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

[popper]

and the same points stand,clear as day, weather its Phorm gifted DPI kit or BT BAPF DPI kit, they are intercepting your connection with the first thing your datastream hits is the BT Owned DPI kit,collecting it and processing it in the RAM of the kit,BEFORE they have asked for permission,...and if you just say "NO" to their upcoming Opt-in intercepted page.

then they are unlawfully storing and/or reading a data cookie they have not got the right to place in your PC's RAM or on your Harddrive or permission to read this data they want to store there that says "NO".

[OldBear]

Originally Posted by popper

and the same points stand,clear as day, weather its Phorm gifted DPI kit or BT BAPF DPI kit, they are intercepting your connection with the first thing your datastream hits is the BT Owned DPI kit,collecting it and processing it in the RAM of the kit,BEFORE they have asked for permission,...and if you just say "NO" to their upcoming Opt-in intercepted page.

Totally agree with you; interception at any point is wrong and illegal.

[mark777]

Earlier on, someone made the point either on this forum or on Badphorm or BT forum, (I can't find it again now!) that we are raising the issue of "Phorm" in the public eye, but it's going to be sold to them as "webwise", especially when they are offered an opt-in.

Should we not get into a habit of always talking about phorm/webwise?

Both words together, all the time?

[Winston Smith]

Just got back from the meeting. More people than I thought would be there including the BBC's Darren Waters, Rory Cellan Jones, Charles Arthur from the Guardian and a film crew (presumably C4)

Interesting stuff on the technical side of things from Dr Clayton and a resounding finale - Phorm is illegal.

Kent's side of things was more of the same spin, 'it's good for the internet'. Though I did like the title slide for his: An Internet Privacy Revolution, funnily enough that's how I see it but probably not in the same way he does.

Alex was good, a strong argument against.

As an aside Kent & Dr Clayton were the only two with a visual presentation and Dr Clayton was the last of the two. His last slide was a summary of why Phorm is illegal, as such it was on screen for pretty much the whole event after he finished. Should make a nice backdrop if C4 do show some clips.

[popper]

darren http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technolog...ate_londo.html
said 100 people, but was that Professional film crew etc.
that was the ONLY (almost live) coverage BTW Winston.

so we are hungry for more data, and fibod #3515 being the first back to give feedback so your the second....

look forward to anything else you can add.

[tdadyslexia]

Well done Alexander you did great. Big round of applause and major thanks to you for attending.

[popper]

did you here them say anything about when the pro film footage that Simon said he would arrange was to be put online, if infact it was taken?.

the live streaming video feed requested never happened, so im not even sure the Simon pro footage took place eather, aside from the TV companys OC, we think C4 news was there, but perhaps BBC tv was there too?.

[mark777]

BBC item now up.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7349715.stm

Nice, boxed, quote from Alexander and a link from the BBC news front page.

[serial]

There were quite a few cameras there, I expect they will need to edit it altogether before putting it online. There was no comment about when/where it would appear. I saw Dr Clayton being interviewed on camera, not sure by who.

[Winston Smith]

There were as far I could tell two separate cameras setup. One was active for the whole meeting, so I assume that was the 80/20 setup. The other I reckon was C4, they seemed to do an interview or two, but I didn't notice if they taped the whole thing.

They didn't mention when it would be posted, or if they did I missed it.

Rory Cellan Jones (who does the Today programme I think) taped it all and interviewed Dr Clayton before the meeting so hopefully there will be something tomorrow.

[The Jackal]

I just voted 'no' as this type of data has been harvested for years.

Phorm is just a baby in comparison to the real farmers out there.

Originally Posted by The Jackal

I just voted 'no' as this type of data has been harvested for years.

Phorm is just a baby in comparison to the real farmers out there.

I agree, I feel that this type of thing has been going on since the early 90's.

If this goes ahead, what options do we have other than ditching the internet? Which won't happen because they know were addicted to it... Well I am.

[MovedGoalPosts]

The most telling quote of all, from the BBC News article on the phorm event:

Originally Posted by BBC

"The ISPs stand to lose far more for breaching trust than anything else. If anybody not interested in mission creep, it's the ISPs, because they will lose your trust," said Mr Ertugrul.

Mr Webwise, Phorm or whatever you want to call yourself, perhaps you, and your fellow ISPs really need to examine, in depth, your own statements.

[fidbod]

Originally Posted by Pasanonic

Well done on attending and thanks for the update.

I don't doubt that Kent's backsliding and jinking was in evidence. He does after all hold a Bachelor's degree in Politics from Princeton University.

I pointed out similar in #3461 http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/34...-post3461.html

Are you able to elaborate on anything mentioned in the much curtailed q&a?

The Q&A degenerated a bit compared to the first part of the session and a fair bit of the time was wasted by Kent waffling on to avoid actually answering the question. Key points as far as I remember.

Kent was asked two or possibly three times about the commercial implications of having to move to and opt in model. No straight answer was given. I think we can assume not good.

One audience member suggested that his previous experience in military spec comms lead him to think that implementing Phorm within BT comms structure materially weakened the security of the system. I didn't follow his point too well, I wasn't techie enough.

The tame Phorm techie said that it was philosphically ok for their system to forge the cookies of third party websites as 'the cookies are owned by the person doing the browsing' - I don't think he has studied a lot of philosophy.

On the subject of the Phorm system moving from 'basic advertising' to more intensive intrusion i.e. function creep - Kent said the ISPs would police phorm as they had the most to lose from abusing the position of trust. Alexander helpfully pointed out that BT had already lost all the trust people had in them.

One older gentlemen told Kent that his technology was the first step towards a Fahrenheit 451 society. Kudos to him.

Both kent and the Phorm techie made vague aspersions that Phorm was perfectly legal. However when asked specifically on the BT trials, they made absolutely no comment apart from trotting out the BT statement almost verbatim. I think they are worried.

Thats all that I can recollect from the Q&A session. One other thing from Richard Clayton's presentation.

He said that a website would be able to use a javascript thingie on a webpage to read all the details contained in a forged webwise cookie. One of the audience asked the probability of it occurring, to which the curt reply was that the probability was 1. Richard Clayton also seemed to indicate that this exploit had been demonstrated in a lab environment but he wasn't very clear on that.

Thats all folks.

[popper]

No.35 The jackal
-----------------------------------
Mick,paul etc have you seen this, perhaps as i asked before, you might consider it?..
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2008/...comment-163549


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1. Message Says:
   April 14th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
   Message to cableforum.co.uk
   Since your Sign On Page is http & not https & I am a BT Customer, it would not be in keeping with my Security to Enter either a Sign in Name, PASSWORD or E-mail Address on your Site!
   I am sure other potential posters, who may have useful information have also declined to join in your discussions for this very reason!"