Virgin Media Hijack customers browser search options - Page 11

Ignitionnet · 22-08-2009, 19:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jon T

to BBings, Yes, technically it's a hijack and I agree. However the word hijack is by default a malicious term. I don't believe that Virgin are doing anything malicious(yet), indeed as i've posted, i think this could help certain groups of people.

Understood, but there are many terms which are 'by default' malicious, doesn't make them any less accurate even if the immediate perception might be inaccurate.

They aren't malicious but Virgin's DNS resolvers rather than caching and relaying the response they are getting from DNS servers are hijacking that communication between you and these servers and replacing it with their own entries.

It's like saying that a trojan horse isn't a trojan horse if it doesn't do anything more malicious than change your Internet Explorer title bar because the name 'Trojan Horse' suggests maliciousness not mischief.

Again this is nothing personal against Virgin, I hope that the claims that it isn't hijacking aren't anything personal for them

jamiefrost · 22-08-2009, 19:41

Your average user would most likely find this helpfull and would have a clue about DNS requests to begin with. For those's where this represents the end of the world you have one (1) DNS request 'hijacked'. Is this really such a big deal?

webcrawler2050 · 22-08-2009, 20:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by MeGMeG

Actually this really ****ed me off as I pay enough to Virgin as it is. I phoned them up (dial 150 from virgin line) told them I was ****ed off and they told me they flicked a switch on their stystems to turn this so called "feature" off... after a restart I no longer see the virginmedia PPC search screen

---------- Post added at 15:29 ---------- Previous post was at 15:23 ----------

Oh... If they said to me we will reduce your monthly bill if we can feed adverts to your browser I would then have said "sure, no problem"... But this is not the case so I'd advise anyone who is cheesed of by this "feature" to call virgin media and tell them to turn off the feature on your account!

Agreed, prices are already "decent" and for a company that is battling the likes of BT - I would welcome any "other" profitable revenue VM could find, if it ment VM is to kept safe and have extra cash to put into their network and maybe, bring down the STM idea.

Mick Fisher · 22-08-2009, 20:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by webcrawler2050

Agreed, prices are already "decent" and for a company that is battling the likes of BT - I would welcome any "other" profitable revenue VM could find, if it ment VM is to kept safe and have extra cash to put into their network and maybe, bring down the STM idea.

You must be labouring under the misapprehension that VM provide services with the primary intension of benefiting their subscribers.

I think you can be absolutely sure that the beneficiaries of any cost cutting/revenue raising ideas, further or otherwise, activated by VM will not be the Subscribers or even non executive Staff for that matter.

PhilThomas · 23-08-2009, 00:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sir John Luke

No doubt, but to labour the point, it should be OPT-IN

Quite right

tdadyslexia · 23-08-2009, 06:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sir John Luke

No doubt, but to labour the point, it should be OPT-IN

I agree with you 100%

nfs6600 · 31-08-2009, 00:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mick Fisher

thought nothing about abusing their loyal customer base

Well clearly you don't fall under that bracket of loyal. Your constantly complaining about the company yet I can't help but see you have the service. Please, leave and goto ADSL. see what service you get then and complain about that

Mick Fisher · 31-08-2009, 07:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by nfs6600

Well clearly you don't fall under that bracket of loyal. Your constantly complaining about the company yet I can't help but see you have the service. Please, leave and goto ADSL. see what service you get then and complain about that

Keep it on topic can't you.
This thread is about a VM browser hijack.
If you want to make a personal attack on me I suggest you start a new thread it's bad form to hijack someone elses.
Oh! And do try to be more original. The phraseology you are using has been absolutely done to death over the years.

FairyFairy · 31-08-2009, 08:46

Gordon Bennett!! I wondered what was going on this morning when Virgin Media advanced search came up and I couldn't get into my favourite sites.

But .... checking on here ... told me what to do !!

Thanks again.

I agree - it should be an Opt In ... rather than you're in ... find out how to get out!!!!

Tarantella · 31-08-2009, 11:00

Right then can someone put me right on this. I've trawled through the techspeak garblese on that VM webpage and read through this thread so three straight question:-

1)Is Virginmedia redirecting data generated by me sitting at my computer to a third party without specifially asking for my consent?

2)Is Nominum a company capable of restricting access to certain websites that it or VM or any other 3rd party (such as the government) consider should be banned.

3)Is Nominum a company capable of logging ip addresses of people attempting to access websites that might be banned in future?

Toto · 31-08-2009, 11:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tarantella

Right then can someone put me right on this. I've trawled through the techspeak garblese on that VM webpage and read through this thread so three straight question:-

1)Is Virginmedia redirecting data generated by me sitting at my computer to a third party without specifially asking for my consent?

2)Is Nominum a company capable of restricting access to certain websites that it or VM or any other 3rd party (such as the government) consider should be banned.

3)Is Nominum a company capable of logging ip addresses of people attempting to access websites that might be banned in future?

No, no.....and no.

Tarantella · 02-09-2009, 22:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

No, no.....and no.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Mockapetris

Ignitionnet · 03-09-2009, 09:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tarantella

1)Is Virginmedia redirecting data generated by me sitting at my computer to a third party without specifially asking for my consent?

2)Is Nominum a company capable of restricting access to certain websites that it or VM or any other 3rd party (such as the government) consider should be banned.

3)Is Nominum a company capable of logging ip addresses of people attempting to access websites that might be banned in future?

1) Yes - when you attempt to go to an invalid domain what you actually typed is being sent to Nominum's search engine.
2) No - if a site's address is valid it will be dealt with purely by VM's own systems.
3) No - see 2)

The potential is there for it to happen, but not under the current system. VM would have to turn all of their DNS over to Nominum.

Toto · 03-09-2009, 17:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tarantella

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Mockapetris

Thanks.

TheDon · 06-09-2009, 16:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sir John Luke

No doubt, but to labour the point, it should be OPT-IN

The problem with having something like this as opt-in is that the very people it will benefit will NEVER know about it.

It's far easier to have it opt-out as the vast majority of people aren't tech aware enough to know what it is, what it does, or how they could enable it, and if you sent them letters explaining it they'd pass it off as tech gobbledeegook and ignore it.

Instead you stick it as opt-out, with the page explaining very easily how to disable it and what it is, and then the people that don't want it get to see it all of once and can disable it 5 seconds later.

The people that are so against it they'd disable it are far far outweighed by those that would benefit from it, so having it opt-in is by far the best idea as then the people it's actually designed to benefit will get the benefit from it.