AT&T Rewrites Privacy Policy

VikingThunder writes "The San Francisco Chronicle reports that AT&T has revamped its privacy policy, in an effort to head off future consumer lawsuits, with changes taking effect this Friday. AT&T is introducing a new policy that gives it more 'latitude' when it comes to sharing your browsing history with government agencies. Notable changes include notification that AT&T will track viewing habits of customers of its new video services Homezone and U-Verse, which is forbidden for cable and satellite companies, as well as explicitly stating that the customer's data belongs to the company: 'While your account information may be personal to you, these records constitute business records that are owned by AT&T. As such, AT&T may disclose such records to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process.'"

Comments

It's time to take action.

[evileyetmc]

Well, I knew it wasn't going to be long before companies decided to openly admit that playing politics was more important than treating their customers right. Agreed that they had been playing politics in the past *cough* Bush's domestic wiretapping *cough*, but only now are they confirming that and trying to save their behinds from lawsuits like the kind the EFF has filed for unwarranted wiretaps.
This is exactly the treachery that leads to companies going under...You f*ck the consumer, you get f*cked right back.

I say call up your local congressman/woman and tell them that you want the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 to include provisions for all methods of distributing content, including IPTV. Also explain to them that your privacy is important to you and that you want them to support as many privacy bills as they can.

Of course, if that doesn't work, just ditch AT&T. I know there is enough competition out there to cripple them. Alas, you might end up paying a bit more, but think of it as the price you pay for privacy, and consumer-friendliness.

Re:It's time to take action.

[bleh-of-the-huns]

Ditching ATT is not so easy, they have a very large infrastructure and massive backbone. There is really no way to avoid using their services, either directly or indirectly. I hate to say this, but the only way to stop this is through gov intervention (I wont say regulation because I have regulation), but there is little way for the avg consumer to impact ATT's pocket book, now if companies (end user ISPs and such) toss ATT, that would definately hurt them.

Re:It's time to take action.

[evileyetmc]

haha...well, I just finished writing my letter, so he'll definitely be hearing it from me. No need to doubt on that front. Besides, I get to sit in on a meeting with him next week, just in case he doesn't get it the first time around.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wont say regulation because I have regulation

Glad to hear you are getting your fiber.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Dark Paladin]

Better to trial and fail then not try at all, I'd say. At least if you actively work to avoid them, eventually you will at least hurt them financially - which can eventually (hopefully?) lead to someone else with bigger pockets that we can trust finally buying out the backbone.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Sebastopol]

Here in Sacramento, AT&T is the only phone provider. Isn't that a monopoly?

Re:It's time to take action.

[IAmTheDave]

Here in Sacramento, AT&T is the only phone provider.

Feel free to go Vonage, etc.

Re:It's time to take action.

[voice_of_all_reason]

well, I just finished writing my letter, so a college temp making $7/hour will definitely be hearing it from me

Fixed.

Re:It's time to take action.

[harrkev]

Of course, if that doesn't work, just ditch AT&T.

I currently do not use AT&T. However...

Anytime anybody calls me using AT&T, my phone number appears in those records. And since I am not an AT&T customer, I have not agreed to their privacy policy. Is there any legal remedy for this?

Re:It's time to take action.

[alshithead]

I think AT&T is just the first domino in line. Ditching them won't do you any good when others will be following. I can certainly see Sprint and Verizon taking advantage of AT&T going first..."hey, we can say everyone is doing it!" "may disclose your information in response to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process," Nice and broad. I wonder who gets to define "legal process".

Re:It's time to take action.

[Lumpy]

First remembet that it is not AT&T but SBC wearing a AT&T suit they bought.

This is typical SBC tactics they have been pulling over the years.... They just thought that by changing their name nobody would notice.

remember when you hear AT&T you are not hearing the AT&T from the past but SBC trying to hide from their reputation.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Billosaur]

Better to trial and fail then not try at all, I'd say. At least if you actively work to avoid them, eventually you will at least hurt them financially - which can eventually (hopefully?) lead to someone else with bigger pockets that we can trust finally buying out the backbone.

It's not so easy in more rural areas, but I suspect this will give Vonage a hefty boost if enough people get disenfranchised by AT&T over this to make the switch. That's assuming that Vonage can avoid more lawsuits.

Re:It's time to take action.

[TheGratefulNet]

you want to talk tech to a congresscritter?

really?

you think ANY of them really understand stuff like 'we' do?

(man! I don't know where to begin with that.)

they understand who pays them the most and who controls the votes. you can't EXPLAIN things to them. you can only wave votes or money in front of them. he with the biggest, wins.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Legal remedy, probably not.

However, they do make throw away phones, which I'm highly considering using once my contract with Cingular is up.

Re:It's time to take action.

[gstoddart]

This is exactly the treachery that leads to companies going under...You f*ck the consumer, you get f*cked right back.

Well, it's a nice theory. In practice, it doesn't mean a damned thing. Cranky consumers can't do anything to a company like AT&T, not really.

If you explicitly refuse this new privacy policy, do you really believe that will cause them to purge your records? No, they're gonna retain what they have already even if it violates their previous policy.

What if you can't change? Live in a place where there is exactly one provider of broadband? Think you'll give up your high-speed just to try and punish AT&T? (And if you do, they're gonna keep what they have.)

Now that they've said this, and now that they're gonna track everything, your assent to their privacy policy will become irrelevant.

Since they operate much of the backbone, what is to stop them from passing on information about people with whom they don't actually have a current/past business relationship? Nothing, they'll still be passing on their routing data which covers people who could not possibly have consented to the privacy policy. International data gets routed through AT&Ts trunks.

Hell, I live in a whole different country (Canada), and my cell-phone company (Rogers) is associated with AT&T. Which probably means that some if not all of my own damned information is probably going to flow south of the border. Which fscking Congressman am I going to fskcing contact to complain about this? Oh, wait, that would be absolutely fsking noone, that's who.

Do you think the government is going to legislate/intervene/say anything? They want this kind of things more than ever. If a company makes you sign a contract that says "we can do anything we want", the current administration has only to gain from this. They're more than happy to extend the territoriatility of their laws with little regard -- despite that if any other country tried to extend their laws in the same way, the US would be screaming bloody murder.

AT&T's decision to do this affects way more people than the number of people who are going to be asked to agree to this privacy policy. It's probably going affect me personally, and I don't have a business relationship with them. And probably a whole lot of other people.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not a direct customer of AT&T but my ISP (cable service) uses them as their main transit. I have no idea how much traffic is sent over AT&T on a normal day. Any time your packets transit the 12/8 network you are using AT&T.

Re:It's time to take action.

[quantum bit]

Does Vonage encrypt their traffic?

There's a good chance that your Internet traffic gets routed over an AT&T-controlled network at some point...

Re:It's time to take action.

[hackstraw]

Anytime anybody calls me using AT&T, my phone number appears in those records. And since I am not an AT&T customer, I have not agreed to their privacy policy. Is there any legal remedy for this?

All "privacy policies" are bullshit. They all say at the end of them something in legalese like: "We reserve the right to change our mind at any time".

Personally, I believe that _WE_ as individuals should create our own privacy policy and make businesses/corps sign it.

The problem is that no business or corporation or whatever would sign our privacy policy. The rights of individuals have been officially lost as far as I can tell.

Re:It's time to take action.

[megaditto]

From GP:

Also explain to [legislators] that your privacy is important to you and that you want them to support as many privacy bills as they can.

Currently the mantra If you are not a terrorist/paedophile/Mexican, you have nothing to hide and you'll have no privacy when the terrorists win seems to be the flavor of the day.

Or as one prominent FoxNews commentator puts it, the American People would rather the Govt. collected their records than their remains.

 

Of course, if that doesn't work, just ditch AT&T. I know there is enough competition out there to cripple them.

As the parent (bleh-of-the-huns) said, such a move will not impact ATT's bottom line. If anything, it will save them bandwidth costs as those customers that tend to be privacy-aware also tend to consume more of their all-you-can-eat subscription plans than the sheeople customers.

Re:It's time to take action.

[TheGreek]

Interns don't get paid.

Re:It's time to take action.

[KDR_11k]

I'd assume AT&T would be the only internet provider there as well.

Re:It's time to take action.

[quantum bit]

Which is kind of funny, because having dealt with both SBC and pre-buyout AT&T, I always had worse experiences with AT&T than SBC.

Sure, SBC sucked. But AT&T sucked more.

As far as I'm concerned, the name change was a bad move on the part of their marketing department.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Firehed]

Using an ISP that makes use of AT&T's infrastructure? Hoo-boy, what a change.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Mister Whirly]

No, any phone provider is free to start doing business there... They just choose not to (because of AT&T has all the business - it's kind of a Catch-22)

Re:It's time to take action.

[Mister Whirly]

If I am not a terrorist/pedophile/Mexican (and I am not), they have no reason to be spying on me...

Re:It's time to take action.

[hyfe]

All "privacy policies" are bullshit. They all say at the end of them something in legalese like: "We reserve the right to change our mind at any time".

Yes, they are very carefull not to stick anything like this into the actual contracts.

If you want privacy, have the government enact laws (feel free to copy as much as you want from our Scandinavian ones, privacy/consumer laws seem to be things we're reasonably good at). On the other hand, if the government is the problem, it's your own bloody fault, you (plural) elected it; vote something else next time.

Re:It's time to take action.

[cayenne8]

"Does Vonage encrypt their traffic?"

I dunno...but, if you want to make their tracking data useless for you...start trying to encrypt ALL your internet traffic.

Grant it....it will slow you up a bit, but, will make you far less traceable. Set up anon. browsing, set up nym accounts for email...that will help your mail at least be encrypted, even from those who don't know how to use pgp.

• Tor - For anonymous browsing
• Freenet
• Anonymous Email (look for Nym section)
• Free Proxy servers (some https and anon listed)
• Set up and use Mixmaster anon remailers

In general, also start trying to use SSH and vpns for most everything you do....it is a bit slower and PITA, but, might be worth it in the end, considering this new policy, and the govt's recent attempts to get ALL ISP's to "voluntarilly" keep all internet access records stored for 2 years.

Re:It's time to take action.

[TubeSteak]

What if you can't change? Live in a place where there is exactly one provider of broadband? Think you'll give up your high-speed just to try and punish AT&T?

A lot of people get by with satellite connection.

I'm not sure why so many people have the notion that DSL & cable are the last word when it comes to broadband.

A satellite connection brings telephone service, TV and the internet to many parts of the world that would otherwise have nothing other than a radio phone.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Anonymous Coward]

AT&T already nearly went (or actually did go) bankrupt. How do you think SBC was able to buy them up?

Re:It's time to take action.

[UniXY]

now if companies (end user ISPs and such) toss ATT A few months ago my ISP (one of the largest cable internet providers in the Midwest--Insight) dropped AT&T for Sprint. I think this might have been motivated by the current attitude AT&T is displaying towards privacy and the tiered Internet. I am not sure if Sprint is any better, but so far all I can say is my pings are lower!

Re:It's time to take action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, I live in a whole different country (Canada), and my cell-phone company (Rogers) is associated with AT&T. Which probably means that some if not all of my own damned information is probably going to flow south of the border. Which fscking Congressman am I going to fskcing contact to complain about this? Oh, wait, that would be absolutely fsking noone, that's who.

Yours. If it affects Canadian citizens, it's the job of the Canadian elected officials to be concerned about it. In fact, it's probably much easier to convince your MPs and prime minister this is a problem than to convince our congressmen and president. Your government has some ability to influence America's foreign policy through diplomacy. In other words, I'd say you have as much of a chance of fixing this as I do...

For that matter, you can complain to Rogers as well. If somehow you succeed in getting a big company to listen to consumers, one big company will certainly listen to another if they think their business relationship is at stake.

Re:It's time to take action.

[quantum bit]

You're preaching to the choir here. Most of the network related programs I use operate with ssh as their transport layer (unison for file sync, svn+ssh for source code repo and other versioned storage).

I also operate my own mail server/domain, which most of my friends and family have accounts on. I allow ONLY SSL-protected connections, so no plaintext POP3 passwords flying about. As far as they're concerned it's only 1 extra checkbox to click so it's no big deal. SMTP+AUTH+SSL for sending.

