Virgin Media is trialling a deep packet inspection system that will see 40% of the ISP’s network being monitored for file sharing activity. The network plans not to inform customers that they’re being monitored.

The system is called CView and is being provided by a subsidiary of BAE called Deltica, which specialises in large volume data collection and processing and usually works with intelligence agencies across the world. It’ll operate at the centre of Virgin’s network, and only attempt to determine the proportion of file sharing traffic that infringes copyright.

Customers are likely to be a little uncomfortable with Virgin Media handing over their emails and web browsing habits to a weapons manufacturer, but Virgin Media has emphasised that it just wants to measure the overall level of illegal file sharing, not keep records on individual customers.

BT’s controversial Phorm advertising system used the same kind of technology, and also didn’t inform or get consent from subscribers to the network. That proved to be a hot potato and was heavily criticized by privacy advocates and the internet community.

Virgin is preparing to launch a legitimate download service in partnership with Universal Music. ”Understanding how consumer behaviour is changing will be an important requirement of Virgin Media’s upcoming music offering and, should they become law, the Government’s legislative proposals will also require measurement of the level of copyright infringement on ISPs’ networks”, said Jon James, executive director of broadband at Virgin Media.

If you’re a Virgin Media subscriber, are you comfortable with this level of intrusion in your web browsing? Let us know in the comments

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/29853/virgin-media-to-monitor-filesharers

Virgin Media, avec le partenariat d’Universal Music, vont lancer une surveillance d’échange de fichier sous le nom de Detica CView sur leurs propres abonnés Anglais.

Certains abonnés risquent de ne pas trop apprécier la méthode.

D’après Virgin Media, cela n’est pas pour faire le Big Brother, mais alors à quoi la surveillance va t-elle servir ?

La société Detica explique que le système de surveillance n’est en aucun cas intrusive et il n’y a pas de stockage d’informations personnelles.

Le système de surveillance servira à mesurer l’ampleur du partage illégale.

Enfin… pour le moment…

Côté Virgin Media, une offre de téléchargement musical en illimité sera bientôt accessible pour ses abonnés.

Virgin Media is now acting as chief lapdog to the Lord Mandleson sell out of the internet to the dying music distribution industry. Virgin Media is to trial deep packet inspection technology to measure the level of so called illegal filesharing on its network. Customers being monitored will not be informed.

Virgin will use a product called CView, sold by Detica, a BAE subsidiary that specialises in large volume data collection and processing, and whose traditional customers are the intelligence agencies and law enforcement. BAE profited massively from the Neo Con Labour War in Iraq and Afghanistan, now it loks set to profit again from The War Against Piracy.

The CView product will operate at the centre of Virgin Media’s network with an aim of estimating the proportion of filesharing traffic that infringes copyright.

40 per cent of Virgin Media’s traffic will be monitored. If you are on Virgin and are not being monitored today, tomorrow you may well be. If this is truly limited to peer to peer traffic then your next game on your XBOX 360 may be monitored. It would be all but impossible to identify the difference between a game played on your XBOX 360 and an encrypted bit torrent file. This will therefore exaggerate the amount of “illegal” bit torrent traffic.

The system will look at traffic to identify peer-to-peer packets. The programme then looks at those packets to determine what is licensed and what is unlicensed, based on data provided by the record industry.

Virgin promises data will be aggregated and and made anonymous. The trial though has no scheduled end date.

It should be remembered that CView uses the the same technology that powered the Phorm advertising system, which monitored individual internet users to target advertisements. It too was trialled – by BT – without customers’ consent or knowledge. The Government faces an EU investigation for allowing this.

Detica will want to sell this to other ISPs. So there may be no escape from this. Once all ISPs have this, how anonymous will traffic be then?

Virgin Media’s implementation will they promise focus on music sharing. Of course their proposed music download service has nothing to do with this. Are you sure you will not be flagged because of a video you watch on youtube or even Vidzone on the PS3? Do you trust the list provided by the Music Industry?

Detica has is also trying to flog CView to the Government. In the sales document, Detica said that as well as aggregate data, CView could be used to categorise filesharers and apply technical measures against them, or target them to be sold legal alternatives.

