Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797] - Page 832

phormwatch · 21-07-2008, 20:20

I will also be away for a few days starting tomorrow, so I may not be able to post as frequently.

JHM · 21-07-2008, 21:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by R Jones

That's obviously come from the same press release as inspired the FT article as it has the same mistakes about CPW, and VM and "trials".

Okay - here we go again. Phorm PR obviously still totally useless.

Anyone got the full text? reading it more carefully (slap self on wrist) the text you quoted doesn't repeat the claims about 3 ISPs doing trials, but I wonder if VM and CPW would be happy about the text claiming Phorm has "agreements" with them? I thought only BT had an agreement and VM had a memorandum of understanding, and CPW was just keeping its head down and hoping no one noticed?

Robert

If you are referring to the text in my post #12458, then that is the entire text - it was just a small piece in the 'In Brief' column.

--John

phormwatch · 21-07-2008, 21:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by BadPhormula

You need to add naughty hacker Roman Gaufman (aka Hackeron) he is linked to

[ * ] 121Media (his employer)
[ * ] Stratis Scleparis (his BT collaborator)
[ * ] BT Retail (the place where he unleashed his malware)

Can someone please explain what Roman Gaufman did when he worked at 121Media and what he wrote for BT Retail?

Is the BT Retail connection about the Javascript web injections?

---------- Post added at 21:24 ---------- Previous post was at 21:13 ----------

What is Roman's connection with Stratis?

Deko · 21-07-2008, 21:45

from linkedin

Quote:

Systems/Network Engineer
Phorm Inc
(Public Company; 51-200 employees; Computer Networking industry)

May 2005 — May 2007 (2 years 1 month)

Worked in a team headed by the CIO integrating Phorm’s product into various ISP environments, set up and maintained all communication services such as phones, email and storage, tested/optimized phorm’s product and wrote scripts to predict the financial performance of various configurations, recruited/trained two sysadmins and a desktop support.

felixcatuk on the BT beta forum has a copy of his CV if you wan't it.

http://www.badphorm.co.uk/e107_plugi...topic.php?4330

Maybe contact him at his cctv company !!

phormwatch · 21-07-2008, 22:23

This puppy's getting a bit unwieldy. Will have to explode the diagram soon.

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/4673/phormumlla5.jpg

warescouse · 21-07-2008, 23:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by phormwatch

This puppy's getting a bit unwieldy. Will have to explode the diagram soon.

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/4673/phormumlla5.jpg

It's the complicated web they weave!

21-07-2008, 23:14

The problem is that the whole thing is layered rather than mapped so 2D diagram is going to be all but impossible.

What is it that you are actually hoping to show with your diagram? If you can ut it into words it may hel you to organise your thoughts and perhaps starting again would be easier than trying to correct the existing chart.

Just a suggestion but maybe the user should be at the centre of your map.

phormwatch · 22-07-2008, 00:09

Someone has suggested to me in a PM that I drop dabs.com from the diagram. The reason being that it is actually a pretty sound company (I agree) and that it has nothing to do with Phorm at all.

I originally put dabs.com there so people can put more pressure on BT through a boycott.

What do people think? Should we get dabs involved? Keep it? Remove it?

22-07-2008, 00:59

You could just add it as a line in the BT company box along with BT Telephony, Wholesale, OpenReach etc. I'm not sure on why it needs to be mentioned though - BT is a huge multi-National with dozens of divisions and companies under it's belt.

---------- Post added at 00:59 ---------- Previous post was at 00:40 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by phormwatch

I will also be away for a few days starting tomorrow, so I may not be able to post as frequently.

Going anywhere nice?

22-07-2008, 04:55

Here's a nice one - The Tehran Times, an Iranian newspaper, carries a story about BT's 2006/2007 trials. That's more than some British newspapers have managed to do.

phpscott · 22-07-2008, 08:47

Being getting a few calls from BT about renewing my contract for another 12 months. Every time I mention Phorm, Webwise, or profiling, the teley rep doesn't know anyting about it, suprise, suprise. Of course I try to inphorm them and send them to badphorm, noDPI and the BT forums. There are enought links there to get them to here, I don't want to overwhelm them but get them at least aware of the issues.
Had a call last night, asked them again about Phorm, Webwise and was immediately told to contact customer services with any questions?
Whether that is just a cop out line or not I don't know as I haven't called them yet.
Account is in wife's name so of course I can't contact them directly, need the misses to do it first.

Dephormation · 22-07-2008, 09:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by phormwatch

Someone has suggested to me in a PM that I drop dabs.com from the diagram. The reason being that it is actually a pretty sound company (I agree) and that it has nothing to do with Phorm at all.

I originally put dabs.com there so people can put more pressure on BT through a boycott.

What do people think? Should we get dabs involved? Keep it? Remove it?

I'd leave it on there. Many people don't realise they're linked, and anything that brings pressure on BT is a good thing.

Bear in mind too, suppose BT blacklist Dabs, but not Dixons, Action Electronics, RS, JohnLewis... Dabs will gain an unfair competitive advantage because its private unencrypted communications are not being used to profile customers.

I'd be interested to know what other business BT own, so I can boycott them too.

---------- Post added at 09:36 ---------- Previous post was at 09:08 ----------

tarka · 22-07-2008, 10:11

I too have already started boycotting dabs since I found out they are owned by BT.

Again I have lagged behind a bit so apologies but I'm picking up on the mention of cookies earlier in the thread.

Another "anti-competitive" thought I had on this whole sorry saga surrounds cookies. Now this is just a thought, I am not saying that they will do this... it's purely hypothetical.

We know that the device that intercepts your requests strips out the forged cookies that they create. What is to stop them stripping out any cookies from competing ad networks? Eg doubleclick, google etc. I'm not saying that I approve of the other ad networks but there is definately an unfair advantage to be gained by doing so.

Also, (catching up again) there was suggestion that they do not actually tamper with the data stream because the processing gets performed on a mirrored copy of the page (at least in the latest known version of the system). Would the setting of forged cookies then stripping them out not count as modifying the data stream? (even though it is invisible to the website the user is visiting)

Dephormation · 22-07-2008, 10:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by tarka

Also, (catching up again) there was suggestion that they do not actually tamper with the data stream because the processing gets performed on a mirrored copy of the page (at least in the latest known version of the system). Would the setting of forged cookies then stripping them out not count as modifying the data stream? (even though it is invisible to the website the user is visiting)

It certainly would. They peform n redirects in order to set the cookies in the first place (which in itself is a corruption of the communication), then set fake cookies, then strip them out on the outward request, and require you to retain an opt out cookie if you don't want to be profiled that you wouldn't otherwise require. And latency is added to your communication as a consequence of an additional 'network hop'.

Its a technical shambles. Phorm want you to get hung up on the details. Phorm will always counter that we've misunderstood their 'genius', or it will be fixed in version n+1, or simply lie and obfuscate the truth.

Its the essence, the principle of the thing that is wrong. No one should do this to private unencrypted communications (commercial or personal). Period. Its the fact they are intercepting communication without consent of both parties to the dialog that is deeply profoundly wrong... and all else follows.

The tech details are barely relevant.

Phorm must be stopped.

BetBlowWhistler · 22-07-2008, 11:09

The basic principle of the operation is a proxy service, which by default is an interception as it terminates your connection before making the onward connection on your behalf.

If they claim they are just mirroring the datastream for analysis, how the hell are they supposed to inject different adverts?