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Gator CPO at the Department of Homeland Security
pcidevel writes "D. Reed Freeman, the "Chief Privacy Officer" of Claria Networks (formerly Gator), the creators of the pervasive spyware package GAIN, has been appointed to the Department of Homeland Security's "Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee"."
Isn't this like putting a fox in charge of the security for a henhouse?
Honestly... DHS doesn't need to be worrying about this sort of tripe- they've got bigger fish to fry. Why in the HELL are they bothering with this when the things they're doing right at the moment wouldn't have done a damn thing to prevent 9/11 from occuring and wouldn't prevent a repeat?
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Who knows more about data privacy than somebody who has compromised the privacy of millions?
=\/\/= If it's too loud, turn it down.
"Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee"
"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."
For the same reason that the military loves defectors during war; tbey can tell you how the other side operates, and therefore how to prevent their attacks.
This almost seems like a good idea.
I miss those heady days of yore, when there was still room for more outrage in my life. When I could stil be surprised by new examples of indifference, incompetence, and outright evil.
These days, I am no longer surprised at no longer being surprised by the ghastly things this Administration routinely does.
Actually, "Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee" sounds much more like Ministry of Truth.
A spyware company has a "chief privacy officer?!" What's next, a security-obssessed government that makes us less secure? Oh, wait...
Seriously, though, I can almost see the logic in this appointment. One thing spyware companies know is computer security. They defeat it all the time. I'm surprised the fine folks from Cool Web Search weren't appointed.
On the other hand, the more cynical side of me sees how reminiscent this is of early 20th century American politics, when the government appointed Big Business leaders to commitees on workers' rights. Money and connections will buy you anything.
All I see posted are stupid remarks about how ironic this is... but nobody seems to want to do anything about it.
/. has enough people reading it to destroy the bandwidth of half the servers out there, but it looks like nobody is going to take this as a serious threat to privacy and call up their congressman or write a letter/email to major news networks, or anything else that will change things...
It's a sad day seeing this article exist, but it will be an even sadder day when 90% of these comments are scored "Funny" and we are doomed to sit idly by our world is taken away from us... thanks guys, i appreciate it.
What do you expect? George Tenet got a medal for being wrong about WMDs in Iraq; Paul Bremer got one for ignoring warnings about the Iraqi insurgency; and Condaleeza Rice got promoted for ignoring warnings about Al Qaeda and being wrong about Iraq. This administration rewards incompetence and duplicity while punishing competence and honesty.
"If it's real, then it gets more interesting the closer you examine it. If it's not real, just the opposite is true." -
Coming from the administration that pushes the USA PATRIOT Act as a safeguard of liberty, hiring somebody who I'm sure has plenty of experience tiptoing around privacy rights in the Homeland Security Department is hardly unprecedented.
This actually makes a lot of sense. DOHS is not about protecting your privacy, it's about invading it. They have hired the experts.
How about this instead, who better to fullfill that role at Homeland Security, after all they want to invade the privacy of as many people as possible and get away with it. This nasty fellow has already managed to do just that at a private company, just imagine what he will be able to achieve working for that particular government agency.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
This might almost make sense if this guy had served in a technical capacity with Claria/Gator, but here's his job description, from a press-release they put out upon hiring him:
Claria Corporation, www.claria.com, today announced that D. Reed Freeman, Jr. will assume the position of Chief Privacy Officer and Vice President of Regulatory and Legislative Affairs for the company. Mr. Freeman, a partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm Collier Shannon Scott, PLLC, will spearhead Claria's continued commitment to industry-leading online advertising privacy practices. He will also represent Claria's interests both in Washington and internationally, coordinating Claria's efforts on policy matters.
In other words, he's a lobbyist. He knows fuck all about the inner workings of spyware software, and this isn't at all analogous to hiring an ex-hacker to evaluate your security.
I absolutely adore the use of terms like "privacy officer" when describing these people. I see the irony but I'm starting to become concerned that the public may not anymore. People, the Orwellian world is here now and it's so obvious that it's worth reflecting on it for a moment. doublespeak is the twisting of language such that a phrase really means something quite different. Such terms become generally accepted by the public. Invading countries: war, invasion == spreading democracy. War is peace. See? Increasing monitoring of citizens in America, skyrocketing budgets for spy agencies and we are told that everyone is enjoying increasing freedom. Police state == freedom. It's quite beautiful in a way, the way ideas are twisted. Perhaps language is becoming a weapon...
Mr. Osamma Bin Ladin is appointed the head of the homeland defence department.... I mean, who better to tell us how a terrorist thinks?
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
A former Corporate data gatherer of consumer information being appointed to "Data Privacy" Czar?
