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

[AlexanderHanff]

Originally Posted by bluecar1

alex i have posted the comment below over on III in both the phorm and BT forums i posted a link to the doc

*********
alex hannff has corrected a statement in response to a request by phorm's / BT's legal team

see http://nodpi.org/?p=11

this is posted in accordance with the request by alex that we post this update as requested by the legal communication he recieved
*********

no one can say we are not playing fair and by the rules, shame others are not though

peter

Well I didn't really correct the statement in response to their legal team. I retracted the statement a long time before I heard from BT or Phorm. I retracted the statement as an act of good faith until the issue could be clarified and that was a decision I made without any legal prodding.

It may seem like splitting hairs but makes a big difference with regards to whether or not I could be accused of defamation. If you recall the sequence of events, I posted my original opinion stating it needed to be clarified, then after more thought and discussion I added an update in big red bold font offering an alternative interpretation but still stating the situation needed clarifying and then I retracted the part entirely mid morning yesterday and replaced it with a paragraph inviting Kent a right to reply to clarify the issue.

Alexander Hanff

[bigbadcol]

Alex, a HUGE thank you for what you have done on this campaign

As I now understand the situation with the Charity adverts is they :-

Bought Charity adverts. Who benifited the charity or the advert company

Used said charity adverts to test the reportedly illegal system. So so charitys have been used to validate a criminal act. Phorm are skum, lower then the low to use charities in this way.

Then because of a misunderstanding of a document, and one mistake by the opponents of the people involved, when the truth comes out, get heavy.

Phorm and BT committed 1000's of crimal acts, but dont give a damm and will not explain their actions. Yet one legitimate mistake by the oposition and no crime commited, threaten legal action.

What would be the position on a citizans arrest against those involved in BT's criminal acts.

col

[BetBlowWhistler]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHanff

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04...rm_2006_trial/

Alexander Hanff

The one from 1st April 2008?

Documents seen by The Register

So how come this document has only just come to the public eye if the Reg had a copy of it at the beginning of April?

<disappointed>
This is how we missed it then, Chris hasn't provided a link to the document either. I'd like to know why Chris hasn't followed up with a least an updated article with the link to wikileaks and re-posted it on the front page.
</disappointed>

[AlexanderHanff]

Inadvisable to attempt a citizen's arrest under any circumstances nowadays given PACE you are likely to end up the one in jail instead of the person you arrest.

Alexander Hanff

---------- Post added at 10:12 ---------- Previous post was at 10:09 ----------

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/06/06...ecoms-eav.html
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...ying-made.html

Re: Chris at El Reg, you have to remember he is a journalist, he can't just publish what he feels like, he has an editor and hoops to jump through just like any employee does.

Alexander Hanff

[SelfProtection]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHanff

To be honest I would rather be financially bankrupt than morally and/or ethically bankrupt.

Alexander Hanff

---------- Post added at 02:51 ---------- Previous post was at 02:18 ----------

OK I have compiled a list of posts from this forum which reference the charity ads and asked Mick to remove them. They are not all my posts so I want to put a list here for people so if they object to one of their posts being removed they can contact Mick and ask him not to.


Alexander Hanff

I think you should leave one of these links questioning the information together with a Special Forum Note, that the Document in Question was hard to properly Understand & therefore could easily lead to misinterpretation on this particular point!

Maybe future evidence that helps you to prove that this part of the Document was difficult to interpret.

[bigbadcol]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHanff

Inadvisable to attempt a citizen's arrest under any circumstances nowadays given PACE you are likely to end up the one in jail instead of the person you arrest.

Alexander Hanff

Thank for that.

Your intergarty, hard work and dedication are amazing.

Thank you again.

col

[AlexanderHanff]

Originally Posted by bigbadcol

Thank for that.

Your intergarty, hard work and dedication are amazing.

Thank you again.

col

For some obscure reason I spent a lot of time reading PACE a couple of years back, I forget why (no I wasn't in trouble) something I had read had lead me to want to find out more and I specifically researched the situation with citizens arrests. It is a dangerous path to tread nowadays and the danger is you could end up in jail if you don't know exactly how to do it and specific conditions are not met.

Alexander Hanff

[jelv]

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...ying-made.html has a digg link at the bottom the page - go to it!

Edit: So does http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3...orm-trial.html

[bigbadcol]

Apart from the Phorm issues this thread is amazing for lots of reasons.

A couple of days ago somebody posted about Google grants.

The last time I looked into this is was just for the USA 501(3) organisations.

The post promted me to look again, and yesterday I filled in an application for the charity I run. So thank you ( sorry I can not remember who made the post).

col

[AlexanderHanff]

Originally Posted by bigbadcol

Apart from the Phorm issues this thread is amazing for lots of reasons.

