Slashdot Mirror
Qwest Plan Stirs Protest Over Privacy
gilroy writes: "The New York Times has an article (free registration required) about customer reaction to a recent mailing by Qwest. Although the mailer only describes their privacy policy as it currently exists, apparently it's caught a few people by surprise." This hit David Farber's IP list a few days ago: see the original message or the follow-up. As Brett Glass accurately notes, most people believe that information about who they call is protected by law.
Qeast certainly would not have been the first company to do it. Ebay did it about a year ago and many other companies have as well. The people who chose to not opt out are the people who obviously won't mind having spam sent to them.
The United States Government is consitutionally unable to protect the privacy of individuals because of the countervailing property rights of other individuals --meaning corporations and the information they gather-- who have great influence over legislation (because of their sacred individual right to petition the government with their opinion$ and grievance$) and almost total control over public discourse.
Are they required to send out their privacy policy? Or was this done willingly? If the latter, I can easily see this preventing other companies from doing the same, figuring people are happier ignorant.
According to spamcop, about 80% of the websites mentioned in my spam are hosted by Qwest.
I don't think this is a coincidence.
Rather than just rant about it on slashdot where a small percentage of people will see it, I'd recommend people send the link to their grandparents on AOL, non-tech friends, et al.
Companies don't make such decisions without forcasting the outcome. Throw a wrench in Qwest's gears and spread the word to the masses. Maybe the beancounter that figured this would be a relatively painless sell-out will be on the unemployment line in 2 months...
Trolling is a art,
Unfortunately, this is becoming more of the norm than the exception anymore.
There has been a lot of deregulation that came down about two years ago... can anyone remember what bill this was that allowed subsidiary sharing?
Some other things you will soon notice... same newscast on different competing channels. Television stations can own more than one in any particular area.
Cable-television station-power and lights-commecial gas all in one companies. Many of you have seen this already if you live in Southern Indiana, where Vectren, the power company, controls services package for telephone, cable TV, broadband, power, and natural gas for your homes.
I have a friend that pays one bill a month. One huge, overpriced, amazingly illegal-until recently-deregulated bill.
By the way, the company was accused for decades of price gouging.
I wish I used a company such as this. That way I could end my relationship with them.
Look a monkey!
If you're in Minnesota, you can dump Qwest for USLink. Anywhere Qwest offers service, so does USLink. I've been with them for about 4 months, and they are both cheaper, and they haven't "accidentally" messed up my bill like Qwest did every single month. And you get to keep your same phone number.
Seriously, if you have problems with Qwest, report them to your state Public Utilities Commission. I reported them about 5 different times. One of Qwest's customer service people actually suggested I cancel my service because they didn't want me as a customer anymore. After I left, they called me almost every day to get me back. I hate Qwest.
Also, for anti-qwest propaganda, check out http://www.tsewq.com.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
An article about privacy on a website that REQUIRES its users to register. C'mon, this is satire begging to happen.
-- Dan
I had an internet account with Qwest, back when ( was stupid enough, and Qwest thought it was above the market by offering only three internet access packages - none of which were unlimited use. Because of a project I was working on which required a lot of internet access one month, I got socked with a huge bill. I asked if they were more interested in keeping me as a customer, or more interested in collecting the amount on the bill (it's not that I expected free service, just something more reasonable).
Guess which option they chose.
I can only thank Qwest at this point, because I've been happy with Earthlink ever since.
I was VERY unhappy when I heard that Qwest acquired US West - US West certainly had its problems, but combining US West's telecom infrastructure with Qest's arrogance, it turns out, was a recipe for exactly what we're seeing now. The only thing I can suggest is to limit the use of, or completely cancel Qwest service. There are enough alternatives now that this isn't *that* big of an issue. There needs to be a sudden drop in revenue to get their attention - it's unfornately, the only thing they understand. Ethics and morals are completely outside the box in terms of the way Qest conducts itself as a corporate entity.
Interesting, the Subject was actually "this is > slashdot" but the > was stripped. Oh well.
I found out about the mistake within a billing cycle, and called them up to have it changed. This operation was completely successful, but it did nothing to stem the tide of calls coming in from other parts of the country-- where apparently the local phone information was a long ways from its next five-year synchronization point.
Now imagine the wonderful mistakes that will occur when Qwest (the company known for its aggressive slamming practices and disastrous customer service) starts distributing that data.
Username : goatse
Password : goatse
It's common knowledge that some ISP's collect info about where you surf and sell it. My solution is to run my own DNS server even though I'm on dial up. It may not be foolproof, but it's a start.
Quote : "Although the mailer only describes their privacy policy as it currently exists, apparently it's caught a few people by surprise."
Just like puppies are not just for xmas, online agreements are not just for clicking through without giving the slightest glance!
Seriously, if you sign a contract and then cried foul when you realise you what you just signed, but then claimed your excuse was "but i didnt read it, i just accepted it!", all but the most money grabbing of lawyers (i mean that in a nice way guys) would laugh at you.
If you really dislike it that much use another provider - otherwise keep quiet and remember to have "I will always make sure to read the click-thru contract" tattooed onto the back on your eyelids for the next time something like this happens.
Have a happy new year all!