Why, that would be like appointing a Torture Advocate to Attorney General...oh wait...Alberto Gonazales
That would be iike appointing a person that misadvised a Nation to start a war that broke down International Relations to a postion that requires her to Strengthen International Relations...oh wait...Condeleeza Rice
That would be like having a former CEO of company that derives it's revenue from war be elected to a political office that can Strongly influence War Power making decisions...oh wait...Dick Cheney
To answer your question, no they aren't shitting you. They are shitting ON you. All of us, actually.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
Unfortunately, I think quite a lot of patent applications cover ideas that any expert can think of in three hours but were never used before because no one apart from the applicant bothered to use them, which means they probably have no prior art. A patent examiner cannot do much more than an ordinary citizen when the problem lies in the law itself rather than its enforcement.
This is what you get for not rioting in the streets when they announced that companies like Diebold were 'counting' your stinking votes.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
America is f*ked if smart people dont stand up for their country.
Very stupid people are calling the shots
I get it. It's like when a company hires a black hat to help them figure out where the holes are so they can plug them...
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I'm sure you'll appreciate the opportunity to abandon 'community' for 'market', once you see the incredible opportunity it affords for profits! Besides, we have already managed the deal for you!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
And people wonder why HST blew his brains out.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Oh please grow up.
It may come as a complete shock to some people here, but some companies have to make a living somehow. And some of those companies, like Salon.com, have been struggling for quite a while and are not hyper-rich media conglomerates who can afford to not try whatever they can to make an honest living.
You do not have a God-given right to free content provided at the expense of the work of others. (And no I don't care if Salon.com didn't write the original article, they provide plenty of home brewed articles and opinion which I think are totally worth it.) Deal with it.
In a real emergency, we would have all fled in terror, and you would not have been notified.
"I am proud of, supportive of and grateful for those individuals in the public and private sector who are willing to take on the hard tasks, fight the good fight, and who surprise us with creative, fresh and unconventional thinking, and who make change where change is needed through their hard work and personal dedication," Kelly said. Kelly said Freeman will "bring his courage and conviction to the board, and will contribute productively--and constructively--to the board's and the public's dialogue on privacy and homeland security."
What I find most outrageous is such talk typical of this administration to lie, and lie, and lie; So now a software that installed itself without permission, was not easy to delete, and annoyed the hell out of people is something to be praised for and proud of as testimony of "courage and conviction", "willingness to take on the hard tasks", "willingness to fight the good fight", "creative, fresh and unconventional thinking"?
What about thieves? They're pretty much the same; are we going to admire trespassers and looters?
Damn this kleptocracy; damn it!
Perfect. The person in charge of a large spyware company is in charge of network security for our nation? What is next? A promoter of torture as Attorney General?
Looks like they need some sort of "black sheep" in the committee. Or a dim candle around all these bright ones...
Greetings, Ice
Sig? Where I go, I don't need
It may come as a complete shock to you, but companies don't have a God-given right for profit.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
GAIN acually happens to be one of the less malevolent pieces of adware. It does not install itself, it doesn't do pop-ups, it doesn't hijack your machine. It's a legit piece of advertising that software authors use to make money off their programs. (Kazaa for example) If you don't want it, read your EULA's before installing those free screen savers.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
And Richard Stallman for the head of USPTO.
"...coming to /. (a free site) and rattle on..."
Whoa there, sparky.
Since when is Slashdot free? Not since around 1998.
Being subjected to ads and having them hit your eyeballs is a form of payment. You pay for Slashdot. Say it again.
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
Exactly.
That's why I can actually see the wisdom in this. While I do think it's an awful thing, I believe that no committee making these kinds of decisions should be one-sided.
The question is, what are the leanings of the other members of the committee? One post seems to imply that 'we' should be happy with them.
In other words, the fox should advise on the security of the hen-house since the alternative is the farmer having 100% control, and sometimes you're the fox!
Cheers,Noims.
This is not the greatest sig in the world. This is just a tribute.
By all means - the point was you're consuming the salon.com article so you should play along with their business model. If you want gator's features you have to play along with theirs. But if the spyware doesn't add anything then why bother?
and /. doesn't run on magic, they have ads...and even an optional subscription service. i registered to post here....and so did you.
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
The resume's for our top leaders look something like this: George W. Bush: Served one term as the THIRD most powerful man in Texas politics and his dad was president..............elected president Dick Cheney: Former CEO and adviser during the NIXION years......elected vice president Personally I'd think these two are alittle more of a worry than them letting the a spyware guru into office. You're not going to change the minds of your politicans, how about you smack the hell out of the people who voted for Bush????? If 50% of the people think he's qualified to be president than I'm willing to bet that we have bigger problems than who he's appointing.
