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

[3x2]

Yes the 07 trails (if BT confirm them) would be in addition. You have to assume that they involved (at least) a similar number of customers. Don't forget that one customer is multiple interceptions. Between 23 September and 6 October 2006 - How many sites/pages did you visit in this two week period?

I am at a loss as to why HMG and "the media" are remaining silent on the issue. No matter what they did with the data afterwards it was clearly an unlawful interception of communications under RIPA and one on a scale that is quite unbelievable. There is no safe harbour provision in RIPA for BT or Phorm.

If it was a case of "yes we intercepted 18,000 mobile phones over a two week period but we didn't listen to them, honest" what would there be to talk about other than appropriate sentencing of those involved?

AND STILL NOTHING FROM VM

[Portly_Giraffe]

Thanks OF1975 - I will see if I can get Virgin Media to confirm this in writing.

[AlexanderHanff]

yeah it was an April fool but I have to confess it is not the first time I have thought of the possibility since all this started given Phorm's links to Russia as previously reported in the online press. We have cost their share capital something like £60M in the last 6 weeks given they reportedly had something like £130M in share capital at the beginning of the slide and they have slid over 50%. Some people have paid heavily for this publicity nightmare...

[3x2]

We have cost their share capital something like £60M in the last 6 weeks given they reportedly had something like £130M

If they come round again just point them my way .... I'm Sparticus

[OF1975]

Originally Posted by 3x2

If they come round again just point them my way .... I'm Sparticus

No. I am Sparticus!

---------- Post added at 16:03 ---------- Previous post was at 16:01 ----------

Originally Posted by Portly_Giraffe

Thanks OF1975 - I will see if I can get Virgin Media to confirm this in writing.

If you do get them to confirm it in writing please do let us all know immediately you receive the letter. At the moment I remain sceptical but hopeful.

[AlexanderHanff]

Losing VM will be a big blow for them since they pwn the cable industry in the UK. Would be an even bigger blow than losing The Guardian I expect.

Alexander Hanff

---------- Post added at 16:23 ---------- Previous post was at 16:06 ----------

Someone just posted to iii in the discussion on PHRM.L called Stazi Phormistan, I am presuming they are one of us and therefore wish to correct the post.

The 2 Year prison sentence is for cases heard in the Magistrates Court, if the case makes it to Crown Court the maximum prison sentence is 5 years with no limit on the fines. You can find this information in the notes which accompany RIPA (or it might be Crown Court and High Court I would have to double check and I am very tired right now). Needless to say a case of this magnitude would be heard in the highest criminal court.

Alexander Hanff
PS. If you are one of us or anyone else has posting rights on the iii discussion, don't forget to mention that VM have allegedly stated today on the phone that they are dropping Phorm.

[OF1975]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHanff

Losing VM will be a big blow for them since they pwn the cable industry in the UK. Would be an even bigger blow than losing The Guardian I expect.

Alexander Hanff

---------- Post added at 16:23 ---------- Previous post was at 16:06 ----------

Someone just posted to iii in the discussion on PHRM.L called Stazi Phormistan, I am presuming they are one of us and therefore wish to correct the post.

The 2 Year prison sentence is for cases heard in the Magistrates Court, if the case makes it to Crown Court the maximum prison sentence is 5 years with no limit on the fines. You can find this information in the notes which accompany RIPA (or it might be Crown Court and High Court I would have to double check and I am very tired right now). Needless to say a case of this magnitude would be heard in the highest criminal court.

Alexander Hanff
PS. If you are one of us or anyone else has posting rights on the iii discussion, don't forget to mention that VM have allegedly stated today on the phone that they are dropping Phorm.

That was me Alexander. I will quickly go check if they have an edit function so I can update it.

[AlexanderHanff]

There is a silver lining to this cloud though. Publicity scandals like this and others like the Bank Charges publicity campaign do serve a very important purpose. I wouldn't like to guess how many 10s of thousands of people are more educated about their Rights and their Privacy as a result of such campaigns but I would be willing to bet it is a lot. The more scandals like this come out into the open the more empowered the general public become as a result which only serves to increase awareness in future situations. Hopefully long term the British people will wake up from their apathetic haze and start fighting to get the rights back which have been eroded away over the past 10 years.

Alexander Hanff

---------- Post added at 16:43 ---------- Previous post was at 16:37 ----------

"Earl of Northesk to ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they are taking any action on the targeted advertising service offered by Phorm in the light of the questions about its legality under the Data Protection and Regulation of Investigatory Powers Acts. [DfBERR] HL2635"

http://www.publications.parliament.u...d/ldcumlst.htm

---------- Post added at 16:46 ---------- Previous post was at 16:43 ----------

3 Cheers for the Earl of Northesk. Who wrote to him?

---------- Post added at 16:47 ---------- Previous post was at 16:46 ----------

OK peeps, lets start the petition action:

Hi,

I'm sorry to inform you that your petition has been rejected
again.

Your petition was classed as being in the following categories:

* Duplicate - this is similar to and/or overlaps with an
existing petition or petitions

Further information: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/ispphorm/

Your petition will now appear in the list of rejected
petitions.

