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

[Rchivist]

If anyone is feeling a little sleepy and wants to experience an upsurge of anger, then check this post and my reply over on BT Beta forums.
http://www.beta.bt.com/bta/forums/me...ID=25763#25763

Please note my willingness to have the post copied. At this rate we should soon have an entire text based transcript of the leaked report on line.

[tarka]

Originally Posted by Ravenheart

I've been sent a link about a project that Mozilla are working on called Site Security Policy

It's way over my head, but some of the more techie types might like to take a look

http://people.mozilla.com/~bsterne/s...curity-policy/

I haven't read all the detail yet but it seems to be a client side plugin. The idea being that a web site owner can specify a set of restrictions on the client side.

An example pertinent to this discussion could be...

A web site owner specifies that clients can only run javascript that is served from the same domain. In the case of the trials where javascript was inserted that made requests to dns.sysip.net, the web site owner could specifically say that the javascript was not allowed to run and the browser would obey that restriction.

At least that is what I am reading into that. I think it's a great idea, although for it to be of any use it really does need the major browser vendors to adopt it by default. Look at what happened to p3p, probably something that would be of interest to most of us here... http://www.w3.org/P3P/. I'm not sure if the idea has been dropped entirely, but it appears to have stalled due to lack of support from the major browser vendors.


"After a successful Last Call, the P3P Working Group decided to publish the P3P 1.1 Specification as a Working Group Note to give P3P 1.1 a provisionally final state.
The P3P Specification Working Group took this step as there was insufficient support from current Browser implementers for the implementation of P3P 1.1."

[Jimllfixit]

This is going to be a really simple questions to answer.

How would I know if my surfing experience was being looked at right now.

What are the Tell Tale Traces that someone has implemented PHORM on any network not just Virgin Medias.

Is there a tool? A device or some simple command that tells me somone is not feeding me the pages as I want them but as they want me to see them?

I sat down this morning and just picked up on some string of some Google update in an e-mail. I havent stopped surfing all day looking in to this PHORM thing. I'm trying to be objective, I've contacted Virgin Media support who have told me it's not running but when it does start (or to be fair they said if it does start) I will be given the option to opt out. Having looked at as much detail as I can I'm struggling to see technically how I can opt out.

I've been in Telecomms and ISP business for 19 years now and while I fully understand the very real issues of trying to derive revenues from a market that is slashing it's own throat on price, while trying to build solid performance networks and pay those gents at BT huge Central charges. I never thought I'd see us hawking through the deritas of our customers surfings looking for a few spare pennies.

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by Jimllfixit

This is going to be a really simple questions to answer.

How would I know if my surfing experience was being looked at right now.

What are the Tell Tale Traces that someone has implemented PHORM on any network not just Virgin Medias.

Is there a tool? A device or some simple command that tells me somone is not feeding me the pages as I want them but as they want me to see them?

I sat down this morning and just picked up on some string of some Google update in an e-mail. I havent stopped surfing all day looking in to this PHORM thing. I'm trying to be objective, I've contacted Virgin Media support who have told me it's not running but when it does start (or to be fair they said if it does start) I will be given the option to opt out.

You might like to get back to them on that, and ask them, didn't they mean "the option to opt-IN"? That is what the ICO kindly very politely suggested that if they really didn't mind, he'd be very grateful if they could do it that way. (Think of the ICO as Mr Barraclough in Porridge, but without Mr Barraclough's overt aggressive tendencies)

[tarka]

Originally Posted by Jimllfixit

This is going to be a really simple questions to answer.

How would I know if my surfing experience was being looked at right now.

What are the Tell Tale Traces that someone has implemented PHORM on any network not just Virgin Medias.

Is there a tool? A device or some simple command that tells me somone is not feeding me the pages as I want them but as they want me to see them?

I sat down this morning and just picked up on some string of some Google update in an e-mail. I havent stopped surfing all day looking in to this PHORM thing. I'm trying to be objective, I've contacted Virgin Media support who have told me it's not running but when it does start (or to be fair they said if it does start) I will be given the option to opt out. Having looked at as much detail as I can I'm struggling to see technically how I can opt out.

I've been in Telecomms and ISP business for 19 years now and while I fully understand the very real issues of trying to derive revenues from a market that is slashing it's own throat on price, while trying to build solid performance networks and pay those gents at BT huge Central charges. I never thought I'd see us hawking through the deritas of our customers surfings looking for a few spare pennies.

At the moment it is difficult to know for sure. All we have to go on is the technical information they have given out. "IF" what they have said is true then the dephormation firefox plugin should be able to pick up the existence of any webwise cookies that are placed on your machine. Although again "IF" they implement it the way they say they will you should be redirected to an opt in page once they turn it on (or opt out page if they are feeling brave, or is that stupid? )

[AlexanderHanff]

Lets get /.'ing folks - http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=712283

Vote it up, leave some comments.