No, no, this is the attitude they want you to have. Apathy. The basic strategy is simple: scare and discourage. Scare the people who don't think. Discourage the people who do. The more apathetic the thinking people get, the farther they can stretch the bucks they spend to lead the sheep to the slaughterhouse.
At the very least, stand up and make them spend a little more money and work a little harder. Don't whine, find a way to stick a thumb in their eye when they're leading you to the gallows.
The great thing about money is that it gets fast results. But it is not invincible. Sometimes, the people will just stop believing. It may take time, but, the opinion manufacturers know it will take much longer if they can expunge the kernels of doubt from the population -- kernels around which opposition can crystalize.
We, few, we band of brothers. If you're the kind of person who is daydreaming about running to Canada, I don't want you on my side in this fight.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Honestly i wouldn't care if all the ad-supported content left the internet.
Would the author of this post, and everyone who modded him "Interesting," please look up at the top of your browser window and tell me what you see?
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
Its called NORAD, & its been in place since the early 70's
However, on the morning of sept 11 2001, NORAD was given orders to stand down for some sort of "military excercises" which is unprecedented.
Strange coincidence wouldnt you say?
Maybe 5 years ago, there was some reliability. Now I see people putting in "a" or "b" into address lines, choosing the first dropdown, any old date for DOB.
If companies just want an email address for a newsletter, and offer people the option to put details in, the reliability is likely to go up. Some people will just go ahead and put it in.
Not customer, consumer. A customer expects service. A consumer just devourers whatever is shoved down his throat.
It may come as a complete shock to you, but companies don't have a God-given right for profit.
But they do have the right to not be your slaves. If they produce something, and set the terms by which they're willing to let you use it, they do have the right to expect you to honor those terms. If you think the content is important enough, you'll respect them. If you won't respect them, then hopefully you have enough personal integrity to not steal the content.
No one has a right to profit. They have the right to earn (or pursue the earning of) that profit. If what they have to sell (subscriptions, ad-space on their web sites, whatever) isn't interesting enough to generate a profit, then so be it: they've failed.
I'm always puzzled, though, by the people who claim to respect the source of information enough to want to consume it, but don't have the same respect for the source's wishes about how they're offering it. It's like saying you love a particular chef's cooking, and sit down to eat his meal, and they say (when you're done) that there's just this one little thing you don't like about the chef: that he only prepared you that meal because of an expectation that he'd be paid for his time, efforts, and overhead. He has no "right" to a profit in his career as a chef, only the right to expect you to hold up your end of the transaction when you choose to do business with him. Same goes for authors, musicians, and film makers. Don't like the deal? Then don't participate. Love someone's work but not their terms? Then admit that you don't really love that peron's work (because part of their work is the mechanism by which they make a living - that's a choice they've made, and it's part of their effort).
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
People here are starting to look like the Grunts in Halo, running around with their hands above their heads, screaming, "the demon is here!"
While I agree that the appointment is disturbing, it doesn't mean that the government is going to install spyware onto every machine and start doing as they see fit. How many of you use some technology (Norton, AdBlock) to limit the amount of advertisements and popups you receive during the day? How many people do you think sniff the traffic coming off of their machine and make sure it's all as expected?
The instant that something appears on your PC someone else will know about it and there will be an endless number of FAQs on how to make it benign.
Remember that we're in the US, but PCs are global. You may find yourself feeling grateful to the hacker/cracker/crypto community at large for the work they'll be doing in the future to protect your privacy.
Adrian Goins - President / CEO
Arces Network, LLC
Seriously, this country is so fucked. There are so many people, mostly pretty extreme religious folk, who listen to anything Bush says as long as he sprinkles his speaches with the words "God," "Faith," etc. Oh, and don't forget, "crusade!"
It doesn't matter that he's lied. It doesn't matter that the VP's former company is given illegal no-bid contracts. It doesn't matter that the new AG is a supports the use of torture. There is nothing they can do that is evil enough to make the religious right turn away.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Of course, the anti-spyware laws will now die before coming to a vote, as spyware is the new way to protect our safety.
Now I understand what the government meant by increasing the data they gather.
Linux probably WILL become illegal soon, as it's very nature means you could remove the government back doors if you wanted to.
I'm not sure The Shrub could have come up with a more effective way of announcing what he thinks of privacy concerns without installing two way TV sets in every home and declaring himself the be our big brother.
Crap.
Time to move to Canada.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
What are any of us going to do about it? We log on to slash dot, complain and whine about the undermining of our rights and security, but do we vote? Do we write to congress? Do we call our senator to voice our opinion? Do we do ANYTHING other then moan and complain and then say "oh-well, back to HALO"
I recently read that most congressmen consider one letter from a constituent to represent 1000 opinions from their district.
