[Air-L] President Trump just signed off on killing your Internet privacy protections

Richard Forno rforno at infowarrior.org
Wed Apr 5 07:07:05 PDT 2017


I agree, this *could* be a positive, but even if the Snowden bombshells didn't move the masses to embrace privacy practices & technologies, I doubt something like this would, either.    But, hope springs eternal.   (FWIW saying the Opera browser already has a (free, IIRC) VPN built-in.)

Frankly I think the only 'assured' privacy comes from the user's end.   While it'd be convenient for a major vendor to develop and bake-in such protective measures, it is still beholden to governmental pressures and interests --- it's much easier for a backdoor or weakend protection scheme to be implemented in large company mass market products (RSA, Apple, Google, MSFT, commercial AV, etc) than those from smaller indie developers and companies.   Meaning, non-mainstream privacy and security PRODUCT$ may well offer a higher degree of assurance/trust/privacy to the uber-concerned since they by definition are developed outside the mainstream marketplace and perhaps aren't as beholden to governmental pressures or influences ----  and good luck prohibiting anyone anywhere from developing such technologies globally!  (Think of the early '90s and the PGP-v-Clipper Chip debate, which is playing out again in 2017 sadly.)

-- rick

> On Apr 5, 2017, at 9:29 AM, kalev leetaru <kalev.leetaru5 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Its worth adding that this could actually become a positive development, in
> that, much as a number of factors, including the Snowden revelations,
> accelerated the rollout of HTTPS across the web, if consumer sentiment
> turned against the ability of ISPs to observe their customers' traffic, one
> could imagine the future possibility of a company like Apple embedding Tor
> or equivalent by default such that even non-technical users could instantly
> gain some level of basic anonymization and rudimentary protection against
> the most basic of nation state surveillance...
> 
> https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2017/04/03/why-congress-fcc-broadband-privacy-vote-might-actually-help-privacy/
> 
> Kalev
> 
> 
> On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 11:44 AM, Dan L. Burk <dburk at uci.edu> wrote:
> 
>> So, this is definitely a bad development.  But it is also a development
>> that needs to be kept in perspective.
>> 
>> * The U.S. has now blocked Obama-era FCC privacy rules that would have
>> prevented ISPs from collecting and using (including selling) certain
>> types of consumer Internet usage data.
>> 
>> * However, the FCC rules never actually went into effect.  So in that
>> sense, nothing has changed.
>> 
>> * Many ISPs have their own privacy policies stating that they won't
>> collect and use this information anyway.  If they were to violate those
>> stated policies, they could be subject to FTC action.
>> 
>> * However, there is no longer any FCC regulation preventing ISPs from
>> rescinding their own privacy policies -- only the threat of consumer
>> disapproval if they did so.
>> 
>> * It is also possible that other existing legislation, specifically the
>> Electronic Communications Privacy Act, may prevent ISPs from collecting
>> and using the information, or from certain types of troubling collection
>> and use.  Privacy experts are trying to sort this out, and the answer is
>> unclear.  A lot depends on whether consumers have given explicit or
>> tacit "consent."
>> 
>> * So, at a minimum, the legality of collecting and using the information
>> in the manner that is no longer blocked by the FCC is disputed.
>> 
>> * What is actually most troubling about the matter is that the U.S.
>> Congress has the propensity to pass this kind of legislation.
>> 
>> So, again, a bad development.  But also in many ways no change in the
>> status quo.
>> 
>> DLB
>> 
>> On 2017-04-04 06:30, Ansgar Koene wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi Paulo,
>>> 
>>> this is in relation to the repeal of the privacy rules passed by the FCC
>> last year which limited the trade in customer internet usage data by ISPs.
>> The Internet Society blog has some background info.
>>> 
>>> https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/north-america-bureau/
>> 2017/03/privacy-key-reinforcing-user-trust-internet
>>> 
>>> Cheers,
>>> 
>>> Ansgar
>>> 
>>> Dr. Ansgar Koene
>>> Senior Research Fellow: Horizon Policy Impact, CaSMa & UnBias
>>> Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute
>>> University of Nottingham
>>> http://casma.wp.horizon.ac.uk/
>>> http://unbias.wp.horizon.ac.uk/
>>> http://www.horizon.ac.uk/
>>> https://sites.google.com/site/arkoene/
>>> ________________________________
>>> From: Air-L <air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org> on behalf of Paulo
>> Ferreira <paulo.ferreira at ulusofona.pt>
>>> Sent: Tuesday, April 4, 2017 12:53:33 PM
>>> To: Air-L at listserv.aoir.org
>>> Subject: [Air-L] President Trump just signed off on killing your
>> Internet privacy protections
>>> 
>>> Hello to all
>>> 
>>> Does anyone have more details about this?
>>> 
>>> http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/03/technology/internet-
>> privacy-law-trump/index.html
>>> 
>>> Regards
>>> Paulo Ferreira
>>> 
>>> --
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