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

[OF1975]

Originally Posted by vicz

Yeah well strangely enough telling your senior management that they are behaving like a bunch of morons is generally not a great career move, whether it is true or not...

Yes but what you need to understand is that this is a new improvement in standards of moronicy. Google and Yahoos moronicism is so last century. Its old-school. Phorm takes moronicism and stupidity to the next level. They are proud of this new standard and can't understand why people are fighting it.

[Dephormation]

Originally Posted by vicz

In defense of Alex Brown if you look back thru the VM and BY newsgroups he has consistently been evenhanded and professional in his posts, especially given the difficult position he finds himself in,

As the technical architect I would expect him to have overall responsibility for the technical due diligence on Phorm... he is responsible for approving the shambolic technology that is Webwise.

For VM to publish statements announcing that they plan to deploy Phorm, you'd assume the technical (and commercial/legal due diligence) had been 'signed off'.

And further, Nov 2006 Alex explicitly denied that transparent proxying was operating on the BY network (I have his post for reference).

When I query their relationship with Phorm in 2008 Virgin Media tell me that the problems I reported were due to a transparent proxy which was removed in 2007 (conincident with the BT trials). But see above, that proxy didn't exist, or did it?

If it does turn out that VM were trialling Phorm, it will be very hard to reconcile the statements Alex has made.

[CaptJamieHunter]

Originally Posted by vicz

Yeah well strangely enough telling your senior management that they are behaving like a bunch of morons is generally not a great career move, whether it is true or not...

There are ways of phrasing statements about customers' perceptions without telling executives directly they are behaving like morons. All he would be doing is communicating the perception of customers that has been communicated to him and that is (so we are led to believe) something very important to VM.

Professionally I wouldn't call the CEO of an organisation a moron straight out. I would and have politely yet assertively challenged their views or behaviours on certain topics and got a very positive response having done so. It's all about the message and how you get it across.

VM's handling of the Phorm issue has been very disappointing in the way they have done very little to explain to their customers where things stand. How they have fallen for Phorm's moronica is equally as disappointing.

---------- Post added at 19:50 ---------- Previous post was at 19:33 ----------

Originally Posted by Dephormation

As the technical architect I would expect him to have overall responsibility for the technical due diligence on Phorm... he is responsible for approving the shambolic technology that is Webwise.

For VM to publish statements announcing that they plan to deploy Phorm, you'd assume the technical (and commercial/legal due diligence) had been 'signed off'.

And further, Nov 2006 Alex explicitly denied that transparent proxying was operating on the BY network (I have his post for reference).

When I query their relationship with Phorm in 2008 Virgin Media tell me that the problems I reported were due to a transparent proxy which was removed in 2007 (conincident with the BT trials). But see above, that proxy didn't exist, or did it?

If it does turn out that VM were trialling Phorm, it will be very hard to reconcile the statements Alex has made.

Ah, yes.... that lovely phrase "due diligence".

Why is it that despite supposed "due diligence" being undertaken, completed and signed off, organisations fail to spot what are in my view quite obvious issues?

I have personal experiences (yes, more than one) of this and the question "Who was the eunuch who signed off the due diligence?" is one I have asked on numerous occasions (OK, this doesn't quite fit in with my previous point but as the poor sod who's had to implement fixes because someone didn't do their job properly vis a vis due diligence, and the server room being a confidential sanctuary, such exclamations are born of frustration and generally justified).

Therefore the questions should be who was responsible for the relevant due diligence works? Because someone somewhere missed a whole lot of stuff.

Again it's basic management but you don't announce something this major unless you are extremely confident in all areas of the intended deployment. Please don't tell me VM trusted Phorm's so called legal advice - which we still have not had published so we can verify its status - that would be so unbelievably poor words fail me.

If I went to the board of the company I work for and said "You know the deployment we announced and have been counting down to... well we've hit a rather large problem. It's almost certainly illegal..." this Captain would get his backside fired so hard you'd see him shooting towards the sky.

[gethin]

Presently looking at leaving VM. Phoned up VM and asked about Phom and was told that it had already been implmented.

Might explain a few things I have noticed recently.

Another weird thing is that my broadband speed has dropped by around 70% ever since I started getting the

Waiting for trafficserver appearing at bottom of page when waiting for a normall quick to respond web page to load.

So not only are they monitoring my web usage but by doing so they are slowing down my 20m connection to a max today of just under 4m.

Just need to find a ISP thats not Phorm anyone know if Sky is looking into phorm?

[Florence]

Originally Posted by gethin

Presently looking at leaving VM. Phoned up VM and asked about Phom and was told that it had already been implmented.