Granted, that won't help for sending messages to the outside as they transit unencrypted at some point, but at least we can email each other in relative security. If the NSA wastes a few weeks of processor time just to find out what my lunch plans were last Friday, serves 'em right.

Grant it....it will slow you up a bit

Unless you're talking about initial setup, at the bandwidth levels that most consumer accounts have, I have never seen an appreciable slowdown due to encryption. My modest 266-Mhz router can saturate a 3Mb link with VPN traffic.

Even on my laptop where I do full-disk encryption (GELI on FreeBSD -- built in and it was cake to set up), I can still get upwards of 20MB/s disk I/O, which isn't significantly worse than the el-cheapo drive that's in there can manage without it.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who works for a large retailer, with MILLIONS of customer records and all your purchasing history, I can say that your personal information is well and truely protected (at my company). We have had a few times where customers were overcharged for things, or double billed due to EFT problems, but there was nothing we could do, even though we knew how to lookup their information (a rewards card type thing). We take customer privacy very seriously here, and the people that have access to the customer data don't even have access to it all - it's compartmentalized. And audited regularly. And locked away. And as much as it sucks in the times when we'd like to help our customers, we stick to our privacy policy to the letter, because the trust of our customers is more important than the potential of all the data in our databases.

So not ALL business is out to screw you - granted, some are. /AC so I don't get flamed for advertising or something ...

Re:It's time to take action.

[voice_of_all_reason]

Except in this case, where the german police decided acting "inconspicious" was suspicious in and of itself:

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?t ype=worldFootballNews&storyID=2006-06-06T201822Z_0 1_L06509705_RTRIDST_0_SPORT-SOCCER-WORLD-STRIPSEAR CH.XML

Re:It's time to take action.

[PB_TPU_40]

Well you're job as an intern you may not get paid. I have yet to have an internship where I dont get paid. Though I'm not wading through someone else job, I'm producing actual projects and products to be sold. I'm just like any other employee, and I dont get the shaft on pay either. I'm at least twice above minimum wage.

Re:It's time to take action.

[kalirion]

And how long do you think before this sort of encryption becomes illegal? Wasn't there some bill/law in the UK that you have to provide the government with all your private keys or face jail time?

Re:It's time to take action.

[24-bit Voxel]

Sometimes they do. I interned for $500 a month, twice. Once at Penn State and another time at the Academy of Art College in S.F.

Re:It's time to take action.

[rgmoore]

Currently the mantra If you are not a terrorist/paedophile/Mexican, you have nothing to hide

I'm not doing anything wrong when I take a shower or use the toilet, but that doesn't mean that it's OK for the government to monitor me while I'm doing so.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Mister Whirly]

How could anything German possibly be evil?? Besides I am willing to bet the ratio of hot chicks getting strip searched for being "suspicious" versus the ratio of fat, ugly, soccer guys is pretty skewed...

Re:It's time to take action.

[Moofie]

"you (plural) elected it"

See, there's where you're wrong. We really didn't.

Re:It's time to take action.

[greg_barton]

I hate to say this, but the only way to stop this is through gov intervention (I wont say regulation because I hate regulation)

Ain't it funny how folks hate regulation until they want something regulated?

Welcome to the left side of the aisle, buddy. I hope you don't hate Liberals. You're one of us now. :)

Re:It's time to take action.

[silphium]

US has unique problems. Last time I came back from Dallas I had to swerve my car hundreds of times to avoid the numerous flag burnings all up and down I-35 (or was that just the combination of Jack Daniels and cold medicine kicking in?) We should support our president in protecting the American flag from the armies of satanic liberals lined up to vomit on this symbol of our freedom. Even worse, gays are destroying marriage. As one Fox news commentator pointed out the other day, next thing will be marriage to snakes (already performed in some Christian sects). Marriage is intended to be between a man and a woman until divorce decreee and property settlement do they part. The president and our congress are going to amend the US Constitution to preserve marriages for destruction by more conventional means (divorce on the grounds of adultery is a personal favorite).

Re:It's time to take action.

[AaronHorrocks]

Why is it Bush's fault that the government isn't getting warrants to wiretap suspected terrorists?

Oh wait, I keep forgetting that EVERYTHING is Bush's fault! :P

Re:It's time to take action.

[megaditto]

And since I am not an AT&T customer, I have not agreed to their privacy policy. Is there any legal remedy for this?

If a criminal shoots you, you do not sue the gun-maker, you sue the criminal.
If your mother calls you using ATT, you do not sue ATT, you sue your mother.

Re:It's time to take action.

[cayenne8]

"Wasn't there some bill/law in the UK that you have to provide the government with all your private keys or face jail time?"

Well, one way to maybe at least get around having to 'have keys' for email. You could set up a nym server, that instead of mailing the mail to you...sent it to a newsgroup like alt.anonymous. Only you would know the subject for your messages, and have the encryption key to decrypt it.

I'd think the govt. in order to prove you needed to turn a key over to them...would need evidence of something you have that is encrypted?

At the very least...they could get all your keys, but, would never know where to get your messages...

:-)

Re:It's time to take action.

[Bryansix]

HAHA, reminds me of MCI hiding from thier Worldcom days.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Abcd1234]

Uhh... and remind me how upstream works, again?

Re:It's time to take action.

[Anonymous Coward]

and they probably aren't because it would be a waste of their time.

Re:It's time to take action.

[ksheff]

I-35? I was probably the 2nd-hand smoke from all the drug abusers along that route.

Re:It's time to take action.

[iminplaya]

Regardless of whether you elected it or not, you all let the results stand, and are therefore subject to them. If you actually resisted, then you might have a point. You did in effect elect your government. You may as well accept it, and do what the man said and elect a different government if you actually want any change. You have an open ballot, so I'm not interested in your whining about big money causing any lack of choice. In other words, stop with this "The devil made me do it." garbage, and vote conscientiously, instead of for more bling, like 99% of you are doing now.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Moofie]

"You did in effect elect your government"

I am one person. I cast one vote. I didn't elect crap.

"You have an open ballot"

What country are you talking about again?

"In other words, stop with this "The devil made me do it." garbage,"

Huh?

"and vote conscientiously, instead of for more bling, like 99% of you are doing now."

Who are you arguing with? It's sure not me. And where are you seeing 99% voter turnouts?

Re:It's time to take action.

[TheGreek]

Congressional interns don't get paid. They get college credit.

Re:It's time to take action.

[StreetStealth]

Referring to a hate or love of regulation in general is painting with a very broad brush.

Why can't one dislike regulation of individual freedoms while supporting regulation of corporate freedoms?

Re:It's time to take action.

[Anonymous Coward]

you missed one:

anonet - definatly a huge resouce for vpn's see anonet.org

Re:It's time to take action.

[iminplaya]

I am one person. I cast one vote. I didn't elect crap.

You have accepted the results, unless you make active resistance. Did you try to convince your neighbors not to elect "crap"? Or are they too dazzled by all the pretty lights? You have an open ballot as long as the write-in option is there. It's up to you to campaign to get others to vote for your choice. The "The devil made me do it." thing is a reference to those why cry about the lack of choice. They go out and say, "I had to vote "democrat" to stop the the republicans." To which I say bullshit. You have the option to vote for whoever you please. If your neighbors aren't up to the task, well, don't blame the government or the corporations. You personally may have not elected the winner, but you, as a group, did elect your government.

And where are you seeing 99% voter turnouts?

I'm talking about the 99% of people who voted. The aim of my voting tirades is pointed at those who believe in their system of majority rule. I'm not one of those people. Rule by 51% is still a dictatorship, although an inefficient one. And I wouldn't even bring it up except for the people that do believe in it are complaining about it so much. So I feel the need to tell them, 'Well, fix it, dammit!'. That's what these people tell the immigrants running away from their countrys' corruption. So I say the same message applies at home.

Who are you arguing with? It's sure not me.

The "editorial" you is your friend. And mine too, as I make much use of it.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually this is coming up a lot. One thing that you can certainly do is write to your MP. The deal here is that most communications with the government are covered under the Privacy Act and/or PIPEDA. If an MP or government employee transmits information to or through companies which may be compelled (by the USA PATRIOT act for example) to violate Canadian privacy law, they are in violation of one or the other of those acts. If they are also aware of the obligations of American corporations under the USA PATRIOT act, they are (literally) twice as guilty.

In short, the current American Administration has successfully made it illegal for US companies to do business with the Canadian Government. The civil service has largely chosen to disregard this however the issue is gaining traction slowly. Frankly, I think we need to throw a couple of these weasels in jail to speed this along but unfortunately CUPE's membership appears to be above the law.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Money for Nothin']

<sarcasm>Great! I'll get mom, dad, and my popular sister with 60 of her bestest friends on AIM using anonymous email and Freenet in no time!</sarcasm>

Seriously though, the reason these apps haven't taken-off is because they face a chicken-and-egg problem: they aren't standards de facto or de jure.

I've tried getting my friends to use encrypted AIM, via GAIM, Trillian, etc.. Of course they don't use it, (except for another Slashdotter friend of mine): it's "too hard" and (so they say) if you have nothing to hide, then what's the concern over privacy about? (and then I sigh: "He who does not learn from the past, is doomed to repeat it...")

I have relatives who are privacy nuts, and one close to me is even somewhat technically-competent and very well-educated. Yet, mention "PGP", and his eyes glaze over.

If even the privacy-concerned intelligentsia don't want to put forth the effort to protect their privacy, then isn't the battle, as a defacto matter, basically lost?

I think privacy is, has, and will always be, a lost cause. It takes:

• Political and/or economic/business intelligence to understand its value
• A historian's knowledge to understand the historical examples of privacy loss
• Mathematical sophistication to have a theoretical conception of the potential growth in instances of knowledge of one's personal information by others via the network effects of private information's spread
• A network-connected computer geek's (like most of us Slashdotters) understanding of how quickly that information actually *does* spread on the Internet to understand and demonstrate the reality of the privacy situation

Few people outside of many computer scientists, and some in the hard sciences and math, and maybe a few lawyers, are competent to fully-grasp the implications of privacy loss. Most people are not so intelligent, nor nearly patient enough to understand the subject -- and so, most people don't give a rat's ass.

The reality of privacy around the world is that Scott McNeely was right some 10 years ago, when he proclaimed that "privacy is dead." I cannot think of a single period in time in which the U.S. or Britain have undergone periods in which privacy could be said to have generally *increased*. [1] Germany arguably improved after the fall of East German socialism, having eliminated the Stasi in the process, but that's like switching from a Yugo to a GM-made econocar for one's personal transportation -- it's a big improvement, but still very far from what is wanted.

Those of us who care about privacy can and do use such applications. The rest of the unwashed masses will be tracked and eventually hunted-down by governments, corporations, and sophisticated black-market criminal organizations like the goddamn cattle they are (and, if East German, Iraqi, Chinese, North Korean, and American communist history -- as well as the history of various black market businesses (drug cartels, the Mafia, etc.) -- is any indicator, murdered much the same).

It doesn't help either that privacy apps have typically not worked particularly-well. Freenet is a great example: it hogs RAM and CPU and in the end, content-retrieval is painfully-slow. Not to mention that Freenet, like PGP, is basically a big red flashing neon sign to law-enforcement suggesting a high probability of illegal activity (and I think those of us who genuinely run/ran it for the political purpose of keeping free-speech and privacy alive really are/were in the minority -- just as those with whom you can talk intelligently to on USENET, or anywhere else on the Internet or in real life, are in the minority)...

[1] Then again, how does one measure privacy? By the number of surveillance cameras, public and private? By the number of records per individual being analyzed out of databases? By the number of doors kicked-down on the basis of information obtained via a breach of privacy? By th

Re:It's time to take action.

[Widowwolf]

Actually technically it is not..This coming from a AT&T employee trying to get out(dont shoot me), there are several options to you, you just never hear about them, because they do not advertise. I guarantee if you look in the phone book there are several of them. At least a page worth.Pls there is Vonage and Skype, and you dont need hoem service, get a cell phone. As far as Internet there are several, inluding Comcast, AT&T, Surewest in certain parts, any of the dial up ones, there are at least 2 full columns of them..Try looking sometimes..research does help!

Re:It's time to take action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm... about 2 years ago now Rogers ditched AT&T (specifically they bought out the remainder of their contract), which is why Rogers phones now just say "Rogers" and not "Rogers AT&T" like they used to.

