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

Originally Posted by phormwatch

Well, what do you suggest? A campaign of writing to the mainstream press? Have you tried at least contacting the BBC with all that information, Pete?

If anyone has any call to action regarding Phorm, you right now have a very receptive audience at The Register, with those reading the latest Phorm article. I suggest you register and post your suggestion.

Front page of the Metro paper this morning:
"Spy more on your citizens - Councils are urged to snoop"

Oddly this is advice from the man who my local police said was responsible for investigating illegal interceptions under RIPA 2000 (they were wrong as you know) but it's true: Sir Paul Kennedy says that councils should be doing more to request phone call details, emails etc to identify criminals etc. Fair enough I s'pose but it's not possible, (is it?) that Sir Paul's office might havebeen the one who spoke with BT and got excited about the possibilities?

Can Sir Paul's office be issued FOI requests? Office of the Interception of Communication Commissioner... I don't know if they can be requested info in this way but he is appointed by the PM in consultation with others: http://www.number10.gov.uk/output/Page3375.asp

Hank

---------- Post added at 06:50 ---------- Previous post was at 06:36 ----------

re: the 'open letter'...

It's excellent and I could only spot one typo

In this: "The valuable content on your commercial web sites should not be used for this purpose without your consent (and your customers consent)."

"your customers' consent"

(I think I am right that the apostrophe should be after the 's' on 'customers' because it's the consent of all of them that would be needed to proceed with the interception and profiling activity)

Great letter! And I do think it's worth sending to the editor of prited papers for their letters page (and maybe some mags too, like PC Advisor, Computer Weekly, maybe some small business enterprise type mags too?)

[warescouse]

Its so ironic given the copyright infringements BT are attempting to defend.
el reg http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08...g_piracy_fine/

[oblonsky]

Originally Posted by Hank

Front page of the Metro paper this morning:
"Spy more on your citizens - Councils are urged to snoop"

The thing that worries me most is that so many people JUST DON'T GET IT!

BT: We're ONLY watching your habits for advertising
COUNCILS: We're ONLY targeting criminals
GOV: We're ONLY stopping terrorism and organised crime

So many people in positions of responsibility see the benefits of snooping for whatever reason but no-one seems to see the down-side.

I suggest a dose of reading up on life in 1980's communist Germany and other Eastern Bloc countries, where the first worry on the mind of many, who were not terrorists or criminals, was what they said on the phone or hotel rooms or even their own home for the worry of being monitored and misconstrued.

Okay, terrorism is very bad, but what about a life free of terrorism where you're always looking over your shoulder?

Or an interenet where you're afraid to type something totally legitimate into a search engine because of a worry that it will be misconstrued? Children researching 20th centuary history google Atomic Bomb to read about the lead up to the bombing of Japan in WWII?

Are law makers today really so blind as to see the long term damage to society that short term gain may bring?

Profiling, monitoring, Phorming, it's just wrong, plain and simple.

[Ravenheart]

Google - We're not like Phorm

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08...uad_and_phorm/

[HamsterWheel]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHanff

My connection is so bad it just took me about 12 attempts to post this reply.

Alexander Hanff

BT obviously need some more revenues to invest in upgrading the network - can anyone think how they can monetise their ISPs better ?

[lucevans]

Originally Posted by oblonsky

The thing that worries me most is that so many people JUST DON'T GET IT!

BT: We're ONLY watching your habits for advertising
COUNCILS: We're ONLY targeting criminals
GOV: We're ONLY stopping terrorism and organised crime

So many people in positions of responsibility see the benefits of snooping for whatever reason but no-one seems to see the down-side.

I suggest a dose of reading up on life in 1980's communist Germany and other Eastern Bloc countries, where the first worry on the mind of many, who were not terrorists or criminals, was what they said on the phone or hotel rooms or even their own home for the worry of being monitored and misconstrued.

Okay, terrorism is very bad, but what about a life free of terrorism where you're always looking over your shoulder?

Or an interenet where you're afraid to type something totally legitimate into a search engine because of a worry that it will be misconstrued? Children researching 20th centuary history google Atomic Bomb to read about the lead up to the bombing of Japan in WWII?

Are law makers today really so blind as to see the long term damage to society that short term gain may bring?

Profiling, monitoring, Phorming, it's just wrong, plain and simple.

I'm sick to death of complacent morons who come out with "if you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to hide." They obviously cannot be bothered (or are incapable) of thinking through the consequences of allowing DPI systems like Phorm into our ISPs.
Blanket surveillance of every citizen (well, technically, we're not citizens, we're "subjects") together with a universal ID and DNA database encompassing everybody on this island is the ernest desire of some elements of the government and security services (one police commissioner is on record saying as much), and when that happens the ancient concept of "innocent until proven guilty" will be well-and-truly dead: instead it will have been replaced by the universal assumption that everyone is a suspect in every crime committed; a data-package to be sifted for matches with crime scene data.
In short: total dehumanization of the entire population.

---------- Post added at 08:50 ---------- Previous post was at 08:45 ----------

Originally Posted by HamsterWheel

BT obviously need some more revenues to invest in upgrading the network - can anyone think how they can monetise their ISPs better ?

