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

[tarka]

Originally Posted by mark777

If they were not forging cookies in other domains once they had obtained your UID from the previous cookie drop, they couldn't profile all pages.

Unless they linked UID to IP?

I'm not sure how relevant Dr Claytons report would be to the version used in the 2006 trial, but I can't see how it could work without forging cookies or using IP.

EDIT : Was IP classified as PII in 2006?

I agree that it is entirely possible they were forging cookies. Were the UID's linked to an ip address? I couldn't say, and I'm not sure if IP's were classed as PII back then. Given the nature of cookies being tied to the domains they are assigned from I don't think that part of the model would have changed (at least not much).

It's just that as I was typing that post and trying to imagine the process involved a couple of things occured to me and I wanted to refresh my memory on the use of cookies.

[SelfProtection]

Originally Posted by R Jones

There is no possible way the honourable people at BT, a blue chip company of international repute, could ever knowingly mislead the ICO. Just because any reasonable person looking at the evidence now in the public realm and in the total absence of any reasonable alternative explanation or clarification from BT, might conclude that, just because a range of knowledgeable people with relevant experience in the ethical and legal areas that are germaine to this area er... iss - specific thingy - have said they should be prosecuted over the secret trials (including Dr Richard Clayton) - I would just like to say - they can't possibly have misled the ICO. It just wouldn't be right. And I can't afford the libel action so I would never make such a suggestion. It would be very foolish. I'd get sued if I said it. So I won't say it.

Hear that BT - because you might sue me for saying that you misled the ICO - I'm not saying it. I'm a BT customer of many years standing, I've been keeping myself well informed about this. I've studied your covert trials and your leaked documents. I'd love to express my opinion - I'd love to see you hammered by the ICO and I'd love to see the police raid your head office but I can't say you misled the ICO.

I am familiar with your management style. I am familiar with the way you do things. And although all the bits of the jigsaw appear to fit in a particular way, although all the signposts appear to point me in a particular direction, I won't say you misled the ICO. Of course you didn't. I can't think of any other interpretation of the facts, but if you say you didn't mislead the ICO then of course you didn't. There may be no explanation that makes the slightest sense, but nevertheless you didn't mislead the ICO.

But I'm very very angry. With BT for their obsession with covert and stealth activity, and with the ICO for being so feeble and guillible. Not that you misled him. Of course not. I don't want to be sued. So I won't say it. You wouldn't mislead the ICO. You misled your customers and called it "transparency" but of course you didn't mislead the ICO.

Perhaps we should all post on BT Beta forums saying "Of course BT didn't mislead the ICO" 1000 times, just like when we were at school doing lines? No - don't do that it would be very naughty.

I've come to the conclusion that neither the BT nor the ICO actually understand rational reasonable factual argument. I couldn't possibly speculate as to why that might be.

Maybe you didn't mislead the ICO. Maybe the Commissioner just doesn't fully understand his duties. Maybe someone is leaning on him. Maybe the ICO is a fig leaf. I don't know.

Maybe ridicule will work better?

Of course if BT write to me demanding a retraction of this post - then in obedience to the legal muscle I will of course retract this post, in which I insist that BT did not mislead the ICO.

I hope that BT appreciate just how loyal their customers are. Just like those who line the streets of Harare to cheer Mr. Mugabe, just like those who chanted in support of Enver Hoxha and Joseph Stalin and Nicolai Caucescu, we loyal BT customers join together, in very very straight row, conscious of your friendly lawyers alongside us, and we say,

Viva BT! standard bearers for integrity, transparency and compliance!

If the moderators don't object I will cache this post in case it is ordered to be removed!

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by SelfProtection

If the moderators don't object I will cache this post in case it is ordered to be removed!

Do you think I've overdone the loyalty?

[Deko]

is Kent paying backhanders?

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - Phorm Inc said chairman and chief executive Kent Ertugrul has pledged 500,000 shares in the company as security in connection with loan facilities arranged by him.

The shares represent about 19.27 pct of Ertugrul's 2.59 mln share holdings, and following the signing of the loan, Ertugrul's stake of 21.47 pct will remain unchanged..

Ertugrul has no current intent to sell the shares, the technology information company said in a statement. TFN.newsdesk@thomson.com pmi/am


COPYRIGHT


Copyright AFX News Limited 2007. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of AFX News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AFX News.

Thats a lot of money to raise isn't it you been paying the ICO and other people off have you Kent ?

