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

[Phormic Acid]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHanff

I think if you deselect them it would seem the browser won't respond to 307 responses but I have no way of testing it as I am currently in Vista due to a bug in the latest Ubuntu kernel so I can't set up Squid.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t make any difference. I became aware of this when testing the various browsers, to see how they handle cookies on a redirection. Even where a modern browser ends the request line with HTTP/1.0, it will accept and successfully process a HTTP/1.1 307 Temporary Redirect in response. If you were to force Firefox to send HTTP/1.0 and not act on the 307 status code, the correct action would be for it to display whatever page content is in the response. This would normally be something like:

Temporary Redirect

The document has moved here.

In the case of Webwise, there may be no content. This would result in an empty browser window. For HTTP/1.0, Webwise could just use a status code of 302 instead.

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by Dephormation

I thought I'd apply the Turing Test to 'Ask Emma', see if I could tell whether it was really Emma or just automated replies.

I believe it passed;







I think I'd get the last one framed if I were Rob

[HamsterWheel]

http://www.netimperative.com/news/20...t-all-bad-news

Like it or not chaps, Phorm is the way the internet is going.

[bluecar1]

Originally Posted by HamsterWheel

http://www.netimperative.com/news/20...t-all-bad-news

Like it or not chaps, Phorm is the way the internet is going.

and that is from an independant source ???

i think not, the guy who wrote it is co-founder of periscopix and their front page says "Periscopix is one of the UK's leading providers of Pay-Per-Click campaign design and management services for search advertising programmes such as Google AdWords, Yahoo Sponsored Search and MSN AdCenter."

they have a vested interest in seeing this spyware succeed so they can make more money,

out of interest hammy is this company signed up as one of the channel partners to OIX??

peter

Originally Posted by HamsterWheel

http://www.netimperative.com/news/20...t-all-bad-news

Like it or not chaps, Phorm is the way the internet is going.

Not really.

That piece was written by Simon Norris who owns and runs Nomensa and Periscopix which are both Digital Agencies. Now cast your mind back a few days and try to remember the story that Phorm were looking to boost their tarnished image by employing...

... a Digital Agency.

Do you see where this is going?

Netimperative is a Digital Marketing online magazine - hardly an unbiased source of information and the Netimperative website is not exactly well known for checking its sources or the accuracy of the stories it prints.

They were one of the sites that assisted Phorm's recent attempt to boost their share price by announcing that the BT trial was about to begin - dated 23rd June.

[Dephormation]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHanff

I am actually going to contact CDT tomorrow and find out what the result of their complaint to the commission was and whether or not any damages were awarded. The reason being that the document states ContextPlus jumped the country and changed their whois details to a Paris address, so it could be that CDT was never able to receive damages from ContextPlus (aka 121Media). So being the responsible citizen I am it seems only right that I let them know where they can now find Kent in order to retrieve said damages.
Alexander Hanff

Noted the reference to contextplus.com in that complaint...

Contextplus.com on Netcraft on Netcraft...

Netblock Owner IP address OS Web Server Last changed
ThePlanet.com Internet Services 207.44.186.90 Linux Apache 11-May-2006

Webwise.bt.com on Netcraft on Netcraft...

Netblock Owner IP address OS Web Server Last changed
ThePlanet.com Internet Services 207.44.186.90 Linux Apache 5-Mar-2008

Just in case anyone was wondering.

[HamsterWheel]

not sure why you two are unwilling to discuss the comments in the story and seek instead just to discredit the author.
but I guess that is the way so many of you are approaching Phorm. Rather a naive approach I think.

[Ravenheart]

Originally Posted by Peter N

Not really.

That piece was written by Simon Norris who owns and runs Nomensa and Periscopix which are both Digital Agencies. Now cast your mind back a few days and try to remember the story that Phorm were looking to boost their tarnished image by employing...

... a Digital Agency.

Do you see where this is going?

Hi Peter

The article with Phorm looking for a digital agency was this one

http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/82...igital-agency/

the article confirms that Webwise is purely an advertising platform

Phorm's business model, which involves partnering with broadband providers to gain access to consumer data before offering advertisers targeting opportunities, has come under close scrutiny from privacy campaigners.

Originally Posted by HamsterWheel

not sure why you two are unwilling to discuss the comments in the story and seek instead just to discredit the author.
but I guess that is the way so many of you are approaching Phorm. Rather a naive approach I think.

It is a shallow and generalised piece saying that there may be targetted advertising one day which happens to mention Phorm and was published on a website that serves the digital marketting industry.

It's as relevent to this discussion as a photgraph of the Startship Enterprise would be on a forum discussing road safety just because they both have lights that flash and little green men.