Welcome to Digital Britain.

da The Register

L’ISP Virgin Media userà una tecnologia di ispezione che sarà in grado di analizzare la quantità di filesharing all’interno del suo network, ma non renderà noto quale traffico verrà analizzato. Il periodo di prova coprirà il 40% del network di Virgin Media

UK: Virgin Media Television is renaming its LIVING2 channel offering alongside a comprehensive visual rebrand of its entire LIVING portfolio. On November 30, LIVING2 is being relaunched as LIVINGit, a new channel proposition based on the premise that “life’s worth watching”.

Here’s a glimpse at the new identity- will try to get a montage of the new package once it launches later in the week.

The creative concept for LIVINGit is about it “being part of your world, a prized object that participates in all aspects of life and this is reflected in the breadth of scenarios in which the logo appears as part of life.”

With the aim of giving the brand stand-out presence, the refresh of the LIVING portfolio centers on a stylish venue space – where the LIVING logo is central as an exhibit. Shot on 35mm film in a real environment the ‘LIVING  Exhibit’ is where “everything about the brand takes place, creating an atmosphere, presence and turning it into a desirable destination.”

Jeff Dodds, Virgin Media Television’s Brand and Marketing Director explains, “With the launch of LIVINGit we are sending a clear message that the channel has a distinct personality in its own right. LIVING’s new on air look not only has huge on screen impact but gives us endless creative possibilities”

“In the TV environment it’s essential to have a strong brand. We also have a duty of care to our advertisers to keep viewers watching and engaged during a programme break with our branding creative.”

The rebrands were developed by Red Bee Media in partnership with Virgin Media Television’s in-house creative team.

It’s time to RAAAAAGE again. This time about UK internet service provider, Virgin.

I’ve been an optic-fibre broadband customer at home since the cables were laid in 1999. First it was Cable & Wireless, which later became NTL. I had a great connection, with the lowest pings you could imagine. I always pay my bills, and rarely breach the bandwidth limits.

Then one sad day, Richard Branson decided to take over my internet. For the last few years I’ve had the same reoccurring problem. My connection would become unusable at peak times. It’s been becoming a joke recently, so I emailed them for an engineer. I had engineers out, and it got better. Now the problem is back again. So I emailed them again.

…and I emailed them again.

…and again.

…and again

A week or so passes and still no reply whatsoever. I decide to call support.

When I called support (which cost £8.60 to get  through!!!!) I got to speak to a lad on ext.6903.

His suggestion was to record a few speed tests and email the results to him.

• “Great!” I thought and asked for the address to send them to.

• “You’ll have to ring up again.” he said.

• “What? Just to get an email address from you. Can’t you just give me that now?” I asked perplexed. “That will take me another hour, just for a contact address…That’s nearly £10 again!“

• “Yeah, I’m sorry. Just ask for **** on extention 6903″. The Virgin guy answers.

I have no intention of waiting on hold for another hour just to submit information that Virgin Media should be gathering themselves.

I DO NOT work for Virgin Media, I employ their services at a monthly fee. Yet I find myself putting days of work in here, while Virgin do what exactly? A fix seems unlikely at this point, as does the payment of my next bills.

If you are a thinking of becoming a Virgin customer, DON’T DO IT. Your broadband speed could be the speed of dial-up – like ours is. What’s more the support folks are too busy to answer your concerns.

Let us take a look what my 10mb gets. Remember this is the higher 10mb package -not the starter one. £30 per month, with support costing almost £10 per call.

I even decided to sign up on the Virgin Media support site.

…and still there’s no reply from them. Almost two weeks later. They say they “aim to respond within 48 hours” too.

So if you feel like being ignored, paying £20 to submit a fault, getting dial-up speeds for £30 a month, waiting for nearly an hour on the phone, waiting weeks for a mail response  – call Virgin Media today!

]]> http://holywellcommunications.com/2009/11/21/virgin-happy-to-be-different/ Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:14:45 +0000 Julien Deamer http://holywellcommunications.com/2009/11/21/virgin-happy-to-be-different/ http://atomfire.com/2009/11/12/virgin-media%e2%80%99s-3dtv-trials-a-success/ Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:17:07 +0000 Atomfire Tech News http://atomfire.com/2009/11/12/virgin-media%e2%80%99s-3dtv-trials-a-success/

The cable TV operator Virgin Media has recently been conducting trials of 3D television on its network and by all accounts, they have gone very well.

