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

[popper]

Originally Posted by tarka

"Technically, over whether the technology breaches the law, the jury's still out," said Jay. "Because [Phorm] uses technology just to look at activity and deliver results based on that activity, it's difficult to say if that's an interception. We need another vocabulary, as the law doesn't address the complexities of the technology."

How can they keep missing the point?!?! Although note that it is Pinsent Masons again (legal advisors to BT, although they deny giving any advice to BT about phorm). The same people that said while phorm may be technically illegal, it complies with the "spirit of the law".

So... user1 sends an http request to www.website.com... resulting in a number of "packets" addressed the server the website is on. Instead of delivering the packets to their destination like they should, they instead "INTERCEPTED" the packets and read the contents!!!

It's not "just looking at activity", it is intercepting and collecting data that was addressed and intended for another recipient!! Even if you erase the data you have intercepted it doesn't change the fact that you INTERCEPTED and anaylsed data that was adressed to someone else!!!

Words cannot describe my anger at the ignorance of these people! I am starting to think that they are deliberately acting dumb!!

its perfectly clear , they are intentionally misleading the points and trying to cover it in flowery language and legalese

the mention of RIPA stanford case by me a while back, and their misdirection makes that perfectly clear in their response on the outlaw site elsewere.

its a simple 'rock and a hard place' just like the 80/20 scenario, outlaw/Pinsent Masons solicitors is used in many online news items, and they are also on the books of the ISP/Phorm paymasters, not a clever place to be right now.

while the znet reporter(s) are clearly quite Pro-Phorm, if you read the quotes its seems clear they have struggled to whitewash this.

dont be misguided or fall for the slight of hand in that news copy.

Martin Selmayr is a member of Viviane Reding's team and you can also contact him on that same fax machine

Martin Selmayr
Spokesman

BERL 2/330
(+32-2) 298.12.30
martin.selmayr@ec.europa.eu

http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barro...m/index_en.htm
theres clearly large team there that are far more qualifyed to answer and look into all this once they have the facts from our side of the fence, rather than the ISP/Phorm, ICO arse covering PR text.

this seems clear enough
""We are looking into [the BT and Phorm trials], but a national sovereign state's decision can only be challenged if it commits a serious mistake," said Selmayr. "We're looking into it, but so far there has been no indication of that.""


"
However, on Wednesday the Commission said it could only take action if the Information Commissioner's Office itself could be shown to have taken a decision which contravened regulations, in deciding not to take action against BT and Phorm."

the question remains where are these regulations and what Exactly do they say?

surely it cant be that hard to see them and see if and were the ICO might have missteped.

i suspect its an ICO junior member making errors, or perhaps someone higher up implyed he shold be trying it on, to be corrected later by the big ICO lads and lasses if they cant pull it off.

BTW Tobys personal stance seems clear, shame he doesnt come here and air his personal views (mark them personal and alls well toby, go on you know you want to , you are allowed a personal POV )
http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/...t-spreads.html
"
Glad to see this one has brought the comments in, thank you for your input everyone.

Just to clear one point up: my role here is as an occasional commentator on privacy issues. I have my own personal opinions about the Phorm product set, but I keep those to myself. CW is a respected publication and I'm not going to publish (or be permitted to publish) my own speculation or theories on this site.

I also believe very strongly that if an organisation is taking a beating over its privacy practices, you have to stop kicking it when its down and give it a chance to sort the problems out - hence keeping quiet on Phorm. If Phorm go live without addressing campaigners' concerns then you can rest assured I'll have something to say about that :-)

Commenters are, of course, welcome to share their opinions!"

[Wildie]

someone clear up how they plan to plant the adverts in a intercepted web page please.
are they going to be striping out ads that was paid for and putting their own in that space they have not paid for, or a full sceeen in da face popup before web page is shown.

[Florence]

Originally Posted by Wildie

someone clear up how they plan to plant the adverts in a intercepted web page please.
are they going to be striping out ads that was paid for and putting their own in that space they have not paid for, or a full sceeen in da face popup before web page is shown.

Kents style was always in your face

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by Dephormation

Sorry about this... this is a bit of a big post.

I haven't seen much mention of OFCOM on the various forums concerned with Phorm.

snip (good stuff)

Has anyone considered complaining to OFCOM yet? Am I the last person who hasn't complained to OFCOM?

Am I months behind everyone else, or have we missed a trick?

Pete.

PS Don't forget to write to Viviane Reding the European Commissioner
PPS. Richard Thomas must go. To Belgium. Preferably once he's left his job.

