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

[AlexanderHanff]

Phorm are setting records at the moment...just not the type they would like to be setting.

They are setting a record for a new 52 week low on their share price each day now.

Alexander Hanff

[Ravenheart]

Who would have thought watching a number diminish could be so much fun

[mark777]

Originally Posted by Ravenheart

Who would have thought watching a number diminish could be so much fun

Every quid off the share prince is 2 Million quid out of Kent's pocket.

(It's expensive living in London)

EDIT : I won't correct the typo above. Yes, I do get the image of The Prince of Darkness when I think of Kent, which explains it.

[AlexanderHanff]

Originally Posted by mark777

Every quid off the share prince is 2 Million quid out of Kent's pocket.

(It's expensive living in London)

So that's about £48M in the last 3 months then. Or approx $96M USD.

/me sets up motion detectors around his house...

Alexander Hanff

[jelv]

Comparing Phorm against the average for the sector for the last three months on iii is interesting:



Surely even wettypants must be beginning to realise where this is going to end!

[popper]

Originally Posted by serial

I also received a response from my MEP with answers from the EC to questions he posed. The answer is similar to Tharricks and Ravenhearts, but slightly extended.

It's viewable here:

http://badphorm.co.uk/e107_plugins/f....php?4633.last

you reply reminded me about this part
"...
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK Data Protection Authority, has issued several statements concerning Phorm.

According to these statements, the ICO has been told that the users will be duly informed about the technology and presented with the possibility to become involved, i.e. to provide their consent by positively opting in, and that they will also have the possibility to change their mind at any moment later.

The ICO states that it will be in close contact with Phorm and British Telecom (BT) during a trial of the technology involving around 10 000 BT broadband customers who will opt in to the trial.

The ICO finds that, according to the explanation provided by Phorm, there does not appear to be any detriment to users in the operation of the Phorm system but it will keep the Phorm products under review as they are rolled out to verify whether the assurances Phorm has provided so far are confirmed in practice.

.."

perhaps a few VERY cleverly worded FOI requests to the ICO asking for full discloser of all documents past regarding this "close contact" including its operational procedures they will take and all other ICO plans to track this most important review covering not just BT but potentially 70% plus of the whole UK BB installed base and every single person using that connection.

and all the dates they have been given for this trial to begin ,and any slippage dates they are aware of etc and a final must be compleated by date (or its scraped and off the table)if that exists.

or if indeed they are conducting it today in some obscure place, just to get the officail UK information commissioners 'its not happened yet' from the ICO would be something to use later in any EU paperwork...

its clear if the ICO are to be really effective in their full review of the Intercepton for profit , they must be in posession of the dates and all facts we cant seem to get out of BT

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/search/phorm

is the place to put them, the only other thing is the exact wording to get the most information out of your Freedom Of Information act request there....!

to be clear, its not just for our information ,but its also useful for keeping the presure on for any EU actions we may need/want to take later, paperwork and PDF's are good.......

[SelfProtection]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHanff

Using your firewall to block webwise addresses is the last thing you want to do. It will make it impossible to browse the web on port 80 as the machine needs a valid webwise IP for the network to route it onto the internet.

BT have confirmed this explicitly.

Alexander Hanff

I wouldn't believe BT if I were you, I've been doing this throughout!

Apart from temporary timeouts when the system is forced to re blacklist the IP address, the system works faster without the extra hops!

[NTLVictim]

Yeah, baby..
As at 28-May-2008 16:50:40 1,150.000 [img]Download Failed (1)[/img] -62.50 -5.15%

Now get those adverts/posters/ t shirts/ video mash/ etc../ by whoever OUT THERE, they are no good in here! No letup!

[AlexanderHanff]

Originally Posted by SelfProtection

I wouldn't believe BT if I were you, I've been doing this throughout!

Apart from temporary timeouts when the system is forced to re blacklist the IP address, the system works faster without the extra hops!

I don't need to believe BT, I just used them for reference. With the current method, if you have the webwise domain blocked in your firewall it is impossible to traverse onto the internet. It simply will not work since all requests MUST go through a webwise domain first and if you can't find that domain because you have blocked the IP your traffic is going literally nowhere.

And throughout what? The trials have not even started yet. BT have explicitly warned people not to block the webwise domain for this exact reason. It can't be worked around.

The only time (according to Kent) that the webwise system will blacklist your IP and bypass the profiler is if you have the cookie blocked (and even that takes a couple of attempts and only works for a very short period and as described by Dr Clayton (and confirmed by Kent at the PIA meeting) can still result in getting stuck in a loop). And this is detected by the webwise system, so even then you need to be able to get to the webwise system before this can happen.

So with respect, no blocking with your firewall is a very bad idea if you want to use the web at all on port 80.

Let me just add a little extra info to clarify matters. The Layer 7 Switch performing the Deep Packet Inspection looks for a cookie, whether you have a cookie or not, it forwards the packets to the webwise system, which will then attempt to set a cookie. If it is unable to set a webwise cookie it assumes it is blocked and blacklists the IP for about 6 minutes if I remember correctly (I would need to check on the time the IP stays blacklisted).

But regardless of whether a cookie is present or not, the first point in the system (the DPI switch) is going to forward everything to webwise and if webwise is blocked, that means you can't go anywhere.

Alexander Hanff

[mark777]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHanff

So that's about £48M in the last 3 months then. Or approx $96M USD.

/me sets up motion detectors around his house...

Alexander Hanff

Kent's minions have also collectively lost about £70k on their new share options, since they got them a week ago.

An average of £700 each.

[AlexanderHanff]

Here we go

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/16062

Alexander Hanff

Originally Posted by AlexanderHanff

Here we go

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/16062

Alexander Hanff

Optimised version (hope it wasn't copyrighted)

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/6156/webwisezy9.gif

check ADVFN - someone's put a link to it on their forum

[AlexanderHanff]

Originally Posted by Paul Delaney

Optimised version (hope it wasn't copyrighted)

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/6156/webwisezy9.gif

check ADVFN - someone's put a link to it on their forum

Doesn't matter if it is copyrighted, copyright doesn't cover parodies

Alexander Hanff

Fyi, I've been pushing for any updates from Virgin Media and their stance regarding Phorm today while I was trying to gain a statement for another issue, its still the same.

A Virgin Media spokesperson says:

"There are no further updates at this stage - we are still investigating the technology, however we have not made a decision on deployment at this stage."

[AlexanderHanff]

Originally Posted by Mick

Fyi, I've been pushing for any updates from Virgin Media and their stance regarding Phorm today while I was trying to gain a statement for another issue, its still the same.

A Virgin Media spokesperson says:

"There are no further updates at this stage - we are still investigating the technology, however we have not made a decision on deployment at this stage."

Thanks for the update Mick.

Alexander Hanff