The trials have been carried out in public at the company’s new flagship store in Oxford Street, London.

The firm used a standard Virgin Media V+ set top box for the trials and its success proves that the Virgin Media network is quite capable of broadcasting 3D content, if only the demand was there, which no doubt the company has been gauging throughout the trials.

This means that Virgin Media could, if it wants, compete directly with Sky TV when it launches the UK’s first 3D TV channel sometime during 2010.

The only thing that is going to hold this back is the fact that a 3D enabled television is required.

First serious posting for a while and it’s got to be a rant hasn’t it?  I just thought I’d share a few recent examples of what we amusingly call customer service – the way that companies treat you especially when things go wrong. That said it’s not all bad; just almost all. First things first, we recently moved to a new place in Teddington in SW London. It’s rented again ( I doubt we’ll ever be able or indeed wish to buy a property in  the UK again), and as the landlord didn’t really want to have a satellite dish on the roof we decided to get get a bundled deal for tv, broadband and phone line through Virgin Media’s cable service, as the previous tenants had done. Have you ever sampled the Virgin Media service installation and after sales care experience? It is almost as impressive as Gordon Brown’s handwriting.

It all started happily. The installation guy turned up within a few hours of his ETA on our first day in the new house. He started working on the phone connection (and please bear in mind that all he had to do was re-connect the service from the previous occupiers) whilst I got on with getting the new TV set unpacked and assembled. He proudly announced after a few minutes that the phone line was working AOK – I had no reason to question him, after all he was a qualified telecom engineer I thought and he got on with getting the TV working. Meantime I took the new BT telephone handset out of its package (fully compatible with Virgin Media) and got it plugged in so it could charge up – it would need several hours of charging the instructions said. Sigh. The TV burst into life – woo hoo – so he proceeded get the broadband line working. He asked what computer equipment we had – I told him an Apple macbook and desk top which caused him to sigh and ask if we had anything else. ‘Strangely no’, I said. ‘We only have the two pieces which we find sufficient for the two of us’. He harumphed a bit and with a huge blue lead connected up the mac laptop to the router/modem kit he’d brought in. The main broadband cabling was already in place. We actually hadn’t unpacked the desk-top by this stage but when I asked about this he said the wireless facility would be activated as soon as we installed the software onto both pieces of kit. Apparently Virgin don’t install the wireless bit – they leave you a CD to self-activate it. When you are a paid-up member of the Luddite Party like me, this wasn’t welcome news. He dashed off inside half an hour of arriving despite my but…but…but…protestations. Ah well the stuff was all working so why worry?

I had a quick wazz with the TV controller. The TV was fine although it became apparent that many of the ‘free’ channels available on Sky eg Paramount Comedy weren’t available on our VM package. Umm never mind. I tried the phone but it didn’t work – clearly the new handset hadn’t been sufficiently charged as yet (or so I thought).  The laptop worked fine but we were physically limited by the umbilical link into the flashing lights kit under the desk. I called my son-in-law who agreed to come over to install the wireless software etc in a couple of days. Good old E.

Next day we tried the phone again figuring the brand new handset would be fully charged by now. Nada, nothing, nowt. A non-operational pile of BT crap. Then C noticed from the instructions that it might take 24 hours for the phone’s batteries to charge up effectively. A day later we tried again and still nothing. For frig’s sake. We called VM and they scheduled a guy to come round in a couple of days. They suggested that it was almost certainly a handset problem. Umm. The guy turned up 48 hours later. He was an ex-BT guy who’d taken a package like me to leave, so we had something in common and over a cup of tea the reality dawned. It transpired that the fuc*kwit installer had only tested the line to the outside box. The VM line into the house was useless and wouldn’t have worked if we’d had the handset on charge for a million years. As it happened the handset (and separate BT line/junction point) was perfectly fine so I couldn’t even blame the old company. He replaced the VM line and inside box and told me that the installer guys weren’t VM employees as such, just resourced-in guys who worked piece-meal – they needed to sign-off dozens of jobs each day to get the on-target wages. So the quality control was laughable. It’s not reassuring news for a new customer is it? Ah well I liked his honesty and the phone was now working and I had secured a rebate for the lost service.

