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I started by sending letters to every business that sends me anything on a regular basis. Everyone: Visa, AT&T, Sysadmin Magazine, everyone. Here is a form letter you can download. Whenever I get a call, I immediately ask for the supervisor, get their full name, and request to be taken off the list. It's been a long battle, but the number of calls I get has dropped dramatically.

When Direct TV called to sell me a receiver, I took the next step, and called the company. They claimed that it was a reseller, and that they couldn't control it. I responded with "You mean you can't exercise any quality control over the people who actually sell your product? As in if one of them rips me off, I have no recourse?" The next step was to write them a letter telling them that I'll never subscribe to Direct TV because of their use of telemarketers, and their earlier statement that they can't control their resellers.

One wrinkle was that someone named Tania has given out my phone number as her own. I've had to deal with all those calls one at a time.

2) Fuck with them. I say "just a minute", and put the phone down. Every minute or two, I pick it up and ask if they're still there. The advantage here is that it wastes their time, and costs the company money. My record is 5 iterations. I figure I cost the company $0.42 (5 minutes wasted at $5 an hour), plus long distance. It's not much, but if everyone did this, we could significantly raise their operating cost.

When I'm feeling particulaly evil, I'll put the phone next to the speaker of my PC and let them listen to me playing Unreal, or whatever mp3 is on.

This bill is not new news (see Wired article) and was introduced so late in the session of the 107th Congressthat it has no chance of passing (introduced on Oct 10 with only 6 working days left). Basically, it is a feel good measure for chest-thumping politicians with no real expectation of the bills passage. Neither Kyl or Wyden are up for re-election this year but opposing "repressive regimes" and supporting the "free world" always makes good sound bites.

If you based "repressive" on the laws passed, we would qualify... CIPA (Child Internet Protection Act - 106th H.R.4577 - law 106-554), COPA (Child Online Protection Act - 105th H.R.4328 - law 105-277), CPPA (The Child Pornography Protection Act - 104th H.R.3610 - law 104-208), CDA (Communications Decency Act - 104th S.652 - law 104-104), USA PATRIOT (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism - 107th H.R.3162 - law 107-056),

You can go look at the Center for Democracy and Technology legislative reports and the Electronic Frontier Foundation Action Center and the proliferation of groups like the Center for Digital Democracy, Digital Speech Project, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse to understand that these are not isolated examples.

Does it implies that in US you have no expectation of privacy when using computer at work, public library or internet kiosk?

In the U.S in general you have very little privacy in the workplace (which would seem to be the closest fit here). They are basically free to monitor your every keystroke really.

Taken from this overview...

Is my employer allowed to see what is on my terminal while I am working?

Generally, yes. Since the employer owns the computer network and the terminals, he or she is free to use them to monitor employees.

Employees are given some protection from computer and other forms of electronic monitoring under certain circumstances. Union contracts, for example, may limit the employer's right to monitor. Also, public sector employees may have some minimal rights under the United States Constitution, in particular the Fourth Amendment which safeguards against unreasonable search and seizure

I doubt the union part applies, ermm UFRH (united federation of russian hackers) is notorious for their poor contracts ;) They can call on the fourth amendment all they like, but frankly they were using a computer that belonged to someone else when they gave thoose passwords, and that is their downfall (in US courts at least).

Would be interesting to see how it would play out for the FBI agents in a foreign court, but ya can bet there is no chance they will ever see one. FBI would never allow em out of the country unless they knew the whole mess that was possible from it was over with, because of the publicity that would come of it

Unfortunately, the majority of telemarketers know this and don't even use Caller ID, so these calls show up identified as "--unavailable--". I can tell my phone to reject those calls, but it takes at least one ring before the Caller ID info propagates to the phone, then only that phone stops ringing.

What this hasn't solved is the large number of nuisance hang-ups. I'm talking 5-10 per day. Sometimes there's no sound on the other end, sometimes you hear chattering of other people (like a so-called "boiler room" on telemarketers), sometimes just breathing. I'm considering getting one of those $50 TeleZapper boxes, but I'm wondering---how long before telemarketers come up with a countermeasure for it??

And for some humor (yeah, I wish it were true!), check out the last question on the TeleZapper page:
Does the TeleZapper create a computer virus for the caller?

Maybe you'd like a testimonial

You are using a device in a comsumer shared area of bandwidth, this will happen at times and there really is nothing you can do (as others have pointed out with FCC part B which is probably clearly labeled on your headphones and definately in the first few pages of the manual). It is also illegal to knowingly listen to cordless and cellular phones, cellular has extra restrictions imposed in radio scanning hardware, which is yet another corporate funded bill to screw the general mass of people by providing a false sense of security.

Off topic here but 46-49Mhz cordless phones also share with the common baby room monitors. A strong word of advice to parents with those baby monitors... It is common practice to have a newborn stay in the parents room for the first few months, TURN OFF THE BABY MONITOR WHEN YOU GO TO BED because the whole neighborhood has the ability to hear you trying to make more!! I found this out years ago when I could hear my wife talking on our old cordless phone through our baby monitor reciever, after playing around with the phone I could listen the other way to.

For cordless phones you can get a 900Mhz or 2.4Ghz digital spread spectrum (DSS) model, not the cheap analog or plain digital ones. If it is not clearly marked as DSS is probably is not, slightly more expensive but well worth the difference. I have never heard of a 900Mhz DSS interfering with anything and only a few of the 2.4Ghz DSS models causing problems, and they provide an extra level of security to evesdropping. I have two DSS 900Mhz models and they work great together.

