claim relating to 80/20 Thinking and Privacy International. I have no objection to public discussion about the matter, as long as the facts are laid out in full, rather than relying on a twisted, abbreviated account.

Will people please read our report to Phorm. Read it in its brief entirety. Once you’ll do, you’ll realise that there are no conflicts whatever. In that report we argue that the system should be opt-in, that there are unresolved questions, that the matter of legal compliance is irrelevant to the issue of intrusion.

For example, from page 10 of our PIA:

"Phorm liaised with the Home Office to assess whether its system could infringe the UK law that regulates communications surveillance. The Home Office concluded that Phorm's system is consistent with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and does not intercept communications. While this conclusion is a fair interpretation of Phorm and the system's capabilities, communications monitoring still takes place. Even if the Home Office's conclusions were appropriate and relevant, it would mean that if an ISP or any government wished to conduct similar monitoring of communications for segmentation purposes, albeit with consent of the user, then they may indeed do so and yet still be compliant with UK law. This could indeed give rise to a worrying situation."

Yes, FIPR has lodged a detailed complaint with the ICO. That complaint dealt with matters outside 80/20s remit. There is no conflict there.

Is there a conflict between our role in PI and our role in 80/20? Absolutely not. See above. My view is on the record at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7280791.stm Read beyond the headline.

People have asked: “Why are they doing this?” “Why are they advising the evil empire?” Two reasons. First, we believe that engagement is more constructive than non-engagement unless there is no alternative. As PI we have directly engaged companies such as SWIFT, Microsoft and eBay with positive results for privacy.

Second, the British Public, who apparently SO support PI, donate an average of £130 a year to us. We receive more from citizens of India, even during the height of the ID card battle. I, for one, haven’t drawn a salary from PI for eighteen years. That is not a sustainable situation. Nor is it for my staff. Our supporters believe in an ideal, but some seem to believe we must be willing for us to go to our graves principled but penniless. There is a Thatcherite condition that prevails. Namely, that many supporters will make financial contributions to people like us as long as they have some sort of formalised stake in the enterprise. We never played that game.

What is 80/20 Thinking? Check out www.8020thinking.com and find out the details. Or go straight to http://www.8020thinking.com/ethics.html and you’ll see that in fact this company is very much in the advocacy realm, and is intentionally set up to distribute fifty percent of its profits to NGO civil liberties campaigners in developing countries.

Please allow me the pleasure of a small personal reflection. It seems to me, looking back over nearly two decades as an activist, that people were always willing to hail me – and PI – as heroes and visionaries, on the strict condition that we reflected everything without deviation or hesitation that they personally believed. On CCTV, ID cards, children’s fingerprinting, US relations, police powers, DNA databases, going back further to the crypto wars and even further back in dim history to CLI and the telephone battles of the early 1990s, you were always there for us as long as we agreed with you on every point.

So we disagree on one paragraph, namely, our point that personal information has been removed from the Phorm system “as defined in the UK DPA”. If you want to demonise us for making that observation, then go ahead. At a personal level, I find that level of aggression unnecessary. I understand you are concerned about alleged endorsement, but let me reassure you that if we ever endorsed a product, you’d know about it. The last time we endorsed anything was PGP in the era of Phil Zimmermann.

Simon Davies


Pay particular attention to the last paragraph and even more attention to the last sentence:

"I understand you are concerned about alleged endorsement, but let me reassure you that if we ever endorsed a product, you’d know about it. The last time we endorsed anything was PGP in the era of Phil Zimmermann."

So, that pretty much destroys Phorm's claim that 80/20 Endorse and Support their technology.

Don't clap just throw money ;)

Alexander Hanff

---------- Post added at 23:20 ---------- Previous post was at 23:11 ----------

Here is one for all you VM users (from the same El Reg article comments as my previous post):

Well VirginMedia.....
By Anonymous Coward
Posted Wednesday 19th March 2008 22:09 GMT
Flame

....have already implemented this system and it is running. They say on their site they will reveal information closer to roll-out but upon scanning my machine and using a packet scanner on my internet connection it seems they are already using this system.

I wonder for how long now.....