Son-in-law E came to install the wireless software. That’s when we found it wasn’t Apple compatible – it only worked for PCs. Oh for fuc*’s sake. E managed to find an over-air version which he downloaded, then got the laptop and desk-top to work wirelessly. I couldn’t have done this if I’d tried for 1000 years. Ah well, at last we now had the  full monty of VM’s services working – tv, phone and broadband. Except that the wireless service suddenly  disappeared after a few days. I called the VM customer service line many times and eventually got through to an agent who told me that VM had a lot of problems working with Apple kit (!) – strangely they didn’t mention that when we enquired about the service (you sense that this might be a problem they ought to address given that I’m told that there are a few other users of Apple computers in the London and SE region, especially amongst high-spending creative agencies/consultancies etc). Anyway she got me working by hooking up to the modem using the ethernet line again which meant we’d lost wireless  access. A few days later we’d lost the service altogether. Sigh.

I called the help-line several times to try and get the problem resolved only to be patronised endlessly – ‘try swapping the ends of the cable around’, ‘have you put the cable in the modem or in the router – they are different you know!’, ‘have you tried switching the computer off and on?’. At this point I lost it and started to rant like Victor Meldrew with piles. I eventually found a helpful soul who promised a further rebate and that an VM engineer (not a freelance installer) would turn up inside the next 48 hours. I was scheduled to head back to Italy the following day but C would be around during that period – albeit at work during the day. He took a note of C’s mobile number  - her office is a 5-10 minute walk away – and she could easily pop back to let the engineer in. Of course C got a call the next evening to say that  VM would be charging us a fee for wasted call-out as we weren’t at home as promised. C went loopy with them and asked why they hadn’t called her mobile as agreed. Sheepishly it was later admitted that the engineer  hadn’t read the second page of instructions with the mobile contact on. The engineer was re-scheduled for the following day – he turned up and got the broadband working again (hard-wired not wireless of course) by admitting that the power loading for the cable was heavier than normally acceptable for good service.

We still have no wireless service so the laptop isn’t functioning. It’s a real pain-in-the-arse. I’m so tempted to try out BT again but can’t bring myself to do it given the way they’ve dicked me about over my consultancy services in the last couple of years. I suppose there’s always Talk Talk but I’m told that if anything, its customer service is worse than Virgin Media’s. Unbelievable. Why is it so frigging hard to get decent service from the comm’s companies? Maybe because they are all too busy trying to pinch truckloads of customers from each other with ‘great deals’ instead of focusing on getting things 100% right first time with each new customer.

But it’s not just the utilities who are crap. We recently bought a large wooden train track on a raised base for our youngest grandson G who is nuts on Thomas the Tank Engine and his many wooden mates. It came in a huge box which we bought from Toys R Us store situated across the north circular from the dreaded Brent Cross shopping complex. I hadn’t expected to be back there so soon (fortunately the trip by car this time was less traumatic). We got it home and I spent hours assembling the base and track layout in preparation for a visit from out grandkids. It was around 2am when I discovered that there was a piece of wooden track missing  - a short straight piece measuring about 4” long. One piece out of around 1000 bits!  Sigh. Next morning I headed to our few local toy shops to see if any of them had any spare track parts (it’s all based on the Brio track system) but none of them sold spare bits. I was really not wanting to traipse around the north circ again back to TRUs but as I was heading into central London for some other shopping I thought I’d pop in to Hamley’s – one of the world’s best toy shops (they say) – as they’d almost certainly have some bits. I hadn’t been there for years and years and these days it’s staffed by a bunch of bored, unhelpful, disinterested kids. I headed for the right department, found the Brio track area and rooted around for a box of bits containing my missing piece. I found boxes containing long straight bits, short and longer curved bits and bits which sloped up/down. But not one box containing a short straight piece, apart from one which was a compendium box with over 100 pieces priced at nearly £30. I found this 17 year old fuc*wit member of staff and explained the situation. I didn’t mind forking out for a small box of spare bits of track but £30 was a bit steep for a 4” section. I thought he might offer to check the storeroom or something more imaginative, like offer me a piece of the shop display stuff. Nah. All he could say was ‘you’ll have to come back in few weeks time when the new stock arrives’. Yeh I’m sure my 2 year old grandson will understand why his granddad cannot make his Thomas track complete. ‘No kids eh son?’ was my grumpy response and I headed out of the shop.

