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

Heres another thought I have not seen posted in relation to the Opt-out versus Opt-in argument - Question for BT, Armed forces personnel on tour of duty, how exactly are they supposed to opt out for and monitor family users???. Shouldn't they be able to not opt in and go away for months on end fighting for their country knowing that their family are safe in all respects at home.

[warescouse]

Originally Posted by alt3rn1ty

Heres another thought I have not seen posted in relation to the Opt-out versus Opt-in argument - Question for BT, Armed forces personnel on tour of duty, how exactly are they supposed to opt out for and monitor family users???. Shouldn't they be able to not opt in and go away for months on end fighting for their country knowing that their family are safe in all respects at home.

I am certain an armed force member fighting, in belief for their country away from home, would like to be assured that his or hers children (minors) web access is not being spied on via Phorm's/webwise system. Any opt-in or opt-out mechanism should be done as mandatory at account level so that if the account holder decides to remain opted-out, not one iota of their, their partner's or their offspring's web data is intercepted by Phorms in-line spying mechanism for the whole period the account holder wishes to remain opted out.

[labougie]

When I sent a high-flyer systems (ex-BT) mate <bt-phorm-report-2007.pdf> his response was:

It's a very good tech document!!!!........however

Why the [Mod Edit (Matt D) - Removed. Please obey the rules & do not swear] are they trialing on live customers with out their
knowledge??
Gathering info and placing ad cookies on your own customer-base?
Naughty.
How many people know about this?

From this response I'd think that if awareness of what has already happened is that low inside the IT community, then that community is potentially onside, and should be targeted as well as the great unwashed. Just a thought.

<In response to warescouse> Exactly and as it currently stands with BT he/she if on tour will not get that choice because they will all be opted in by default until that person comes home.

There's been something rattling around at the back of my mind for a while. It's one of those things where you know that something is wrong but you don't what it is - well I do now.

Someone tell me if this has been discussed, debated and answered before because I'm sure I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere.

In all of the information given by BT and Phorm to customers, the ICO, 80/20 Thinking and anyone else involved it has always been asserted that Webwise does not collect any personally identifiable information.

Let's accept that this statement is accurate but look at what it really refers to.

BT and Phorm have only ever discussed PII in relation to the Webwise system but BT's Privacy Policy states that:-

We sometimes use other companies to provide services to you or to provide services to us. To enable them to do this, we may need to share your personal information with them.

This means that BT can honestly say that Phorm will not gain access to any PII via Webwise but no official document or statement that I am familiar with says that Phorm have not or will not be given PII under the existing terms of BT's Privacy Policy.

This means that Phorm could already have personal information records of ALL of BT's customers. If Webwise is used then Phorm could have an entire file of millions of peoples personal information and access to vast amounts of personality profiles to match them against. Worse still, you can opt-out of Webwise but you can't opt out of BT's Privacy Policy.

Is it possible that BT and Phorm have been playing a crafty game in only ever mentioning PII in relation to Webwise and OIX?

[madslug]

Originally Posted by Wildie

@ R Jones hey big chip company`s like money and if that money found somewhere better to get used who does it really hurt us or them if the numbers are big.

I think you are forgetting the macro picture. If this is new money on advertising, the cost of all goods is going to go up.

That affects US. It will only affect the big chip company if 'us' can no longer afford their services or goods.

[SimonHickling]

In response to Peter N

From the Webwise Chat

Dephormation.org.uk
If I use a web mail or forum application, like HotMail, Slashdot, Yahoo Groups, or Virgin Webmail, will Phorm be able to see/use the contents of the emails/messages I read?

MBurgess
No, we don't analyse the content of webmail sites.

What about the other messages though?

Selective answers and half answers seem to be the norm for all things related to Phorm.

One of the things I have noticed people doing (and tried to avoid myself - unsuccessfully) is leaving questions open, or asking more than one thing in a question as it provides a nice way for them to answer the bit they want to answer whilst avoiding the banana skin.

Of course there are times when they just don't answer the question at all. Again from the chat

AnthonyL
who are the advertisers that work with Phorm?

KentErtugrul
Advertisers generally have applauded the introduction of Phorm, which transforms their ability to only show ads to people who are interested in their products, thereby making their marketing budgets much more effective

It looks like a BTs "Ask Emma" response - you mentioned advertisers, so I'll give you my answer regarding advertisers irrespective of the question.

I'm sure we could all find a thousand more examples of similar things in our communications or on web-sites, and I think we should be more careful when we are asking questions. It's so easy to run off at the mouth and try and get everything in .

[madslug]

Originally Posted by Peter N

At this stage there's no real point in worrying about what may happen if Webwise is introduced because until and unless it is there have been no copyright breaches, no targetted children etc.

Are you forgetting the copyright breaches and targeting of the 2006 trial and copyright breaches of the 2007 trial (no ads displayed but they still used content which did not belong to them in the development of a commercial product)

Both trials involved adding additional code to the html code of the sites during delivery - generally that is called hacking.

---------- Post added at 01:20 ---------- Previous post was at 01:10 ----------

Originally Posted by Peter N

There's been something rattling around at the back of my mind for a while. It's one of those things where you know that something is wrong but you don't what it is - well I do now.
.....
Is it possible that BT and Phorm have been playing a crafty game in only ever mentioning PII in relation to Webwise and OIX?

This has been mentioned many times - the burglary and arson analogy. Innocent of arson and if no one talks about the burglary, then they are deemed innocent and UK law does not allow anyone to be tried twice on the same charge.

Phorm only ever talk about Phorm/Webwise/OIX. Even BT uses answers that are identical to the Phorm answers.