Now in the states you could end up roaming on AT&T, Cingular, or T-Mobile, but that is not the same level of tie-in that it was before.

Note: I've had a Rogers cell phone for over 4 years now, since when it was Rogers AT&T, and I got the mail when they ditched AT&T

Re:It's time to take action.

[alienw]

Do you know what a backbone is? No? Well, all your traffic passes through one, and AT&T and other telcos own the vast majority of them.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Jasin Natael]

You might not like making left turns, but when your passenger grabs the wheel and yanks it to the right, you've got to do some corrective steering, or crash. There's a line to be crossed before you're on the wrong side of the road, and right now I'd be happy if we could just get back on the damn road. Commuter lane, commercial lane, whatever.

Re:It's time to take action.

[TubeSteak]

1st gen satellite Internet service required an independant upstream connection.

2ng gen satellite Internet service is two-way because the dish has a *transciever.
It's like a laggy low-end DSL connection.

BTW - The 2nd gen came out ~5 years ago

*transmitter/reciever

Re:It's time to take action.

[Anonymous Coward]

The officers in question should be severely reprimanded. They neglected to do a cavity probe!

Re:It's time to take action.

[Martz]

I see you're point and agree that encrypting your own traffic makes sense.

However...

If the NSA wastes a few weeks of processor time just to find out what my lunch plans were last Friday, serves 'em right.

This is your own money which is being wasted, tax dollars which could be put to much better use in many other ways. They, the NSA, won't feel bad that they've wasted you're money. They'll just apply for a bigger budget next year since the amount of encrypted traffic they have to monitor is constantly increasing due to people protecting their privacy.

The only solution is to revoke these powers from the goverment and to make sure that a realistic and proportionate amount of money and control is available to those who are fighting terrorism. A higher ratio of $:life could be saved if terrorism wasn't everyones primary emotional worry - due to it being over-emphasised by the goverment to distract from the real important issues in the USA at the moment.(Homelessness, HIV, medical care, and serious crimes like murder/rape/shootings/assaults just to name a few)

Technology isn't the answer here in the long term, its stopping the errosion of your rights and privacy via a goverment which is funded by citizens. And that is purely political.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Walter Carver]

Currently the mantra "If you are not a terrorist/paedophile/Mexican, you have nothing to hide" and "you'll have no privacy when the terrorists win" seems to be the flavor of the day.

Here is another mantra: "If you are watching me, then you is watching you? Absolume power corrupts absolutely" and "Them or you, no matter who wins, I lose"

Re:It's time to take action.

[LinuxLuver]

I used to work for AT&T.......but after Bush lied to justify invading Iraq and AT&T donated money to his election campaign, I quit my job. No way was I going to work for people to use my labour to generate money for a President who lied to justify invading Iraq and directly caused the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people - Iraqi and American.

Corporations have no conscience......but real people do. Don't support corporations that give money to crooks, liars and killers.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Anonymous Coward]

The telecom industry is effectively an arm or subsidy of government. The business is not successful because they provide the best service at the lowest price in a market of open, voluntary competition; it is successful because of the coercive power of government. Being an arm of government, the telecom industry is already "regulated", and has been all along. So what you are really calling for is not "regulation", but merely a change in the way government controls one of its many subsidies.

Really, there is no telecom "market" at all, realizing that markets are founded on free competition. Government has ultimate control over the business, and therefore government is at the root of everything that happens in the business. Calling for regulation of a government-sponsored business is like calling for government to govern itself: it just doesn't make much sense.

Re:It's time to take action.

[dkf]

[encrypting your net traffic] will slow you up a bit

Not noticably. I've been doing this for years for most traffic (not because of govt admittedly, but because I don't trust all the students round here to not run packet sniffers) and the slowdown is minimal to nothing. CPU time is just so incredibly cheap these days.

Re:It's time to take action.

[WhiteWolf666]

Hear Hear!

Re:It's time to take action.

[Abcd1234]

Huh, no kidding. :) So, OOC, why do most satellite receivers I've seen need to be plugged into a telephone line to make use of things like PPV services?

Re:It's time to take action.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have altered the deal. Pray I don't alter it further.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Asphalt]

Grant it....it will slow you up a bit, but, will make you far less traceable. Set up anon. browsing, set up nym accounts for email...that will help your mail at least be encrypted, even from those who don't know how to use pgp.

* Tor - For anonymous browsing [eff.org] ......

I really like the Tor product. Especially the plugin for Firefox.

Hoever, ironically, Slashdot and Wiki both block posting via Tor nodes.

It's not just the government and large corporations that have a problem with privacy.

Re:It's time to take action.

[PB_TPU_40]

If they get college credit, thats still something. Thats more than just FREE.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Your Anus]

AT&T has altered the deal. Pray it doesn't alter it further.

Re:It's time to take action.

[TheGreek]

But it's also not $7/hour.

Re:It's time to take action.

[Sebastopol]

I want a copper-line phone service, not cell.

I differ from 99% of the population here: cell phones are shit. More examples of how people will suffer with crappy technology. A cell phone would be 3~5x the cost of my land line. Even with a $15/month pay as you go Cingular phone (which I have), it is 2x the cost and I only get 60 minutes of chat time, assuming the reception works.

So much for the free market offering products their customers want.

Re:It's time to take action.

[PB_TPU_40]

Yeah at that rate I'd go find another internship, I've never been paid that low in my life for an internship.

Re:It's time to take action.

[TheGreek]

If you're interning on the Hill, you're not doing it because you want the money.

You're doing it because you want to work there when you graduate.

Re:It's time to take action.

[PB_TPU_40]

I'd rather go somewhere where someone is willing to pay me for my abilities, not have me slave for them for free. Though if the're looking at working there after graduation, and get credit, they're getting something out of it. I'm getting a job out of where I'm working, and I'm getting paid, and they're going to pay for graduate school possibly. But I guess thats what I get for going into engineering.

Did they revampt the company name?

[ToxikFetus]

Did they also fix the part of the privacy policy to say: "AT&T (a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Security Agency)"

Any teeth to these?

[dr_dank]

Do privacy polices have any real legal meaning to them? Companies write them, I don't think they'll punish themselves for violating them.

Re:Any teeth to these?

[gEvil (beta)]

No, a company will most likely not punish themselves for violating their privacy policy. However, my understanding is that they do constitute legally binding agreements with regards to what they do with your information. If the company is found to have violated the agreement that was presented to you, then you do have legal grounds to pursue them for damages. Of course, IANAL, so the preceding may be completely wrong.

Re:Any teeth to these?

[qbzzt]

The privacy policy is part of the contract. A company that violated its privacy policy, in a way that could be proven at court, could be sued. It's not a very strong guarantee (guess who can afford the better lawyers), but it's something.

Re:Any teeth to these?

[AuMatar]

Any policy they can change at will without requiring you to sign an greement has no binding force. At best, you could sue for misrepresentation if they break it. Its definitely not breach of contract.

Re:Any teeth to these?

[qbzzt]

I stand corrected. It's still a sue-able thing to not follow it, though.

Re:Any teeth to these?

[Nikker]

Good thing that you don't have any participation in the data harvesting eh ;)

Re:Any teeth to these?

[Apoklypse]

tell us the story about the Great Pumpkin, again, Charlie Brown ...

Who watches the admins?

[Anonymous Coward]

So how many admins monitor (track) their networks?

Why...

[nuclearpenguins]

...does AT&T hate America?

AT&T, once known for slamming customers..

[GonzoTech]

AT&T will never get it right. Their ethics in customer service are just as bad as their business ethics.

Slamming your customers used to be the popular move from AT&T, now I guess it's giving away personal data.

I'll just continue my resistance of using ANY AT&T products or services.

Well, I would not be surprised...

[Bananatree3]

if the other telcos started doing the same thing. In the beginning they simply said all their interactions were "classified" with the governement, building a huge smokescreen with which to hide behind. Now they have to deal with lawsuits, and they slip this into their privacy statement to stymie the 'suits. Knowing how telcos really like to avoid such suits I wouldn't be surprised if AT&T has started a fad.

Reminding you once again...

[Jerf]

Reminding you once again that any privacy policy that includes the clause that it can be changed at any time with minimal notification and no consent is no privacy policy at all.

(To be fair, the linked policy does have a nod towards "materially different" changes to the privacy policy. But guess who decides what "materially different" is...?)

Re:Reminding you once again...

[bsartist]

Reminding you once again that any privacy policy that includes the clause that it can be changed at any time with minimal notification and no consent is no privacy policy at all.

It reminds me of job descriptions that include a long list of duties, and at the end say "additional duties as assigned." The catch-all at the end renders the rest of the list moot; they could have simply stated "duties: do what you're told" and been just as accurate.

Re:Reminding you once again...

[wbradney]

Too true. Another one that always gets me is "Save upto 50% or more"

Re:Reminding you once again...

[TubeSteak]

From the Privacy Policy: "If we make a material change to this privacy policy, we will post a prominent notice on our Web sites.

If we intend, however, to use personal identifying information in a manner materially different from that stated at the time of collection, we will attempt to notify you at least 30 days in advance using an address or e-mail address, if you have provided one, and by posting a prominent notice on our Web sites, and you will be given a choice as to whether or not we use your information in this different manner."

But guess who decides what "materially different" is...?

A. The Federal Trade Commission
B. Your State Attorneys General
C. A Judge
D. Any &/or all of the above

P.S. And no, your signed contract (which usually requires arbitrage for disputes) does not control. Privacy Policy violations are a State/Federal matter.

Re:Reminding you once again...

[Anonymous Coward]

And in tiny font at the bottom of the screen during commercials for snake oil: "Results shown are not typical."

Time for the Privacy Act

[Mad Dog Manley]

As such, AT&T may disclose such records to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process.'"

Don't you see, AT&T is doing this for you, the valued customer. It is in your best interests. Don't you want to be kept safe from the evil0rz criminals?

In Canada, the Privacy Act restricts the ability of corporations to share private information. Admittedly it's not perfect, but it appears to be better than what exists in the United States.

Re:Time for the Privacy Act

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is, the wording seems to have nothing to do with the customer. ATT is basically saying that your information will be given out to anyone who asks for it. They're not protecting their customers, they're protecting themselves.

Re:Time for the Privacy Act

[Mad Dog Manley]

They're not protecting their customers, they're protecting themselves.

That's not all. The wording in the old privacy policy said:

the company "may disclose your information in response to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process to the extent required and/or permitted by law"

New policy:

the company "may disclose your information in response to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process"

Looks like the law isn't important to them anymore.

Re:Time for the Privacy Act

[Grrr]

Thank you - I was wondering how they could use the phrase "legal process" and resist the temptation to add a little winking smiley or something immediately after it...

<grrr />

Re:Time for the Privacy Act

[pilgrim23]

It seems to me that we as a consumer should also be able to include a "privacy clause": Something like "By accepting my payment for your service you agree to..______ (insert legal weasel words here) or be subject to _____ (more weasel)" as an adendum on a check.

*Sigh of relief*

[shumacher]

I was shopping for a new ISP this morning, and AT&T lost out only by failing to have a particularly local dialup number.

Re:*Sigh of relief*

[linlu]

Hmm, time to ditch them for long distance. I know 'long distance' is old school to all the VOIP users, but I want 911 to work at my house. I have young kids and you never know when they'll have to call because I can't.

Re:*Sigh of relief*

[Anonymous Coward]

> I know 'long distance' is old school to all the VOIP users, but I want 911 to work at my house.

You could always abuse a cell phone for this purpose. Doesn't have to be paid up, 911 will still work. Of course you do have to tell them your address, and hope they hear it right.

Re:*Sigh of relief*

[friedmud]

You know that you _can_ have a local phone... with _no_ long distance whatsoever right??

This is why my wife and I did in order to keep 911 service... even though we used our cell-phones 99% of the time. We've since dumped even that... moving to 100% cell-phones... the main reason being that the home phone was nothing but a spam machine.... we never gave the number out to anyone yet _many_ companies stilled called night and day trying to sell us stuff. We no longer have that problem...

Friedmud

Re:*Sigh of relief*

[Jett]

I don't get why people still think VOIP has no 911 service - it's been debunked over and over again. I have Vonage, it took a minute to set up 911 service.