I thought this was supposed to be the UK’s mother of all toy shops. Sigh. Next day I was heading down to Brighton and knowing there was a branch of Toys R Us there popped in, explained that I’d bought this track from another store but was disappointed to find a critical piece missing. The young shop manager asked to see the receipt of course but, satisfied that I wasn’t spoofing, called one of her colleagues to bring a new great big box down. When it arrived she proceeded to open it all up and after 10 minutes or so searching through the 100’s of bits we found the missing piece which she gave me and apologised for causing me such inconvenience. I was gob-smacked to be honest. I asked her what she would do with the now-opened box with 999 parts and a critical piece missing. She simply replied that it would go back to the suppliers with a stroppy note saying that they’d better get their quality control on packing sorted out. Blimey. Good on yer girl. Now that was more like it – customer service that actually means something to the company. And I’m writing to tell you about how good they are. This stuff matters.

pp

A quick round up of some TV topics I am watching unfold.

Since the demise of video-on-demand TV platform planned between the BBC, C4 and ITV titled ‘Project Kangaroo, which was bought down by the monopolies commssion in 2008 , the idea of  IPTV collaborations between the major UK brodcasters has been on a rollercoaster of reinvention in preperation for online and overseas competitors making a bid to seduce your eyes across an array of IPTV and VoD viewing platforms.

Following hot on the very well connected heels of BBC i-player which has already been rolled out across partnerships with Nokia handsets and Virgin Media – cue Project Canvas.

Described as Freeview MKII – this on demand service would be viewable through a set top box. It proposes to bring together content from some a wider selection of  UK channels including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five. Its possibly only a matter of time before this would be rolled out across partner broadband network’s and other TV platforms. This causes great debate about the BBC overstepping its remit, killing competition and potentially profiting from the overseas export of content paid for by UK licence fee payer which in turn could be a threat to the BBC licence fee itself. Critics also observe that while the BBC’s digital strategy is powerful, leading the charge for accessible content across multi-platform, their programme making has suffered incredibly. USA TV series producers and channel HBO is arguably making the best TV content in the world at present.

Who’d of thought that a British public instiitution could be too succesful – maybe rasing hope for the concept of a working nationalised industries!

Also in the news, Media Week reports that ITV and the much talked about overseas IPTV competitor Hula are ready to sign a deal. Currently only available in the USA but with an imminent launch in the UK soon to be announced, Hulu is a website that offers commercially-supported streaming  of TV shows and movies from NBC, Fox, ABC and many other networks and studios.

Meanwhile Sky has launched a live TV i-phone app reported as the first of its  kind, and C4 has signed up its first roster of brands to advertise on its landmark full-length programming deal with YouTube.

¿Irás estas Navidades a Londres de shopping? Si es así podrás ver en la tienda que acaba de abrir Virgin Media en Oxford St. lo que un operador de cable puede ofrecer a través de su plataforma en términos de televisión en 3D.

Será la primera vez en UK en la que el público podrá ver en el canal de distribución una demostración de esta experiencia de usuario que tantas expectativas está levantando, pero que en cambio, aún no le ha hecho a Virgin decantarse por una oferta comercial… Una cosa un tanto extraña, no? Es algo así como “mira cómo mola lo que podrías comparme, … pero yo no te lo vendo”… Y es que parece que aún hay barreras que vencer.

We’re doing the quandary thing at the moment, pondering the massively significant question as to whether or not we should swap our phone and broadband from British Telecom to Virgin Media.  Not the TV, you understand.  We’re perfectly happy with our FreeSat TV service, not least because it’s FREE!

