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Old 02-05-2008, 14:01   #5348
vicz
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Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: UK
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Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dephormation View Post
It could be... But if you have no commitment to implement, why would you as a software supplier write code to adapt your product to suit Virgin's end users? Particularly on a machine external to Virgins network?

And what purpose would an internal test serve if it was not conducted on a substantial volume of web content from a variety of sources... ie drawn from the internet directly or indirectly. If I own that content and I deny you the right to process it in this way, then I'm not going to be a happy bunny if it is the data you use to test your spyware.

I believe, if only the Police/Home Office would investigate VM, they'd find more evidence. For end users its near impossible; everything is circumstantial without server side data. With Police powers VM offices could be raided.
Yes as you say there are many unanswered questions. When BT did its 2006 trial the product was obviously different to now - witness the javascript injections. Did they spend the last 2 years on development - that's a long time. And they are still tweaking around how they mangle cookies and hastily how to have a non-cookie based opt in/out. My guess is that they started with their spyware ad-serving infrastructure and tried to mate it with DPI and the layer 7 switch much later. And maybe what they are pushing now is actually a stripped down version of the 2006 product - after all it is apparently only a subset of what is in the patent.

So what exactly were VM playing with 'in the lab.'?
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