Burn VM Burn

Have any of you guys done any tcpdumps or tcptraceroutes to see if this is the case yet? It could explain why VM are being so quiet about all this. Could we be seeing criminal charges against BT and VM this spring? This is better than "Neighbours" & "Corrie".

Alexander Hanff

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

So, that being the case, what do you reckon to the following DPA notice?:

"Data Protection Notice

I write regarding the intention of Virgin Media to implement Phorm’s system known as “webwise” on your broadband network. I have studied the available information on the technical functionality of this system, and I do not want it to be applied to my internet connection. Please note that I am fully aware of the opt-out system requiring either the placing of a cookie on my computer or the blocking of access to certain domains, but I reject these methods for the reason outlined below:

Despite the offer of an opt-out to prevent me receiving targeted advertising from this system, it is apparent that my web browsing data could still be mirrored to, and analyzed by, Phorm-supplied hardware within your network. Although assurances have been made by Phorm that if I opt-out of the system, no data pertaining to my web browsing habits will be passed from that hardware to Phorm or it’s associates, no assurance has been given that the mirroring and/or profiling of my data will not still take place within the Virgin Media network, and this is unacceptable to me.

According to Phorm, the mirroring and profiling hardware that they supply becomes the property of Virgin Media, so that being the case, I would like to draw your attention to Section 11 of The Data Protection Act 1998 which give me the right to require you to cease, or not begin, processing my data for the purposes of direct marketing.

I hereby inform you that I exercise that right, and prohibit you from routing, mirroring, processing or profiling data traveling to or from my internet connection using any equipment supplied to you for the purpose of operating the Phorm system.

In the event that you receive this letter before the webwise system has been implemented, then it constitutes my standing instruction to you to not begin processing my data in the way outlined above in the future."

---------- Post added at 23:38 ---------- Previous post was at 23:32 ----------

I think it unlikely they'd risk running a covert trial after the heat BT have been getting over their's last July - but who knows? It's even less likely they'd roll it out system-wide without the one-time "welcome/opt-out" screen that Kent Ertugrul keeps banging-on about.... also, I've been clearing my cookies out a lot over the last few days to see what was being dropped on my system, and I haven't seen any recurring UID cookies appearing....

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

This is the second comment I have seen on The Register regarding Virgin already using Phorm. The first one stated that VM support told them that the system was already running and there was no way to opt out. I never publicised the first comment because it was contrary to the email responses reported elsewhere from VM saying it was not yet implemented, but when I see 2 claims that it is, I get a little more persuaded that it -may- be true. Ultimately we need a bunch of you guys who are actually using VM to run the tests for yourself and see if it is true.

Alexander Hanff

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

What tests can we do to find out? I read somewhere that a tracert doesn't really help much, as routing can appear pretty bizarre at the best of times, even without the sneaky redirects that Phorm performs. What should we be looking for?

I Got A Reply To My Dpa Letter!
 

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

As Lucevans request, what can we do to help find out if VM have implemented it already?

Re: I Got A Reply To My Dpa Letter!
 

Feel free - stick around, keep reading, & keep posting :)

You don't have to be a VM customer to be a member of CF.

We're unofficial & independent. Although we're primarily a forum providing help etc. for VM customers, we do also have sections for non-VM TV/'net/phone suppliers as well as various Off Topic sections.

We have plenty of members (& at least one Mod ;) ) who used to be VM/ntl/TW customers - they still post here & we're happy for them to do so.

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

i liked the
Anonymous said... Do Phorm comply with the following, does it apply?

http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/codes/cap_...clause_id=1490

The CAP Code - Rules
SUBSTANTIATION
Before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove all claims, whether direct or implied, that are capable of objective substantiation.

Relevant evidence should be sent without delay if requested by the ASA or CAP. The adequacy of evidence will be judged on whether it supports both the detailed claims and the overall impression created by the marketing communication.