No, it’s the broadband operating speed question.  BT struggles to give us 2mbs and sometimes ‘caps’ that to 0.5mbs.  BT has no plan to upgrade the service in the foreseeable future, and neither speed is sufficient to power high definition video.  More and more, my use of the Internet is as an access to interactive multi-media.  Running under the pavement outside the house is the Virgin optical cable offering up to 50mbps and, if you take the premium level of service, no capping of the speed or limits on downloads.

Virgin also offer a phone-line as an optional extra to the package and cost is comparable.

Does this sound like a no-brainer to you?  Well, of course, it is.  Except for the embarrassing fact that BT, as my last employer, pays my pension and, dear, sweet, old-fashioned chap that I am, I feel considerable loyalty to the company, and much reluctance to desert them as my telecommunications provider of choice.

So, during this past 48 hours of capped service–I watched one too many time-shifted TV programmes on my computer the other day–we’ve been weighing pros and cons and any passing squirrel, hoping to come to a decision.  Graham, bless him, completely understands my loyalty issues and says he’ll go along with my decision.

I’ve done my best to get advice from BT but all my old contacts are grazing their own pension plans and cannot help.  I tried asking BT the institution but the instant I mentioned ‘broadband’ I got referred to a lovely lady in India who simply didn’t understand my problem.  Which was fine because I could barely understand her English through a very heavy Mumbai accent.

What to do?

I am firmly of the belief that a commercial enterprise that fails to provide proper levels of service and to upgrade them as technology advances deserves to fail.  BT is a big, profitable company and won’t miss my pensioner’s mite.  Or notice me at all, I suspect.

So, really, it’s a question with only one answer and a problem with only one solution.

I hate it when the modern world ups and slaps me in the face, forcing me to pay attention, and challenges my long-held belief systems.  Mostly I smile bravely and turn the other cheek, just as I’m supposed to do.  This one, though, requires not only the other cheek but a good slice of my nose, too.

Oh, to hell with it.  It’s not like I can’t change my mind at some future date and revert to BT.  I shall go and tell Graham that I’ve decided we should drop BT and go with Virgin.  I don’t think he’ll argue.

This week saw PA Photocall (the sister company of  TNR Communications) work with Frank PR on an exclusive launch of a limited edition ‘Aleksandr talking toy’ due to arrive exclusively at Harrods in time for Christmas.

An Aleksandr Orlov meerkat 'talking toy' in the meerkat enclosure at London Zoo ahead of them going on sale exclusively in Harrods in early December. David Parry/PA Photocall

The star of comparethemarket.com’s TV adverts has brokered a deal with the world’s most famous department store to stock a limited number of the furry meerkat toys. Set to be the must-have toy for Christmas 2009, the talking Aleksandr Orlov replica comes complete with his trademark smoking jacket and paisley silk cravat.  Aleksandr’s ‘Simples!’ catchphrase can be heard with a distinctive squeak when his belly is squeezed.

A member of staff at Harrods in London handles one of the limited edition Aleksandr Orlov meerkat 'talking toys'. David Parry/PA Photocall

PA Photocall were commissioned to capture the talking toy in Harrods department store and London Zoo’s meerkat enclosure with Aleksandr and his real furry friends being introduced for the first time. Photocall photographer David Parry was onsite at 9am to capture the various images, which were sent immediately through to the Press Association picture desk for distribution on the wire. It was no surprise the amount of coverage the celebrity meerkat received within the press including The Metro, Metro Online, Ok Magazine and Virgin media.

PA Photocall Website 2009

PA Photocall also received a 535% increase in visits to their website due to popularity of the images, streaming visits from Twitter, Facebook and forums. Photocall are commissioned for such a broad range of projects that appeal to a wide audience which makes their social media strategy a simple and effective one. This project is a great example of how PR Photography can be great fun and extremely powerful within the media.

Post by Penny Joyner (Marketing Executive for PA Photocall)

As the kids are at my Mum’s in the run up to Halloween so that we can move house, I thought we’d best get on with our pumpkin carving!!  I turned Caitlin’s tripp trapp back into a highchair so that Austin could join in and put down some newspaper…..  and away we went….

