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

[Dephormation]

Originally Posted by R Jones

(beginning of BT quote)
1. Website cookie forging by Webwise/Phorm remains murky and unexplained by Phorm - who gave anyone permission to forge a cookie purporting to come from one of my registered domains? I withhold consent for BT/Phorm to use the domain names of my sites within any cookie set by Webwise.

A: Webwise cookies are clearly associated with the Webwise service. Where a website uses cookies, we prefix the Webwise UID (unique ID, a random number) to a cookie coming from the website. It is clear in this cookie at what point the Webwise UID starts and the domain cookie stops (and vice versa). Where cookies are not used by a website, only the Webwise UID is placed into a new cookie which will be associated with the domain of the website being visited. In both cases, the Webwise UID element of the cookie is clearly labelled so as to be associated with the Webwise service.

What the h3ll.
If Phorm are monkeying around with client side cookie values set by applications... then if client side code uses those cookies to manipulate values such as counters or names or shopping baskets... The client side cookies are randomly going to be prefixed by 16 bytes of random guff that Phorm insert.
Think how that would look if you set a cookie with the user's name for example. Pull the value back in Javascript and display it... yet you find the name presented is "Hello webwiseuidsf4g2+/gdsHE32q5||Pete. Welcome back to this site".
If that's what Phorm/BT are intending to do, they will embarrass and shame themselves even more than they have done already. If that's truly what they are planning its simply madness.
That piece of text either cannot be right, or reflects very poorly on the competence of the technologists behind this.

[warescouse]

It would be difficult to post anonymously as it contains specific references to myself and the author within the content which makes it easily identifiable. Anyhow it contained the normal Phorm website copied spiel that I have seen on many other forums including this one. But it also did definitely state "The scheme will be an 'opt in' rather than opt out" which seemed a little more specific than the "we haven't decided yet" replies.

[mark777]

Originally Posted by Dephormation

What the h3ll.
If Phorm are monkeying around with client side cookie values set by applications... then if client side code uses those cookies to manipulate values such as counters or names or shopping baskets... The client side cookies are randomly going to be prefixed by 16 bytes of random guff that Phorm insert.
Think how that would look if you set a cookie with the user's name for example. Pull the value back in Javascript and display it... yet you find the name presented is "Hello webwiseuidsf4g2+/gdsHE32q5||Pete. Welcome back to this site".
If that's what Phorm/BT are intending to do, they will embarrass and shame themselves even more than they have done already. If that's truly what they are planning its simply madness.
That piece of text either cannot be right, or reflects very poorly on the competence of the technologists behind this.

Dear f4g2+/gdsHE32q5

I reckon quite a few people are slowly starting to think that phorm/webwise and their 3 stooges might not have thought this through.

The recent financial paper suggests that phorm have been working on this system for seven years, which according to phorm, is the early years of the internet. Almost as far back as RIPA.

It could be that they are just tweeking the system for the upcoming BT trials but I don't think so. Lots of tweeking needed if a product has been designed wrongly over seven years. They may decide to delay things and it might be that they have finally twigged that there are 10,000 + sticks waiting to beat them. The numbers will only grow, exponentially.

Ho-hum, at least he got the money from the shareholders.

[Digbert]

Originally Posted by Dephormation

What the h3ll.
If Phorm are monkeying around with client side cookie values set by applications... then if client side code uses those cookies to manipulate values such as counters or names or shopping baskets... The client side cookies are randomly going to be prefixed by 16 bytes of random guff that Phorm insert.
Think how that would look if you set a cookie with the user's name for example. Pull the value back in Javascript and display it... yet you find the name presented is "Hello webwiseuidsf4g2+/gdsHE32q5||Pete. Welcome back to this site".
If that's what Phorm/BT are intending to do, they will embarrass and shame themselves even more than they have done already. If that's truly what they are planning its simply madness.
That piece of text either cannot be right, or reflects very poorly on the competence of the technologists behind this.

If Phorm are prefixing a client side cookie with their Webwise UID, many cookies contain the client's IP address (e.g. vodafone). Surely this means that the user is no longer anonymous as the UID and IP are then linked, or have I missed something?

[AlexanderHanff]

Originally Posted by Digbert

If Phorm are prefixing a client side cookie with their Webwise UID, many cookies contain the client's IP address (e.g. vodafone). Surely this means that the user is no longer anonymous as the UID and IP are then linked, or have I missed something?

Well this is where the Layer 7 technology comes into play, it strips the webwise part of the cookie out before the user is connected with the requested web site.