[oblonsky]

Attending the BT AGM

Anyone unraveled how to attend the BT AGM and whether its worth it? A friend has offered to nominate me as his proxy, and filled in the proxy card. Do I need to take his Admission Card or will BT send me my own "Proxy Card"? The BT website is confusing, and includes this advice:

If you will be attending our AGM please can you call our Shareholder Helpline in advance on Freefone 0808 100 4141, (+44 121 415 7178 from outside the UK) or e-mail bt@equiniti.com using a subject header of “BT AGM 2008”, and quoting your shareholder reference number.

Do I need to do this as well as getting my friend to complete the proxy card?

[mark777]

Originally Posted by tarka

I agree that it is entirely possible they were forging cookies. Were the UID's linked to an ip address? I couldn't say, and I'm not sure if IP's were classed as PII back then. Given the nature of cookies being tied to the domains they are assigned from I don't think that part of the model would have changed (at least not much).

It's just that as I was typing that post and trying to imagine the process involved a couple of things occured to me and I wanted to refresh my memory on the use of cookies.

I'm trying to explore the cookie issue a bit more, especially in the light of BT T&C's preventing them dropping them directly (clearly BT must have had that legal advice).

Does it matter that they are laundering the cookies via phorm and a 3rd party ad site?

They still know that by taking the decision to proceed, it will cause their customers to receive cookies that are outside their T&C's, but BT will still make use of.

If the list of websites at the end of the document were used for the cookie drop does it make any difference that these sites appear to be all US sites as speculated on Badphorm?

http://www.badphorm.co.uk/e107_plugi...pic.php?6337.0

I just feel that there has to be something here if we can prove they broke their own T&C's.

[Florence]

I would advice everyone to avoid BT total Internet package as this is what phorm will be on if and when 21cn comes round avoid BT and anyone who uses BT managed since the managed will have the DPI available later.

Entanet and LLU internet but again avoid Sky until they do say thye will not use phorm.
So far Be has said they will not be phormed, Zen and all Entanet supplied ISPs perhaps BT need to see customers leaving revenue dropping to pull them up short.

[mark777]

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - Phorm Inc said chairman and chief executive Kent Ertugrul has pledged 500,000 shares in the company as security in connection with loan facilities arranged by him.

The shares represent about 19.27 pct of Ertugrul's 2.59 mln share holdings, and following the signing of the loan, Ertugrul's stake of 21.47 pct will remain unchanged..

Ertugrul has no current intent to sell the shares, the technology information company said in a statement. TFN.newsdesk@thomson.com pmi/am


COPYRIGHT


Copyright AFX News Limited 2007. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of AFX News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AFX News.

@Deko, do you have the link for this?

It says copyright 2007. If it's recent, it's important.

It's also probably wise not to make allegations as you have. You might want to rethink and edit?

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by Deko

is Kent paying backhanders?

Thats a lot of money to raise isn't it

So at £11.25 per share at today's close, and 2.59 Million shares, that represents £29,137,500 of collateral, against the loan, and for each penny that the share price goes down, the collateral becomes worth £25,900 less.

Suddenly I feel more motivated.

Just think - at the end of February, those shares were worth £34. So that represents a loss in value of Kent's shares, of £25,900 x 2275 = £58,922,500

Just in case anyone was losing motivation. Since the end of February the exposure of Phorm's business model and BT's behaviour to genuine public scrutiny has reduced the value of Kent Ertugrul's share holding by nearly £59 million pounds.

Anyone want to check the maths?

[mark777]

The quote is from July 2007

http://www.lse.co.uk/ShareNews.asp?s...vuaempa6tbqm7y

[BadPhormula]

Originally Posted by R Jones

There is no possible way the honourable people at BT, a blue chip company of international repute, could ever knowingly mislead the ICO. Just because any reasonable person looking at the evidence now in the public realm and in the total absence of any reasonable alternative explanation or clarification from BT, might conclude that, just because a range of knowledgeable people with relevant experience in the ethical and legal areas that are germaine to this area er... iss - specific thingy - have said they should be prosecuted over the secret trials (including Dr Richard Clayton) - I would just like to say - they can't possibly have misled the ICO. It just wouldn't be right. And I can't afford the libel action so I would never make such a suggestion. It would be very foolish. I'd get sued if I said it. So I won't say it.

Hear that BT - because you might sue me for saying that you misled the ICO - I'm not saying it. I'm a BT customer of many years standing, I've been keeping myself well informed about this. I've studied your covert trials and your leaked documents. I'd love to express my opinion - I'd love to see you hammered by the ICO and I'd love to see the police raid your head office but I can't say you misled the ICO.