Alexander Hanff

[jelv]

Originally Posted by R Jones

(Think of the ICO as Mr Barraclough in Porridge, but without Mr Barraclough's overt aggressive tendencies)

[warescouse]

Originally Posted by R Jones

If anyone is feeling a little sleepy and wants to experience an upsurge of anger, then check this post and my reply over on BT Beta forums.
http://www.beta.bt.com/bta/forums/me...ID=25763#25763

Please note my willingness to have the post copied. At this rate we should soon have an entire text based transcript of the leaked report on line.

It does make me angry when I read the 'tale' written in such an eloquent and readable manner. Excellent post Mr Jones, you have clearly shown some of BT's inconsistencies.

[Tarquin L-Smythe]

What the hell are the ICO there for to prevent a very unseemly demise of a failing ISP and its failed sidekick or to provide a line where the small person can with ICO help get to the facts of dishonest ISP,s

We vote we pay taxes and in return you get what?

Tarquin

[Anonymouse]

At least one member of BT's staff had the courage to leak a vital document - I wonder just how many more of the BT techs are not in favour of this whole scheme and would refuse to implement it if they could?

Then again, they can - surely they could easly find work with BT's competitors. So come on, any BT guys who are hopefully reading this thread - take a stand for what you know to be right! Get in touch with Alexander and anyone else who's fighting in our corner - remember it's your privacy at stake as well!

There can't be only one BT dissenter. There can't be. And what about the Virgin techs? The same goes for you guys; in your case, you can stop it before it even starts and keep cable broadband clean of this plague!

[Frank Rizzo]

I wrote to the ICO on Friday. I do not know if today's announcement is in response to my letter or they made the announcement before 'reading' my letter.

The letter was a follow up to the letter they wrote to me on the 30th May. This is the letter where they said

Our view is that, whether or not there was a technical breach of the Regulation, there is no evidence that the trials generally involved significant detriment to the individuals involved, or privacy risks to individuals

I asked them if they had seen the report on the 2006 trials.
I pointed out to them the folly of BT saying they could not contact me.
I asked them to confirm that they had seen the "legal advice" which BT said they had sought.
I asked them about the 'small scale' quote and asked them to confirm how big a scale the trials would have had to have been in order for them to take action.

Along with a few other questions I stated this:

"May I inform you that I am in full conversation with John Penrose MP and that I am asking EU Commissioner Viviane Reding to investigate this matter, as I believe the ICO is failing in it’s duty to protect personal information.

If I do not receive a satisfactory response I will be forced to not only ask the EU Commission to intervene but also initiate a complaint with the Parliamentary Ombudsman."

The EU and the Parliamentary Ombudsman it is then.

[XBNM]

You should all be starting to realise by now the purpose of regulators is not to protect the people from big business but big business from the people while trying their best to give the opposite impression while allowing them to maximise profit and control.

[Dephormation]

DEPHORMATION WITHDRAWN

Regret to announce Dephormation site will be taken down later this evening and replaced with a notice demanding the resignation of the Information Commissioner.

This temporary protest will last for 7 days (or until Richard Thomas has resigned). During this period Dephormation will be unavailable to new users.

If you haven't downloaded already, I'd urge you to do so immediately. The software remains copyright and is owned by me. Do not copy or redistribute the software without my consent.

Why am I doing this? Because there is no point me providing software to express a wish to 'opt out' if there are no legal consequences when ISPs flagrantly ignore or even fail to obtain consent from hundreds of thousands of users.

The ICO has brought the IT and communications industry into complete disrepute.

Richard Thomas, please resign now.

[mark777]

Just a quick one for the tech bods because I can't get my head around it.

Two weeks prior to the trial, advertising space was bought on non-phorm advertising platforms to do the cookie drop (as it would otherwise have breached BT T&C's).

Does this mean that the cookies would have been dropped into the 3rd party ad host domain?

Does this also mean the ad hosts must have been complicit? (Although I can't think why, they are rivals).

Presumably, then once the trial started, BT/Phorm would need to wait for the user to visit that ad domain again in order to retrieve the cookie and read the UID. Then it could forge cookies into all domains?

Why would this still not breach BT's T&C's?

Or have I got it all wrong?

[icsys]

Originally Posted by Dephormation

I sent one to Richard Thomas at the ICO (a few days back) asking for stats such as number of complaints received, number of complaints investigated, number of complaints dismissed, number of complaints resulting in a prosection, and evidence provided to the ICO by Phorm.

Naturally, the ICO have ignored it so far. As they do every email/letter I write to them.

Something similar for the Met would be good.

Pete, did you send a FOI request via writetothem? I can't find anything on there: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/body/ico
Just wondering if it has been 'misplaced' or perhaps you wrote directly to Richard Thomarse?