PS. the lack of sympathy could just be me or the booze, ask again in 24 hours...
What we need is some kind of clearing house of opt-out info, a la SpamCop, that would allow us to look up all the companies that we do business with and see what their real policies are. A nice feature would be the ability to generate legally binding letters of notification that we could send to those companies, preemptively opting out of all possible dissemination of our data.
Is this already available, or is someone working on it? If not, I'll get busy. Comments and suggestions welcome!
I have Verizon as my local phone company, long distance phone company, wireless company, and probably other things that I am not aware of yet. Recently I had a problem with my cell phone (over billing) and called to cancel the service because of it. As it turns out, they refused to cancel it because they think I have a 2 year plan (keyword is think). They are not sure though since they can not read the paperwork and the carbon copy of it is almost blank.
Besides that anoying problem they also call about once a day to try to sell a new plan or upgrade my existing lines etc...
If thats not enough, I find lots of other companies that are 'friends' ov Verizon calling trying to sell me new phones, caller ID boxes, computers, etc...
I called the number listed in the article to opt-out, and found it to be disconnected. Was the number transcribed wrong or is this further complication by Qwest? ;)
It's common knowledge that some ISP's collect info about where you surf and sell it.
references, please?
My solution is to run my own DNS server even though I'm on dial up. It may not be foolproof, but it's a start.
If your ISP DOES (of which I'm still sceptical,) you're an idiot if you believe your "solution" will help at all... mind explaining to me how the hell running your own DNS server prevents your ISP from tracking your connections to port 80?
If you believe your ISP is selling your personal data, switch ISPs. If you can't switch ISPs, using an anonymizing proxy (running over HTTPS) is the only way to stop it.
I bet you wear an aluminum foil beanie when you go outside, so that Disney can't beam their evil messages into your brain, right?
But so did US West before they became Quest. The shitty thing is that I have no alternative. I HAVE to use Quest. I can't switch to anyone else.
On the same side my state "deregulated" energy. This means that the energy providers get to set how much they charge for energy. Same deal applies here, I don't get to pick from whom I by power...
I wish I could have this sort of business plan. Atleast MS got its monopoly the old way, sleasy business and marketing. Quest and my power company got their monopoly by having the goverment legislate me a monopoly.
Because of a project I was working on which required a lot of internet access one month, I got socked with a huge bill. I asked if they were more interested in keeping me as a customer, or more interested in collecting the amount on the bill (it's not that I expected free service, just something more reasonable).
This is rich, you're complaining about their arrogance? You entered into a contract in good faith and then when you get the bill you try to get out of it assuming that they would rather have a customer who may try to get out of paying his bills in the future instead of just getting what is rightly theirs.
You sir, make me sick!
I suppose you could get a petition drive going, but I'm not sure exactly how that works at a federal level.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Doesn't it seem like the people most interested in selling out your information go to great lengths in glorifying the concept of "Valuing Trust" or some such stuff?
They always get all flowery about how much they respect you and your privacy and would never never never do anything bad to you. But in the same paragraghs they say they reserve the right to fuck your eyes out!
What kind of crap is this?! Is is some kind of new age jedi mind trick?
Qwest hasn't sold anything to anybody. Federal law just says they can, and they reserve the right to. The FCC tried to pass a law requiring people to opt-in to data sharing which was struck down by the federal court, resuting in the current opt-out policy. According to the article, Qwest favored the opt-in version of the law. They're not the ones screwing you out of your privacy, so if you want to rant against someone, let it be the federal government.
-Ma'at
Assuming that you'd be unwilling to share your corporate calling records with all of your customers, why do you expect that it's even marginally acceptable to share a customer's calling information with anyone of your choosing?
I'm so glad I dropped Qwest as my carrier for ANYTHING. Hopefully one day there will be laws to protect us from this crap similar to the laws that allow us to keep from being harrassed by telemarketers.
They're gonna tell everyone that I don't call anybody? Might as well just stand on the street corner and shout out that I'm the socially inadaquate being that I am. Hmmph. They're off next years Chritmas card list for sure. That is if I had a Christmas card list.
What we really need is decent privacy legislation so that we don't have to opt out of these things. The default shold be privacy; if you see a benefit in some business sharing or retaining your information for marketing purposes, you can always opt in.
I find rotating web proxies (not that hard to find), works pretty well.. ok if they scan the packets I send to the proxy sure they know, but other than that noone has my surfing *habits*, a page here and there but not the big picture.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
i work for Verizon, and we've had this same thing come through our email boxes, only with the words Qwest replaced with Verizon, it's obviously either the product of some irrate customers, or a bitter employee of a competing company.
i can't believe Slashdot would actually believe this is for real, come on, read that fucking thing, i highly doubt Qwest or Verizon would allow something with that poor of grammar ever be put out.
jesus h you readers are stupid
You have a right to share in the profits, afterall, it's thanks to you they have something to sell...
AC comments get piped to
Amazing! Two moderators have modded me down as offtopic without reading my post!
/. have to be much more obvious.
Maybe my joke is lame and unsuccessful, okay. But how can a joke about selling lists of phone calls be offtopic in a discussion about selling lists of phone calls?