Your petition reads:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to: 'Order the
Home Office to initiate criminal proceedings against BT for
their secret trial of Phorm in July 2007'

BT have admitted to running secret trials of Phorm technology
between 23 September and 6 October 2006 and July 2007. They
have further admitted to lying to the media, press and their
customers when questioned about this at the time.

In carrying out this trial without receiving consent from their
customers and the web sites they visited, BT appear to be in
criminal breach of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act
2000; as this (as defined by the Act) is classified as an
Unlawful Interception.

The number of counts for this offence potentially runs into
millions dependent on how many communications they intercepted
over the period of the trials.

Whether the data was discarded or anonymised after the fact is
irrelevant and does not alter the fact that all these
interceptions were in fact Unlawful as defined by the Act.

-- the ePetitions team

[Ravenheart]

The Earl of Northesk brought that up on the 17th March, so it's been a few weeks ago.

---------- Post added at 16:54 ---------- Previous post was at 16:51 ----------

Here's a nice page on the Earl of Northesk

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/orgwi...rl_of_Northesk

Well worth a look

[AlexanderHanff]

New petition added:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to 'Order the
Home Office to initiate criminal proceedings against BT for
their secret trial of Phorm in 2006/2007'

BT have admitted to running secret trials of Phorm technology
between 23 September and 6 October 2006 and July 2007. They
have further admitted to lying to the media, press and their
customers when questioned about this at the time.

In carrying out this trial without receiving consent from their
customers and the web sites they visited, BT appear to be in
criminal breach of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act
2000; as this (as defined by the Act) is classified as an
Unlawful Interception.

The number of counts for this offence potentially runs into
millions dependent on how many communications they intercepted
over the period of the trials.

Whether the data was discarded or anonymised after the fact is
irrelevant and does not alter the fact that all these
interceptions were in fact Unlawful as defined by the Act.

Even members of the House of Lords want answers on this issue,
see Earl of Northesk:

http://www.publications.parliament.u...d/ldcumlst.htm

[oblonsky]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHanff

Someone just posted to iii in the discussion on PHRM.L called Stazi Phormistan, I am presuming they are one of us and therefore wish to correct the post.

Hi Alex - just hopped over from Badphorm. Noticed some woman Carol posting on iii for a while, at first seemed to be pro-phorm but now showing her true colours. Not you is it?!

[AlexanderHanff]

No lol. Wrong gender firstly, secondly I have never been anything but anti-Phorm and finally I don't have posting access on iii

Alexander Hanff

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHanff

There is a silver lining to this cloud though. Publicity scandals like this and others like the Bank Charges publicity campaign do serve a very important purpose. I wouldn't like to guess how many 10s of thousands of people are more educated about their Rights and their Privacy as a result of such campaigns but I would be willing to bet it is a lot. The more scandals like this come out into the open the more empowered the general public become as a result which only serves to increase awareness in future situations. Hopefully long term the British people will wake up from their apathetic haze and start fighting to get the rights back which have been eroded away over the past 10 years.

Alexander Hanff

---------- Post added at 16:43 ---------- Previous post was at 16:37 ----------

"Earl of Northesk to ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they are taking any action on the targeted advertising service offered by Phorm in the light of the questions about its legality under the Data Protection and Regulation of Investigatory Powers Acts. [DfBERR] HL2635"

http://www.publications.parliament.u...d/ldcumlst.htm

---------- Post added at 16:46 ---------- Previous post was at 16:43 ----------

3 Cheers for the Earl of Northesk. Who wrote to him?

The House of Lords is a wonderful thing. Truly highlights the checks and balances of the UK Parlimentary system. Hope Labour really does not manage to crush this with all the elected peers. The standing peers that do it for love of the country and have little dependancy on the earnings stream from that role.

[AlexanderHanff]

"The figure shows a client process, “AutoUpdate (1620)” connecting to a remote host (207.44.186.90) via a socket whose state is “CLOSE-WAIT.” However, the pop-up information window and the packet dump window both show that data is actively crossing this “closed” connection. This behavior is reminiscent of a covert channel."

The Fink Paper (page 7) http://people.cs.vt.edu/~finkga/Rese...tal-Divide.pdf

paladine@main:~$ nslookup bt.webwise.net
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: bt.webwise.net
Address: 207.44.186.90
Name: bt.webwise.net
Address: 88.208.248.102
Name: bt.webwise.net
Address: 88.208.250.66
Name: bt.webwise.net
Address: 88.208.250.85

*whistles*

[Portly_Giraffe]

Further to my earlier posting I was called again by Virgin Media. Their representative told me that the previous representative who had spoken to me had advised me incorrectly because she had misunderstood the issue. I'm not sure what wasn't clear about:
"I understand with growing concern that you plan to partner with Phorm to use deep packet inspection to monitor your subscribers' web activity, in order to present targeted advertising to them on sites which are also signed up to the Phorm service. This proposal is fundamentally immoral ... ... ... should you deploy Phorm I will move my broadband, television and telephone services to other providers. This is regardless of any "opt in" or "opt out" arrangements which might be agreed – any partnership with Phorm is unacceptable."

According to the representative, Virgin Media is still considering working with Phorm, though the decision is some way off.