A couple of days ago somebody posted about Google grants.

The last time I looked into this is was just for the USA 501(3) organisations.

The post promted me to look again, and yesterday I filled in an application for the charity I run. So thank you ( sorry I can not remember who made the post).

col

I wish you and your charity luck with your application.

Alexander Hanff

---------- Post added at 10:45 ---------- Previous post was at 10:26 ----------

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=13320

[Florence]

There are many old sayings around all meaning the same thing.

A chain is as strong as its weakest link,
BT was strong now with Phorm this old saying comes tomind.
A fool and his money are soon parted
To say it is foolhardy to follow the phorm route is correct.

this last one maybe more relevent to what BT are doing
Absolute power corrupts absolutely

With the forcing of phorm onto customers yes forcing since there is no way technically to avoid the phorm servers, you still get intercepted regardless of if it is proccessed or not it is illegal interception. So BT are forcing absolute power over their customers! The fact we only have BT and Phorms word they wouldn't be proccessed in the light of the leaked report that word is worthless.

All that glitters is not gold
Phorm maybe glittering money before your eyes look at the old saying and think for a while.

Appearances are deceiving

This would fit in with the whole saga of Kents life from early days to present nothing has changed.

Two programs distributed by ContextPlus—Apropos and PeopleOnPage—employ what are described as "very advanced rootkit technologies" to evade anti-virus and anti-spyware scanners.

Apropos is a spyware program that collects users browsing habits and system information and reports back to the ContextPlus servers.

Like the typical spyware application, Apropos uses the data to serve targeted pop-up advertisements while the user is surfing the Web.

Which make me think time to stop the old sayings with this very apt one about the spyware

Does a leopard change his spots?

[bluecar1]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHanff

Well I didn't really correct the statement in response to their legal team. I retracted the statement a long time before I heard from BT or Phorm. I retracted the statement as an act of good faith until the issue could be clarified and that was a decision I made without any legal prodding.

It may seem like splitting hairs but makes a big difference with regards to whether or not I could be accused of defamation. If you recall the sequence of events, I posted my original opinion stating it needed to be clarified, then after more thought and discussion I added an update in big red bold font offering an alternative interpretation but still stating the situation needed clarifying and then I retracted the part entirely mid morning yesterday and replaced it with a paragraph inviting Kent a right to reply to clarify the issue.

Alexander Hanff

fair point, but as soon as they visit the link that is clear anyway, i did post another comment over on BT forums as well which is probably more in line the actual situation

********
Re: BT Webwise Discussion Thread
Posted: Jun 6, 2008 9:29 AM in response to: Mark H Reply

i see over on cable forum that alex got a communication from PHORM's /BT's solicitors requesting he retract various statements re the leaked document.

alex had actually done this yesterday prior to this and openly requested BT / PHORM clarify some points, if my reading of the comments ( http://nodpi.org/?p=11 ) are correct they clarified one point that phorm had placed the charity adverts, but failed to clarify if the charities they placed these adverts on behalf of had been made aware of either the placement of the adverts or their purpose as being a default if no targeted advert was available and several others

alex also appears to have complied with the legal request by asking others to remove the comments indicated which most if not all seem to have done

if you are synical you could draw any of the conclusions below over the legal action on alex or if you believe BT / Phorm that they are legally doing the ad serving you may draw another conclusions altogether

1: BT / Phorm want to silence him (anyway they can)

2: BT / Phorm have more to hide (come on BT / Phorm lets have more CLEAR information on the trial and exactly how the system works, there is still the issue of the diagnostic logs held by the adserver for 14 days)

3: lack of PR team response from BT / Phorm on the forums etc, means they consider they have lost the PR battle now they are using the heavy hand of the law to try and win as they have bigger legal budgets and better a legal team than alex

i think a large number of people will probably take one of the synical options

me, i am not saying in case BT send the heavy's round to me, but i do tend to have a synical view of the motives of big business

peter
********

[jelv]

I'd missed this gem:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2008/06...kidding-phorm/

Good God, what will K*nt come up with next?

[Portly_Giraffe]

Goodness, I go away on business for a couple of days and all this happens. Thanks to Alexander for all his work.

I've done a major update to http://www.inphormationdesk.org/ - please review it and let me know what you think.

In particular I've added a new page: http://www.inphormationdesk.org/whyitswrong.htm - I've tried to incorporate all the feedback I received when I posted an earlier version of this last Sunday.

Please provide some feedback, and then we can go for next actions.

[bluecar1]

Originally Posted by jelv

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...ying-made.html has a digg link at the bottom the page - go to it!

Edit: So does http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3...orm-trial.html

both dug