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

This is a draft e-mail to David Davis. I'm assuming that although he's a "self confessed geek" he might not be completely up to speed on the Phorm issue. Sorry for the length but as you probably noticed, I'm not very good at concise. Suggestions, enhancements and corrections appreciated.

From: Me
To: davisd@parliament.uk

Dear Mr Davis,

I should like to bring to your attention a number of worrying recent developments in the field of internet privacy and of the failure of the Office of the Information Commissioner to investigate what appear to be breaches of the Data Protection Act and Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.

You may already be aware that three major internet service providers (ISPs) have signed agreements with a company known as Phorm to sell the internet browsing data of their users as part of a "targeted advertising" scheme.

Computer news site The Register has uncovered a number of disturbing facts about Phorm including its previous involvement in spyware under a different name. Phorm prefer to spin this fact saying they were involved in adware. A cursory look at http://blogs.zdnet.com/Spyware/index.php?p=820, http://www.f-secure.com/sw-desc/peopleonpage.shtml and http://www.f-secure.com/sw-desc/apropos.shtml suggests differently.

Phorm make a number of claims about their "product" being "a gold standard in user privacy" but despite being present on The Register, CableForum and a number of weblogs they have failed to openly and honestly answer detailed technical questions and concerns put in the public domain. You can find an example of such questions on http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03...ster/comments/

Particularly I refer to the growing belief that Phorm is illegal under RIPA. The Foundation for Information Policy Research has published an open letter to Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, stating this belief.

This letter is at http://www.fipr.org/080317icoletter.html

The Guardian newspaper recently rejected Phorm, saying that their "decision was in no small part down to the conversations we had internally about how this product sits with the values of our company." As polite a devastating put down as I have ever seen.

More recently The Register obtained proof that BT not only secretly tested this "product" in June 2007 but lied to cover up this fact. Customers were given various excuses for their concerns, but no customer was told the truth. The report is at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/17/bt_phorm_lies/

This issue took an even more serious turn when The Register revealed that it had seen documentary evidence confirming that "BT secretly intercepted and profiled the web browsing of 18,000 of its broadband customers in 2006 using advertising technology provided by 121Media, the alleged spyware company that changed its name to Phorm last year. BT Retail ran the "stealth" pilot without customer consent between 23 September and 6 October 2006."

This in addition to the secret 2007 tests. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 makes intercepting internet traffic without a warrant or consent an offence. It seems to me that illegally intercepting 18,000 customers' internet traffic is in breach of that legislation. As was the first secret test. I contend that BT must also be in breach of the Data Protection Act as the data was collected without customers' consent.

Please read the full report at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04...rm_2006_trial/

BT claimed that there was nothing illegal about the trials but refused to answer a number of direct questions asked by The Register about Stratis Scleparis, the BT Retail CTO who became Phorm CTO after the first successful secret trial. BT preferred to hide behind a bland statement and refused to apologise to customers.

The report is at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04...orm_interview/

I am also led to understand that the Metropolitan Police declined to record the first of BT's secret tests as a crime when a colleague tried to report it as such. Please read the report at http://denyphorm.blogspot.com/2008/0...ort-crime.html

A number of people have already complained to the ICO but had little back in response.

Today we became aware that despite these facts coming to light, the ICO have said that there is definitely no official investigation by ICO with regards to Phorm. Neither is there any investigation with regards the BT secret trials of 2006 and 2007.

I am led to believe the ICO are claiming that RIPA falls under the remit of the Home Office. The ICO seem unwilling to accept there should be an investigation into the activities of BT and Phorm. I should also add that the ICO were also extremely reluctant to divulge this information to a colleague and refused permission to quote them.

This cannot be acceptable from a public servant organisation.

This cannot be acceptable from the organisation created to "protect personal information" "provide information to individuals and organisations" and "take appropriate action when the law is broken."

A major telcommunications company in the UK has betrayed the trust placed in it by its users. It and its accomplice, Phorm, should surely be brought to book for this flagrant violation of privacy legislation.

One cannot help but wonder if the lack of action by the government and ICO is influenced in any way by the presence of former Labour minister Patricia Hewitt. I am not suggesting any impropriety but I am sure you appreciate that I and many others cannot understand why BT and Phorm are being allowed to breach internet users' privacy with complete disregard for their customers or the law.

I urge you to take up this issue with your colleagues in both Houses, the House Of Commons Science and Technology and Culture, Media and Sport Committees and the House Of Lords Science and Technology Committee.

Thank you for your time. If I may be of any further assistance to you please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Yours sincerely

The Parliamentary committees may be worth contacting: the House Of Lords committee at http://www.parliament.uk/parliamenta...ct_details.cfm and the House Of Commons Select Committee at http://www.parliament.uk/parliamenta..._committee.cfm
and the Commons Culture, Media and Sport committee at http://www.parliament.uk/parliamenta...rt_members.cfm

Each one has a number of members. More people to enlighten and educate.

Sorry for the length. I need a cup of tea now!

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

ohh yes, the old blipverts....

i cant find the old video clip for that in 2 minutes but others might have fun looking
http://www.maxheadroom.com/mh_episode_11.html

Carter: "Edison Carter to Network 23... come on, guys, clear this link!"

