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

[phormwatch]

OK - am working on the Entity-Relationship diagram for Phorm:

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/7690/phormumlnz2.jpg

I've only just begun, obviously. Please mention all and any relationships you can think of and I will include them. Thanks.

[Dephormation]

Originally Posted by D_Advocate

So, we can trust BT on this ? They always do what they say ? They always say what they are doing ?

BT corporate values;

"Trustworthy - we do what we say we will"

So you can, errr, trust them to do it.

Though they didn't say what they were doing in 2006/7. So yes, in a "can't trust them as far as you can throw em" kind of way.

[Bonglet]

I still dont get how the charles stanley securites document says that all 3 isp's have undertaken extensive trials of phorm and financial times today also re-iterates this that all 3 isp's did extensive trials yet the ico dont know anything about ANY trials on any isp, got to be really laughable at best.

If people were to go and do a bit investigation somewhere i.e forums or isp reviews and look at user feedback and discussions about boosts in degredation on internet on said isp's during such times as contract changes in 2007 not really hard to see that something was indeed going down with all isp's in 2007, and as in the leaked bt 2006 document the 2007 trials were going to be all about invisibility (even with all the redirects) and nothing to do with serving ads .

Originally Posted by phormwatch

OK - am working on the Entity-Relationship diagram for Phorm:

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/7690/phormumlnz2.jpg

I've only just begun, obviously. Please mention all and any relationships you can think of and I will include them. Thanks.

Ian Livingston was appointed chief executive of BT Group on June 1st, 2008.

Previously, he was chief executive of BT Retail, a position he held from February 2005. (during both the 2006/7 trials)

[BetBlowWhistler]

@D_A
No-one seems to have welcomed you to the debate yet, an oversight I'm sure..



Just out of curiosity, based on the fairly agressive stance of your initial questioning, would you mind giving us your frank opinion on this subject?

If you read back a few pages you will find a post of mine that gives you some of the information you haven't had an answer to relating to how the protest went btw.

And again

[warescouse]

Originally Posted by Bob W

Transparency, Honesty, Accountability and Trust is what IMO this campaign has been about.

As to 'one rule', it seems that in this country, there is a different rule for large corporations and their executives, they can carry out 'technical breaches' of the law with impunity.

If Phorm/ Webwise ever goes live on VM's network, my 'public funds' will be withdrawn from their income.

(second attempt)

to the Forum. I have to agree with you. Virgin Media will only have my continued funding (and I know of quite a few others who say similar) while they remain Phorm Free.

[Dephormation]

Originally Posted by phormwatch

OK - am working on the Entity-Relationship diagram for Phorm:

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/7690/phormumlnz2.jpg

I've only just begun, obviously. Please mention all and any relationships you can think of and I will include them. Thanks.

BT
Ben Verwaayen
Michael Rake
Ian Livingston
Gavin Patterson
Emma Sanderson
Patricia Hewitt

80/20 Thinking
Simon Davis
Gus Hosein
Earl of Northesk

Home Office
Simon Watkin
Andrew Knight

There are also some interesting relationships to consider on the VM side (lest we forget this is cable forum)...

Virgin
Steve Birch (joined NTL in January 2006, left his job and the UK unexpectedly August 2007)
Neil Berkett
Alex Brown (Internet Product Architect)

Government
Patricia Hewitt (BT Director, former Cabinet Minister)
Tony McNulty
John Hutton

Parliament
Don Foster
Daniel Kawczynski

Lords
Baroness Shriti Vedera
Earl of Northesk

[3x2]

The Charles Stanley document shouldn't be taken as a reliable source in any way. A nice combination of wild optimism and bad research. A very good example of why the stock market goes haywire periodically - can anyone spell sub-prime mortgage?

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by D_Advocate

Does anybody have a date/time as to when the next BT trials
of Phorm are taking place (if indeed they are), and which geographical
area they will be targeting ?

D_A

Very good question. If you can find out do tell us.

The trial date is one of the standing jokes over in BT Beta forums.

first of all it was announced - with specific dates, in March and April There were two or three stabs at this, including at least one official announcement that the trials had started - soon withdrawn and denied.

Then as April progressed the announcements/predictions got a lot more vague, we were hearing words like soon, in a few weeks, and even - very soon.

Then we started to hear about "before the end of..." or within three weeks from..." - and that kept us on tenterhooks till June or so.

Then they just gave up and said the trials were in hand, and would be in a few weeks. That's their current position. The only thing they have been specific about is that there will be 24 hours notice. They haven't said where the notice would be posted.

There are still BT phone support staff even now, saying the trials have already happened, others who have never heard of Webwise and know nothing about trials, and others who have the official hymn sheet and who say they will be "in a few weeks".

My prediction? (Remember you heard it from me) - that there will be an official BT press release, that customers and staff will NOT be told directly and that it will happen without most of us knowing till the net catches up with the press release. And actually I still have my doubts that they WILL do the trials - I can't believe they are that stupid - not with a police investigation under way. But maybe they are.