I won't have time to do this owing to holidays but I read elsewhere about an Ebbsfleet optical cable trial coming up that would involve Phorm - and that is due for consideration by Ofcom. So maybe a good time to litter their desk with letters
a) focussing on BT's alleged crimes in 2006 and 2007
b) secondly explaining how phorm works, in terms of RIPA and DPA, etc. and seeking to make Ofcom think carefully before approving it as part of the new cable network in Ebbsfleet. Sorry - don't know anything about this - just flying a kite - giving other people work to do. I'll write to Ofcom when I get back.

[Dephormation]

I've done a bit of recycling with the Reding letter for OFCOM.

In my case, I included the history of the Phorm issue, Phorm's history, a tech analysis of Webwise, the economic/cultural impact of ignoring copyright owners wishes, the secret trials, and (effectively) cut/paste my views on the application of the Communication Act.

My tuppence worth for anyone thinking about a letter to OFCOM.

My printer tells me its low on ink.

Pete

---------- Post added at 18:10 ---------- Previous post was at 18:01 ----------

Hooray. Spare ink cartridge installed. Right, next letter...

[popper]

in an ink cartridge emergency you can always use that old Fax/modem to send to Ofcom remember

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/contactus/

...
If you want to complain to Ofcom please call us on (dont bother with that as you dont have any real evidence if they tell you a whopper etc later)
...
Fax: 020 7981 3333

BTW , if your wondering about "inter alia"
Latin. 'among other things'

[Dephormation]

(deleted Baroness Jay)

Oops wrong Jay.

[tobes539]

Good to see some intense discussion of Phorm going on here, and thanks for the references above. I'm not going to express my personal opinions in writing because I'm not sure whether my professional indemnity insurance goes high enough to protect me...

However, on a positive note, I do believe that there is room for Phorm et al on the Internet. If an ISP launched a free ADSL service, and in return users had to submit to Phorm-like profiling, you can bet it would be a success. What's not at all reasonable is to launch it as an opt-out on existing users.

Most upsetting is the way in which all this has been done in secrecy because 'we'd be too stupid to understand'. OK, so 58% of the population allegedly believe that Sherlock Holmes was real, and nearly a quarter think that Winston Churchill was fictional, but the rest of us are perfectly capable of figuring out what's going on thank you very much.

Grumble.



Can't promise to check in every day, but I'll watch this space.

Toby

[Dephormation]

Originally Posted by popper

in an ink cartridge emergency you can always use that old Fax/modem to send to Ofcom remember

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/contactus/

...
If you want to complain to Ofcom please call us on (dont bother with that as you dont have any real evidence if they tell you a whopper etc later)
...
Fax: 020 7981 3333

BTW , if your wondering about "inter alia"
Latin. 'among other things'

Genius. Neeeee GRRRRRRR Neeee GRRRRRR... Hope they've got plenty of paper and toner at the other end

[warescouse]

Originally Posted by Florence

Wonder if Kent is hawking his soul to shore it up....

On another note Life could be better if the kents of this world were ignored by those who hold responsibilities to others privacy

If Kent did shore it up. wouldn't that mean the more he put in, the more he could lose in the end?

Now that would be a really really sad day . I would have to go back to my normal humdrum pre Phorm days and concentrate, among other things, on irradiating their spyware on PC's rather than within well knowns ISP server groups.

This is so much more fun. If it wasn't so serious an issue I could even begin to enjoy it!

[Phormic Acid]

Originally Posted by Frank Rizzo

According to this even the EU Commissioner doesn't really want to get involved.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1...9432962,00.htm

It could be seen that the ICO’s statement that “we’ve worked with BT and Phorm and we are not going to take any punitive action at this stage� is a way of trying to ward off BT and any other company from similar behaviour in future, without the ICO needing to make the effort of taking action now. However, as time passes, companies who provide communication services in the UK are likely to see this inaction increasingly as a green light that lets them start dipping into their customers’ communications.

I believe that we’ve seen the BT Webwise trials delayed due to an interplay of legal and technical issues. BT have been sufficiently concerned over correctly obtaining informed consent prior to any interception that they said they would develop an opt-out mechanism that is not based on cookies, for use after the latest trial. If they feel this would be necessary for a mass role out, they must have concerns that it needs to be in place before any further trials. It has been suggested that this alternative mechanism represents a huge technical hurdle. But, BT may not have felt legally confident to press ahead without it.

A second technical issue, first highlighted by EtherDreams, is that Phorm’s cookie mechanism is based on either a failure to understand, or a complete disregard for, the current cookie specification – RFC 2965. The only reason the mechanism works at all is that currently the major web browsers adhere poorly to this specification. Where a browser does provide a valid implementation, not only does this stop Webwise from working, but Webwise introduces a flaw into web browsing.