Perhaps jokes on
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
>> I recommend assassination. You're not the only one thinking that way. Have you read Unintended Consequences by John Ross & Timothy Mullin http://www.google.com/search?q=%22unintended+conse quences%22+ross
http://www.nguworld.com/vindex/95/123195vs.htm
http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/le960508.html http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1888118040/ qid=914036656/sr=1-1/002-3937858-8613422 http://www.curleywolfe.net/cw/RV_UC.shtml
A about a week ago, I got an email kicked back to me that I had tried to send to someone I know with a Qwest account. The email said that they're address was now xxxxx@msn.com.
It seems that Qwest migrated them to MSN, now their service is even worse (hard to imagine, I know!). They were assimilated!
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
As we develop new services, we want to maintain your trust while continuing to meet your service needs with innovative products. By sharing account information among Qwest's family of companies, and by
aggregating information to learn more about trends and purchasing patterns, we can serve you better.
So this would include MSN? Are they part of the big family too?
Wouldn't surprise me - them sharing information. Glad I'm no longer on Qwest DSL and Phone.
This is rather ironic in light of a recent Colorado Supreme Court decision. I don't know the details - just a quick blurp on the evening news - but in the past few weeks the CSC ruled a case where a woman sued for "invasion of privacy" after a financial fraud newsletter discussed her 2-year-old conviction for financial crimes.
The court held that the story was still newsworthy, so she had no protection. However outside of legitimate news stories and the like, everyone else has the right to control ALL uses of their name and likeness in this state. This is far stricter than in every other state...
Given this ruling, all of this "information sharing" may now be considered an "invasion of privacy" in this state. If I pay hard cash for an unpublished (not just unlisted) number, I think I can reasonably consider all other optional services to be equally private.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
From the original document (assuming it's correctly quoted on that page):
So the information does include numbers their subscribers have called.
So they do imply marketing purposes quite clearly.
Ahem.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
Is it yours, or did you pick it up somewhere and modify it?
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL
It'd be great if someone like the ny times printed this story... oh hang on nevermind.
I manage to get the savings without giving any personal information. How?
I signed up as a neighbor who died. According to the supermarket, I'm a 75 year old woman who buys a lot of diet soda and beef. And I get the discount, and they don't send me any junk mail.
Who did what now?
So they do imply marketing purposes.
Again they imply marketing purposes, and quite clearly.
The way I bungled the quote, it looked like they said they'd ignore subscriber's requests not to disclose the information. My error, they did not say that.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
All Qwest is doing is telling you that they will be sharing meaningless information like wether or not you have Caller ID or (gasp) Touch-Tone Service installed WITH OTHER BRANCHES OF QWEST.
And in another fine Slashdot tradition, having one's facts straight is not required before flaming others for "not reading the article". Here are the facts straight from the Qwest notice:
Perhaps this is meaningless information in your book; it certainly isn't in mine. And, strike two, the notice explicitly states that they may share the information with third parties.
Take off your tinfoil hats, kids. The Qwest boogeyman isn't trying to send you evil messages through your television. And, in the future you might be better served to THINK, then react --- Not the other way around.
Good advice, you should try it. I don't know whether Qwest is sharing personal call information with others, but they are claiming the right to do so unless you tell them not to.
I ignored this notice when it came in my bill. Thank you, NYT and Slashdot, for calling it to my attention. I will be on the phone tomorrow. I will also warn my friends and family, maybe drop notes to local media. In my opinion, in spite of my tinfoil hat, this is outrageous. It's way over the line.
One other little Qwest anecdote re. their "quality" service. A couple of years ago, Qwest "upgraded" the service to our little suburb by installing a neighborhood C.O. replacement, a central distribution box of some sort. It immediately broke dial-up connectivity: 56K is now a fond memory. The best I can get is 26.4, many of my neighbors feel lucky to break 19.2. Later, I found that this wonderful upgrade also makes it impossible to provide DSL to our area (or at least that's what Qwest told me when I pushed them about availability).
Deregulation was great for long distance, but local service has gone nowhere but down. It is ironic that we may someday get better service if only our cable provider will offer dialtone. That should tell you how bad Qwest is.
Yeah, but they've claimed that: #1 we own our comments (except when Katz wants to put them in a book and sell them). #2 that /. won't sell our information (so far apparently true - spambots apparently get it for free from the listings). #3 that they won't go out of business and sell their DB as part of the bankruptcy proceeds (cross your fingers, OSDN is divesting a bunch of 'non-core' related sites, eventually they may get out of the content game for something else).
/. editors a little bit futher than I would a corporation. They've shown only some disregard for the little guy in the name of the 'better good' of printing a book, but otherwise are pretty good about watching out for users.
Currently, I'd trust the
But I don't trust them enough to get an account, which is why you can't read most of my posts.
Así es la Vida, eh?
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL
You said that is our duty to inform ourselves, opt out, etc. etc.
I don't know where this will end. If we were to actually read every contract, term and condition, update, and other document relating to our $20 phone bill and other contracts, we would not have enough time to live.
Qwest has a legal team that has nothing better to do to write this stuff.
If it was a truely equal world, we would be able to negotiate this contract and insert our own terms and conditions. However, this is not possible - is it?