Re:*Sigh of relief*

[alcourt]

When you set up phone service, the phone company puts your name/number on a list sold/rented to other companies for marketing of "newly established numbers." Historically you just had to specifically ask not to be put on the new phone service list to avoid the flood.

Found this out with an unlisted number that got massive numbers of calls from sales companies. Called the phone company to complain and was informed of the service. At least historically, the company tends to actually honor requests to not go on this list.

How is this legal?

[AWhiteFlame]

Can they really legally say, "Welp, even though it's your personal data, we reserve the right to do whatever we want with it if it benefits us or our partners." ?

Re:How is this legal?

[stratjakt]

Yes, because they are legitimate business records.

Best Buy is allowed to keep all your credit card purchases on file, and use those records however they see fit in the course of business - including selling your purchasing habits to a marketing firm for analysis.

If you don't like it, tough titties. Move to a developing nation that doesn't have technology yet.

Re:How is this legal?

[richg74]

Yes, they can do just that.

While your account information may be personal to you, these records constitute business records that are owned by AT&T.

This really summarizes the legal problems with privacy here in the US. Although the data that people collect on you is "personal to you", it almost always, legally, belongs to whoever collected it. The hodgepodge of Federal and state laws doesn't help. For example, here in Virginia, my medical records are the property of my doctor. It was only relatively recently that legislation was passed that gives me the statutory right to see my own medical records.

This also relates directly to the more-or-less careless approach many firms take to protecting personal data. If the data belongs to them, they are that much more insulated from any legal consquences of losing it.

Bruce Schneier has discussed this in a number of his blog posts and essays.

Re:How is this legal?

[gbobeck]

Can they really legally say, "Welp, even though it's your personal data, we reserve the right to do whatever we want with it if it benefits us or our partners." ?

I am not a lawyer, but from what I have seen on the web, it is perfectly ok and legal provided they don't include "Nyah, Nyah Nyah, Nyah Nyah.", "Neener Neener, or "Smoochy Boochy" at the end of the policy.

Re:How is this legal?

[mrchaotica]

You know, 10 years ago the only people worried about privacy were those crazy militia guys in Montana. Nowadays, they not only seem sane, but increasingly look like geniuses!

Re:How is this legal?

[DM9290]

If you don't like it, tough titties. Move to a developing nation that doesn't have technology yet.

because you can shit-sure bet that "In America" your government representative doesn't care what you think.

Re:How is this legal?

[voice_of_all_reason]

If you don't like it, tough titties.

Paying in cash, not accepting value cards, and lying through your teeth on any papers they have you fill out (like rebates) also works remarkably well.

Re:How is this legal?

[Guppy06]

"Can they really legally say,"

Why not? The laws are written by those same people who can't bring themselves to even question the NSA's and AT&T's activities.

Re:How is this legal?

[SpecTheIntro]

Why did this post get modded down? In fact, a lot of posts previous this were modded "Troll" as well, for pretty suspect reasons, but stratjakt's reply isn't Trollish in the slightest. What's going on?

Re:How is this legal?

[Valthan]

Or Canada, we have Technology and the Privacy Act keeps all of this shit from being possible... although, with Harper in power now who knows how long that will last, the god-damned Bush lover.

Re:How is this legal?

[cayenne8]

"Best Buy is allowed to keep all your credit card purchases on file, and use those records however they see fit in the course of business - including selling your purchasing habits to a marketing firm for analysis. If you don't like it, tough titties. Move to a developing nation that doesn't have technology yet."

Or....you could just use cash.

:-)

Re:How is this legal?

[stratjakt]

The easy answer would be slashdot groupthink, but the truth is even simpler..

It's mod-bombing.. I have a pretty lengthy foes list, you see, and most of my posts get a few negative mods just by virtue of I made them.

And I'm all for wasting the mod points of people who don't really deserve to have 'em.

Seriously, watch my post history.. It's funny.. A post that was +5 whatever will eventually get smacked with a buttload of "overrated" "troll" and "flamebaits". I make my share of overrated, trollish and flamebait posts, sure, but sometimes I honestly try to post an opinion, or some info, etc.

I've even had posts DELETED. Yeah, they actually do it. Of course I can't prove it, the posts are deleted. Usually on the more vitriolic type of stuff I say once in awhile. I think it's really fucking cool that Taco and his crew consider some of my opinions that threatening that they take the time to pause the sailor moon dvd and brush enough cheeto crumbs off their fingertips to delete my post. Nice to know you care, daddypants.

And the coolest thing about it is, I get enough upmods to keep me hovering between good/excellent karma.. Neat, huh? In fact, I'm at excellent right now, so I'm going to use my karma bonus to waste three misallocated mod points on this complete non-sequitor post.

Re:How is this legal?

[StreetStealth]

I thought I'd go to my bank to see if I could order a copy of my credit report through them. They told me that, even though they can look up a host of things before extending credit to me, by law, they can't show me my own report.

That law just helped me how?

Re:How is this legal?

[svnt]

You know, 10 years ago the only people worried about privacy were those crazy militia guys in Montana. Nowadays, they not only seem sane, but increasingly look like geniuses!

You know, I think you're on to something. Because the first thing I think when I see some guy holed up alone in his house surrounded by a hundred heavily armed police officers is, "gee, that guy has really thought this through."

Although I guess I can't formally disagree on the topic of his sanity given the definition and the fact that he'll never get the chance to repeat the same action.

Re:How is this legal?

[mrchaotica]

You know, my bank actually issued me a credit card without my consent and still didn't give me a copy of my credit report, because they said they didn't do a credit check first. What. The. FUCK?!!!

So, does this mean we can get out of our contracts

[mrchaotica]

...with the company formerly known as Cingular, since they're changing the terms of the agreement after the fact?

Did you get the memo?

[GonzoTech]

The privacy policy clearly states that the National Security Agency, NSA, is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T.

Thank you!

[RingDev]

The best way to force AT&T to change their game is to vote with your all-mighty dollar. A single dollar-voting customer is worth any number of petitions and angry letters.

-Rick

Re:Thank you!

[voice_of_all_reason]

"Best" is such an overused modifier. How can you be sure that would really be the best way?

I'd imagine the freekin' Hand of God coming out of the sky and obliterating AT&T headquarters might spur them to make the change just a wee bit faster.

Re:Thank you!

[Aqualung812]

Please tell me how I can vote with my dollar! I am serious. My local telco is Indiana Bell/Ameritech/SBC/AT&T. My local cable is Comcast. I don't like Comcast's support of tiered service, nor AT&T's. I cancelled my 6mb/384k cable Internet for a metered phone line (from AT&T - no choice) that is plugged only into my 1.5mb/128k DSL modem from a local ISP. I use Vonage, but now my call quality is poor since I'm getting jitter between my DSL modem and the DSLAM, probally because I'm 14,000 ft from AT&T's CO. Even though I'm not paying AT&T for DSL I'm paying them for the metered phone line and my ISP is paying them for bandwidth along with a few other tier 1's so they can have some fault tolerance. Even Dial-up would give AT&T more money than the solution I have come up with, since I would need unmetered phone service and then I wouldn't have Vonage. So, I guess I could unplug completely, but how would I get on /. to see when my message has been heard and I can get back online? I'm really looking for input here. I've called my congressman, who promptly voted for the phone companies.

Re:Thank you!

[LunaticTippy]

Wireless would minimize the $$ that gets to AT&T. I've used T-Mobile's unlimited data service ($20/month) and it was acceptable. About 120k up/down was the speed I experienced.

Some areas have ricochet or whatever that morphed into, that would be another option.

At the worst, if you felt forced to use their service, you could set up a wireless network with your neighbors to minimize how much $$ the bad guys get from each of you.

Re:Thank you!

[zolaar]

Yes, I also feel better. As a result of actions by people like the GP, the world will undoubtedly very soon become a better place.

::climbs onto unicorn::
Ahoy, Rainbow! Take me home!
::rides in direction of MakeBelieveLand::

Re:Thank you!

[arunkv]

What?! You want a middle-aged Maradona to take on AT&T. He was great at his prime but I doubt he can do anything against AT&T ;-)

Re:Thank you!

[Deadplant]

carefull, talking about a "hand of god" "obliterating" corporate headquarters is dangerous speech in the "free world".
If they ever let you out let me know what's it's like in those secret prisons.

Re:Thank you!

[voice_of_all_reason]

It'd be a toss-up for them, cause they're all big fans of divine retribution. A catch-22 if you will. I'd simply counter "wait, you're telling me God couldn't do that? Doesn't sound very omnipotent to me!"

Of course, they probably like a wiseass terrorist even less than the regular ones :(

Can we do the same back to them?

[Anonymous Coward]

We use AT&T to host our datacenter. I bet a lot of other companies (both their customers who are being overcharged, and their competitors) are interested in the price we pay / discounts we were offered. Can I rewrite our privacy policy and publish those?

Ouch.

[theskipper]

That does it. I'm sending back my "AT&T Best Friends Forever" ring.

Re:So, does this mean we can get out of our contra

[m-wielgo]

If this is true, excellent opportunity for me to switch to a better service and avoid the $200 rape

Perfect opportunity for me to get off my duff.

[(H)elix1]

With my bride and I both using cell phones as our primary line, I've put off canceling them on my POTS line for long distance service. Well no more - the $8USD/month (was $3, but it looks like it jumped up with extra fees) just to have the service is not a lot of cash, but at least I'll get a chance to give AT&T a big old FU and the horse you road in on. The rep had the brass to say this was something to strengthen my 'privacy', then started on a song and dance about September 11th.

For those in the US, 1-800-222-0300 option 6 gets you where you need to go. Expect a 30 minute (or more) wait time.

Fuckers...

Re:Perfect opportunity for me to get off my duff.

[rodgster]

I gave them the one finger salute back when they were SBC (cut the land line completely).

At the time, it was to protest their outsourcing.

Re:Perfect opportunity for me to get off my duff.

[Sparr0]

This letter is to serve as official notice that you are violating my intellectual property covering the nucleic base sequence: "UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU". Please cease distribution and reproduction of this sequence immediately, in particular your use of it in your 3rd and 9th chromosomes and on the website "slashdot.org". Evidence of compliance will be expected forthwith.

Re:Perfect opportunity for me to get off my duff.

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of good that's done.

Re:Perfect opportunity for me to get off my duff.

[(H)elix1]

This letter is to serve as official notice that you are violating my intellectual property covering the nucleic base sequence: "UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU".

UCUAUAUUGCUCUAC UUUUGUAAAGAACGU

Contract Violation

[Doc Ruby]

In most states, actually operating under the terms of a contract, even if it's not signed by any party, gives that contract full force and effect.

If I used AT&T for anything covered by that privacy "policy", I'd sue them for unilaterally changing the terms of the contract without my consent. If I were a lawyer, I'd construct a class of everyone whose contract they're breaching.

Unless the old privacy policy says "AT&T can unilaterally change any terms of this policy without notice at any time", in which case I'd be a fool to think it was anything but an invitation to screw me whenever they want.

Re:Contract Violation

[ceejayoz]

Unless the old privacy policy says "AT&T can unilaterally change any terms of this policy without notice at any time"

The number of large companies lacking that phrase in their privacy policies can likely be counted on a limbless war victim's fingers.

Furthermore

[aepervius]

Do you know many legal agreement between two private party, and which can be changed at any time by one party, even absolving this party from any previous legal agreemeent with the other party, without involving this second party ? Me neither.

Re:Furthermore

[Mister Whirly]

"Do you know many legal agreement between two private party, and which can be changed at any time by one party, even absolving this party from any previous legal agreemeent with the other party, without involving this second party ?"

You mean like Bush and the Constitution??

Re:Furthermore

[gfreeman]

Your credit card agreement, perhaps?

wait... the cable co isn't tracking what I watch?!

[legal_asshole]

"Notable changes include notification that AT&T will track viewing habits of customers of its new video services Homezone and U-Verse, which is forbidden for cable and satellite companies, [...]"

Did anybody else find that the most shocking/suprising part of the article? I had just always assumed that the primary purpose of the digital boxes the cable company gives you was so that they could have more control over tracking what you're watching and when, but apparently my secret American Idol fetish is safe (at least from the cable company's datawharehouse).

What !!

[cdogbert]

All your data are belong to us. You have no chance to complain, make your time.

Re:What !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone set us up the bomb? Move every NSA.

Not off the hook?