Might explain a few things I have noticed recently.

Another weird thing is that my broadband speed has dropped by around 70% ever since I started getting the

Waiting for trafficserver appearing at bottom of page when waiting for a normall quick to respond web page to load.

So not only are they monitoring my web usage but by doing so they are slowing down my 20m connection to a max today of just under 4m.

Just need to find a ISP thats not Phorm anyone know if Sky is looking into phorm?

Can you do a few tracerts and post results please

[gethin]

Here you goes

tracert www.google.co.uk

Tracing route to www.l.google.com [66.249.93.104]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 9 ms 11 ms 8 ms 10.30.128.xxx
2 12 ms 11 ms 9 ms 62.31.224.xxx
3 10 ms 11 ms 11 ms pc-62-30-243-77-bn.blueyonder.co.uk [62.30.243.7
7]
4 12 ms 13 ms 14 ms pop-bb-b-ge-220-0.inet.ntl.com [195.182.178.113]

5 * * * Request timed out.
6 11 ms 14 ms 14 ms 212.250.14.138
7 12 ms 11 ms 12 ms 209.85.252.76
8 11 ms 15 ms 12 ms 66.249.95.106
9 49 ms 30 ms 32 ms 72.14.232.149
10 39 ms 28 ms 28 ms 209.85.255.137
11 32 ms 30 ms 30 ms 72.14.233.83
12 31 ms 36 ms 36 ms 216.239.47.229
13 28 ms 30 ms 29 ms ug-in-f104.google.com [66.249.93.104]

Trace complete.

tracert www.microsoft.com

Tracing route to lb1.www.ms.akadns.net [207.46.19.254]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 9 ms 10 ms 9 ms 10.30.128.xxx
2 9 ms 10 ms 8 ms pc-62-30-243-xxx-bn.blueyonder.co.uk [62.30.243.
xxx]
3 10 ms 12 ms 11 ms pc-62-30-243-57-bn.blueyonder.co.uk [62.30.243.5
7]
4 14 ms 13 ms 13 ms bre-bb-a-ge-200-0.inet.ntl.com [195.182.178.109]

5 17 ms 15 ms 15 ms 212.43.162.218
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 13 ms 13 ms 15 ms 193.159.225.237
8 163 ms 163 ms 161 ms 217.239.40.62
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 *


tracert www.cableforum.co.uk

Tracing route to www.cableforum.co.uk [87.106.129.133]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 10 ms 10 ms 11 ms 10.30.128.xxx
2 11 ms 9 ms 10 ms pc-62-30-243-xxx-bn.blueyonder.co.uk [62.30.243.
xxx]
3 12 ms 12 ms 11 ms pc-62-30-243-77-bn.blueyonder.co.uk [62.30.243.7
7]
4 15 ms 23 ms 14 ms pop-bb-b-ge-220-0.inet.ntl.com [195.182.178.113]

5 17 ms 13 ms 15 ms pop-bb-a-ae0-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.174.229]
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 29 ms 21 ms 21 ms gi9-37.mpd01.ams04.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.1
5.9]
8 60 ms 29 ms 25 ms vl3493.mpd01.ams03.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.2
.65]
9 21 ms 49 ms 41 ms te2-4.3490.ccr01.ams03.atlas.cogentco.com [130.1
17.3.105]
10 19 ms 20 ms 19 ms te8-1.mpd02.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.1.
206]
11 21 ms 19 ms 19 ms te4-1.mpd01.lon02.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.1.
202]
12 36 ms 36 ms 35 ms schlund_and_partner.demarc.cogentco.com [130.117
.240.170]
13 72 ms 72 ms 114 ms ge-2-1.bb-c.the.lon.gb.oneandone.net [212.227.12
0.25]
14 37 ms 37 ms 38 ms te-1-3.bb-c.bap.rhr.de.oneandone.net [212.227.12
0.49]
15 42 ms 38 ms 40 ms ae-7.gw-distp-b.bad.oneandone.net [212.227.116.2
21]
16 53 ms 40 ms 44 ms ae-1.gw-prtr-r211-b.bad.oneandone.net [195.20.24
7.45]
17 37 ms 40 ms 37 ms server3.cableforum.co.uk [87.106.129.133]

Trace complete.

[vicz]

gethin Have you tried loading http://vancouver.cs.washington.edu/ ?

[gethin]

Thanks for the link

Tested it and says all is well.