I am having a real difficulty getting Verizon to expain how they calculate USF. It is not a tax that I have to pay (FCC web site) but it is on my bill and there is no set percentage in the original contract. They have not answered this question and avoid it. Do I have to take them to small claims to get them to explain it? What contract negotiating power do consumers have?
> But how can a joke about selling lists of phone
:)
> calls be offtopic in a discussion about selling > lists of phone calls?
The problem is that moderators are hurried and/or dumb. They probably read the "get rich quick" and hit off-topic.
I thought it was a good joke
Although it's blackmail, and we'd need a corporation with a lot of money to get us an exemption from the law like that.
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL
Hey poagie bait, Qwest is a huge company. They have no right to share the fact that I ordered a DSL line from one of their departments with the people in their marketing departments on the other side of the country. That's private info.
Cheers,
Interestingly, replacing the www with college seems to give you a direct link to articles at nytimes. No registration required!
Direct Link to article
> and shout out that I'm the socially inadaquate
> being that I am
And if you were in the right income bracket (hmm, buy the Census Bureau's analysis of rich census blocks, coorelate it with the address you get from Qwest...), and I'm a person of the right gender and low morals...
Then I 'mistakenly' call your number, and strike up a conversation with you, or bump into you while you're working outside your house. Show off some tits, or buffness, and then get you involved with me. Then rip you off for all you're worth.
Cake.
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL
What exactly is the wireless data that Qwest is collecting and passing on? All they say is "information about wireless services", but that could include facts like "Mr L's cellphone was moving through the I-5 cells at 90 mph" which they could sell to everyone from WA highway patrol to BMW; and they could use the cell location information to see where the caller is and sell that to marketing weasels for directed selling. There is no need for E911 resolution for many marketing purposes, and the regular pings between handset and base stations will give them intermittent location info even when you dont make calls.
"It's like a police state, only you pay $49.95 a month on a family plan to be part of it"
-Steve
disclaimer. I dont have a qwest mobile; I did after they took over USWest, but I dumped that service for verizons prepay for which I gave my UK address. So that little vendor may fall foul of the EU privacy laws if they do stuff with my data.
While the third judge's ringing dissent demonstrated that there were some serious problems with the resoning and legal basis of the ruling, the Bush FCC, which is said to have a bias toward corporate interests, has thus far failed to appeal it.
Qwest and the other Baby Bells thus feel empowered to violate ALL of the plain language of 47 U.S.C. 222 (part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996), which states:
The language here is quite clear and unambiguous. Regardless of whether or not the Bells can tie the FCC's rulemaking process up in the courts, the activities proposed by Qwest in its brochure are patently illegal.Yet, the Bells press on to sell users' private information. Apparently, they believe that the agency charged with enforcing the law has been rendered so toothless that they may break the law with impunity. But the fact is that if they implemented the policy stated in their little "notice," they would be breaking the law.
Perhaps it is time for private and/or class action lawsuits, or suits by state Attorneys General, to enforce the provisions of the law? At the very least, states should make the company's proposed conduct illegal and fight attempts to destroy consumer privacy.
--Brett Glass
Please detail how you opt out via "not subscribiung to there service...
As I can see it, there are two interpretations, both problematic.
a) no local phone service all-together (the drawbacks to this should be obvious)
b) Using a CLEC. While this on the surface sounds good, I rather doubt it. No CLEC is actually going to build out a physical plant (it doesn't make economic sense) so your call is being carried by the RBOC at some point anyways. As a transity provider, they may be under even less legal or economic obligation then they are as your phone company.
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
I use qwest for a DSL line and had received ISP service through them prior to this impending MSN disaster (where they are assimilation the Qwest ISP customers).
I switched to a local ISP rather than using MSN, although I was billed by Qwest ISP for a few extra months. Afraid the lackeys would disconnect my DSL line rather than the ISP services, I waited awhile before mustering the courage. I actually finally spoke with someone (after being transferred to numerous people) who was able to cancel the ISP charges AND credit me for several months of unnecessary charges.
I was content with the fact that nothing was screwed up after dealing with a company that insisted a needed a new email/user name when I simply moved a few blocks away a few years ago, and left me without DSL for over a month (I eventually "got my good name back"- with considerable hassle and grief).
However, Qwest charged me $30 for simply making a change to my service. I called them yesterday out of principle. They stated any change to DSL service results in the charge. This makes no sense to me whatsoever since the actual DSL change occurred months ago (with no charge) and at this point I was cancelling ISP service (which SHOULD have occurred months ago, but I digress).
Of course if you *migrate* to MSN, there is no charge... now I could care less about the $30, and frankly I'd gladly pay it to NOT be a MSN customer, but it is the principle of the matter that bothers me the most. As it relates to the article here, it is yet another "unfair" business practice that favors vendors and subsidiaries with a special relationship to Qwest.
I tried to explain to the phone rep. that it made no sense to charge me $30 to change ISPs when they would have changed me for free anyway... or that my ORIGINAL service with Qwest's ISP will no longer exist- that if I had wanted to be an MSN customer I would have done so years ago, that their material disclosed that migration to MSN would occur automatically if I took no action to switch ISPs, that I NEVER agreed to be an MSN customer in the first place, blah, blah, blah...