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2008/04/28.gif Carter: "This is Edison Carter, answering the questions other people are afraid to ask. What I want to know is this: Who died today in apartment complex 1-4-2-zeta, and who is trying to suppress the story?"

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2008/04/28.gif Murray: "Have you looked at our ratings? The numbers are up three points in the first five minutes!"

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2008/04/28.gif Carter: "It's MY neck out there!"

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2008/04/28.gif Gene Ashwell: "Come on, Ben - the only people that inactive are pensioners, the sick or the unemployed... I mean, who really cares?"

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2008/04/28.gif Mrs. Formby: "We are the only channel with blipverts. We lose them, and we lose the Zik-Zak Corporation to our competitors."
....
"

http://search.virginmedia.com/result...&cr=&x=28&y=13

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

Fantastic letter CaptJamieHunter

Can I also take this opportunity to thank everyone on the forum who has helped steer us all in the right direction.

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

CaptJamie, you might want to work in part of this, we need to get more basic and explain this deep packet inspection unit and how they should be scared.

keep away from the fluffy its good advertising, and stops Phishing....

this kit VirginMedia and BT etc are being given for free by Phorm to install at the other end of your line is called a deep packet inspection unit,and its job is used to inspect every single bit of data that passes through it, its original intent was for the worlds govts to use in tracking illegal activitys and even then , only after a court judge has looked at the evidence and authorised its use.

this is not your usual new tech ,its been around for a very long time, but now your friendly US ex-spyware vendor is using it to collect your copyrighted personal data (all of it ,potentially) and profit from that data as they chose, they seem to think they are higher than the courts in this matter and dont need to bother, perhaps the Uk's judges have another opinion about that?.

how may UK Judges have BT,VM as their office and home broadband connections ?, VM do carry a lot of the countrys govt network after all, if your a judge thats not a tech head, consider that, do you want this deep packet inspection kit potentially looking at every single bit of data (key presses and mouse movements/clicks etc) that passes from your PC on the desk to your viewed web pages and back?

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

:clap: :clap: :clap: for captjamiehunter.

Love the letter. One slight addition.. you need to add in that Patricia Hewitt sits on the BT board.

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

i want a judge or two to give personal comment on this, i cant think they would be happy in any of it....

anyone been to the Uk judges blogs, i keep forgetting to look and comment.

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

Thanks for the feedback. Patricia Hewitt is mentioned towards the bottom, along with a possible perception of impropriety.

I'll work on a deep packet element (which I hope I can keep short) after another cup of tea.

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

I have a few questions!

1. Is my browsing speeds going to be effected by what is going to be a proxy in disguise?

2. Also is their any law against targeting children with phorm as each logon would have their own cookie and the last thing I want is some company pedding adverts to my child?

Also here will be a way to get around the advertsing bans on TV before watershed. As the information will plainly show it's a child browsing if their visting websites like childrens bbc etc.

3. Also who will maintain these boxes and who will oversee any modification to what they can scan.

Will it Virgin or Phorm?

4. Will Virgin even have access to see what these boxes are doing?

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

Ooh I must have rattled a cage with my last reply to the Phorm team, they've been on my blog again :)

After a cuppa I'll start my response :)

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

All good stuff, I'll make my coments in the body of it in some way.
At a high level you want to cover Illigal under RIPA / Passing the buck between ICO and Home Office, other companies backing away due to nature of tracking.
You might want to [1] annotate the links and put the hyperlinks themselves at the bottom of the letter.
You really want this to fit to a page of printed paper 1.5 spaced with the main information on the first half of the page. Thats about the attention he will be able to give it.

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

Thanks for the link. I've just watched Channel 4 news (evening edition) and the piece on BT/Phorm was far better than anything the BBC has done to date. We need to keep this story on the boil and hopefully Channel 4 at least will run with it.

To CaptainJamieHunter:

Well done sir for a clear, concise letter to David Davis.

Other than the Patricia Hewiit/BT Board link and a line or two about deep packet inspection, the only possible addition I could think of was maybe reference to the fact that the offered opt-out will still result in a customer's data being routed through the deep packet inspection kit (the implication being that we only have their word for it that we're not still being profiled, and no means to verify or disprove that fact)

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

One cup of tea later and we have a new amendment:

Dear Mr Davis,

I should like to bring to your attention a number of worrying recent developments in the field of internet privacy and of the failure of the Office of the Information Commissioner to investigate what appear to be breaches of the Data Protection Act and Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.

You may already be aware that three major internet service providers (ISPs) have signed agreements with a company known as Phorm to sell the internet browsing data of their users as part of a "targeted advertising" scheme.

Computer news site The Register has uncovered a number of disturbing facts about Phorm including its previous involvement in spyware under a different name. Phorm prefer to spin this fact saying they were involved in adware. A cursory look at http://blogs.zdnet.com/Spyware/index.php?p=820,
http://www.f-secure.com/sw-desc/peopleonpage.shtml and
http://www.f-secure.com/sw-desc/apropos.shtml suggests differently/

Phorm make a number of claims about their "product" being "a gold standard in user privacy" but despite being present on The Register, CableForum and a number of weblogs they have failed to openly and honestly answer detailed technical questions and concerns put in the public domain.