Noah was very enthusiastic and sent pumpkin seeds flying all over the dining room whereas Austin just kept dropping his spoon!!  Everytime he dropped it though Noah came round to pick it up for him!!  Once it was scooped out I cut out the hole…I decided it would be great to make it a mini pumpkin so I cut out a vaguely mini shaped hole!  Noah said it didn’t look like a mini and Caitlin just kept saying she wanted a face…hmmmm not a good idea then ah well….  It really doesn’t look like a mini and I’ve not got a lighter to light the tea light anyway so no photo!!

Tomorrow is delivery day, well for everyone apart from Virgin Media who have cancelled on us…after disconnecting us!!!!!!!!  We are not happy and unless they can come up with some sort of fix it’s unlikely we’ll be customers for much longer!!  The next appointment they have to reconnect us is in two and a half weeks!!!!!!  Bet we still pay for that time!!!!!!!!!

This week saw PA Photocall work with Frank PR on an exclusive launch of a limited edition ‘Aleksandr talking toy’ due to arrive exclusively at Harrods in time for Christmas.

An Aleksandr Orlov meerkat 'talking toy' in the meerkat enclosure at London Zoo ahead of them going on sale exclusively in Harrods in early December. David Parry/PA Photocall

To read the rest of this post click here TNR Communications Blog

Wireless connectivity has become ubiquitous as have people using laptops as their main computer.

I would never do either by choice.

It’s a fundamental maxim of security that if more than one person knows a secret then it isn’t a secret. Even if just one person knows then they could potentially be socially engineered into giving out the apparent secret information.

In the IT world this can have far more serious consequences than it could if a burglar were simply to break into your home. Break into the right system where proper controls aren’t in play and you can wreak a special kind of havoc were that your desire.

As I post this I’m using someone else’s internet connection to do so. I’m also doing my usual of listening to Radio 5Live as background noise (in this instance, streamed via the iPlayer) – in this instance by streaming over the net connection I have. Yet I’m whoring someone else’s internet connection.

How am I doing that? Easy.

When my netbook came through I had already packed up my home and moved everything into storage bar anything I didn’t care about. One of those things was my cable modem – upon calling up Virgin Media to cancel my subscription (I was getting a very good deal on a 20Mbps connection) I was told that they didn’t want the modem back even though it is, in principle, something that is merely leased.

As a result, it is still sitting here with me in the flat and is still wired up. Except there is a problem…

When I packed everything up I also grabbed the Cat5 patch cable which had been connecting my modem to my router. It was done more as a part of clearing everything up.

The problem arose when I returned to my flat for the last few days (I get kicked out tomorrow) and realised I didn’t have a workable net connection.

Had I thought about it in advance, though my thoughts were elsewhere, I would have retained the patch cable upon my person and simply used the 20Mbit connection I had (I never got around to upgrading it to 50Mbit) and hooked my netbook up that way. Unfortunately I didn’t do that.

It is though a netbook. It’s designed to take advantage of the ubiquity of wifi/wireless net connections. And everyone and their dog seems to like not having wires around.

When 802.11 first came into play most people who didn’t understand the concept of information security would have routers set up as access points with no form of security at all. This led to the phenomenon termed, at the time, as ‘war-chalking’ whereby people would drive around with the appropriate kit and identify spots where you could access an unsecured wireless internet connection.

As broadband internet access advanced and people increasingly used laptops (I might post at some point about why the netbook was an inevitable consequence of why people use computers, though it may be some time), wireless routers and connections began to proliferate.

This, of course, led to those who knew what they were doing taking advantage of the net connections of those who didn’t and also raised a host of legal issues. How do you find out who has been downloading kiddie porn when it’s been done via an unsecured wireless internet connection? I’m not suggesting this was a common occurrence or that it even occurred but it was a situation that existed.

As a result, ISPs started providing their routers pre-configured to at least use the most basic of security (in the form of WEP) so that the service couldn’t be instantly hijacked and they also provided software discs which needed to be use to configure a Windows-based PC with no user intervention (support for Macs does occur but Linux seems to be outwith their stream of awareness) – this incidentally leads me to believe that all wireless routers from the likes of Sky are configured in the same way which means the WEP keys they use will work on any other router/modem issued by them… But ISPs these days at least take steps to stop hijacking of a connection.