I still cannot find any info regarding a fee for a change in service, and I am under no contract. The amount of ignorance EVERYONE I've spoken to at Qwest about switching ISPs is remarkable (barring the one exception).
Qwest basically is a monopoly, and they use their position somewhat exploitively. I guess if a business practice does not relate DIRECTLY to phone service, the public utility commission has no jurisdiction?
Those that suggest you "dance like no one is watching" really want to see you make a complete fool of yourself.
When you install ISP software, it will present a software license and in most cases the Terms & Conditions of the service for approval. But no ISP I know of presents its Privacy Statement in the course of installation or signup. They do sometimes tell you where to find it on the web, or even provide a link.
What they don't want to do -- and correct me if your ISP does this -- is put it in front of people's faces. Unlike software licenses and TOS, people will read a Privacy Statement. The reason is, most ToS and software license agreements don't affect your life outside the use of the specific service. Privacy affects your life.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
I'm out. Mod this cat up!
Watch this get modded up. Those moderators, they love the crack!
But packet scanning usually requires a search warrant.. oh was that a request to a proxy or containing some confidential information (which should be encrypted anyway, but beside the point).. unlike logging target ip of every packet, which never contains anything of sorts.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Would I be correct in assuming that the reason these companies want to share your info is to optimize their advertising tactics? Instead of blasting everybody with an offer for cheap flights to Orlando, only blast the people who are calling Orlando hotels?
If I'm correct, then every company using this technique is rather oblivious to the obvious problem. No human being wants to listen to a bunch of noise. You'd think they'd know that just from the sheer number of people who thinks that 2-minute commercial breaks are worth spending extra money on VCR's with commercial skip features.
Ideally, it'd be nice if companies had products or offers to make you, they'd put their resources into benefitting you the most in a way that it is profitable to them, as opposed to trying every trick they can think of to get you to read/hear about it. Brand loyalty is an example. "Hey! Fly with us, and we'll give you half off of your next flight!", airline miles are a good example of this technique. Instead of trying to encourage you to fly by sending a bunch of people unsolicited emails/faxes, instead they put that effort into taking their existing customers and rewarding them for continuing to fly with them.
They'll never 'optimize marketing' by collecting personal info, it isn't even really necessary! I'm starting to think that coporations have this dream that one day they'll have such efficient control over the information they gather that they'll be able to make money on every message they send out.
Look at Napster! The RIAA thinks that they'll lose money from it, so instead of doing the logical thing (finding a way to make money with Napster or it's style of business practice), instead the sue it to death. Not necessary! Make money with it! Napster did!
"Well, if we put enough laws into practice, everybody will have to buy stuff when we tell them too, and anybody who tries to fight it will be exteriminated... exterimante.. EXTERMINATE!!"
"Derp de derp."
Yeah, it sounds like a joke. But how sure are you? It might be illegal, but selling the info would be legal, and "commercially advantageous". So that would require that the individual blackmailer be traced down. Which can be much more difficult, particularly if there were a lot of them.
And shutting down one blackmailer wouldn't protect one from all of the others, who have access to the same info. (I wonder what the subscription cost would be?)
If this is legal, then perhaps we need to demand that the corporate records also me made available? But what kind of society does that lead to? And do we want to go there?
Also, the court decision seems to have much broader implications. Consider, e.g., medical records. Appearantly the government can't require that they be kept private either. Etc.
The basic fallacy was the court decision that declared that corporations were people. That was obviously can clearly blantantly false when it was decided. If is obviously fals now. And it's at the root of many of the current problems.
.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Everyone knows that BIOSes have an option to require the password at startup... However, the wording of those messages differ greatly. On one system that I uncovered at work, (an IBM if I remember correctly) booted immediately to a prompt that said:
"They Keyboard Is Locked.
Type Your Password To Continue"
[sic]
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Yes, reality is getting far too similar to that joke. It's chilling.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
I'm proud to say it took more than a flashy pair of tits to wipe me out. I sampled all of her body parts before I came to broke. At least that's the way I remember it.
Questions to ask:
How much Qwest stock does MS own?
How much MS stock does Qwest own?
How many QWest Board of Directors are MS officials?
And:
What are QWests plans ( or MSs plans for QWest) for Passport?
BTW, this is *not* conspiresy wacoism. I work for a large corporation with MS officials on the Board of Directors. We are getting ready to pull down our pants, bend over and let MS access to our most privat part, despite the screams of the experts ( experts can't be trusted because they know Unix and miss the Command Promp, or the experts should be disregarded because they are arogant Unix snobs, or a million other reasons created by MS ministry of propeganda and sqirted into the hungry mouths of upper managment.) I have resently been told that my anti-MS/Pro Linux/BSD stance is preventing a promotion because the facts are embaressing to managment. MS does indead take over Companies from within.
So the talk tonight is about your phone call history being for sale. Perhaps it's already happening, or perhaps the water is merely being tested... the groundwork laid. But let's speak generally, and think about the future. If privacy is outlawed, look at the bright side. There should be a lot of interesting things for sale!
If the telephone company will sell the dirt on who calls who and when, then they should sell it to anyone... even you, right?