I am familiar with your management style. I am familiar with the way you do things. And although all the bits of the jigsaw appear to fit in a particular way, although all the signposts appear to point me in a particular direction, I won't say you misled the ICO. Of course you didn't. I can't think of any other interpretation of the facts, but if you say you didn't mislead the ICO then of course you didn't. There may be no explanation that makes the slightest sense, but nevertheless you didn't mislead the ICO.

But I'm very very angry. With BT for their obsession with covert and stealth activity, and with the ICO for being so feeble and guillible. Not that you misled him. Of course not. I don't want to be sued. So I won't say it. You wouldn't mislead the ICO. You misled your customers and called it "transparency" but of course you didn't mislead the ICO.

Perhaps we should all post on BT Beta forums saying "Of course BT didn't mislead the ICO" 1000 times, just like when we were at school doing lines? No - don't do that it would be very naughty.

I've come to the conclusion that neither the BT nor the ICO actually understand rational reasonable factual argument. I couldn't possibly speculate as to why that might be.

Maybe you didn't mislead the ICO. Maybe the Commissioner just doesn't fully understand his duties. Maybe someone is leaning on him. Maybe the ICO is a fig leaf. I don't know.

Maybe ridicule will work better?

Of course if BT write to me demanding a retraction of this post - then in obedience to the legal muscle I will of course retract this post, in which I insist that BT did not mislead the ICO.

I hope that BT appreciate just how loyal their customers are. Just like those who line the streets of Harare to cheer Mr. Mugabe, just like those who chanted in support of Enver Hoxha and Joseph Stalin and Nicolai Caucescu, we loyal BT customers join together, in very very straight row, conscious of your friendly lawyers alongside us, and we say,

Viva BT! standard bearers for integrity, transparency and compliance!

Ah, so what R Jones is actually saying is "BT misled the ICO", they lied to the ICO in order to try and get away with the data interception crimes they have commited with their criminal partner 121Media(Phorm) and the guy responsible for overlooking this caper was Stratis Scleparis former CTO of BT retail (now CTO of Phorm).

I think I'm starting to get the hang of this double think / double speak Gorwell thingy. Now how do I phrase Richard Thomarse should resign as the ICO because he is negligent in his job? Do we have to use Gorwell double-double speak so he gets the message?

---------- Post added at 00:39 ---------- Previous post was at 00:31 ----------

Originally Posted by Deko

is Kent paying backhanders?




Thats a lot of money to raise isn't it you been paying the ICO and other people off have you Kent ?

WHAT? Phorm paid the ICO off? Scandal!!! Resign Thomarse

[Cumulus]

Sorry Mark, I see you've written more posts since I started writing this one and it's clear I'm a bit behind Though hopefully some of the info. below will be useful to those who haven't had much time to read the British_Telecom_Phorm_Page_Sense_External_Validati on_report.

Originally Posted by mark777

If they were not forging cookies in other domains once they had obtained your UID from the previous cookie drop, they couldn't profile all pages.

Unless they linked UID to IP?

I'm not sure how relevant Dr Claytons report would be to the version used in the 2006 trial, but I can't see how it could work without forging cookies or using IP.

You are correct to question the relevancy of Dr Clayton's Webwise to the PageSense system used in 2006 as the technologies worked quite differently. The key difference being that the web page analysis for PageSense was performed on the browser using Javascript, whereas Webwise does the analysis on the server.

In PageSense, BT injected a small bit of Javascript to webpages before delivering them to the browser, which caused the browser to retrieve more Javascript but this time from sysip.net (called the "channel server" in the leaked document). Some of this Javascript analysed the page and sent a summary of the page contents (e.g. common keywords & phrases + unique ID etc) to sysip.net for further processing.

Clues to the cookie question are on pages 7 & 46 of the leaked report. All that would be needed technically would be for the channel server to detect whether a cookie already existed for sysip.net whenever a page is requested, and if not, create one and send it to the browser. This check would need to be done for each page accessed and would be enough to uniquely identify a user so a browsing profile could be built up on sysip.net and ads could be served to the correct user.

However, the report makes it clear that BT did not want to change terms & conditions for its broadband users which prevented this "standard" approach. This is just a guess (IANAL), but by setting the cookie for sysip.net beforehand, but only affecting users who visited certain popular sites, presumably it's the T&Cs of those sites which would apply, not the T&Cs of BTs broadband service? And once the cookie has been set, there's no reason for it to change as it only contains the unique ID, and therefore BT's T&Cs are not affected.

