Kevin Poulsen at Wired News posts a wrap-up on what’s known about the AT&T wiretaps, and demonstrates the lie as to why this isn’t just targeting the suspected terrorists.
Also of note, pointing out what domains in a traceroute indicate that you might be getting sucked into the NSA data maw. I just ran a check from my Comcast cable hookup to Google, and yup, I have to cross an AT&T network to get there.
Interesting: I hadn’t even considered the tracking of internet content one of the Big Three scandals (wiretapping, phone call logging, bank records tracking).
Leaving aside the specifics of the program for a second, do you really believe people consider web surfing to be a private activity? Or is the problem that the government has the data instead of just your ISP? Personally, I’m more worried about the spam…er….cross-sell marketing that definitely does happen than I am about the vague “Big Brother is watching you” that probably doesn’t happen.
Internet traffic is a hell of a lot more than just web surfing — it’s also email. And yes, I’m less concerned about the records of my web surfing that any one ISP might have, especially since I use several — but I’m not at all happy at the idea that someone might be able to put together a complete record of everything I do on the Internet. That’s a very rich data source from which to build a psychological profile — if I didn’t care if anyone saw that, I wouldn’t have passwords on my own computer.
Meanwhile, to avoid spam marketing I use both a throwaway phone number and email address. How do you suggest I avoid government intrusions using those methods?
http://www.salon.com/comics/boll/2006/05/25/boll/index1.html
Meanwhile, to avoid spam marketing I use both a throwaway phone number and email address. How do you suggest I avoid government intrusions using those methods?
Well, I know you’re not going to like this answer, but if you want to avoid government intrusions on your web surfing, you could stop using the web…
<sarcasm>
In all seriousness, it would never have occurred to me that visiting web pages was a private activity, any more than walking into a brick & mortar store or reading a community bulletin board in the town square.
Your comment about e-mail is very interesting: in the majority case, e-mail travels over SMTP, not HTTP, so it probably isn’t part of the program we’re discussing (although I could be wrong about that). Either way, there are many web-based mail apps now (hotmail, gmail, etc.) that transmit the content of the messages via HTTP. I’m guessing very few people have considered the privacy implications of checking your mail on a web server, as opposed to downloading it to a POP3 client, for instance.
Your comment about passwords is also very interesting: I wonder if the program we’re discussing includes HTTPS as well as HTTP, and if so, if the data comes through encrypted or decrypted (in other words, do passwords matter?) This is as valid a question for my ISP as it is for the government. I very much do care if Comcast (my ISP) can see my phone bill if/when I view it over the web, because I don’t want the marketing call telling me how much cheaper their VOIP service is. I also don’t want them selling my password-protected visits to embarrasingporn.com to a (ahem) “vendor,” who may wish to market goods & services to me based on my “preferences.” If those visits are unsecured, though, I’m taking my fate in my own hands for going there in the first place and I deserve whatever I get…
I’m not at all happy at the idea that someone might be able to put together a complete record of everything I do on the Internet.
I realize I’m creating a strawman & then using it to make my point, but if you buy the idea that things you do on the internet are public, then the record of everything you do on the internet is the electronic equivalent of your Seisint file. Putting it all in one place doesn’t change the amount of information that’s out there about you. Using that data to draw conclusions about you is potentially damaging, as is probably best illustrated by that fake pizza-ordering vignette that was floating around the internet some time ago.
Where you and I differ, I’m sure, is that I have complete confidence that that pizza company would be out of business inside of a week, and you don’t see that as enough protection. Right?
OK, that should have read:
</sarcasm>
Doh!