The technology which causes greatest concern is that of Deep Packet Inspection. This unit is installed by Phorm - the ISP has no access to it so cannot test, check or verify anything about the unit - and it inspects every packet of data which passes through it. Everyone who works at home, be they home workers, members of Parliament, judges, would find their data being subjected to the kind of inspection only intended for criminal activities and which would only ever be available to a judge following due legal process but here will be available to a company with a very questionable history. Confidential Crown material worked on by yourself or your Right Honourable colleagues could well be tapped under such a scheme.

There are unanswered questions about where this data will be stored. Phorm has offices in Moscow and New York. If this data is stored anywhere other than the UK then it is not subject to UK Data Protection legislation.

A simple analogy is your daily post. Imagine if every piece of post was opened, read, its contents noted and then resealed before being given to you. But you don't know who the person reading your post is. You don't know where that information could reappear. You don't know how many confidences will be betrayed. Every piece of post. Letters from constituents, Parliamentary colleagues, business colleagues, friends, family members, others raising issues with you as I am.

That is what Phorm is about.

You will understand now why I refer to the growing belief that Phorm is illegal under RIPA. Government advisors The Foundation for Information Policy Research has published an open letter to Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, stating this belief.

This letter is at http://www.fipr.org/080317icoletter.html

The Guardian newspaper recently rejected Phorm, saying that their "decision was in no small part down to the conversations we had internally about how this product sits with the values of our company." As polite a devastating put down as I have ever seen.

More recently The Register obtained proof that BT not only secretly tested this "product" in June 2007 but lied to cover up this fact. Customers were given various excuses for their concerns, but no customer was told the truth.

The report is at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/17/bt_phorm_lies/

This issue took an even more serious turn when The Register revealed that it had seen documentary evidence confirming that "BT secretly intercepted and profiled the web browsing of 18,000 of its broadband customers in 2006 using advertising technology provided by 121Media, the alleged spyware company that changed its name to Phorm last year. BT Retail ran the "stealth" pilot without customer consent between 23 September and 6 October 2006."

This in addition to the secret 2007 tests. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 makes intercepting internet traffic without a warrant or consent an offence. It seems to me that illegally intercepting 18,000 customers' internet traffic is in breach of that legislation. As was the first secret test. I contend that BT must also be in breach of the Data Protection Act as the data was collected without customers' consent.

Please read the full report at
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04...rm_2006_trial/

BT claimed that there was nothing illegal about the trials but refused to answer a number of direct questions asked by The Register about Stratis Scleparis, the BT Retail CTO who became Phorm CTO after the first successful secret trial. BT preferred to hide behind a bland statement and refused to apologise to customers.

The report is at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04...orm_interview/

I am also led to understand that the Metropolitan Police declined to record the first of BT's secret tests as a crime when a colleague tried to report it as such. Please read the report at http://denyphorm.blogspot.com/2008/0...ort-crime.html

A number of people have already complained to the ICO but had little back in response.

Today we became aware that despite these facts coming to light, the ICO have said that there is definitely no official investigation by ICO with regards to Phorm. Neither is there any investigation with regards the BT secret trials of 2006 and 2007.

I am led to believe the ICO are claiming that RIPA falls under the remit of the Home Office. The ICO seem unwilling to accept there should be an investigation into the activities of BT and Phorm. I should also add that the ICO were also extremely reluctant to divulge this information to a colleague
and refused permission to quote them.

This cannot be acceptable from a public servant organisation.

This cannot be acceptable from the organisation created to "protect personal information" "provide information to individuals and organisations" and "take appropriate action when the law is broken."

A major telcommunications company in the UK has betrayed the trust placed in it by its users. It and its accomplice, Phorm, should surely be brought to book for this flagrant violation of privacy legislation.

One cannot help but wonder if the lack of action by the government and ICO is influenced in any way by the presence of former Labour minister Patricia Hewitt. I am not suggesting any impropriety but I am sure you appreciate that I and many others cannot understand why BT and Phorm are being allowed to breach internet users' privacy with complete disregard for their customers or the law.

I urge you to take up this issue with your colleagues in both Houses, the House Of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology and the House Of Lords Science and Technology Committee.

Thank you for your time. If I may be of any further assistance to you please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Yours sincerely

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

:clap:

Jamie, you are a star, thank you (and those who have contributed) so very much, it's a fab letter. I can't see anything that's been missed out. Do you mind if we use this to send to our own MPs/MEPs/ local councils etc?

Ali ((huggsss))

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

Here's the latest comment I've received on my blog.

The comment also had an IP address on it. I've been busy with things for a meeting tomorrow so have yet to reply.

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

:blush: You're making me shy again :blush:

The wording isn't quite fixed yet, I'm just working on a trimmed version that flows a little better. By all means, please feel free to use this as the basis for any letters you want to send.

I'll post my final version at 10:45 after I've had a drink and a chill out.