Quote:
Originally Posted by Pasanonic
I keep reading back what I say and it seems I'm playing devil's advocate which is not my intention. I'm just a concerned individual with possibly a little more than a layman's knowledge but having many years of dealing with areas of business that are considered to fall under the jurisdiction of the HO and MOD and given that I've spent the last 20 years dealing with the official secrets act pertaining to my contracts ( I'm also an ex serving NCO in the British army although that's not too relevant ) I just want to be sure that the things we say are factual and honest given the information we have at hand.
I'm 110% behind anything I believe is wrong and will fight to my own personal detriment. I just want to be sure that others in my team are fighting on the same principle and not just 'scaremongering' because if we allow ourselves to get into a slanging match based upon personal feeling then we will play right into the hands of Kent. I believe 'scaremongering' will be the basis of his defence against us and truth will be our counter.
Regards
Craig.
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Well I certainly wouldn't pick a fight with an ex NCO!
Seriously though - Phorm have played fast and loose with terms like due diligence, audit, and PIA. There is a long list of false or irrelevant claims that they have made in attempting to validate their system.
They claimed PI had done a PIA, then got very pernickety when it was pointed out that PI and 80/20 were not the same organisation, and had silly arguments about what "hats" Simon Davies was wearing (Charles Arthur interview, Guardian)
They claimed a PIA had been done, when in fact it was an interim privacy report. (Sadly the 80/20 site itself replicated this error on its front page, although not on the inside pages, until only a day or so ago)
Phorm quoted the privacy audit by Ernst & Young in discussions on the UK implementation of Webwise, when Ernst & Young did not look at the technical specifics of how the Webwise system would operate in the UK when/if adopted by the ISP's, and they did not consider the UK/EU legal environment. And they are a US outfit who have been in trouble with the US FTC themselves, so why should be believe a big US accounting firm anyway on issues of integrity?
So, I think we can expect that whatever the final report from 80/20 says, Ertugrul will be quoting selectively from it, and claiming much more for it than he is entitled to. That is simply the way he operates. We must make sure that the relevant journalists know the right questions to ask him, live, on air, and encourage them to give him plenty of exposure.
I think we need to keep our powder dry, read the interim privacy report from 80/20, read the final report when it comes out, remember to refer to those reports accurately, remember the caveats in the original interim report that said a full PIA was actually not possible because of the late start, and then see exactly what is said, and check very very carefully what use is made of the report by Ertugrul and the ISP's.
I think it would be unwise if anyone were to impugn the integrity of 80/20 at this stage, although I would understand that there might be some vigorous private correspondence between campaigners and 80/20 about outstanding issues like the video, the integrity issues around Phorm Inc (I'd like to hear from them about their logo for example - DID they steal it from the Sheffield design company called Phorm?). Kent Ertugrul has landed the ISP's in the manure by the way he has handled his PR, if he was my commercial partner, I'd be furious. I imagine he will happily attempt to exploit 80/20 for his own ends too. Whether he succeeds or not, we will have to wait and see. That 80/20 report needs publishing and very very soon - we don't want a long embarrassing delay like we have had with the Town Hall video.
And once it IS published, of course we need to check whether the system being adopted by the ISP's, is the SAME as that which was being discussed in the 80/20 report - it can't be, because BT at least, are retrophitting it as we speak, in an attempt to make it slightly less illegal (culpable homicide rather than 1st degree murder?).