Posts by colin stone

SHOCK ... THE ICO finds a tooth

"BT and Phorm were unavailable for comment."

Thats a first anyway.

Now the ICO has found a tooth, what about an explanation regarding the report last week from the ICO.

Also a question to Phorm, and phormPRteam.

Proof you are lying scum.. The ICO did not endorce your product did they?.

Please visit all the message bords and blogs you posted on with this lie, and say sorry.

Where in Inspecter Knacker of the yard?

In light of the ICO following the BBC lead in cut and paste of Phorm PR for there publications. The question that I want an answer to is:-

"As Intercepting communications is illegal the bigger question is why is the ICS allowing BT to do yet another trial.

By letting BT test the system, the ICO are aiding and abetting a criminal act. "

I also want to know where is Inspector Knacker in all this.

The BBC and others have reported several times that BT has committed a criminal act.

If a crime is suspected of taking place then Knacker has a duty to investigate.

Yet Knacker who is more then happy to shoot and kill an innocent traveller on the underground, is totally ignoring this matter.

A final question where is PhormPRteam. Have the skumbubbles given up, or are they just re-grouping

@Has anyone contacted BBC Watchdog yet?

Yes I did 3 weeks ago.

They phoned on Friday , invited me to London to an interview on Saterday (I could not do it at short notice).

The implication was they would be running the story on the following Monday.

Well we know the BBC loves Phorm, loves the spin and publishes Phorm Press statements cut and paste as news. So maybe higher powers and PR changed there minds.

I am glad I did not do the interview now.

blocking Phorm

Just a thought..

would blocking phorm in the .htaccess file stop phorm profiling a site.

something along the lines of

.htaccess

deny from webwise.com

deny from webwise.net

deny from webwise.org

deny from oix.net

deny from oix.com

deny from oix.org

Plus any other domains as needed.

Is there any reason this could break things?

Thanks

Crash and burn

It is good to see the stock down -375 (-16.30%) this morning. Every trade so far today has been SELL.

Keeping everything crossed that by friday they will be bankrupt.

The Story of the Emperor's New Adverts

Story of the Emperor's New Adverts

With apologies to Hans Christian Andersen

Once there lived an Advertiser who was so fond of spywear and routekits that he spent developing them in the hope of making even more money. He did not care about security, he did not care about the people; he only liked to make money. He had an excuse and justification for the people’s fears, every hour of the day he would pronounce trust me, I am not a bad man. My past products were not spywear, and lo the BBC trusted him, and he was happy.

In the great where he traded there was always something going on; every day many strangers came there. One day two impostors arrived once went by the name Ernst & Young and the other was 20/80. They wrote reports and said “yes we trust you, you are not a seller of bad things. We absolve you, and all you do is good. The people will be happy and protected from all that is bad. They said that they knew how to manufacture a report that was so trustworthy only a fool would not believe it. And so they did, they wrote a report wit such texture that we words were spun so greatly that the government believed it. the companies believed it , and the broadcasters believed it . It was written with the most beautiful words imaginable. Not only were the words and syntax written in a most uncommonly beautiful way, but the whole report was of the quality that no advert peddler could ever imagine. The report was so fantastic that all of the bad things went away as it possessed this wonderful property called spin that had never been seen in this way before. The spin was so good that they said it will be invisible to anyone who was not fit for his office, or who was unpardonably stupid.

'Those must indeed be splendid adverts,' thought the Advertise. 'If I had them on my web servers I could find out which men in land would help me with the spin and I could distinguish the wise from the stupid! Yes, this report must be written for me at once.' And he gave both the impostors much money, so that they might begin their work.

They placed two computers, and began to do as if they were working, but they had not the least thing on the computers, no research no law nothing. They also demanded the finest truth and wisest words, which they put in their report, and worked at the blank computer till late into the night.

'I should like very much to know how far they have got on with the report,' thought the Advertiser. But he remembered when he thought about it that whoever was stupid or not fit for his office would not be able to the truth. Now he certainly believed that he had nothing to fear for himself, but he wanted first to send somebody else in order to see how he stood with regard to the law. Everybody in the whole town knew what a wonderful power the truth had, and they were all curious to see how bad or how stupid their neighbour was.

'I will send my old and honoured minister to the writers,' thought the Emperor. 'He can judge best what the truth is like, for he has intellect, and no one understands his office better than he.'

'Is it not a beautiful report?' asked the two impostors, and they pointed to and described the splendid truth which was not there.

'Stupid I am not!' thought the man, 'so it must be my good office for which I am not fitted. It is strange, certainly, but no one must be allowed to notice it.' And so he praised the truth which he did not see, and expressed to them his delight at the beautiful truth and wisest words with such splendid texture. 'Yes, it is quite beautiful,' he said to the advertiser.

Everybody in computer land was talking of the magnificent report, this great system, which would save them all from untargeted advertisements, all hail to the great Advertiser they sang, all hail to Phorm went up the cry from the great leader of the internet, all hail to Phorm sang BT, Virgin alike, while . Car Phone Warehouse pondered and though yet still they sang all hail to Phorm.