But as has been mentioned several times, it is very easy to circumvent this simply by using https to parse the cookie and get the Phorm UID, since the DPI kit ignores https the UID doesn't get stripped from SSL based communications.

Oh and

Alexander Hanff

[lucevans]

Has anyone else noticed that there's something on page 326 of this thread that tries to connect to www.phorm.com ?
When I load that particular page of this discussion my router blocks and logs mutliple attempts to connect to "spycentral". I'm not clicking on any of the links on that page (I know that there are several links to www.phorm.com listed there).
Maybe that Sheffield company graphic (the red Phorm logo) is the culprit?...

Doh! Just seen the placeholder for, presumably, the graphic of Phorm (Kent's) company below the link to his company - that'll be the reason.... all this stuff is starting to make me paranoid
At least it seems my router block is working properly (I'll know for certain when they start the trial - apparently, I'm likely to suffer total loss of surfing unless I unblock it... now that'll be an interesting call to customer services....)

[Ravenheart]

Originally Posted by lucevans

Has anyone else noticed that there's something on page 326 of this thread that tries to connect to www.phorm.com ?
When I load that particular page of this discussion my router blocks and logs mutliple attempts to connect to "spycentral". I'm not clicking on any of the links on that page (I know that there are several links to www.phorm.com listed there).
Maybe that Sheffield company graphic (the red Phorm logo) is the culprit?...

I think it's the picture of the (Spyware) Phorm logo in post 4876, as it links direct to the Phorm site, we had a similar problem before when there was a pic from the webwise site.

[icsys]

Hi all,

I'd like to post a link to this thread over on digital spy to raise awareness of the possiblilty of VM doing Phorm trials.
I started a thread over there on this subject after reading the Charles Stanley document.

I hope that is OK.

[mark777]

I think we need to be realistic about the issue of VM trials and the contents of the Charles Stanley paper.

We know the paper is innacurate in places, so any quotes in it are not exactly 'evidence' for anything.

There is no 'smoking' gun for VM trials either. For example, our friend in Weston-Super-Mare in this thread :-

http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/showflat...fpart=all&vc=1

All nicely detailed and timestamped. But nothing like it can be found for VM.

Do I think VM have run trials? Yes.
Is there any evidence yet? No.

People who 'know' about trials in Scotland or for other ex NTL users; post some verifiable evidence please.

[Kursk]

Originally Posted by icsys

Hi all,

I'd like to post a link to this thread over on digital spy to raise awareness of the possiblilty of VM doing Phorm trials.
I started a thread over there on this subject after reading the Charles Stanley document.

I hope that is OK.

Can't see why not although it's for a mod to call. We can have our own little network of keeping an eye open for Phorm trials.

Originally Posted by mark777

People who 'know' about trials in Scotland or for other ex NTL users; post some verifiable evidence please.

We can't Mark (yet). But something went on in late December 2007 and I'm pretty sure it will be confirmed by VM themselves at some stage. They trialled the system and it did not work imho.

[popper]

Neil Berkett made some interesting comments

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/digitalt...eutrality.html
"
Virgin CEO wants to "engage" on neutrality

Thursday, April 24 2008, 12:51 BST
By Dave West, Media Correspondent

Cable providers must engage with issues such as net neutrality, privacy, copyright and child protection, Neil Berkett told an industry conference yesterday.

...
"In the UK, attitudes towards service providers are at something of a crossroads," he said. "If we can simultaneously demonstrate we're engaging with these complex issues and capture the excitement and opportunity of our services, we could emerge as the enablers of choice in an industry that is sometimes regarded as a bit sterile and remote.

"Or we could go the way of the utility companies or the financial services industry and become resented by consumers and seen as little more than a necessary evil."
....

"Vivienne Redding, the European Commissioner for Information, also contributed to the neutrality debate on Tuesday. She said traffic prioritisation practices were acceptable -..."
"

---------- Post added at 14:21 ---------- Previous post was at 12:41 ----------

interesting SSL thoughts here as regards the ISPS and Phorm, and the wireshark page linked is interesting.

imagine the extra speed the ISP/Phorm get by using the dedicated hardware instead of mear software.....

http://www.links.org/?p=321
"
Can Phorm Intercept SSL?

Someone asked me to comment on a thread over at BadPhorm on SSL interception.
In short, the question is: can someone in Phorm’s position decrypt SSL somehow? The fear is driven by the existence of appliances that do just this. But these appliances need to do one of two special things to work.

"
...