Privacyrights.org has some very useful information on this very subject: Privacy Rights.org There's a form letter available to let companies know that you wish to opt-out of their information sharing: Opt-Out

Privacyrights.org has some very useful information on this very subject: Privacy Rights.org There's a form letter available to let companies know that you wish to opt-out of their information sharing: Opt-Out

"Think of all the medical and financial information that insurance companies have about the people that they insure. People should be more worried that somebody is going to hack into Prudential's database. Frankly, my medical records are a lot more private to me than the books that I buy online."

Try this.

www.privacyrights.org has a section dealing with these issues. They also have a useful list of contact addresses (although most are snail-mail).

This kind of thing is sickening. What with the continuing erosion of consumer rights and abuse of the patent office, this country is rapidly becoming a place where unless you're a big business, you're screwed.

Strags

(I keep this info on an index card under my phone)

The TCPAo1991 requires that companies keep a "no-call" list, which you can request to be added to. If you hear from them again, you are legally entitled to sue for $500 per incident. And this is federal law.

Look here for more information.

I used to sell life insurance. Your medical records are available via a centralized facility called the Medical Information Bureau. It is used to check to see if (for example) an applicant is lying when he claims to not smoke before issuing a policy.

Yes, we needed your signature to release the information but the point is that the information is already being stored in a centrally accessible fashion.

This isn't robots collecting DNA samples (yet) but you should know that when a medical test is ordered, a lot of other information is collected along the way. Blood tests in particular test for a set of things at the same time. All that information is centrally accessible.

The only way I can think of in order to maintain traditional privacy would be to live in the woods as a hermit. Even then, it's too late because you left a trail of data as a child.

A lot more interesting information on this is here.

"If my personal data were legally considered to be my property, then every time I gave my personal information to someone, I could insist that they only use it in certain ways, not share it with others, delete it at a certain time, and even that they pay me for it."

It's funny that you mention this. Property rights are the same excuse employers are using in order to fire someone who sends an unappreciated amount or type of e-mail using their system. As a firewall administrator for a large corporation, I can tell you that companies live by this rule. It appears that the courts are agreeing with its corporate partners. While it may be true that employers cannot listen to private conversations on a telephone, it appears that the laws do not apply to e-mail. I strike that one up to the technologically inept government some of us share.

I am currently trying to fight this rule inside my workplace. I know it's a losing battle because of the court cases but when a disclaimer is added to an e-mail that states something to the effect of this message is meant only for the person sending and the person addressed but we're still monitoring that same message, I find this quite misleading and to me seems grounds for a lawsuit.

I tend to view slashdot readers as anti-corporate but in this case, you're right about your concerns. Hopefully the privacy laws will change but it doesn't appear it'll happen anytime soon.

Schools that receive federal funding must comply with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act in order to retain their funding (FERPA, also known as the "Buckley Amendment," enacted in 1974, 20 USC 1232g). One of FERPA's provisions requires written consent for the release of educational records or personally identifiable information, with some exceptions. The courts have stated that Social Security numbers fall within this provision.

FERPA applies to state colleges, universities and technical schools that receive federal funding. An argument can be made that if such a school displays students' SSNs on identification cards or distributes class rosters or grades listings containing SSNs, it would be a release of personally identifiable information, violating FERPA. However, many schools and universities have not interpreted the law this way and continue to use SSNs as a student identifier. To succeed in obtaining an alternate number to the SSN, you will probably need to be persistent and cite the law. Social Security numbers may be obtained by
colleges and universities for students who have university jobs and/or receive federal financial aid. (The FERPA text can be found at the web,
www.cpsr.org/cpsr/privacy/ssn/ferpa.buckley.html .)

Public schools, colleges and universities that ask for your SSN fall within the provisions of another federal law, the Privacy Act of 1974. This act requires such schools to provide a disclosure statement telling students how the Social Security number is used. If you are required to provide your SSN, be sure to look for the school's disclosure statement. If one is not offered, you may want to file a complaint with the school, citing the Privacy Act.

When the school is a private institution, your only recourse is to work with the administration to change the policy or at least to let you use an alternate identification number as your student ID.

...why don't you read the CSPR Social Security Number FAQ? Also, check out the longer Privacy Rights SSN FAQ, which has a section entitled "How can a school use my Social Security number?" In fact, what the hell, I'm going to include it here:

How can a school use my Social Security number?

Schools that receive federal funding must comply with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act in order to retain their funding (FERPA, also known as the "Buckley Amendment," enacted in 1974, 20 USC 1232g). One of FERPA's provisions requires written consent for the release of educational records or personally identifiable information, with some exceptions. The courts have stated that Social Security numbers fall within this provision.

FERPA applies to state colleges, universities and technical schools that receive federal funding. An argument can be made that if such a school displays students' SSNs on identification cards or distributes class rosters or grades listings containing SSNs, it would be a release of personally identifiable information, violating FERPA. However, many schools and universities have not interpreted the law this way and continue to use SSNs as a student identifier. To succeed in obtaining an alternate number to the SSN, you will probably need to be persistent and cite the law. Social Security numbers may be obtained by colleges and universities for students who have university jobs and/or receive federal financial aid. (The FERPA text can be found at the web, www.cpsr.org/cpsr/privacy/ssn/ferpa.buckley.html .)

Public schools, colleges and universities that ask for your SSN fall within the provisions of another federal law, the Privacy Act of 1974. This act requires such schools to provide a disclosure statement telling students how the Social Security number is used. If you are required to provide your SSN, be sure to look for the school's disclosure statement. If one is not offered, you may want to file a complaint with the school, citing the Privacy Act.

When the school is a private institution, your only recourse is to work with the administration to change the policy or at least to let you use an alternate identification number as your student ID.

P.S. Since I'm clinging to my privacy rights and posting as an AC, I'd appreciate it if a kindly moderator would bump the rating on this up to at least "1" so that most folks see it. Thanks!

With spammers on the other hand, replying with "remove" in the subject line just verifies your email address.
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