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

[bluecar1]

Originally Posted by Florence

Yet again BT beta forums go off for maintenance should we be worried are they about to cull webwise from the forums in a genicide attack...

back online

still there, just i think

peter

[Wildie]

Originally Posted by rossco555

Just read an article on Computer Weekly about talk of the goverment tapping into phone and internet traffic.....makes Phorm look tame!

Apologies if this link has already been posted.

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articl...d-internet.htm


Rossco

you find they been doing that since the birth of radio and monitor the data and calls of every thing been transmitted, want proof say a few key words on the phone and you may here the line change just a little :P

[rryles]

Originally Posted by isf

A debate wasn't my intention, I was simply putting it in perspective -- exactly as you did with your opening sentence.

Fair enough.

Originally Posted by isf

I'm not trying to design their system for them, far from it. However if they insist on going ahead with this farce the least they can do is attempt to avoid leaking the uid.

It's just an interesting exercise to consider how they could try and work round problems. Invariably it shows that they are likely to come up with other problems. I'm pretty confident that when (if) they do launch, the uids will leak, phorm will be able to get at PII, profiles will be filled with bogus data and the phishing filter will cause more problems than it solves.

Originally Posted by isf

The uid is a key to a database containing profile data, we're only talking about leakage due to phorged cookies under 3rd party domains. If a cookie is invalid, they simply overwrite it by spoofing a valid one.

Ah, you mean using the 'master' cookie in phorm's own domain? Fair point. If the users in control of their pc's want to tamper with their uid they still can though.

[Florence]

We have a new direction someone new on the scene who might be able to address some of the issues, Gavin Patterson is from now a non-executive director with immediate effect appointed by Media group Johnston Press Plc.
Patterson is a director of BT Group Plc. and is chief executive of BT Retail.

[Dephormation]

If a third party were able to intercept a company's private commercial communications with its customers, how would that I tell the difference between that and any other form of industrial espionage?

Phorm must be stopped.

[rryles]

Phorm at close today:
925.00 -37.50 (-3.90%)

[bluecar1]

Originally Posted by rryles

Phorm at close today:
925.00 -37.50 (-3.90%)

i got http://www.londonstockexchange.com/e...%20B1WTNC4PHRM

937.500 -25.00 -2.60%

peter

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by Florence

Has anyone contacted those persuing 121media asking if they ever did locate them and did thye know they are now using the name of Phorm?

Make sure they chase the right Phorm. The one with the unregistered trademark, the nicked logo, and the unregistered product name. I'd hate them to sue those nice guys in Barnsley who think up their OWN company and product names, and design their OWN logo.

Still - I suppose as their name and logo were on the internet, Phorm maybe thought copyright didn't apply.

[Dephormation]

Astonishing TV interview with Tim Smart CEO of BT Global Services UK.

Tim Smart discusses benefits and downsides of surveillance. Mentions monitoring verbal conversations and delivering contextual advertising based on the content of the conversation.

States that the challenge is making sure both parties to conversation find it acceptable.

Watch here (click on chapter 5 and 19 to skip to Tim Smarts piece)

Originally Posted by R Jones

Which raises the interesting question that I can't quite make my mind up on - are the people at BT really evil or are they just plain stupid?

Not just plain stupid - they are arrogant, ignorant and incompetent as well.

Lots of companies make bad decisions - anyone remember New Coke or the Ford Pinto - but BT's refusal to answer the most basic questions without having to refer the questions to Phorm shows incompetence while their refusal to respond directly to their customers is totally ignorant.

The worse element for me is their arrogant refusal to admit their mistakes and at least acknowledge that they acted in haste. They have allowed their company to be humliated and degraded in the eyes of many people. BT seem oblivious to fact that some of those offended by their actions and behavior will also have control of substantial business contracts with BT which are not going to be renewed not because of privacy concerns but because they feel that BT is untrustworthy and has crawled too far up it's own backside.

[madslug]

Originally Posted by bluecar1

one of the important things we do not know is are the adverts server by the adserver or does the profiler insert a link to an external website for you to pull the advert

if it is external, we can block them, if they come from the profiler we can't

peter

For the 2006/7 trials, they used js to call the ads off an external server.

Logically, they can only have one database for the ads which will either be called by the virtual site they host at the ISP or the actual site.

Either way, blocking the domain in the hosts file will prevent the display of ads.

There is one big problem with all ideas about blocking and boycotting advertisers. So much of the press I have read has talked about the top 4,000 brands being used for the various BT type profilers. We almost HAVE to buy them because that is all there is in the market place.

On the other hand, the other day in the supermarket - own brand ginger beer @44p, sprite/7up etc all around £1.45. A good £1 being paid for the non-supermarket side of the branding, which will include advertising costs. That, on its own, is a good enough reason to boycott all brands (at least the top 4k)

I for one don't want to pay more for branded goods just because their advertising budget is going up.

---------- Post added at 17:49 ---------- Previous post was at 17:47 ----------

Originally Posted by pseudonym

One method of messing with Phorm's data that I think has a great deal of potential would be for a server side Phorm webwise UID exchange system.

If websites replaced the UID in the webwise cookie Phorm forges for their domain with one donated by another site with totally unrelated content and dontated your UID into a pool, your browsing of the site would polute someone else's profile, and similarily your profile would be poluted by other people's browsing and the website would benefit as Phorm adverts targeted on their content would be severed up to people who had never visited their site

If you exchange UIDs - the UID is still collecting data about global surfing habits. Better to have no phorm than just find ways of getting round it.