"
Could Phorm do this? Well, they could try to persuade anyone stupid enough to install a CA certificate of theirs in their browser, and then yes, indeed, this trick would work for them. More of the story: don’t install such certificates. Note that last time I looked if you wanted to register to do online returns for VAT you had to install one of these things. Oops!

Or, they could get certified as a CA and get automatically installed in everyone’s browser. I’m pretty sure, however, that such a use of a CA key would find them in breach of the conditions attached to their certification.

So, in short, Phorm can only do this to people who don’t understand what’s going on - i.e. 99% of Internet users. But not me."
...
"By the way, if you want to see this one in action, then you can: the excellent network sniffer, Wireshark, can do it. Full instructions can be found here. No need to buy an expensive appliance."

[Florence]

Well I was on Aquiss whiel family were still on Cable since the service isn't due to be switched off until 5th May but last nigth I took the decission to remove the cable equipment and only use Aquiss. Will parcel up their modem and post it back next week so they will have it before they switch it off..

[CaptJamieHunter]

Originally Posted by popper

Neil Berkett made some interesting comments

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/digitalt...eutrality.html

Cable providers must engage with issues such as net neutrality, privacy, copyright and child protection, Neil Berkett told an industry conference yesterday.

"In the UK, attitudes towards service providers are at something of a crossroads," he said. "If we can simultaneously demonstrate we're engaging with these complex issues and capture the excitement and opportunity of our services, we could emerge as the enablers of choice in an industry that is sometimes regarded as a bit sterile and remote.

"Or we could go the way of the utility companies or the financial services industry and become resented by consumers and seen as little more than a necessary evil."

But Neil, you aren't engaging with your customers. A letter or a couple of phone calls to the hangar doesn't amount to much in VM's abysmal dealing with this issue. You had the chance to properly issue a public statement and blew it. You had an opportunity to put the BBC right about what looked like wrong reporting. You didn't take it and now questions must be asked about the veracity of the statement that "customers will not be forced to use the [Phorm] system".

You may be excited about the possibility of making money via schemes like Phorm but you've proven nothing to the intelligent and informed customers that VM has. There's no excitement to me as a customer about adverts being fired at me. I don't want adverts, I block virtually every advert provider I become aware of.

Now VM is as resented as much as Phorm and BT are. VM's reputation is headed on a downward spiral and you've got one hell of a job on your hands to stop it from dropping any further.

You want VM to be seen as an "enabler of choice". Maybe we should have a little meeting Neil, because I've worked for a company which claimed it wanted to be an "employer of choice". Then it read what I thought an employer of choice was (I loathe spin and soundbites so had to respond in kind) and dropped the claim as soon as it was convenient to do so.

Here are a few things I expect from an enabler of choice:

An enabler of choice respects the law of the land
An enabler of choice knows that its reputation is affected by those with whom it associates and actively rejects those who are not honest, open and transparent
An enabler of choice respects my online privacy
An enabler of choice respects my decision to block adverts
An enabler of choice respects my decision to not use its proprietary software
An enabler of choice respects the concept of proper informed consent
An enabler of choice is open and honest about its Ts & Cs
An enabler of choice is open and honest about what it has been testing and what it will be testing, ESPECIALLY when it risks affecting my "internet experience"
An enabler of choice doesn't halve my bandwidth half way through my downloading the new version of my OS
An enabler of choice has competent technicians on its helpdesk who don't panic and leave me on hold the moment I mention I run Linux

Get the message Neil?

[popper]

Originally Posted by Florence

Well I was on Aquiss whiel family were still on Cable since the service isn't due to be switched off until 5th May but last nigth I took the decission to remove the cable equipment and only use Aquiss. Will parcel up their modem and post it back next week so they will have it before they switch it off..

registered post remember Florence, you would'nt want them billing you for a non returned item without proof you sent it back...they do like Phantom billing after all.

[warescouse]

Originally Posted by CaptJamieHunter

But Neil, you aren't engaging with your customers.

I totally agree with you. Virgin Media are going to one hell of an outrage to deal with if they go ahead with this. Most people, myself included, are more or less watching to see if VM back out of this, or the inevitable injunction or court case arrives before VM's implementation.

I am not too happy now but I certainly will be voting with my feet from Day 1 of VM Phorm.

The change of conditions will be my easy all services contract get out.

I will live with JAP and Hushmail until my ADSL comes online and my VM services vanishes.

VM can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. Its no good having Phorm if you have no customers. These ISP owners who think they can hoodwink their customers must totally be out of touch with reality. Once they lose trust no amount of spin will get it back. It's gone for ever!