Of course, they may refuse to sell YOU such information (for whatever reason). Then you have an interesting double-standard to explore... Why do they deal with Mr. Make Money Fast and not with you? It might be a question for the courts. And you can probably fool them into dealing with you anyway - start a "fake" shell company, pretend to be someone they will deal with, etc...
I would be surprised if it's so hard, though. If they've really gone to the trouble of gearing up to sell this data, shouldn't they be selling it to every customer they can find? No, the worst possibility is likely that they will make it a little bit expensive. But this won't be a bother to a public interest group which can pool resources.
Now picture yourself holding the binder of DVDs (or the u/p to the database) - phone records for whole regions for whole years. You now have access to all kinds of nifty information about all kinds of interesting people. Celebrities, government bureaucrats, policemen, your ex-girlfriend/boyfriend, your boss, your employees... The more detailed and revealing the data, the better!
An apocryphal mountain of dirt will be at your fingertips. Start mining it, and start abusing it! Anyone you embarass or blackmail is an instant convert to the cause! The more marks you horrify, and the more wealthy and powerful they are, the better. Get creative! Take out a full page in a local paper and fill it with names of everyone in the neighborhood who calls 900 numbers for pr0n. "Stalk" your mayor/congressman/sherrif/principal. Try to catch people cheating on their spouses. Try to catch businessmen calling politicians - and vice versa! Have fun watching how much police talk to organized criminals - and when!
Of course, the really interesting targets (members of congress, secret service, military, movie stars) might somehow manage to get themselves hidden - although many won't, since the opt-out trap works on powerful and meek alike. Regardless, you either get everyone, or you get another exploitable double-standard, from which comes either the ability to make trouble for the marketers, or the ability to get yourself off the lists too.
Hey, that's one of my favorites - the myth that you can "opt-out" at all - meanwhile, everyone who's already bought your data has resold it to 100 people, and each of those resold it to another 100... You could print a regular column of detailed information on those people who have "opted out" by buying the data regularly and comparing versions. I just kill myself sometimes.
The worse damage they do, the more egregious the privacy violations become, the better the opportunities for successful protest. If some people (dare we say, even the majority of people) lack the imagination to understand what the erosion of privacy rights is doing to them, then they need some preventative medicine, and (according to the gov't!) you have every right to give it to them. It will be your social duty, not to mention smashingly funny, to unleash some tough marketing love, if you will, on the unenlightened. You know what they say: we only realize what we love by how much it hurts when it's lost.
We're on the road to Tycho.
a way to pay off the goverment to buy immunity from the people. How else could double-taxation be profitable? it keeps the evil people who run bad companies (Tabbaco, the phone company, Firestone tires...) from being liable to the people.
I consider Corporations to be little more than leagalized bribery.
In my area (Colorado front range) it's possible to get local phone service from AT&T Broadband as well. Now, AT&T are a bunch of mopes as well, but at least they're !Qwest.
(And AT&T DSL doesn't require using MSN!)
Now you can say you'd ban that kind of thing, but once the paper trail disappears, you'd be getting into whether these employees freely support these canidates as part of their own interests, or as proxies, and that's dangerous territory to get into.
An alternate, better solution is publically-funded elections, but that's a whole other discussion.
The language here is quite clear and unambiguous. Regardless of whether or not the Bells can tie the FCC's rulemaking process up in the courts, the activities proposed by Qwest in its brochure are patently illegal.
... after all, we lock up individuals who do this sort of thing, usually applying the label "voyeur" or "peeping tom" so why should we be any less stringent with organized, by some definitions conspiratorial, violations of our privacy?)
[...]
Perhaps it is time for private and/or class action lawsuits, or suits by state Attorneys General, to enforce the provisions of the law?
Perhaps it is time we started imprisoning CEOs and board members of companies that willfully break the law like this, counting on endless court battles and legal thuggary to allow them to gain the profits of their illegal actions before they can be compelled to adhere to the laws the rest of us are expected to abide by. As long as it is simply a numbers (financial) game one of the most important, and potent, deterrents against breaking the law will be rendered impotent, namely the consiquence of doing time for violating other people's rights. (Including the right to privacy
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Maybe they had it right all along. Deny all technology and remain the most free people in the United States. The worst they have to worry about is if Jebbediah the feed store owner notices that they are buying feed more often, then maybe he'll let Ezekiel the barbed wire store owner know that they may be expanding.
January 1, 2002 Qwest Plan Stirs Protest Over Privacy By JOHN SCHWARTZ [S] ome customers of Qwest Communications (news/quote) are angry over the latest mailing from the company, and it is not because of the size of the bill. The company recently sent its customers a pamphlet similar to those distributed last year by financial institutions, describing the ways that Qwest will use the customer's personal data. Other telephone carriers will be sending out notices as well, according to the Federal Communications Commission. But the breadth of the Qwest statement has privacy advocates upset. It says that unless customers contact the company to prohibit the practice, Qwest will share with its several subsidiaries such data as telephone services used, billing information and places called. (Three paragraphs snipped.) Happy?