Whenever any questions are asked specifically of the BT side of the firewall (as per the BT diagram) the answer always centres around the legal advice comforting BT into knowing that they are not breaking any laws.

[Bonglet]

Originally Posted by Peter N

There's been something rattling around at the back of my mind for a while. [snip]

Is it possible that BT and Phorm have been playing a crafty game in only ever mentioning PII in relation to Webwise and OIX?

Did you not know that as a partner of an isp involved with phorm they do indeed share all of your account details with them - name, address, postcode maybe even ip for some great usage analysis they will claim, shouldnt be too hard after that to make a very big profile on you in no time.
Rest of the work is just pimiping it to the biggest buyer ;(

Perhaps phorm pr or other known phorm belivers could correct me about this.

I was specifically referring to the introduction and full use of Webwise. The 2006/2007 trials are a separate matter and only relate to BT so any breaches there are down to that one specific ISP.

I don't mean to detract from the seriousness of those events but they are the one area of this issue that has gained a fair bit of air time and still not evoked any real response from the public or parliament. If anything it could work in Phorm's favour because there are a lot of people who won't see what the fuss is about because "nobody was hurt".

It's something that needs to be persued but even if BT are prosecuted for conducting those trials - it won't be Phorm because of their third-party relationship - that would not prevent Webwise or similar systems from being introduced now or in future.

To avoid preaching to the converted and get people to see the dangers you have to get them to worry about how it will affect them and with the Barbican meeting offering a brief but potential high-profile opportunity to get the message across we need to get them involved rather than simply informed.

Although the gathering is based around the BT shareholders' meeting you have to bear in mind that not all BT shareholders are BT broadband customer and the message has to be relevent to everyone who can possibly her it. If too much is made of BT's previous actions it practically invites people to feel that it doesn't concern them because they use a different provider. We need everyone regardless of their ISP to be aware of what's at risk in order to get the broadest possible support.

There's an old saying in sales - sell the benefits not the product. In this case that translates as telling people what will happen to them rather than what did happen to someone else otherwise we'll just be greeted with a wave of apathy.

[Digbert]

BT/Webwise/Phorm/121Media have said much about how their service enhances privacy because it doesn't store any recognisable data.

Whose privacy are they enhancing; it would seem that the only privacy they are protecting is their own. Whatever you think about Google etc they do have records that can provide an audit trail of what they have been up to. Just look at the judge calling for all the YouTube access records.

BT/Webwise/Phorm/121Media on the other hand delete everything they have done as they go along..... no evidence for courts to see what they have been up to. Isn't this like a financial institution shredding all their documents as they go along?

[AlexanderHanff]

This is a valid point and BT have been quick to jump on this indemnity with regards to the trials, when discussing it with ICO and HO. Claiming they can't contact people or provide information on their identity to any authority because they have no data.

Alexander Hanff

[madslug]

Ever noticed how BT do not know which IP addresses were used in the trial? - completely anonymous to BT and all their staff.

Phorm counted them all in, and out again, in the report on the 2006 trial success. They even counted the domains and individual http requests. No PII here, just a cookie with an UID - move along please.

The PII was being processed by a script hosted on the user's own computer ... so nothing to block https .... No wonder they had to rewrite the scripts.

[warescouse]

Originally Posted by SimonHickling

In response to Peter N

cut..

One of the things I have noticed people doing (and tried to avoid myself - unsuccessfully) is leaving questions open, or asking more than one thing in a question as it provides a nice way for them to answer the bit they want to answer whilst avoiding the banana skin.

...cut

I consider this quite an important point that should be remembered, I will certainly try to do this in future.

---------- Post added at 07:54 ---------- Previous post was at 07:43 ----------

Originally Posted by Digbert

BT/Webwise/Phorm/121Media have said much about how their service enhances privacy because it doesn't store any recognisable data.

Whose privacy are they enhancing; it would seem that the only privacy they are protecting is their own. Whatever you think about Google etc they do have records that can provide an audit trail of what they have been up to. Just look at the judge calling for all the YouTube access records.

BT/Webwise/Phorm/121Media on the other hand delete everything they have done as they go along..... no evidence for courts to see what they have been up to. Isn't this like a financial institution shredding all their documents as they go along?

Agreed, BT/Webwise/Phorm/121Media state they delete any evidence while at the same time they ask us to trust them with our data and what they do with it. There should be accountability. They are affectively saying 'trust us' but based on evidence we have obtained about all those parties involved up to now, it is a bit rich to imply that we should do so.

---------- Post added at 08:07 ---------- Previous post was at 07:54 ----------

Originally Posted by Peter N

cut...

This means that Phorm could already have personal information records of ALL of BT's customers.

...cut....

Is it possible that BT and Phorm have been playing a crafty game in only ever mentioning PII in relation to Webwise and OIX?

That could have been Phorm's/121Media's dream goal when they were playing around with their ContextPlus and Apropos rootkit. Frightening, but a good point.

[bluecar1]

the much talked about anti-phishing in webwise is about to take another one on the chin, due to the delays getting the trial out the natural course of upgrades has seen the Beta 2 of IE8 coming out

see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07..._enhancements/

to quote

***********
Microsoft has detailed a raft of security improvements due to appear in Internet Explorer 8. The second beta of Redmond's web browser will be packed full of features designed to thwart phishing and drive-by download attacks, Redmond explained on Wednesday.

***************
so what use will webwise anti phishing be now with this and FF3 out????

come on phorm give up the pretense that the anti phishing will be of use, fess up it is just a smoke screen to hook gullible punters who do not know what their system are already capable of, who you have not given the full facts to, to opt-in to your spyware

peter