[orb_fan]

IANAL, but it seems to me that this doesn't get them off the hook with the NSA taps. First, I would assume that they can only give to the government what they themselves collect (so NSA tapping the lines means that the NSA is collecting the data and not AT&T). Second, the request for data still has to be legal, and that question is still open for the courts.

Vote with your Dollars

[Efialtis]

So, it is now time to cancel any AT&T service. I dumped my Long Distance (in favor of Vonage), I dumped my Cell Phone, and I would not use their other services for anything, especially when I can get use other companies for less $$...
Vote with your dollars...don't pay them if they aren't serving your interests as a customer.
It really is that simple.

Virus ownership?

[Sebastopol]

Does that mean if I download a virus from an AT&T pipe that they own the virus too, so if it damanges my machine I can sue them, or maybe I can hold AT&T responsible for "their data" corrupting "my system" that I purchased?

Re:Virus ownership?

[Anonymous Coward]

They are basically saying they have ownership rights to everything that goes thru their pipes, so if you get a virus from their pipes they, by their own words, own that virus. If that virus does cause damage I don't see why they shouldn't be sued since they own the virus.

Also since they are saying they own all this data, they would be guilty of anything illegal going thru their pipes. They can't have it both ways. :) They either own all data going thru their pipes or the end user owns their own data.

Re:Effective tool

[Tackhead]

> The NSA terrorist surveillance program approved by President Bush is an effective tool for law enforcement to identify and break up terrorist activity before it can metastasize again on these shores and cause 9/11 style death and destruction. A large majority of the American electorate approves this action. By all means write to your representative on this issue. That is the American way. Then take your place on the minority side of the issue while President Bush kicks the bloody hell out of radical islam.

The NSA terrorist surveillance program approved by President Clinton II is an effective tool for law enforcement to identify and break up terrorist activity before it can can metastasize again on these shores and cause Okalahoma-style death and destruction. A large majority of the American electorate approves this action. By all means write to your representative on this issue. That is the American way. Then take your place on the minority side of the issue while President Clinton II thanks your half of the Party for giving her the tools she needs to kick the bloody hell out of the Second Amendment fanatics.

(And after 8 years of Republicans arguing against Stasi-like surveillance of fundie Christian groups, the Democratic wing of the Party will power over to the Republican wing of the Party, and the ratchet having gone another 360 degrees tighter...)

VOIP modem to Out of country ISP?

[RingDev]

Now, this could be a heck of a performance hit, but... What if a company supplied a local VOIP call-in bank. As in POTS copper lines that you could dial into on a modem. That VOIP call could then be secured and piped to some other country. The other end of the VOIP call would then be answered by a modem bank which spits out into some foreign ISP.

It would be slow as tar, but it should get you a connection that isn't being directly reviewed by the NSA.

The other problem is that even those of us who don't sign AT&T's privacy agreement can still be monitored as packets bound for us may travel over their backbone pipes.

-Rick

Re:VOIP modem to Out of country ISP?

[Oswald]

Well, it's interesting, but it kind of misses the point. I don't have anything to hide from the NSA; that's not why I want them to stop spying on Americans. I want them to stop spying on Americans because stopping is the right, legal thing to do. Attempting to circumvent their procedures might give be fun in a "stickin' it to the man" sort of way, but it doesn't really take us where we want to go.

Re:VOIP modem to Out of country ISP?

[WCLPeter]

You have nothing to hide huh?

Would it be okay then if I came over to your house and went through your bookshelf, I'm really curious to see what kinds of books you read. Oh, you read *those* kinds of books huh? But you got nothin' to hide so I guess it won't bother you if I tell all your neighbors about it huh? Woah, what's that over there? No, over there on the coffe table. That's your wife, damn she's hot, you wouldn't mind if I stick around later and watch you guys have sex huh? What, the video camera, well damn man your wife is hot and I gots tons of friends on the internet that would love to get video of you tapping that. Dude, you're phone's ringing it's your Dad, you want me to go? Why, you want some privacy, how come, I thought you had nothing to hide?

I abso-frackin'-lutley hate it when people say they have nothing to hide. EVERYONE has something to hide. Our lives are private and we should have every right to decide who, when and what information we divulge to others as well as expect those that deal with our personal information to keep it just as private.

Pete...

Re:VOIP modem to Out of country ISP?

[Oswald]

Mmmmm. Caffeine. I like it, too.

Anyway, here's the thing. You're all over me for nothing. I'm the one who said the goal was to get government out of our private conversations. The OP said "dude, I know where you and your hot wife can go screw without people watching," and I said, "no, dude, I want all those people out of our bedroom, and then we can screw there."

I think you think that "hiding something" and "maintaining privacy" are functionally equivalent phrases. They are not. When I close the door to go to the bathroom I'm not hiding. When I pull the blinds closed before I have sex with my wife, I'm not hiding.

I know it's all semantics, but I think my usage is closer to the accepted one. At any rate, I don't think you and I disagree. We're just using words differently.

Re:VOIP modem to Out of country ISP?

[WCLPeter]

I apologize, I didn't mean my comment to appear to come down hard on you. I was trying to illustrate using an extreme analogy the folly of using the phrase "I have nothing to hide" because there *are* some people out there that think people who fight for their privacy rights "probably have something to hide"; with a connotation towards it being a "bad" something.

I agree that they're not functionally equivalent phrases, obviously some people hide "bad" things, most people don't. I do think that for the majority of law abiding citizens they are tied closley together. The whole idea of personal privacy is to keep certain aspects of your life hidden from those you do not wish to share them with.

Like your comment about the bathroom. Yes if you go in and close the door you're probably taking a crap and do I hope you turn on the fan. ;-) However you could also be a diabetic checking your blood surgars and because people treat you differently when they find out, you don't really want anyone other than close family and friends knowing about it.

I won't even mention all the kinky things you might be doing with your wife after you close the blinds. ;-)

Saying that you have *nothing* to hide is likely true in the "legal" sense in respect to the illegal wiretaps. Yet in terms of your private life I'm certain you wouldn't want anyone to listen and take notes while Aunt Irma complains about Uncle Phil's cheating with the lady in accounting again.

I hate "I have nothing to hide" because it can and often does give ammunition to those who seek to do their jobs easier (only terrorists want privacy) by undermining our right to privacy. Everyone has the right to hide aspects of their lives from other people and strong protection of our privacy rights is the only real way of keeping it that way.

Pete...

Actual policies...

[dthulson]

Here are links to the new policy and the current policy.

Re:Actual policies...

[dthulson]

Note to get that first link you'll either have cookies enabled, and answer some questions about what services you have from SBC. As far as I can tell, any of their options will get you to the same page...

Relationship to NSA Tracking

[tabdelgawad]

I was going to submit the following Salon article to the front page, but this will have to do

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/06/21/att_n sa/index_np.html

You have to wonder if the two stories are related.

Re:Relationship to NSA Tracking

[gaveawaymyname]

"...which over the last three decades is widely understood to have focused exclusively on collecting signals intelligence from abroad."

Even over 30 years, the NSA can't understand what a woman is trying to say.

Re:Effective tool my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Pass the Kool-Aid!

You & Bush are traitors!

Bush has subverted the Constitution!

The Only thing upon which his Oath of Office is based.

You sir, are a fascist.

In other words...

[symbolic]

As such, AT&T may disclose such records to protect its legitimate business interests,

Translation: "Everything has its price, including our souls and our integrity as a member of the private sector."

Re:In other words...

[gstoddart]

As such, AT&T may disclose such records to protect its legitimate business interests,

Translation: "Everything has its price, including our souls and our integrity as a member of the private sector."

Soul? Integrity? We're talking about a friggin' corporation, they don't have souls or integrity. If the steering comittee/board/whatever votes that it is in the best interests of the shareholders/themselves to do something, that's about the full extent of actual morality which applies.

A company could have a mission statement which mandates that the board behave within a proscribed set of moral codes (like "The Body Shop" not testing on animals), but one should never actually acribe moral actions to a corporation. Least of all, one as large as AT&T.

Re:In other words...

[Anonymous Coward]

Souls? They have none, they already gave them up to idol worship; if you're wondering what idol, here's a hint: he's green and he's not a frog or an environmentalist. And you probably have his likeness in your wallet.

These aren't Christians or Muslims or Jews, they're Capitalists. Capitalism is the US's new State Religion. Anything for a buck, and if you're poor you must be evil.

Boycott

[JymBrittain]

There are alternatives out there for telecommunication services. Show AT&T what you think about their policies and hit them where it hurts. Dump them as providers!

Re:Boycott

[Anonymous Coward]

Or just encrypt everything and run through proxies. They can share data until the cows come home, making any sense of it will be prohibitively expensive if you do it right.

Re:Boycott

[debozero]

I dumped AT&T Wireless a few years ago when my CC # was stolen (twice) after I paid my wireless bill online. I told them about the situation and how I paid my bill both times (first time at home second at work). They told me I was on my own for the most part and all but refused to look into the problem on their end. So I cancelled my service with them and about 2 weeks later my buddy called me and told me his CC# was stolen a few weeks after paying his AT&T bill online. So from my stand point AT&T has been giving personal information out without permission for years and now they are just trying to make it legal hmmm where have I heard that before?

Re:Boycott

[Anonymous Coward]

I already encrypt my traffic whenever possible, but I don't have a list of proxies to use. Anyone want to help me out?

Re:Boycott

[Anonymous Coward]

Tor and Privoxy complicate your surfing enough that it's going to be undesirable for passive snoops to invest the time to try and figure out what you're doing. If there's somebody who has a specific reason to be investigating you, however, this would probably not dissuade them.

Re:Effective tool

[evileyetmc]

The NSA terrorist surveillance program approved by President Bush is an effective tool for law enforcement ...

Really? I didn't realize that, since I have not heard of one terrorist activity being prevented by the NSA. After all, what are wiretapped grandmas going to do?

I have no problem with wiretaps, if they are warranted. These days, it is not difficult to get the warrant...you could just show some evidence that the person may be linked to a terrorist organization, and wahlah, you have a warrant. All that I ask is that the get the warrant first, or at least get one period.

Oh, and if you can show me where this wiretapping has been more successful than traditional techniques, I'd be all ears. Until then I will continue to not jump on the 'kill the jihad' bandwagon. This country needs at least a few sane heads.

Re:Effective tool

[Anonymous Coward]

I would expect more backbone from a poster at /.

Throughout every lie and deception perpetrated by the sitting administration in an "effort" to "improve" the security of this nation, I am reminded of a few little blurbs from Benjamin Franklin:

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety"
"Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor liberty to purchase power"

Read between the lines...

[EvilGrin5000]

FTFA...

Gail Hillebrand, a staff attorney at Consumers Union in San Francisco, said the declaration that AT&T owns customers' data represents the most significant departure from the company's previous policy. "It creates the impression that they can do whatever they want," she said. "This is the real heart of AT&T's new policy and is a pretty fundamental difference from how most customers probably see things."

...from how most customers probably see things. Which brings me to the next quote FTFA...

John Britton, an AT&T spokesman, denied that the updated privacy policy marks a shift in the company's approach to customers' info. "We don't see this as anything new," he said. "Our goal was to make the policy easier to read and easier for customers to understand."

...

But Britton insisted that these elements essentially could be found between the lines of the former policy. "There were many things that were implied in the last policy." He said. "We're just clarifying the last policy."

So my dear /. fellows, AT&T is clearly stating that it was always their intention to use your private information for their needs, and it was always in their power. What changed is that now the words used in the policy are more black-and-white than before. As far as AT&T 'owning' a customer's private info, I'd like to see the policy and read the fine print. Since I don't have one on hand, I think they are talking about the customer's information is private to the customer (DOB, SSN, First/Last name etc...) but to AT&T, it is a piece of DATA which belongs to the business. The DATA contains private info, but I think AT&T is claiming ownership on your data as a whole, as part of a registered user. The fact that they will disclose DOBs, names etc... for whatever reason, is a cascade scenario occuring from the fact that the DATA they will disclose, happens to contain your private information. This policy change is not a shocker at all. In fact it's more shocking that they actually stated in the policy the 'ownership' and 'disclosure' as clearly as they did. We all knew AT&T has always disclosed information.

Re:Read between the lines...

[Anonymous Coward]

When did you give AT&T your SSN, or even DOB?

They have your name, address, and billing information. They need to be able to use that to bill you.