(1) By being honest about what an internet connection actually costs to provide and charging their customers that, instead of subsidising it at the expense of their customers' privacy and security

(2) By not squandering their revenues in the form of obscene pay rises and bonuses for top executives, especially when they oversee disasterous company performance

(3) By ploughing what profit they do make back into the service, instead of giving it to their shareholders in the form of dividends.

It's not rocket science.

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by warescouse

Its so ironic given the copyright infringements BT are attempting to defend.
el reg http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08...g_piracy_fine/

Ten years jug eh? There's something to make a BT executive think carefully!!

I think website copyright issues are now moving up the agenda very smartly!

[philj]

Hi all,
got acknowledgement letter from MP
waiting for replies from NSPCC
Affiliate Windows (bet they think its a good idea)
Paypal (just got acknowledgement email from them)
Spoke to director of another local firm about Phorm. Doing his nut. Pointed him to Dephormation Site
No reply from PrivateEye

Big well done to all here
Phil

[Dephormation]

Google Phorm.

Looks what's top... its not Phorm.

[madslug]

Originally Posted by HamsterWheel

BT obviously need some more revenues to invest in upgrading the network - can anyone think how they can monetise their ISPs better ?

As has been said here many times - it is foolish to offer a product below cost.

BTW charge the independent ISPs a market rate for supplying broadband - over £1,000 per month for a Max connection running at full capacity - and their customers are happy to pay a premium for a service which does not have any of the capping that BT Retail customers suffer during 'peak' times. Only a badly run ISP tries to put too many customers down the same pipe.

[philj]

Originally Posted by Dephormation

Google Phorm.

Looks what's top... its not Phorm.

Wikipedia?

[Dephormation]

Originally Posted by HamsterWheel

BT obviously need some more revenues to invest in upgrading the network - can anyone think how they can monetise their ISPs better ?

Would you recommend robbing a bank?

Because its the same warped logic that justifies copying web site content without a licence, processing it, and flogging the result to advertisers.

And the same warped logic that justifies intercepting a private point to point data communication between a web site and a visitor without consent of both parties.

Its probably illegal. It was probably illegal in 2006. And it was probably illegal in 2007. And so its doubtless the reason why a dossier of complaints has been handed to the City of London Police.

ISPs need to strike a reasonable balance between pricing and product investment. Ultimately, if customers refuse to pay the price of the infrastructure they use, and ISPs see no case for investing, the answer is simple.

Either there isn't a market for that product, or someone with a better product will prevail.

Pete.

[Florence]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHanff

My connection is so bad it just took me about 12 attempts to post this reply.

Alexander Hanff

Alex drop support an email to check the line could be exchange or could be the line from your home to exchange either way support can run some tests. Remember our support ius UK based no India calling...

Originally Posted by HamsterWheel

BT obviously need some more revenues to invest in upgrading the network - can anyone think how they can monetise their ISPs better ?

Oh hammy you just don't get it do you, when you visit here and post please bring along some inphormation about phorm so we can have a really good debate. Don't come here to bait members or try to mock them.

As for BT's network well too many Cheifs not enough workers and the Cheifs get payrises in the thousends of pounds a year one actuall had a pay rise of over £150,000 just think what that could have done for the exchanges..

Originally Posted by lucevans

<snip>
In short: total dehumanization of the entire population.

Agreed

Originally Posted by lucevans

:
(1) By being honest about what an internet connection actually costs to provide and charging their customers that, instead of subsidising it at the expense of their customers' privacy and security

Remember it is only BT, VM and Talktalk who are talking about this at present. In talktalk case they do provide free internet with phone so can see the need for some help.
VM after years of bad managment and high bonuses making the majority of the workforce redundant. Yet they still fail to understand economics and how to make the network run smoothly and in profit. Had they laid of the over abundance of managers who failed to deliver keeping UK based customer facing staff you never know where thye would have been now.

Originally Posted by lucevans

:
(2) By not squandering their revenues in the form of obscene pay rises and bonuses for top executives, especially when they oversee disasterous company performance

Agreed seems two of the three are trying to improve at customers expence because they took too high a pay rise for themselves.

Originally Posted by lucevans

:
(3) By ploughing what profit they do make back into the service, instead of giving it to their shareholders in the form of dividends.

It's not rocket science.

Here you need to look at what is paid in divi and think about it the money from shareholders was supposed to be used to improve the company. If this hasn't happened then it is miss managment, bad business plans the problem is for years BT have used shareholders as an open cheque book but the money they gathered wan't used wisely.

I have shares in BT and LloydsTSB which do you think has given the most out in Divi over the same number of years and which is the smallest amount of shares?
WE have motre BT shares than TSB yet earned more from TSB than BT

[BetBlowWhistler]

I notice that the wiki page didn't have much to say about the copyright issue

[phormwatch]

Originally Posted by Dephormation

Google Phorm.

Looks what's top... its not Phorm.

Now that is very interesting...

Do you think Google is doing some tweaking, or the net has simply collectively pointed to wiki in sufficient numbers...

That's great news, anyway.