Now the Advertiser wanted to read it himself so he brought together a great crowd of select followers, amongst whom were both the worthy buisness who had already been there before, he went to the cunning impostors, who were now spinning and name calling with all their might, but without a shred of truth.

'Is it not splendid!' said both the old statesmen who had already been there. 'See, your adverts so targeted so fine. See the protection form the evil Phishers!' And then they pointed to the report, for they believed that the others could see the the truth just as they could see it as well.

'What!' thought the Advertiser 'I can see trouble and law, I can see RIPA and DPA! This is indeed horrible! Am I stupid? Am I not fit to be the Great advertiser? That was the most dreadful thing that could happen to me. Oh, it is very beautiful,' he said. 'It has my gracious approval.' And then he nodded pleasantly, and examined the report and believed all of the spin and guff and nodded with a happy smile.

His gathered his investors around him and they looked and looked, and read and read, and saw no more than the others; but they said like the Advertiser, 'Oh! it is beautiful!' so wonderful what can go wrong, and they invested millions. And they advised him to show the world his wonderful new adverts.

In the morning he called the PR he called the media, he called the stock market. Come Look at the great advert system I have invented, come look at the report that sings its praises, come look at me, I am not a Spywear peddler or rout kit seller, I am the Great saviour of the world, I will Protect you all from untargeted adverts .

'Spun words are so wonderful that one would imagine that not one word was the truth.

'Yes,' said all the leaders and the BBC we believe everything you tell us. , but they could see truth , for there was no truth there.

And they called a press conference so the Great Advertiser could tell the world of his new plan and the reports came, and the TV people came, and the interviewers came. And he told the world, and it was reported. The stock price went up, and money was made and the great Advertiser was happy, the inverters were happy and So the Advertiser went along in procession of media and web chats across the Internet and media he went, and to all the people on every computer, and interview he said , 'How matchless are the Advertisers great adverts! and as they listened and read they all great that the Great advertiser was truly wonderful.

No one wished it to be noticed that it was all spin, for then he would have been unfit for his office, or else very stupid. None of the spin before had met with such approval as these had.

'But he talking rubbish !' said a reporter at El Reg at last.

'Just listen to the innocent reporter!' said the a man in the comments, and each one whispered to his neighbour what the reporter had said.

'But he is all spin!' the whole of the people called out at last.

This struck the Advertiser, for it seemed to him as if they were right; but he thought to himself, 'I must go on with the spin now. And the company leader and the BBC spun some more, as they could not be seen to be fools after all.

The End

A few questions to Phorm PR

Outlaw.com have a good story which raises a few more questions

http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=8925

So Mr PR person. Why have you not responded to Outlaw's questions, even after being asked some weeks ago?

You are very quick to spin to everybody else. Is it because ..Er... They are a Law Firm by any chance.

Also I love this statement

"Company chief executive Kent Ertegrul told The Register last week, though, that he believes users should have no privacy concerns"

I draw your attention to two telling words... "he believes".. Not he knows, or is positive that there are no privacy concerns... But just he believes that users should have no privacy concerns.

Honest answers please ..

Lost - one PhormPRteam member

We have recently lost a member of our PR team.

He was last see hanging about several message board and forums

It is though he was posting misleading information about our spywear products and services, although not a member of our company

If found please do not return as our share price has tanked and we hold him fully accountable

thank you

Phorm Managment.

phishing

Just a thought?

The excuse for Phorm is it is to make surfing safer and stop Phishing.

Errrrr is it not the same ISP's who do bugger all to clean up / block the spam in the first place who are the cause of the phishing in the first place.

Paris because with all the Viagra, and make it bigger cream I will make her very happy

Charity Adverts

Some internet adverts are useful, sites like everyclick.com use advertising to raise funds for charity. In fact the charity I run makes a good chunk of its income through everyclick. visit us at http://costellokids.com

My big worry is that such great systems of fundraising will be damaged as people move towards Tor and other systems.

I block 99% of advertising, yet for EveryClick and a few other sites I allow there adverts as I know how important they are.

I have not yet figured out how to allow Tor to allow advertising of my choice.

Does anybody here have experiance of products such as ghostsurf? Would this also be as secure as Tor?

I also wonder how long it will be before the security companies build blocking technology into the AV/Firewall products. Which will put an end to this stupid project by the ISP's.

My big worry is privacy for the work we do, as webmail is used by many of our members, and myself as it is so quick and easy to access. So if keywords are being used, from webmail pages, then there is a possible risk to the people we support, and by the nature of our e-mail it would be very easy to identify individuals. This is scary and I have contacted the information commissioner about this, as well as writing to my ISP's compliance officer.

I no longer have any trust in my ISP. The worry is that like all Bandwagon's all UK ISP's will quickly jump on.

It is a bad time for UK internet users and the privacy of all.