Re:Effective tool

[IAmTheDave]

kicks the bloody hell out of radical islam

<offtopic> There sure is a lot of blood... </offtopic>

Who says...

[saleenS281]

Who says he isn't aiming this at them (end user ISP's)? Last I checked the type who read slashdot tend to be the type who at least get a vote as to who their transit is coming from.

Charter Communicationsbasically does this also

[xlr8ed]

15. RIGHT TO MONITOR

Neither Charter nor any of its affiliates, suppliers, or agents have any obligation to monitor transmissions or postings (including, but not limited to, e-mail, newsgroup, and instant message transmission as well as materials available on the personal web pages and online storage features) made on the Service. However, Charter and its affiliates, suppliers, and agents have the right to monitor these transmissions and postings from time to time for violations of this Policy and to disclose, block, or remove them in accordance with the Subscriber Agreement and any other applicable agreements and policies.

Charter laid this out about 15 months ago, basically stating that they have the right to watch and record anything you are doing under the guise of "protecting" itself

sheep

[non]

i hate regulation...
privacy policy...
etc.

are you people stupid? you must be, the government just announced it spent 30 million of your money to buy exactly this type of information. in my mind thats the ultimate indignation, they broke the law, and operated against my interests using my cash. if you're going to sit around and just carp about privacy policies rather than demanding serious reforms AND regulations in the laws governing personal information then thats exactly what you are...

Re:sheep

[QCompson]

if you're going to sit around and just carp about privacy policies rather than demanding serious reforms AND regulations in the laws governing personal information then thats exactly what you are...

Good point, but did you see American Idol this season? It was awesome!

Re:sheep

[Red Flayer]

"are you people stupid? "

No.

"you must be, the government just announced it spent 30 million of your money to buy exactly this type of information. in my mind thats the ultimate indignation, they broke the law, and operated against my interests using my cash."

Yes, we must be stupid because the government did something we don't like.

"if you're going to sit around and just carp about privacy policies rather than demanding serious reforms AND regulations in the laws governing personal information then thats exactly what you are..."

Well, it sure as hell beats sitting around and carping about people carping about the problem. How do you know that no one posting here isn't making serious efforts to get these problems fixed? How do you know whether or not I met with my NJ state senator last week regarding this issue? How do you know that I haven't been calling my US Senator to discuss, following up with letters?

You don't know jack about what actions other slahdot contributors are doing, so pipe down.

In short, by your definition of stupid, you're twice as stupid as the people you complain about. Why don't you take some action instead of sitting on your rear? Or even better, organize people to take action as a group instead of whinging about the complainers?

Re:sheep

[whargoul]

Maybe you should Do some research before going off half cocked.

Re:sheep

[enantiodromia]

yes, i am sure you are at the spear's tip of the coming revolution.

a big BEND OVER to any percieved competitors

[Thud457]

"I have changed the agreement. Pray I don't change it further."

Re:a big BEND OVER to any percieved competitors

[Anonymous Coward]

a big BEND OVER to any percieved competitors

i before e except after c. Unless you are bending over then it's aiiii eeeee.

Re:a big BEND OVER to any percieved competitors

[r00t]

Now I know why AT+T uses the Death Star for their logo.

privacy?

[blitz487]

'While your account information may be personal to you, these records constitute business records that are owned by AT&T. As such, AT&T may disclose such records to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process.'

In other words, their "privacy" policy is they can do whatever they please without limit with your information.

How far AT&T have fallen...

[SourceVisigoth]

Over the past 30 years they've gone from a monolithic corporate/government agency that owns your phone, line, and soul to a decentralized oligarchy that owns your phone, line, and soul... back to a umm... hrrmmm..

Re:So, does this mean we can get out of our contra

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Cingular is a joint venture between AT&T and Bellsouth. The privacy policy with them is what applies to you. Nice try.

Why does contract law allow this?

[Valdrax]

I've always wondered exactly why contract law allows for one (but not both) of the parties to arbitrarily define the terms of what either party is allowed to do under the contract. What's the point of allowing an agreement to be binding that can be completely subverted in meaning at any time?

Re:Why does contract law allow this?

[harrkev]

IANAL, but the contract IS binding, and both parties have to live up to it

The catch is that when somebody changes it, you have to be notified. You can generally choose to reject the changes, but that will mean canceling whatever contract that you have with them.

Now for one interesting question...

Let's say that one of the cell phone companies decides to change the privacly policy. If you choose to reject the changes to the privacy policy, will the carrier let you keep the old one, or will the just drop you? And if they drop you, will you have to pay the cancellation charges (assuming that you just got a shiny new phone)?

Things that make you go "hmmmm."

Re:Why does contract law allow this?

[winnabago]

I did exactly this with Verizon, after raising SMS rates 8 months into a 2 year contract (with notification), I objected in writing and asked to be terminated, or at least held to the original terms. They told me that I would be charged the termination fee anyway, because it was at my request. Even though I didn't agree to the new conditions, they said I agreed to such "minor" changes at the beginning. And my rate is not contractually bound, so it's subject to their whim, apparently.

To further complicate matters, the original contract was printed on a thermal receipt-type printer, and my copy has since faded to illegibility. It didn't have the complete language anyway, to the extent that where I signed, it referred to my agreement to a copy of the "current" terms, as available on the website. These have obviously changed over the last two years, so what did I agree to?

Is it even an option to take someone like this to small claims court?

Re:Why does contract law allow this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just don't pay. If they are owed money, then it becomes their problem to get: they take you to court. If teh court agrees with them, fail to pay. If they want to jail you, it is then criminal and you can insist on a jury of your peers. You will win then.

Re:Why does contract law allow this?

[winnabago]

That's how it should work, however they would likely write off the difference and post a red mark on my credit file. They wouldn't leave it up to a local court. When I go to contest the line, they will say that I didn't pay my bill in full. Essentially there is no recourse.

Re:Why does contract law allow this?

[carbonautomoton]

Well i dunno if it was done as a legal way of covering their asses but...

When i worked for cingular the rates of any service that you use are locked into the plan that you originally agreed to. As long as you PERSONALLY don't do anything to change said plan or the conditions under which your agreement originally applied (ie: get a new phone, change to a newer better plan, etc.) then they are not allowed to change it, they have to make every REASONABLE effort to accomodate you, so until the plan is so old that you're the only one on it and it no longer works with the technology that they use for some reason or another they will keep you on it. Now of course if something does occur that you were to lose the plan due to this change in technology, etc. then they would compensate you in some way if you complained and it meant doing so in order to keep your business.

To be more specific about the rates. Let's say that you had originally signed up for a certain amount of minutes and later added on a special text messaging feature that allowed you to send 100 messages a month for 5.95, since this was a seperate feature from that of your plan, assuming that it is compatible or will work (due to software and hardware issues) with said plan then you have not yet changed your contract. If later down the road they raise the rate of the 100 text message feature from 5.95 to 6.95 then unless you had requested some change that would make the old 5.95 feature incompatible with the other features on your account, or had otherwise requested to change to the new 6.95 feature due to new options offered, etc. then you would continue getting billed only 5.95 a month.

as far as the contracts go. If something happens on your account that sufficiently angers you and you want to cancel w/o the contract termination fees then this is something that they are capable of doing if you speak to someone high enough on the totem pole and bitch and complain enough. They do this for 2 reasons. 1 of them is to get you off of their back because in the end, when you are brining in tens of millions of dollars a year, that extra 250$ isn't worth the effort. The other one is because most of the time the people that you speak with aren't familiar enough with contract law to know if what they did was technically legal either (since these companies skirt the lines of legality pretty often anyway) and once again they realize that just in case it WAS a breech of contract...you guessed it...it's just not worth the fucking effort.

Re:Why does contract law allow this?

[winnabago]

I appreciate you response, and I agree with your second paragraph fully. That's all that I wanted - to pay what I agreed to. Apparently cingular has a different definition of 'agreement'.

I just wanted to mention that otherwise, my relationship with Verizon hasn't been too rocky, so there isn't an incentive to get out of the contract. However, garbage like this is why we all dislike cell providers, and telcos in general. I only wanted to be held to the original terms, yet the only options, apparently, are to pay up, or get out.

Now, I know there are ways to get out of the termination fee (you mentioned a few), but why should I have to make this choice? What is so important about charging me ten cents instead of none for incoming text messages? A feud with a customer? That's the problem with the situation IMHO.

Re:Why does contract law allow this?

[carbonautomoton]

oh i agree with you totally. situations just like the one that you described are actually the reason that i no longer work in the cell phone industry (i worked for varying periods of time for Cingular, Sprint, and Nextel).

You absolutely shouldn't have to threaten to cancel your contract or deal with the repercussions of doing so simply because you wanted to receive the services that you originally agreed to. However the companies are justified in causing you to make these choices (sometimes legally justified and sometimes the legality of their self-prescribed justification are questionable at best).

As another example that typically draws a little less ire though, think of it like your car insurance. If at some point during your policy period something occurs (whether it's your fault or simply the fault of a lot of accidents w/in your state recently) that makes them feel that they are justified in raising your rates, you have no recourse except to cancel the policy or pay the rates. Now this may not be exactly the same situation because you don't have to pay to get out of your contract with the insurance companies, but it gives another example of companies being allowed to change the rules of the game.

I actually mentioned in another recent post regarding cell phone companies the reasoning behind the contract termination fees. It turns out that because the companies have to spend such a large amount of money on advertising in order to get your business not to mention the fact that the cell phone itself is almost always given to the customer at a discounted rate (even the companies themselves pay 3-500$ for new model cell phones), then depending on the amount of money that a customer spends every month it can take as long as 2 years before the cell phone company begins to turn a profitt on that customer. Now i'm not saying that this excuses their actions but if you look at it from a business standpoint it does make sense. The problem arises when the companies feel that for their own convenience they are justified in changing the terms of the contract. Sometimes simply by arbitrarily assigning new 1 or 2 year agreements to accounts because they are not under contract. This type of fraud on cell companies parts is very difficult to prove as a contract can be renewed or extended simply by a verbal agreement over the phone or simply because a customer accepted a special offer which (whether they signed or verbally agreed to a contract or not) is only available if they extend their contract. In the latter case a customer is legally responsible to uphold their end of a contract because agreeing to receive service that requires a contract is an implicit agreement to the terms of that service.

The only recommendation that i can really make to you in your particular case though is to call customer service and raise as much hell as possible. Chances are that they still have the software codes for the old text messaging feature which was free in their system and with proper manager approval (which will undoubtedly be given if a manager feels that it is more worth their time to comply with your requests than to argue) that code can still be applied to your account. The companies simply realize that most customers will not follow-through to the point to be a bother out of either apathy or lack of concern.

I wish there was another way around this but...it's the only option that you really have. You have no legal recourse because attempting to prove that they have wronged you (or rather since it would be a civil suit: attempting to make them prove that they have NOT) would simply result in endless litigation due to the vague way that the contracts are drawn up. Not only that but financially it wouldn't be worth the effort. Also changing companies isn't really a valid solution since all companies have their own way of screwing you out of your money (although if you want my opinion from the companies that i've worked for Sprint is by far the worst and should be av

Where is the privacy policy?

[spamacon]

I've looked at AT+T's site (ok, att.sbc.com) to see the Privacy Policy, going to this link for the full text of the policy, and unless they changed something because of the article, I can't find any of the language that is quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle report. Specifically, I can't find this quote:
"to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process."
I can't find the word "legitimate" in the policy at all. Am I looking at the wrong policy?

Please, be gentle. Thanks.

Re:Where is the privacy policy?

[spamacon]

Responding to my own reply, this looks like it only applies to ATT Yahoo internet (Dialup, DSL) and video, and has nothing to do with ATT wireless (ok, Cingular), voice (including POTS), etc. Somebody posted a link to the actual privacy policy in question here.

Re:Where is the privacy policy?

[Bananatree3]

Note that the policy you link to has this line on the top of it: "Effective 06/16/06"

The article says that the new policy will be effective Friday, and since the article was published today, this equates to this upcoming Friday, 06/23/06. This probably means that the author of the article somehow got his hands on a copy of the new policy and that we'll have to wait til Friday to see it on the SBC frontpage, UNLESS they have it buried somewhere's in their press release statements.