All (or almost all) phone companies use a single company to process their billing and this company has the ability to compile calling histories of every american to every other american for every call every day of the week. They're owned by a Saudi group, as I recall, and have recently become the focal point for investigation into having "secure lines" for government persons so that these databases of calling histories can only be exploited against private citizens by the Arabs.
So it doesn't really matter who your phone company is. You're going to get fucked.
Better yet, call the Qwest opt out number from non Qwest owned pay phones. Unless the law was changed, pay phone providers are able to recover a surcharge of something like 28.4 cents from the 800/8XX provider for each call originating from their pay phones.
Yeah. It's shitty. but you should get a number to call to opt out of this shit.
Um, I have noticed that most people who have little difficult spelling are bad programmers. I have also noticed that most people who equate spelling ability with intellegence are generaly rote learns with absolutly no creativity. Your type are subconciusly intimidated by those with real intellegance, so focus on spelling as a means to enhance your self esteam. I happen to be dyslexic and am working with a dying monitor and a horrible keyboard. If you want to keep sucking Bill Gs FUD go ahead. All it shows is that you are a mindless slut. I can program circles around most people. I bet you can't even program. I've been doining it a long time. I have also been aware of MS tactics for a long time, longer then most /. readers. I started hating MS around 1987 ( note this is pre Linux). We are not the first Company that MS has subverted from within. Obviously you are too stupid to understand any of the points I have made. All have been documented though not heavily publicized. MS owns a lot of stock in publishing companies.
And why the FUCK do you think a rant posted anonymously on Slashdot has anything to do with my behavior at work? You are indead a mindless drone, not a real human. I bet that if you were alive during the Fourties, you would still be advocating cooperation with Hitler even as they bombed Londan. Your type makes me sick.
Lick my hairy asshole, you mindless sucker of Microsofts FUD.
...government TLAs are beginning to use commmercial information source providers to direct and focus their investigative efforts.
What's the big deal?
No oversight. If I completely wanted to fuck over *your* life, I just create a bunch of bullshit entires in my database, buy information from QWest associating your telephone#/address with this information and then drop a dime after the FBI, local police, sheriff's offices, bounty hunters, etc. subscribe to my service trolling for various high payout enforcement targets.
The really cool thing is that you have absolutely zero recourse because:
1) the enforcement agency will not reveal or even be able to duplicate the search/troll that brought them to your door
2) the QWest was the organization produced the match by providing the information that linked to something that already "existed". Liability gets suffeled around in the fine print of the various information subscription services... quite possibly across state and national boundaries.
Question: How fast do you think your door is going to get kicked down if a corralative search of varous "databases" shows that you have a prior fenonly conviction for distribution, abnormally high power bills, a title to 2001 Mercadies, an outstanding arrest warrant and no tax returns filed for the last 5 years? Police departments would jump on that faster than flys on shit and the cool thing is that after they realize that there's been a huge mistake, they'll cover their ass in some other way (planting evidence is the most obvious, but every family has a black sheep they can go after)... and you'll be offered a deal: you drop your suit and they'll drop their charges, with non-disclosure and you *still* get to pay your lawyer's bill.
Things get even weirder when you start talking about sheriffs, bounty hunters, repo men and other oddities of the legal parallel universe.
Here's what info I could find for opting out of use of the same data by Sprint:
1-888-212-2145
It is always better to communicate your opt-out intent in writing. I have no info (yet) on how to do so with Sprint. When I call the above number, however, I will ask for that info. Then I'll send a written letter stating my intention to opt out. I will request a formal response to my letter.
IANAL
P.S.: CPNI == Customer Proprietary Network Info. This is what the bureaucrats term the info they are selling without your consent.
This will just keep building...
I almost quit shopping at Albertson's when they started a card prgram after years of proclaiming card-free sainthood as a motto.. but alas.. the rest of the bastards want a card ('cept walmart.. let's hope their Neighborhood Markets make big inroads... card free that is)
The real kicker is when Citibank informed me that they were revoking my right to trial... they now have a forced binding arbitration agreement: http://www.cslib.org/attygenl/press/2001/coniss/cc arb.htm (that was the first goo link off google I found, there are better ones...
"CNN" - FCC to appeal court ruling vacating privacy regulations - August 25, 1999.
A court ruling overturning federal protection of telephone customer records puts the interests of phone companies over the rights of consumers, a top federal regulator says.
The Federal Communications Commission("FCC") plans to appeal the decision by the three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which could enable phone companies to use information about customers for marketing purposes without obtaining their consent.
"FCC" Chairman Bill Kennard said the court's decision to reject the commission's rules remove important protections to consumer privacy.
Political News from "Wired News" - Phone Records Up for Grabs?.
A court ruling ( 98-9518 -- U.S. West Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm. -- 08/18/1999 ) with implications for the use and sale of private telephone records sets a disturbing precedent for how the courts regard privacy, watchdog groups say.
But the Federal Communications Commission("FCC") will appeal last week's 10th Circuit Court of Appeals decision, which pleased those privacy groups.
The ruling effectively canceled a vague "FCC" regulation that had forced phone companies to obtain customer permission before using or selling call records for marketing purposes.
ACLU Press Release: 10-25-99 - Consumer and Privacy Organizations, Legal Scholars Urge Appeals Court to Protect Consumers' Telephone Privacy.