[phormwatch]

Originally Posted by Paul Delaney

Ian Livingston was appointed chief executive of BT Group on June 1st, 2008.

Previously, he was chief executive of BT Retail, a position he held from February 2005. (during both the 2006/7 trials)

Thanks. Not sure whether to have two seperate entities for BT Group and BT Retail...

[Bob W]

Originally Posted by warescouse

to the Forum. I have to agree with you. Virgin Media will only have my continued funding (and I know of quite a few others who say similar) while they remain Phorm Free.

Thanks, I don't often post to forums, but am an avid lurker, first posts I made regarding Phorm are here - http://www.techdirt.com/articles/200...24203278.shtml

Still waiting for an answer to the points I raised, you'd think they could explain their system in under 6 months.

[Mod edit] Link corrected

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by tarka

A thought has occured to me (if this has been brought up before I must of missed it). If I recall correctly, BT said that THEY were developing a cookieless system (be it opt in or out). If that were the case, two points spring to mind.

1. If BT are redeveloping part of the Phorm technology, does that have any implications? It would no longer be solely Phorms technology.

2. Given the nature of the system using cookies/redirects, to move to a cookieless system would change the way it works quite considerably from what Dr Clayton documented (apart from the actual profiling process I would imagine). Who would be responsible for auditing that new system? Given that Phorm/BT got burnt quite badly by opening the system up publicly before, would they do it again?

Regards...

First point - I'm not a techie so consider me ignorant on the details.

But I am a BT pedant (Emma Sanderson accuses me of having a voracious appetite for detail - an accusation I am secretly proud of, and reminded her of each time I sent her an email).

BT have said they are "working on" a cookie free solution and have not chosen to enlighten us any further.
I don't understand the technical issues but it seems like a major retrofit to the system, and rather makes a cookie based trial fairly pointless.

There has also been comment that this can only be done in certain ways, ONE of which MIGHT involve separating out customers (by IP address) into opted-IN and NOT opted-IN groups (I refuse to use terms like opted out) and routing them differently around or through the corrosive Phorm spykit depending on which group they were in.

In which case (and again I am in deep technical water over my pedantic head) - they would need
a) to get domestic customers on static IP addresses - at the moment only BT Business customers are on static IP addresses - and they aren't part of Webwise (so BT say - although Stephen Mainwaring might take issue with that!!).
b) if they want to play IP address hockey they (BT Retail) need access to bits of the infrastructure (some grey boxes I don't understand) that are legally and commercially under the control of BT Wholesale for competition regulatory reasons. This is not allowed.
c) IP addresses become part of the significant PII being processed?

Again - ignore me as unqualified on any of the technical assumptions, but believe me on what BT have "said". I'm clear on that.

[pseudonym]

Originally Posted by bluecar1

D_Advocate look at the poll at the top of this page, over a 1000 votes cast, independantly verified by CF and each user could only vote once, it was only closed when phorm PR where caught trying to abuse it and alter the result, and that fact can be confirmed by the moderators here

if you go to the locations of the other polls you will no doubt be able to verify the figures you require

peter

The poll of visitors to ISPR got approx 1,100 votes, over 56% would leave their ISP if they adopted Phorm, 25% didn't know what Phorm is.

Still, it should hardly come as any surprise that this sort of thing is not popular with end users... Why else would their advertising engine (when they were 121media) appear in a root kit ( http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001420.html ), other than as an attempt to prevent users detecting and removing the thing, and why else would they progress to installing their hardware inside ISP's networks where end-users and anti-malware programs can't remove the thing.

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by Dephormation

In the HoL debate, Lord West of Spithead said:


This is what an official in the Home Office told me... I haven't circulated or uploaded this email yet... I was waiting for the final set of documents. Given they've punted that into the long grass here it is:



I think that speaks for itself really, in a confused sort of way. I can't make sense of "we did we". Did we or didn't we.

Perhaps they asked BT not to tell them, as if that would make it alright.

It seems strange that the Home Office would not expect to be informed that someone was conducting secret mass surveillance at the core of BT's network, twice, using Russian supplied systems, during a period of critical/severe security alert, as a courtesy perhaps if nothing else...

The Home Office still won't tell me when they first received enquiries, who the enquiries came from, or what the substance of those enquiries was.

See here for current thoughts and HO FoI releases.

Pete.

If the HO need some in-house remedial English classes my wife is available for £50/hour plus expenses, and a John Lewis shopping list for a London flat.

[Tarquin L-Smythe]

Originally Posted by Bob W

Thanks, I don't often post to forums, but am an avid lurker, first posts I made regarding Phorm are here - <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080218/024203278.shtml>

Still waiting for an answer to the points I raised, you'd think they could explain their system in under 6 months.

Bit tricky because you have different laws in Scotlandland needs whole new spin story and it has to be the same as told in Englandland