Colluding with the government

[Anonymous Bullard]

Although most Americans seem to accept this kind of erosion of personal privacy in the name of comrade Bush's long war of terror or simply as the undeniable birthright of large corporations, only a handful understands that these kind of US policies are helping spread the big chill across other continents as well.

Forgetting about hypocrisy for a moment, there was a time when the US would advocate and to an extent even represent personal freedoms in most other parts of the world. Now it's all empty talk in inaugural speeches about the great USA is helping oppressed people regain their freedoms but as it happens most of those people desperately needing american support just happen to be oppressed by so-called allies in this "war of terror, countries like China etc.

For those of us who actually live under undemocratic governments, the fact that american telecoms are helping the government track people and their interests is making it painfully easy for other freedom-hating regimes to impose similar or worse policies which only help chill the personal freedoms even further.

Re:Colluding with the government

[routerguy666]

Does standing as a bastion of liberty cause other governments around the world to try and emulate?

No, never.

Has an oppressive government ever needed to use another government as an excuse for the way they run their own country?

No, never.

+4 insightful for revealing a fundamental lack of understanding about the nature of nation states. At least you've got company.

Re:Colluding with the government

[Apoklypse]

For those of us who actually live under undemocratic governments, a fellow Canadian, Eh !

SSL Sites Are Becoming A Must

[LoneWlf794]

This should deffinitely spur an outcry for SSL sites. If someone infringes your privacy you should should lash out and try to have the problem fixed. Whenever you can't get the job done though it's nice to have something to fall back on. Any defense is better than no defense. I just checked https://slashdot.org/ and got redirected to the http:/// page. I suggest you all write with me asking for encryption on this site and any other site that you actually care about.

Re:SSL Sites Are Becoming A Must

[NakedPenguin]

The problem with this is that SSL has been arbitrarily tied to "certification," which is the biggest racket on the internet. A grand gets you a certificate and allows users to visit your encrypted site without getting an OMG IDENTITY THEIVES message. If you don't want to shell out for this, forget about running an ecrypted site. Yes, these two things (encryption and trust) should be separate. But they're not.

Re:SSL Sites Are Becoming A Must

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, these two things (encryption and trust) should be separate. But they're not.

Encryption and trust most certainly are separate. Companies like VeriSign and Thawte just make "trust" easier since their CA Certs come pre-installed in most browsers, allowing you to avoid the nag dialog claiming "Untrusted Cert!!". There would be nothing stopping /. from self signing a cert and letting people import it.

Re:SSL Sites Are Becoming A Must

[NakedPenguin]

Companies like VeriSign and Thawte just make "trust" easier since their CA Certs come pre-installed in most browsers, allowing you to avoid the nag dialog claiming "Untrusted Cert!!".

That's exactly the problem - the fact that a few "trusted" CAs are pre-recognized by browsers makes it impossible (for all practical purposes) to provide your own certificate because users will have to import your certificate in order to avoid being notified that your site is not trustworthy. On a site with a large pre-existing and tech-savvy audience like Slashdot, this may be okay - but just try getting users to willingly do this for a different site.

This is why it's too late to do anything about the problem. The average user is so used to the fact that any site with an "https://" url is "trustworthy" unless they're otherwise notified, that if encryption and trust were suddenly separated, identity theives would have a field day.

Companies are in business to serve us

[NetNinja]

I guess the larger a company gets the more they feel they are in business to serve thier own purposes.

How some of these phone/data companies make money is beyond me, it seems that the amount of profit they take in is so incredibly small and when it comes time to merge or sell these companies millions of dollars are shuffled under another shell.

Corporate Espionage

[W.Mandamus]

"While your account information may be personal to you, these records constitute business records that are owned by AT&T. As such, AT&T may disclose such records to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process."

So lets see:
If I work at AT&T and a headhunter calls me at work or at home the corporation to check my phone records to "protect its legitimate business interests".

If I am a competitor of AT&T's, AT&T can find out what VC's I've been calling to "protect its legitimate business interests".

If I am sueing AT&T, AT&T can check my phone records to find out when I called my lawyer to "protect its legitimate business interests".

If I sign a contract with AT&T to provide me with my competitors phone records AT&T can do it to "protect its legitimate business interests".

You know if I were in charge of secruity for a major corporation I would be extremely worried about this.

Re:Corporate Espionage

[It's all Krista's Fa]

Lots of corporations do internal handling of the phone network. So once a call disappears into company Foo's switching system, it's lost to the sending system.

So 555-555-1111 and 555-555-1112 both appear as a call to 'Foo', where only Foo knows to whom those phone lines route.

Public wireless for anything illegal

[NineNine]

No big deal... if anybody wants to do anything illegal online, or even look at questionable material, it's simply a matter of using your local municipal wireless network. The only thing the feds will find out will be the MAC address and the time said content was accessed.

Re:Public wireless for anything illegal

[netsyd]

Except for the fact that each wireless card has a MAC address. Each Mac Address is traceable to a specific manufacturer, who can then determine the lot number your card from. Once they determine the lot number, they can determine who they sold that lot to ... continuing on, they contact the laptop manufacturer ... record of purchase ... your ass in a sling.

Enjoy your public wifi network and your perfectly safe illegal actions. Don't forget to write from prison.

Re:Public wireless for anything illegal

[tddoog]

Then spoof your MAC address.

Re:Public wireless for anything illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

although I dispute that mfgrs do that detailed of an accounting on their mac address assignments, i propose thse solutions:

1) change your mac address in software
2) use cheap disposable wireless cards, bought with cash from stores across town

Re:Public wireless for anything illegal

[EvanED]

Each Mac Address is traceable to a specific manufacturer, who can then determine the lot number your card from. Once they determine the lot number, they can determine who they sold that lot to ... continuing on, they contact the laptop manufacturer ... record of purchase ... your ass in a sling.

Which is COMPLETELY foolproof, especially with all the networking equipment out there that lets you flash your MAC address.

Oh wait...

Re:Public wireless for anything illegal

[TubeSteak]

Flash your MAC?

Many windows network drivers and Apple Macs (AFAIK) let you change the MAC Address in software. Of course, all the *NIXes can do this from the command line.

Anyways, if the driver doesn't let you, there are plenty of free & pay programs that will.

The nicer programs will let you choose MAC Addresses by the chipset manufacturer / vendor & by type of NIC. That way, you can pretend your 10/100/1000 NIC is a wifi card or vice versa. (I don't know if there are freeware progs that have this functionality.)

Re:Public wireless for anything illegal

[EvanED]

See, I've heard this before, and I've forgotten. I was just thinking of the cable routers I've seen where you can set your MAC address, which probably store it in flash memory.

(I realize that flashing stuff and flash memory are essentially unrelated.)

Re:Public wireless for anything illegal

[TheGratefulNet]

new abbie hoffman sales item:

"STEAL THIS PCMCIA WIRELESS CARD"

free dozen throw-away mac addresses included.

buy^H^H^Hsteal yours, now.

Both are meaningless on their own.

[Valdrax]

A single dollar-voting customer is worth any number of petitions and angry letters.

You're right. A single dollar-voting customer is just as effective as an angry letter, which is to say that they're both pointless and empty gestures. Even a petition is worthless if all people do is grumble and then go back to being good little consumers.

Now a petition that gets a critical mass of people to commit to terminating their service... Ah, now that's actually worth something.

A single voter is as meaningless as a single rain drop. A movement can be a torrential flood. So, tell me now: are you trying to help build a storm front, or are you just making puddles?

Re:Both are meaningless on their own.

[RingDev]

The problem is that the vast majority of petition signers are not willing to perform action in association with the petition. I wish I had the cites handy to back that statement up, but that paper was from a few years ago.

In short, 165,000 users signing a petition, but still paying their bills means nothing to AT&T.

10,000 users canceling their service and citing the PP as the primary reason will likely invoke a reaction.

You are correct, it is about critical mass. 10 dollar-voters will not make a difference, but 10,000 petition-signers will also not make a difference. 10,000 dollar-voters will likely make a difference, as would 10,000,000 petition-signers. Is it easier to come up with 10 million people to threaten to vote with their dollar, or 10 thousand people who will vote with their dollar?

-Rick

Can we do the same back to them?

[Anonymous Coward]

We use AT&T to host our data center. Can I change our company privacy policy to say that we can publish what we're paying AT&T and some of the deals we've been offered? I know a lot of other AT&T customers who are being overcharged who would love to know what we're paying, and I bet some AT&T competitors would like to know too. I could say this is protecting a vital business interest of ours since some of these people would pay quite a lot for the info.

"Legitimate Business Interests" scare me

[psychorhino]

"As such, AT&T may disclose such records to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process.'"

What especially scares me is the clause "to protect its legitimate business interests." While the intention of this clause is probably to allow AT&T to pass personal information to the government, its very ambiguity frightens the heck out of me. "Legitimate business interests?" I am currently reading Slashdot through an AT&T / SBC DSL connection; if they see these comments on Slashdot, can they disclose my personal information in retaliation? Can they use my internet surfing habits to humilate me and stifle criticism of the company?

Re:So, does this mean we can get out of our contra

[Valdrax]

No. Your contract says that they can change their policies at any time, and that you'll like it... b-tch!

I'm not sure this applies to AT&T Yahoo! DSL

[proxima]

The new AT&T privacy policy is here. Under "Scope", it states that, "Additional privacy policies apply to certain AT&T services, including AT&T Yahoo! Dial, High Speed Internet and Small Business[...]". The linked privacy policy for DSL is here, where the language hasn't been changed since 2004; it looks similar to the old language people here are quoting.

That said, having just renewed my DSL contract, I'm not pleased with the way things are looking for AT&T's privacy policies. Still, not having AT&T as your ISP is no guarantee that your data/phone connection/etc won't travel over their lines. It's still unclear exactly what major telecoms are providing to the NSA, but the idea of the NSA going against its own tradition and monitoring US citizens' communications is very unsettling.

Sue now

[oDDmON oUT]

and let the lawyers sort it out.

Small Business and Corporations?

[fallen1]

If AT&T can unilaterally change the privacy policy as it applies to users of those services (primarily individuals) what is stopping them from doing to same thing to small business as well as big business/coporations? Hmm? Lawyers? - perhaps. If I had a small business that used AT&T in any way, shape, form, or fashion I would be IMMEDIATELY and deeply concerned about the privacy of my business documents that are being transmitted over AT&T's network - by any means (T1/T3, OC3, Frame Relay, VPN, etc. - even encrypted communications). Suddenly all of my VERY sensitive corporate secrets become the property of AT&T? My e-mails are all logged? My browsing and viewing habits as CEO of said corporation are now catalogued and kept in a database at AT&T's Galactic Data Core? As a private citizen of the United States of America and as a corporate employee I say, unequivocally, FUCK THAT.

Every concerned citizen and individual should rail against these changes in their policy - even if you don't use their service now. Write to them and explain, calmly and rationally, why you would never use their service and how you will do everything in your power to explain to family and friends why THEY should not use their service either. Dissatisfied people talk to loads of other people. Pissed off people talk to loads of other people. ANYTHING negative gets spread, on average, 10 times more than positive things do. When was the last time someone you know went to the doctor and said they had a great visit? Probably can't remember that, but I can guarantee that _someone_ you know has been to the doctor/dentist/etc. in the past 2 weeks and has vented a complaint about "I had to wait FOREVER to even see the doctor and he was only in there for 5 minutes" or something along those lines. Will a write-in campaign from both people who are on their service as well as those who aren't work? MAYBE. Yes, capital maybe since is always an If. Corporations tend to be a little more responsive to loads of negative press and negative write-ins than the goverment of the USA seems to be. If a good many small businesses and larger businesses/corporations jump on the write-in bandwagon too (especially those affected by HIPAA, Sa-Ox and other "privacy" concerns) then I'd give it a good chance.

Not to mention who did NOT see this coming? Any company that uses the frigging DEATH STAR as a corporate logo has to be aiming for world domination somehow ;-)

Re:Effective tool

[Anonymous Coward]

its not wahlah, its voila, which is french for "there it is."

Re:Effective tool

[PDHoss]

you could just show some evidence that the person may be linked to a terrorist organization, and wahlah, you have a warrant

TERRORIST KEYWORD PROBABILITY: 92.89% IP LOGGED. FEDERAL FISTING IMMINENT.

WTF?