So as far as I can see, there was no need for cookie forging, nor for keeping track of IP addresses.

[AlexanderHanff]

Originally Posted by Hank

I would also like to guess something, based purely on the facts and evidence we have - in the absence of any indication from BT or the ICO to the contrary:

BT may have misled the Information Commissioner's Office and not given them all the facts until they had to speak to them again after the leaked release of the BT report on the 2006 trials.

As I understand it they (BT) were seeking legal action to make Alexander H remove this suggested possible situation from the www.nodpi.org website but that by close of play today they had neither given any information to confirm or deny the case, nor had they issued any legal papers to insist that Alexander complies with their initial request to remove said statements.

All just my thoughts and comments, given what I have read. I could be wrong but currently I think not!

Hank

I got an email this evening. Emma is "disappointed" that I have declined to remove the comments about them misleading ICO and has stated they will continue to monitor the situation. No more talk of legal action. So yes basically it would seem BT were indeed trying to menace me. I will look into this but I am sure there is something in the law with regards to threatening someone with legal action if you never intend to follow through with the threat.

Alexander Hanff

[Florence]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHanff

I got an email this evening. Emma is "disappointed" that I have declined to remove the comments about them misleading ICO and has stated they will continue to monitor the situation. No more talk of legal action. So yes basically it would seem BT were indeed trying to menace me. I will look into this but I am sure there is something in the law with regards to threatening someone with legal action if you never intend to follow through with the threat.

Alexander Hanff

You had an email from Emma tonight wonder why she didn't answer my questions then well suppose it is time to put the questions on the forums so others can see what she is avoiding.

1. BT Retail BT Retail serves consumer customers and small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK, providing a range of *innovative products and services*. It also comprises BT Ireland and our Enterprises division.

I really think shareholders need to be given a complete rundown on what they are and if they include the targeted advertising?

2. BT Design and BT Operate *BT Design is responsible for the design and deployment of the platforms,* systems and processes which support our products and services, and *BT Operate is responsible for their operation.

*Here I highlighted two sections since both are relevant. I have read where BT ran phorm without BT design involved in this operation is this correct?
On the second bold reading the news leaked and other things about phorm BT Operate didn't do the operation of Phorm it was 121media why are the shareholders not being made aware of this?

3. Going back on the ICO where I have many emails on one of my questions I had this reply.
> My understanding is that BT made a public statement that "a small scale
> technical test of a prototype advertising platform took place for two weeks
> during September - October 2006 [and that] no personally identifiable information was processed, stored or disclosed during this test".
>
Since BT design and BT Operate didn't have total control over these trials you cannot be 100% sure what was processed, what was logged or if it was in a way that they people could be identified. Scripting only needs a small line with a get command and the PC would tell them everything. Unless you are a extremely good scripter you wouldn't understand the scripts. Looking at the paragraph from ICO plus post around the forums you excluded the very people who could read the scripts was there a reason why? Plus to the shareholders you make it look like BT Design and BT Operate were handling Phorm, this puts them in bad position since you openly say they are responsible for the operation when they had no control 121media had total control. That is how it looks at present many are now wondering how much control you are passing onto Phorm?

[Tharrick]

Only today for example both my nephews were stopped by the boys in blue while out riding their scooters .. one was told his vehicle was illegal because 'it was too dirty' .. the other was told to go home and get properly dressed 'you must wear a leather jacket and gloves' ..

OK, I can understand being angry about the 'too dirty' comments, but I thoroughly agree with stopping people and reminding them to put some sensible clothes on while riding two-wheelers.
I'm a biker myself, and even in this mini-heatwave I wouldn't dream of going without my armour, head to toe. I came off once at 50mph, and skidded myself about 25-30 feet into a crash barrier, and it's only due to the armour that I still have legs.
The average figure for 'road rash' is around 2 inches of flesh lost for every 5 feet that you skid. You don't HAVE 2 inches of flesh thickness on your arms before you've hit bone, and a 25-foot skid is sufficient to remove more than enough flesh to kill you outright. And good gloves are pricey, but if you come off without them you will lose fingers. My gloves set me back something like £70 (real top-of-the-range stuff), and I came down on one hand when I skidded out, and the only damage was some slight scuffing to the glove. If I'd have landed even at 30mph on my palm, it would have destroyed my hand.