The full name and geographical business address of marketers should be provided without delay if requested by the ASA or CAP.

http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/codes/cap_...clause_id=1501

The CAP Code - Rules
HONESTY
Marketers should not exploit the credulity, lack of knowledge or inexperience of consumers.

http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/codes/cap_...clause_id=1503
The CAP Code - Rules
TRUTHFULNESS
No marketing communication should mislead, or be likely to mislead, by inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration, omission or otherwise.

it seems PRs BBC 70% dont trust story linked to Phorm by him droped off the cliff on that last one...:dunce:

Re: I Got A Reply To My Dpa Letter!
 

that sucks typical businesses atitude you take the time effort and COST to give them registered DPA notice they gice you rubbish email. I bet your letter hit there waste paper bin they just read your contact details gave you the standard bad business finger salute standard reply. Get this according to webwise opt out we are not active so NOW have no opt out option. You cannot Get the webwise opt out cookie this what the home page says.

Just to add more twist to this sorry saga especially IF VM gone all COVERT with nasty underhand switch on.

Thank god that dephormation forcing the opt out cookie. Pete is :angel:

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

Has anybody asked Virgin if it has ever run, perhaps as a trial? Are there any definitive statements from Virgin?

I've assumed the silence from them is because they are still calculating potential profit/loss i.e. money gained from phorm vs. money lost by 'marketing targets' walking away.

Maybe they are keeping their heads down because they have more to hide. If not guilty, it's simple for them to issue a denial.

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

Firing up a vanilla version of Opera rather than my tied down Firefox and did a quick bit of surfing, there are no cookies from oix, webwise or phorm. Naturally I kept to sites which are not signed up to the oix agreement.

The Virgin Media Group Data Protection Officer, Ian Woodham, wrote a hand signed letter to me (posted previously) saying:

"...nothing has yet been implemented and we are still carrying out our analysis of how we will deploy Phorm's product offering"

If Virgin Media have implemented Phorm then they have gone against their commitment to advise their customers as per Regulation 6 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.

In my reply to Mr Woodham I specifically requested "Please confirm that there is no equipment provided by or in any way connected to Phorm on the Virgin Media network." He is also aware that any future responses may well be quoted elsewhere.

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

I will get back to people on the questions re: how to check if VM is using Phorm on your connection as I only have a few minutes (look at tcpdump and tcptraceroute if you get a chance meanwhile (note tcptraceroute -not- traceroute)).

But I did have a think earlier about some more sinister consequences of this system with regards to shared computers.

One example is domestic abuse. Say for example a female victim of domestic abuse is searching for support groups or information about leaving her husband/partner and this happens to get picked up by the profiler because the sites she is looking at are not on the "blacklist". She spends several days doing this whilst her husband/partner is at work, then one night he logs on and starts browsing the net. He happens upon a site which is using the OIX advertising platform and sees ads related to his partner's/wife's recent browsing habits. We could potentially see tragic consequences, even deaths as a result of severe violent reactions to the discovery.

Other examples are child abuse victims, people with medical conditions they have kept hidden from the family etc. Even less "serious" scenarios where one's partner is looking for a birthday gift for you and you happen to use the computer after a profile has been built up could lead to upsetting consequences.

There is a lot that really doesn't seem to have been thought of when assessing the impact this technology could have on the more vulnerable members of our society.

Alexander Hanff

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

I've downloaded a copy of tracetcp for Windows, but I'm not sure how to spot any routing through webwise/phorm. Does this look normal? The first two hops are my router (I think), I can easily connect a PC directly to the modem if necessary.

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

2nd hop is not your router unless you are using network bridging, or at least it doesn't look like it is to me (plus the ping is pretty high for your router).

Alexander Hanff

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

Yeah, I wasn't sure about that 2nd hop either, not sure what it is to be honest.

Are the rest of my results any good to you? They look normal to me, but I'm no expert with this this kind of thing.

Ooh, I have just remembered I'm using OpenDNS - will that affect the result?

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

2 10 ms 12 ms 20 ms 10.89.232.1

This is the private ip address for the modem.

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

Ta muchly! :tu:

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

The latency between the 192 and 10 address if they are on the same device should be much much lower than 10-12ms. I would expect it to show as <1ms. That second hop looks like it is on the WAN not the LAN note how it is similar to the other hops on the NTL network.

You sure that is not the NTL gateway address?

Excuse my brief answers I am in and out of the office atm tending to my 2 year old.

Alexander Hanff