[AlexanderHanff]

Originally Posted by Peter N

It is a shallow and generalised piece saying that there may be targetted advertising one day which happens to mention Phorm and was published on a website that serves the digital marketting industry.

It's as relevent to this discussion as a photgraph of the Startship Enterprise would be on a forum discussing road safety just because they both have lights that flash and little green men.

Exactly, I found the piece pathetic to be honest, it had no substance whatsoever and wasn't even remotely interesting. Funny how so many words can say so little.

Alexander Hanff

---------- Post added at 09:33 ---------- Previous post was at 09:29 ----------

I find this website far more interesting and entertaining:

http://finance.google.com/finance?q=PHRM

You know what is amusing though, BT really need to start these next set of trials before 16th July, because once the national press and media get hold of the protest story (especially now Baroness Miller is taking the podium - which guarantees press and media presence) no-one is going to go near anything called WebWise, so they will have a very hard job filling their 10 000 opt-in slots for the trial.

In fact I predict a complete rebranding before/if Phorm ever deploy in the UK (you know, like they did with 121Media/ContextPlus/PageSense/ProxySense).

Alexander Hanff

[bluecar1]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHanff

I find this website far more interesting and entertaining:

http://finance.google.com/finance?q=PHRM

You know what is amusing though, BT really need to start these next set of trials before 16th July, because once the national press and media get hold of the protest story (especially now Baroness Miller is taking the podium - which guarantees press and media presence) no-one is going to go near anything called WebWise, so they will have a very hard job filling their 10 000 opt-in slots for the trial.

In fact I predict a complete rebranding before/if Phorm ever deploy in the UK (you know, like they did with 121Media/ContextPlus/PageSense/ProxySense).

Alexander Hanff

thats it, we had the morining fun now back to business

alex, pete,

i will complete the scripts for IIS with all the BT etc ip ranges and post it for you later in the week, then we have all bases covered for any webmaster to block ISP's infected with webwise / phorm

peter

[Rchivist]

Re the article at http://www.netimperative.com/news/20...t-all-bad-news

I did look hard to try and find some content in the article that was relevant to this thread and was worth discussing but couldn't find anything. This thread is not about "targetted advertising", but about the Webwise DPI Layer 7 interception of internet traffic and the illegal use of website content by Phorm and their partner (signed up/in bed with/vaguely interested/trying to hide in the corner but waiting to see how things turn out) ISP's. And the article has nothing new to say about those topics.

What is relevant to this thread is that Phorm are obviously making a further PR move. I think that is great - all the "true" information about Phorm is already well established in the public realm, so the more people read about Phorm, and Webwise and then hit the google button to investigate futher, the more visitors we will get to the relevant sites. Keep up the good work Kent.

Alex has been sitting on the top of the Google finance share page (982p) for Phorm for weeks now.

Wikipedia on Phorm is number 2 on my google search page for "phorm"

Entry number 3 is Register's phorm files

Even the REAL phorm from Sheffield makes the front page on google so people searching can see the nicked logo.

There are 10 entries on my google page, for "phorm" and the first one is phorm.com, 8 are very good links telling truth about Phorm, and one is the Sheffield "real" Phorm.

As for "Webwise" on Google the situation there is not quite so clear cut - mainly because of the pinching of an already established name with a substantial google presence (Webwise BBC etc) but even there the first page of Google on "Webwise" contains several links with truthful information.

So carry on Kent - you pay for the PR, you've got more borrowed money than we have, and get more people interested in Phorm, we little paranoid geeky anorak people will provide the content and volume for the Google links when they go searching. Great strategy. Would you like to sponsor the Barbican demonstration - you'll get some great publicity for the Phorm name?

I've always felt that Kent should be given as much PR rope as possible. He's only ever done one thing with it, and that has been to wind it round his own neck.

The money being spent by Kent on finding a new "digital agency" is the best money this campaign has ever got someone else to spend. More please...

Hint - for those with antiphorm web sites - do what you can to include plenty of google-friendly references to Webwise to try and improve that google page on Webwise. meta tags and body content that include the phrase - "webwise". (make sure you include plenty of body content references as well as putting "webwise" into the tags, otherwise google penalises you for keyword stuffing)

[HamsterWheel]

Alex - thankyou for pointing out that Phorm's share price is up today.
I am glad that it has made you happy.
How many have you bought ?

[jelv]

Admin edit (Chris T): Please do not discuss use of the reputation system.

[AlexanderHanff]

Actually the share price was down when I posted that link and it will be down again at the end trading. Now to put you back on ignore.

Alexander Hanff