Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHanff
Given that two people who claim to have known Kent personally for several years have come out of the woodwork almost overnight to sing his praises about what a decent chap he is; the more sceptical amongst us might smell a rat.
Alexander Hanff
|
It looks to me as though Phorm's PR are trying to paint the situation as being you versus Kent as though this is just some personal vendetta.
He is a very smooth operator and has great presentation skills. Watch his various recorded appearences you soon see that he gives absolutely no technical descriptions and only ever talks about the system in very general terms. He follows the old sales doctrine of "sell the benefits, not the product".
Whilst it's vital to have the technical details to be able to back-up any arguments, those details don't need to be used to fight Phorm's PR. Fight them at their own game. If Kent says it's anonymous then we say it's private. If Phorm say it won't profile medical issues, we say that can profile health issues. If Kent says it's not as bad as Google, we say it's worse because we only use Google to get to the website.
I would not be surprised to see a personal attack on you coming from a source "outside" of Phorm fairly soon because you seem to have started attracting some good will. I'm sure that you'd agree that Kent has better presentation skills than you have but if he lets you become the underdog then he's lost. He's got to try and portray himself as the victim with you as the tarnished leader of a bunch of geeky fanatics who are just looking for a fight.
It's the same tactic that's often used by governments wherever there is massed protest - claim that there is a group with a hidden agenda orchestrating the protest and paint the rest of the protestors as decent but misguided. If nothing else it completely diverts attention away from the real issue.
The prime issue here is whether or not an ISP should be allowed to intercept and analyse their customers' and other internet users' communications. Phorm is just one company and even if they fail there will others. If DPI is outlawed there's always a new technology around the corner.
I can't stomach Kent - I think he's slimey and has all the morals of a fungus - but the real fight is about getting protection from ISP level abuse of our private communications and the only way to get any reasonable assurance of that is to get more people informed and interested.
If Kent starts fighting dirty then we should just ignore him as he and his company are really just a minor part of the problem. We can take the wind out of his sails by treating him as what he is - just another contractor working for the ISPs and not doing a very good job of it at that.