So, what does this have to do with what I premised this post on?

Simple. I’m whoring someone else’s internet connection using a wireless connection over 802.11b/g to make this post.

When I powered up my netbook in order to do some non net-related work I decided to do a quick check to see what wireless networks it could connect to. And I happened to find a completely unsecured network that I could connect to. So I did.

Operating on the assumption that anyone who has an unsecured router probably hasn’t changed the default passwords to administer the router I grabbed the IP  for the default gateway for my now live connection (which is always the router) and fired up Firefox and logged into it via HTTP – the various bits of info and error pages told me what router it was (a Buffalo AirStation) and a quick google gave me the default user ID and password.

I was right about this info and able to log into the router.

What I found from reviewing the logs on the router was that whoever’s internet connection I’m whoring for the moment has (at least) a Mac, a PC with a cute hostname and a Nintendo DS. They also have another computer which is hardwired to the router if I recall correctly.

Were I so interested then I likely could have remoted onto any of those computers as they likely have them configured to do auto-logins. In other words, anything of value they might have had I could have grabbed were I that way inclined.

What can they do to resolve this situation?

There is no such thing as perfect security, and the more people who have access to information then the more likely it is that security is going to compromised. Wireless communications exacerbate that problem as you’re ‘casting security-related information to a large number of people. Given stories about groups having figured out how to take down the most secure wireless security protocols in as little as fifteen minutes then this brings things into focus.

The fundamental limitation is the Nintendo DS which only supports WEP as opposed to WPA/2. But that can still be alleviated by configuring the router to do MAC filtering so that only authorised devices can connect. Plus, the router simply should not be broadcasting its SSID – the only time you turn on broadcast is if you have a new device which you need to connect via the router.

None of that is perfect, but at the moment they are leaving the car keys in the car. Were I a malicious individual then I could bar all their devices from connecting to the net.

You wouldn’t leave the door of your house lying open, but people do it far too often with their net connections…

Virgin Media are offering their V+ HD Box for only £49. (Usual cost £150).

With the Virgin Media v+ HD box you can:

• Pause, rewind and record live TV
• Record two shows, while watching a third
• Record an entire series
• Store up to 80 hours of programmes.

Virgin Media TV and HD+ Box costs

- Virgin Media TV size M+, 65 channels (£5.50/month when you take a Virgin Media phone line), the V+ HD Box costs £49 for set up plus £5 a month
- Virgin Media TV Size L, 100 channels (£10/month when you take a Virgin Media phone line), the V+ HD Box costs £49 for set up plus £5 a month
- Virgin Media TV Size L, 160 channels (£21.50/month when you take a Virgin Media phone line), the V+ HD Box

More about this Virgin Media V+ HD Box offer.

This offer ends on 05/10/09

By Sarah at UK Broadband Finder

Virgin media non necessita di grandi presentazioni, rappresenta il primo quadruple play media nel Regno Unito, riunendo un servizio consistente in televisione, Internet, telefonia mobile e telefonia fissa.

Con oltre 10 milioni di clienti in U.K. ed un fatturato di oltre 3,8 miliardi di sterline, Virgin media occupa circa 14.000 persone.

Il CSR report che prendiamo in considerazione è alla seconda edizione, si tratta di un documento di non semplice lettura, poco chiaro e non molto esauriente. Appare più come una somma di intenti, dove risulta difficile delineare una strategia di CSR chiara e condivisa.

Leggo tra le righe, ma potrebbe essere solamente una mia impressione, che lavorare in Virgin media sia effettivamente un posto ambito, e questo lo si capisce non solo dall’attenzione che dedica allo sviluppo delle persone, ma anche al fatto che tra gli obiettivi 2009 ci sia la voce “investimenti in benessere dei dipendenti”. Il fatto che si parli di benessere è sicuramente coerente con quanto dichiarato nella sezione dedicato ai valori aziendali e questo deve essere preso ad esempio.

Sono assenti gli indicatori GRI ed i dati sono esposti in modo da rendere difficile ogni confronto con il futuro (o con il passato).

This ad is sublime. I love it. Bit more background can be found here