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by rryles

It's just an interesting exercise to consider how they could try and work round problems. Invariably it shows that they are likely to come up with other problems.

This is actually a very useful approach and I think should be used more against BT in particular. (It won't work against Phorm)

1 - demonstrate that their current proposals on Webwise are illegal/insecure/technically unworkeable or preferably all 3 (we've done that)
2 - make an informed guess about alternative ways they might do it.
3 - wait a while (so that they get committed to exploring the alternatives)
4 - point out that the alternatives they might be exploring, are also illegal/insecure/impossible
5 - go back to 2 and repeat

I like to give them a month or so between cycles.

It is also important to intersperse, simultaneously, a spattering of (valid and justifable) regulatory complaints at strategic intervals, preferably from different directions - ICO one month, Ofcom the next, so that as they are working on a "new" solution to try and retrofit Webwise for legality, they simultaneously have to invest a lot of time arguing that the previous solution was not illegal - they have to do this at the same time as they are devising a NEW solution because actually they already know the original solution WAS illegal, but can't admit it. The potential for wrong emails/briefings going to the wrong people is enormous because they are having to think about diametrically opposed things at the same time.

Certainly from the public statements from BT that we have seen in various media, there is every evidence to conclude that at BT, this has already happened.

Think of it as ordering a suit from the tailor, and then sending in a different member of your family every time you go for a fitting. Eventually the tailor will become completely confused- you may even drive him completely mad. Obviously you would not want to do this to any tailor unless he had really upset you in the past.

Then, there is of course my former flatmate's utlimate nuclear deterrent method for dealing with awkward organisations with a toxic bureaucratic structure, and a lot of inefficiency and leakage.

Start to refer, threateningly, to non-existent correspondence. This method is explained clearly in the management training film (released as a commercial cartoon entertainment) called "Asterix and the 12 Tasks" - where Asterix, after being given the run-around in a manner which anyone familiar with customer service phone messaging systems will recognise, eventually asks for a Permit A39 as stipulated in circular B65 (or something similar). Neither documents actually exist, and the building eventually explodes or collapses with all the staff running out into the Via Whateverus gibbering and screaming.


Footnote - the above paragraph was a joke. (but only the above paragraph). The rest is serious.

---------- Post added at 17:54 ---------- Previous post was at 17:52 ----------

Originally Posted by Dephormation

Astonishing TV interview with Tim Smart CEO of BT Global Services UK.

Tim Smart discusses benefits and downsides of surveillance. Mentions monitoring verbal conversations and delivering contextual advertising based on the content of the conversation.

States that the challenge is making sure both parties to conversation find it acceptable.

Watch here (click on chapter 5 and 19 to skip to Tim Smarts piece)

I wonder what his email address is? FirstnameDOTlastnameATbtDOTcom ? like the usual format?

Tim Smart deserves mail.

Update - I got an immediate reply and have initiated a correspondence. Can't quote at the moment. We'll see how it goes.

If you do email him, be polite. I was impressed at the speed of the reply.

[warescouse]

Originally Posted by Florence

cut..
Has anyone contacted those persuing 121media asking if they ever did locate them and did thye know they are now using the name of Phorm?

I refer you to Alex's post #10957.

---------- Post added at 18:13 ---------- Previous post was at 18:10 ----------

Originally Posted by R Jones

This is actually a very useful approach and I think should be used more against BT in particular. (It won't work against Phorm)

1 - demonstrate that their current proposals on Webwise are illegal/insecure/technically unworkeable or preferably all 3 (we've done that)
2 - make an informed guess about alternative ways they might do it.
3 - wait a while (so that they get committed to exploring the alternatives)
4 - point out that the alternatives they might be exploring, are also illegal/insecure/impossible
5 - go back to 2 and repeat

I like to give them a month or so between cycles.

...cut

Couldn't you just give BT a piece of paper with PTO written on both sides. I think the end result would be the same. Confusion!

[Wildie]

make sure the email has lots of adverts in it well the 2nd one you send off after your scanned it looking for key words to match the advert

[warescouse]

Originally Posted by Peter N

Not just plain stupid - they are arrogant, ignorant and incompetent as well.

Lots of companies make bad decisions - anyone remember New Coke or the Ford Pinto - but BT's refusal to answer the most basic questions without having to refer the questions to Phorm shows incompetence while their refusal to respond directly to their customers is totally ignorant.

The worse element for me is their arrogant refusal to admit their mistakes and at least acknowledge that they acted in haste. They have allowed their company to be humliated and degraded in the eyes of many people. BT seem oblivious to fact that some of those offended by their actions and behavior will also have control of substantial business contracts with BT which are not going to be renewed not because of privacy concerns but because they feel that BT is untrustworthy and has crawled too far up it's own backside.

I cannot understand why Virgin Media have not come out with a statement totally removing themselves with any relationship with Phorm and this type of DPI targeted advertising methodology. If they cannot see by this day that this in-line 'spyware' not going to to be ignored by the authorities for ever they must be fools as well. There must be a point where they must see that the outrage is only going to get bigger and bigger, and bigger and bigger as time goes on.