Guess how many congressmen probably read Slashdot...
Seriously, what am I supposed to see? I am running Firefox and popup blocking and adblock... so I don't see any ads, if that is what you were referring to.
Thank you to you and all the other clever people who bragged about your ad-blocking software. Please remember that the poster I quoted said he "wouldn't care if all the ad-supported content left the internet." The mere fact that there are ads there for your oh-so-marvelous Firefox to block means that Slashdot is, in fact, "ad-supported content." Hence the poster, and those who agreed with him, wouldn't mind if Slashdot disappeared. But they like it enough to read it and post here.
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
Doesn't this sound more like Homeland Security trying to break into everyone's computer to spy on possible "terrorist" activities using spyware. This may sound like nice fit maybe because of the knowledge of computer vulnerabilities that Freeman knows privacy. But that's the thing -- he knows privacy, and how to get around them.
In a properly run government, even the appearance of conflict of interest would be avoided.
The Ukraine?
I have news for you. The Ukraine election was rigged by the US to put its puppet in charge to further its goals of forcing Russia and China back into a Cold War with the US.
No, I'm not joking. Read up on the Ukrainian challenger and who his supporters were and their connections to the US and Russian oligarchs.
There is NOTHING US citizens can do about the US government - unless they're prepared to pick up a gun - which they're not because they're too brainwashed and submissive after two centuries of bullshit about "American democracy". The state is the state and this is the way all states behave.
You want to do something about it. Advance the rate of technological progress - especially nanotech - so I can obtain the tools I need to provide a Final Solution to these morons.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Like the other respondant pointed out, PV isn't practical for the Presidency, and I never liked how it takes the power to select individual representatives away from voters. You vote for a party, not a person, and the party gets to select which person goes in, even you think that particular person is a scumbag. So I'm sure it works fine for parliamentary systems, but it wouldn't here.
Instant run-off voting, on the other hand, might instantly cure the worst of what ails our system. The two-party duopoly is the source of almost all things bad, and, together with winner-take-all electoral votes, it guarantees that no 3rd party will ever win the Presidency. IRV turns the system on its head by eliminating the fear of "throwing away your vote". It would break the duopoly, and make the system much more fluid again. And since voting rules are defined state-by-state, there's at least a snowball's chance in hell of getting a few states to try it.
You can't assume that. There are many valid, non-evil reasons companies really want demographic information. They want to know their customer base so they know how to design their web site and products to best tailor their customers. Sure, some companies are slimy about it, and that sucks. But any company that expects to survive wants to know their customers as much as possible.
approve of a business model that is based upon supplying personal information to spammers, mass-marketers and other spies.
That's an invalid assumption. Understandable, since unfortunately it happens, but that's not always true. Not all marketing is Evil. Not all ads are Evil.
To summarise: I don't like registration screens, I am never going to like registration screens, and I shall continue to publicly disapprove of them as I see fit. Maybe you should learn to deal with it.
No problems here. I'm not saying you have to like it; heck I'm not crazy about it either, and believe me, I hate the over-marketization of our society. All I'm saying is that it's not necessarily evil, and any knee-jerk reaction that all ads/registration/marketing are Evil is naive.
In a real emergency, we would have all fled in terror, and you would not have been notified.
I have my own moral compass.
OK. Just as long as your moral compass doesn't make you feel comfortable making me do things against my will, we'll get along fine.
I do not feel obligated to abide by laws set down by Gods or men --- especially laws I had no part in creating. Wherein lies their authority?
So we should re-invent the Constitution or our legal framework every time someone is born? No: we use the Constitution's built-in flexibility to allow us to adapt it if need be, but we honor the basic concepts of liberty regardless. That concept doesn't require continual re-invention, and is pretty damn universal. There's no need to ask "by what authority" here... the whole point is derive laws from the fundamental foundation of liberty and reason. Not all legal constructs are as well grounded that way as they should be, obviously, but just because the larger picture came into being before you were born and didn't get your initial blessing doesn't mean that the rest of us should have to worry that you're a loose canon without any thought towards civilized behavior. It isn't just the we-all-agree-we-can't-just-kill-anyone shared principle, here... it's the practical use of the knowledge that most people around you are thinking the same thing.
The "Rule of Law" as a social contract to keep us from killing one another is one I'm willing to agree to. However, when it is used as a tool by a privileged few to concentrate financial and military power, I am no longer bound by it.
Meaning, you reserve the right to kill rich people just because they're rich? Or, you think that rich people have somehow gained the legal right to kill you? If what you mean is that OJ Simpson got away with murder because he had more expensive lawyers than you or I could afford, well, that's not much of a reason to say that therefore laws don't apply to you, and what the heck, I might as well pirate DVDs.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.