Still need to get to the bottom of the speed reduction problem and why when I am paying for 20m I am only geting 3-4m.

in fact speed check from top of forum rates present speed as

Your connection speed is 3.85Mb, you have indicated that you are meant to get up to 20.00Mb from Virgin Media

off to nag VM again

[dunno]

hey guys does any one know for sure if this phorm crap is currently active on virgin ???

[vicz]

Currently getting 19kBs d/l here (Telford) & my traceroute to google.co.uk is essentially the same as yours. Personally I would take anything the helpdesk said about phorm with a pinch of salt. There has been some upgrade work with temporary outages going on for 20Mb users recently - there is a schedule on the VM website.

[davethejag]

Hi All, All this phorm stuff is way above my head but I would like to thank all of you that are taking the time and effort to oppose this intervention into our privacy. I would like to particularly thank Alexander Hanff for all the hard work that he is puttng into this. keep up the good work!
Best to all. davethejag

[Dephormation]

Originally Posted by davethejag

Hi All, All this phorm stuff is way above my head but I would like to thank all of you that are taking the time and effort to oppose this intervention into our privacy. I would like to particularly thank Alexander Hanff for all the hard work that he is puttng into this. keep up the good work!
Best to all. davethejag

Make sure you sign the No.10 petition, complain to your ISP, and let your MP know how you feel. Otherwise, its easy for people who oppose this to be dismissed as a 'vocal minority'.

[vicz]

Originally Posted by gethin

Presently looking at leaving VM. Phoned up VM and asked about Phom and was told that it had already been implmented.

Might explain a few things I have noticed recently.

Another weird thing is that my broadband speed has dropped by around 70% ever since I started getting the

Waiting for trafficserver appearing at bottom of page when waiting for a normall quick to respond web page to load.

So not only are they monitoring my web usage but by doing so they are slowing down my 20m connection to a max today of just under 4m.

Just need to find a ISP thats not Phorm anyone know if Sky is looking into phorm?

Sounds like you are being "STM'd" http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html...t/traffic.html

[Toto]

Originally Posted by gethin

Presently looking at leaving VM. Phoned up VM and asked about Phom and was told that it had already been implmented.

Might explain a few things I have noticed recently.

Another weird thing is that my broadband speed has dropped by around 70% ever since I started getting the

Waiting for trafficserver appearing at bottom of page when waiting for a normall quick to respond web page to load.

So not only are they monitoring my web usage but by doing so they are slowing down my 20m connection to a max today of just under 4m.

Just need to find a ISP thats not Phorm anyone know if Sky is looking into phorm?

No it hasn't, whoever told you that is either talking out of their behind or you misunderstood.

If Phorm had been launched, Kent, kert...whatever he's called, and his company would have been screaming from the rooftops.

If this does go ahead though, you will have few ISP's to choose from soon, as the others are just waiiting for one of the big guns to launch it.

[Chroma]

Originally Posted by gethin

[SNIP...]
Just need to find a ISP thats not Phorm anyone know if Sky is looking into phorm?

RE: Sky:

YES and um... NO?

Currently not looking to deploy but i would bet my last that if and when phorm launches in the UK Sky will quicly run and jump onto the bandwagon.

IE: let someone else take the risk and do all the grunt work, then reap the benifits.

As for an ISP, i can highly recomend BE* 24mb down and 3+5mb up under optimal ADSL2+ conditions (IE: if you live next door to your BT exchange) top whack will set you back 22 quid a month, its unshaped, the fair usage policy is awesome (i download bus-tonnage of data and have never been shaped/throttled)
The greatest benifit of my ISP is that its still small, and they really do listen to customers (they have an awesome communityvia a forum, IRC server, their support is one of the best ive used and they understand that their customer base has significant power over their commercial success as a business)

The downside is that ADSL is a little glitchy at best and results will vary widely due to the constraints of the technology (IE it wont tolerate long noisy lines very well), however that being said the BT cable goes from my house, through europe to bosnia, swings up and across through russia, loops the loop round the czech republic and finaly routes back through to my excange and i get 6mb solid on my very rural connection.
I was originaly on the mid package (£20 a month and they instantly dropped me down to the base package after a 5 min phonecall (8mb @ £14 a month and refunded me six quid there and then.)
On BT i get 750kb down, (they told me my line would never push 2mb)
AOL is simmilar.
Sky again is the same.
There have been reports of glitches in their DNS servers too but there are options available to work around this.

So yeah, ive been through a good few ISP's from back when 33.6kbps dialup was insanely fast and frankly ive never been with a better provider.
Theyve publicly stated on their forums that "Theyre not looking into using phorm FOR THE TIME BEING which is less than reassuring, but im certain if they deployed the backlash would be thus that they would frankly loose their customer base.