My worry is that BT will take the lack of an ICO investigation to mean that they no longer need to worry so much about the issues of opt-out and consent. This would remove the need for all of the complexity that I believe has been holding up the show. Some ISPs in the USA successfully implemented NebuAd’s passive-tap system long ago. With a completely passive system, there can never be any possibility of interfering with your customers’ web browsing. Similarly, if a UK mobile network were to decide they’d like to profile their customers, could they introduce automatic processing of their customers’ text messages, without the need to give an opt-out, change their service terms or even tell their customers that this level of monitoring were taking place?

[warescouse]

Originally Posted by tobes539

cut ...

I do believe that there is room for Phorm et al on the Internet. If an ISP launched a free ADSL service, and in return users had to submit to Phorm-like profiling, you can bet it would be a success. What's not at all reasonable is to launch it as an opt-out on existing users.

cut....

Toby

Totally disagree.

As far as I am concerned Phorm can steal copyright from websites it apparently illegally profiles to benefit competing websites. This is apparently illegal so I could not condone it in any 'phorm' or manner.

Its a none starter as far as I am concerned

[icsys]

Originally Posted by tobes539

Good to see some intense discussion of Phorm going on here, and thanks for the references above. I'm not going to express my personal opinions in writing because I'm not sure whether my professional indemnity insurance goes high enough to protect me...

However, on a positive note, I do believe that there is room for Phorm et al on the Internet. If an ISP launched a free ADSL service, and in return users had to submit to Phorm-like profiling, you can bet it would be a success. What's not at all reasonable is to launch it as an opt-out on existing users.

Most upsetting is the way in which all this has been done in secrecy because 'we'd be too stupid to understand'. OK, so 58% of the population allegedly believe that Sherlock Holmes was real, and nearly a quarter think that Winston Churchill was fictional, but the rest of us are perfectly capable of figuring out what's going on thank you very much.

Grumble.



Can't promise to check in every day, but I'll watch this space.

Toby

A very warm welcome.

However, on a positive note, I do believe that there is room for Phorm et al on the Internet. If an ISP launched a free ADSL service, and in return users had to submit to Phorm-like profiling, you can bet it would be a success. What's not at all reasonable is to launch it as an opt-out on existing users.

Not at all sure about that.

[popper]

Originally Posted by tobes539

Good to see some intense discussion of Phorm going on here, and thanks for the references above. I'm not going to express my personal opinions in writing because I'm not sure whether my professional indemnity insurance goes high enough to protect me...

However, on a positive note, I do believe that there is room for Phorm et al on the Internet. If an ISP launched a free ADSL service, and in return users had to submit to Phorm-like profiling, you can bet it would be a success. What's not at all reasonable is to launch it as an opt-out on existing users.

Most upsetting is the way in which all this has been done in secrecy because 'we'd be too stupid to understand'. OK, so 58% of the population allegedly believe that Sherlock Holmes was real, and nearly a quarter think that Winston Churchill was fictional, but the rest of us are perfectly capable of figuring out what's going on thank you very much.

Grumble.



Can't promise to check in every day, but I'll watch this space.

Toby

BTW pseudonymous! was available

your best bet seeing as you have now posted to this thread, is to set a filter on your email to move all the replys you will now get (unless you use the userCP page <top left> to turn them off) from here into a new folder or threading in your Email app if it can do that.

sure , we are perfectly willing to take Pro-Phorm POV, and indeed you make a good point,they can exist, however , (C) popper,the only real lawful way to use DPI/wiretap interception for profit profiling is in the "walled garden" business case,if people want to, they sign up and get stuffed into that walled off garden to then be profiled as the signed up companys/websites also stuffed inside there are (we assume) having their content payed for while in there.

and that is assuming they dont in any way shape or form, profile anything that was cached in the users temp folder while outside the wall.

that they auto turn off all collecting and processing of websites not signed up and placed inside the "walled garden" so the opted-in users can pop outside the wall if they chose and still keep the greater web safe from unlawful derivative works or other finantial harm.

Phorm want to reverse the world standard for cookes and their use, so this model can perhaps work well to protect people from their kind.

plenty of other points ,but you get the picture i assume.

remember the website owners have copyright content rights just as the payed up end users have copyright over their datastreams in law, thats clear as day.....

[mark777]

The Ebbsfleet issue seems to be popping up. The first reference I saw to it was on iii by Johnney Arrowmaker at 14:39 today.

"My mate in the city overheard that Phorm may be bundled in with the Ebbsfleet optical cable trials approval being considered by OFCOM?"

http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/deta...lay=discussion

Could someone who posts there ask him to amplify before it starts getting quoted in letters to regulators?