In a friend-of-the-court brief filed today, 15 consumer and privacy organizations and 22 legal scholars urged a federal appeals court to reconsider a decision that would allow telephone companies to use private telephone records for marketing purposes.
The groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, said that the case is of great importance to consumers across the United States.
The brief, filed in support of a petition from the Federal Communications Commission, asks the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold a privacy provision that was enacted by Congress in 1996 and implemented by the FCC.
Political News from "Wired News" - Court Sides With Telcos on Info.
The Supreme Court let stand Monday a ruling that overturned a federal regulation requiring telephone companies to obtain customer approval before using or disclosing information about their account for marketing purposes.
The justices declined to review a ruling by a Denver-based U.S. appeals court that the FCC violated constitutional free-speech rights under the First Amendment when it adopted the regulation in 1998.
if all of the US citizens spending all of their time bitching here on Slashdot took their intelligent comments, empassioned remarks, and valid concerns and started flooding the offices of the people here and here who actually can do something.
Democracy only works when the people speak up.
Boycott them en masse.
They don't care about being morally upright. Hit them where they will only listen: In the money. That's the only language they understand.
Bastards.
> And shutting down one blackmailer wouldn't
> protect one from all of the others, who have
> access to the same info.
Already you have to pay the phone company to not list you in the phone book or in online/operator directories. Would the phone company charging you to not be sold around be that out of the question? It's the same thing, and sounds more than a little like blackmail.
Have you seen that ad on TV lately, where a girl at the bar gives her phone number to a guy who asks for it, then some other guys ask him for her number, and he says "5 bucks OK?"
"All representatives are busy. The estimated hold time is one..hundred..sixty..four..minutes." Detroit Edison, 02/01/02
The New York Times has an article (free registration required) about customer reaction to a recent mailing by Qwest. Although the mailer only describes their privacy policy as it currently exists, apparently it's caught a few people by surprise."
Read the horrors of people misusing your personal information!!! (must provide your personal information to access)
m00.
then don't shake there tree... as the blues song
goes. Is Qwest the ONLY provided. I don't thing
so... cancel you accounts now...send a pro
test vote...it cheaper than law suit.
I'd agree with that. But if you really feel that way, team up with 2-3 other people and each of you support one candidate.
As long as it only limits you to one candidate per office, it'll be workable.
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL
How many ACs get heard here nowadays?
Default viewing for casual users is above listening to most AC posts.
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL
You're not anonymous.
You shouldn't be able to look at all of my posts by simple means. And I shouldn't have to use cookies, nor anything else. If I want to be attributed, and not use cookies, lemme login each time I post a message.
Man I miss the G.O.Days...
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL
They must *really* hate you, they're modding you as a Troll.
Sheeit. Moderators suck.
You should come over to k5, it's much nicer there.
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL
hey, i can think of no other group better to handle this 'marketing' event than 'lenny the leg breaker'.
This list may be centered around the Denver, CO area, since that's where I am, and that's where their headquarters are... But all are welcome to participate.
Try ">" next time, mate.
Cheers
This list may be centered around the Denver, CO area, since that's where I am, and that's where their headquarters are... But all are welcome to participate.
I hate to break to everyone, but there seems to be a lot of people saying you should switch telephone providers to avoid getting your calling information collected. Here's a news flash, all telephone providers collect this information, and they've been doing it for a long time now. They mainly use this information for network utilization purposes, however, it does also have obvious marketing advantages. Not to mention the fact that all the Telcos use each others networks, so even if you're not a Qwest customer you will at one point have a call sent through one of their switches, and the information about that call will be recorded. The only news here is it seems Qwest is planning on using this information to do some marketing, and they decided to inform their customers about it.
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For help, please send mail to this site's webmaster, giving this error message and the time and date of the error. ;
There are two major products that come out of Berkel
Although I probably threw the easy-to-miss flier out, and despite the difficulties presented in the article's links, I called the main service line (1.800.244.1111) (as presented on my bill) and was nominally opted out, but wait! did I hear about the Great New Custom Choice Package!
But wait, did you hear about the great new contracting rate I charge to grade solications that come back with service requests?
I was talking, not thinking. -D. Franz
what are the rest of us (the qwest slaves in portland, oregon) supposed to do when we don't have another phone company alternative? I don't subscribe to cable, so I can't get a cable modem, I don't have satellite tv, so I can't have satellite internet access and I don't own a cell phone and I don't want to buy one so I can get wireless access. The list goes on...
so why does my butt hurt every time a new technology comes out?
So true. Or how about the irony of all the people cruising around with their cell phones, but then whining like a bunch of babies when the phone companies try to provide the cell phone towers needed for the service. Best of all, how about all of the people who say "corporation" like it is some kind of evil, dirty word, but sure don't mind the fact that those very corporations provide the majority of our paychecks, and make the standard of living in the United States so high.
Here it is, Boys and Girls, painfully obvious, but as real as the Arizona Republic (e-newspaper)it appeared in. Opt- Out, while Ya can... http://www.qwest.com/cpni/ Good Luck. Death to Spam.
"the smaller the mind, the bigger the noise it makes"