[plasmacutter]

WTF is an ad for "hands off the internet" doing on slashdot?

As many erudite posters have pointed out this is nothing more than an astroturfing campaign by big telcos.. why is slashdot giving these people ad space?

Re:WTF?

[plasmacutter]

just wanted to add in the url the ad was linked to..

http://www.internetofthefuture.org/

Re:WTF?

[Jherek Carnelian]

As many erudite posters have pointed out this is nothing more than an astroturfing campaign by big telcos.. why is slashdot giving these people ad space?

Why not? It sure is better than running the advert in front of people who will take it at face value. At least on slashdot it gets a firm rebuttal and helps pay for the place.

Re:So, does this mean we can get out of our contra

[duerra]

No. Your contract says that they can change their policies at any time

Can such clauses really hold up in court? I know they abound, but no regular business-to-business contract could or would ever allow such bull. Consumers aren't even given a choice about the contracts we are forced to sign. It's a "take it or leave it" thing that doesn't really exist in the business world. I just have a hard time believing that if a lawsuit was ever actually brought forth, the "we can change our policies at any time" clause in any contract wouldn't be the first thing to get thrown out.

AT& T has left me no choice...

[x-vere]

Back to tin cans connected by string.

Re:Effective tool

[evileyetmc]

my bad. it should be voila, not wahlah. Correction noted.

Why bother with a privacy policy at all?

[gorbachev]

Wouldn't it just be cheaper for AT&T to rewrite the privacy policy as:

"You have no privacy. Your data is ours. You have no rights."

Rather than spend tens of thousands of dollars to pay lawyers to draft some marketdroir-laden crap everyone knows is complete bullshit.

I'm so hoping I'll get contacted by an AT&T salesperson in the next few months. I think I'd enjoy the conversation tremendously.

Re:Effective tool

[Intangion]

i dont even ask that they get one first just get one so there is some record of wiretapping that fisa thing allows 72 hours afterward to get it, and you dont have to have any real reason its just so there is SOME record of it.. we dont know if bush and co have done 10, or 10million, and we dont know on who, he could have every politician monitored for all we know its like watergate*1000 and no one is doing anything about it

How to be Invisible

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with living in a democracy is that sometimes the majority of people don't care to do anything about something bad. It's the defining problem that changes democracy from the best form of government to the "least bad" form of government in my mind. So, until we can get a movement started to change things, we should prepare for the worst and accept that we live amongst sheep. We need to hide from the wolves, especially if this country does eventually become fascist.

I recommend the book "How to Be Invisible" by J.J. Luna. I've been seriously contemplating implementing the steps he suggests, but finding a ghost address is pretty hard, and finding an apartment to rent that will take money up front and not require credit checks, signed contracts, ID on file, etc. is proving nigh-impossible. I may have to look to house rental at this rate, which may be out of my price range <-> slum tolerance thresholds.

At any rate, get TOR & Privoxy, disconnect your address from your name completely, and disconnect your utility bills at that address from your name. Use ZPhone and/or a pager / prepaid-mobile combination for communication with relatives and friends. Do all email through 3rd party servers not connected to your ISP or, better yet, through TOR mail to a box you control. Let them try to connect your telecom activity to your name.

Let them try to track your through credit reports when no bills go to your residence, and your residence isn't in your name. Let them try to track you from your IP when you do all personally identifying traffic through anonymizers. Just let them try.

And some say we LET THESE CONTROL THE NET

[unity100]

Yea. "Hands off the internet"

Which hands ?

Re:Effective tool

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be an effective tool (We only have their word to go on, because of course any proof would be sensitive information.) That doesn't mean it is a legal tool.

And whether the majority of American approve it or not is irrelevant. The constitution is written in part to protect us from the will of the majority. Tha majority can be stupid. The majority will try to infringe on the rights of the minority. It is a bad idea to let a country be run purely on the whim of the majority.

Actually, that isn't true

[sizzzzlerz]

Companies are in business to make money for their owners, i.e., the stockholders. Providing a service for a fee is how they do it. If the company chooses to ram a 12-inch inanimate carbon rod up the collective asses of their customers, it's within their charter to do so. It is then up to the customers to decide whether the service for a fee being supplied by that company is worth having a 12-inch inanimate carbon rod shoved up their ass.

Have you ever...

[botlrokit]

Have you ever searched for a historical interpretation of the philosophy of Muhammad?
Have you ever posted a derisive comment about George Bush on a forum?
Have you ever had interrogators knock on your door at 2 in the morning?

You Will.

And the company that will bring it to you?

AT&T

Re:Effective tool

[Zlaya]

whats "wahlah"?

AT&T betraying customers' interests again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Should be clear by now that AT&T is determined to betray its own customers. Time to vote against it with your money if you have any service from or via AT&T.

Interesting exemptions

[Anonymous Coward]

"...protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process..."

Interestingly, the behavior that has them in legal hot water right now is none of the above! I think this sort of omission is what you get when you actually believe your own cover story.

It's time to take action against the passive

[Anonymous Coward]

I am an employee of AT&T Home Networking, also known as the "customer care" division. After having taken thousands of calls and walked a good majority of those customers past the member agreement page, I can only say that I am disappointed. Not a single customer has ever stopped me to read through the privacy policy.

Apparently, the people that you are trying to protect could not be bothered to care about their rights.

Re:Effective tool

[qazwart]

So far, the only thing that the current administration has done with the information the NSA has gleemed from their taps is track down journalists in order to find the government sources of their leaks.

Unless you equate a free press with terrorism or goverment employees with terrorists, I'm afraid I cannot see the connection.

We are repeating history. In the 1960s, the goverment expanded its role in domestic surveillance in order to fight "left wing terrorism" by radical groups like the Weathermen. Instead, the FBI spent most of their time spying on Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Congressional opponents, and under Nixon people on his personal "enemies list". The Church Commission recommended much of the restrictions that the Patriot Act trampled over in order to prevent government surveillance on citizens who were using legitimate means of opposing government policy.

Now, we removed these restrictions, and guess what? The government is again using its powers to spy on you and me, and not so much on "Islamic Terrorists". After all, the Islamic terrorists are a pretty smart bunch and probably already figured out not to use electronic communications to contact each other directly. Most of their communication now takes place on websites outside of the United States jurisdiction and most of the conversations are encrypted and coded. Users are anonymous and use public computers in various Internet Cafes making it almost impossible to track down these users. Remote logins, foreign anonymizers, and Tor networks make even domestic users hard to trace.

Re:Effective tool

[lucifig]

w-ahlah = allah

Get it? I did, I thought it was funny.

Re:Mindless tautologies

[Mister Whirly]

Your mindless tautologies do not amount to a tactical strategy against the republican warprofiteers. Will it take another, worse attack on our own freedoms before you take them seriously?

Report before Friday

[Temujin_12]

So, you're telling me that I have until Thursday night to talk to my lawyer about that AT&T van that's been sitting outside my house for the past week?

Boycott by consumers?

[HumanisticJones]

How badly would AT&T be hurt if a massive fraction of their home users suddenly left. No more monthly revenue and no more revenue from new subscribers could put a hurt on smaller companies, but with the size of AT&T would it make any dents? I know they also make money from their backbone and corporate contracts, but one has to wonder what fraction of their Gross annual revenue is from that.

So I guess the full question is, How many people would have to be convinced to leave AT&T before it hurt their stock and thus the people that make the company's decisions on policy?

Re:Boycott by consumers?

[faedle]

As the construction supervisor said to Arthur Dent referring to the amount of damage his equipment would recieve if he allowed them to simply run over Mr. Dent, "none at all."

AT&T is now the ILEC for the majority of America's most populous state (California), and recieves probably the majority of their day-to-day business from the Government itself. Even if 10% of consumers left AT&T for somebody else, they'd laugh it off: after all, most of those consumers are purchasing low-profit and high cost services anyway.

Besides, who are you going to go to? Where are you going to get local dialtone from if you live in Los Angeles or San Francisco? Go ahead. Buy it from a CLEC. If you can find one still selling service, guess who's gonna still get the revenue for the copper loop? Okay, so I'll go get service from the cable company. Oh, right. Comcast. A company that AT&T owns stock in.

Yep. You can run, but you can't hide.

Re:Boycott by consumers?

[HumanisticJones]

Ask a question, get an answer that scares the hell out of you. Thanks for a fact backed response on this, despite the fact that I'm now in fear and waiting for OCP to emerge.

Re:Effective tool

[ceejayoz]

Hell, FISA allows retroactive applications for warrants! All concerns about the speed of the court system at granting warrants sorta go out the window when you can do first, ask later.

There's also the fun stat that they've turned down 5 of 19,000 requests.

If the Administration can't work within a system that allows them to ask permission after the fact and have a 99.9736842% chance of approval, just what are they hiding?

Mod Mister Whirly's up plz

[megaditto]

So why don't you write to the DHS and tell them you are not a terrorist and ask them stop spying on you?

What I am saying, Mister Whirly, is that claiming "I am not a terrorist/pedophile/Mexican" would be interpreted like crying "I am not a thief" out of the blue.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks William Shakespeare

Re:Mod Mister Whirly's up plz

[Mister Whirly]

Nah, I don't have to. They already spied on me and came to that conclusion...

That is my point exactly. My arugment works just the same as yours - they are both completely stupid and illogical. The only difference is the US government actually supports your statement...

Re:Effective tool

[Red Flayer]

voila (pardon the lack of an accent over the a). French word, means 'there,' often used as a exclamation when presenting something (like a magic trick). Julia Child was fond of saying it when presented a finished dish.

Wait a sec... did I just reference Julia Child? Here's my mebership card, I'll go clean out my locker now.

Re:Mindless tautologies

[Deagol]

I didn't know Michael Savage read Slashdot! :)

Cyberwar continues to build on the horizon

[suitepotato]

Yet more impetus for the common people to engage in turning their computers, connections, and so on into Fort Knoxes, spending time and money to hide nothing at all, just to make the point that it is STILL their nothing.

Bring it on forces of invasion, you harbingers of totalitarianism, you destroyers of privacy. You will lose. The siren call of your own species is to be free, and you ultimately cannot fight what you inherently are. Time and history are on the side of the people here.

So lose no heart geekdom. Keep in your minds the immortal words of Princess Leia to Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars and keep on slipping through the fingers of those who would control you and all you know for no better reason than they want to. If they cannot provide a good enough reason to win the day of discourse and debate in the democratic way among the people, the people bear neither blame nor ill conscience over resisting. Once upon a time, some wise people wrote wonderful parchment documents spelling out these thoughts, and if we do not lose hope or memory of why, then one day we will do that again.

We the people...

hotburqa.com here I come

[DesertWolf0132]

Since it is impossible to have your IP traffic travel anywhere on the net without hitting AT&T copper somewhere it is time to flood them with a flood of false positive red flags. Everyone on the net should surf the two things the government has shown interest in of late, porn and the middle east. Visit Al-Jazerra at least 20 times a day. Just keep the browser open and refresh. Make sure you visit the Arabic version. Then go straight from there to porn. If your significant other gets on you about it tell them you are defending liberty. Damn the man! Save the empire! Jihad for the destruction of the purple dinosaur!

i wonder

[Dr Floppy]

whats the big point of all this surveillance? Theres more to this than just "terrorism" and a mind control structure only really exists in scientology today so Im left wondering what does all all this surveillance do for the government? It has to be data overload, and we all know about how bad 99% of government employees are with computers. What the hell is going on? How can the securitat deal with all the information and its technologically clueless employees?

Actually, it isn't such a free market.

[joebob2000]

You are applying free-market logic when the reality is a little more complicated. Telecom is a highly regulated business, with high capital costs, and special situations like cable right-of-ways and spectrum auctions. Costs like these cut into profit margins, and limit the flexibility of the operators in certain markets to offer variety of services and prices while still making a profit. Furthermore, there is very little competition in many telecom arenas, and in some cases, a given telecom company enjoys a monopoly and therefore has no need to be competitive. Finally, the government is quite involved in the telecom space, selling broadcast rights and spectrum at auction, licensing operators, taxing telecom activity, mandating various aspects of services and operations, etc.

In other words, this is far from a free market in many ways, and the customer ends up having little real choice when selecting a service. Either because the operator is barely profitable after mortgaging the business 30 years into the future before it makes its first dollar, or because the operator has no competion and will squeeze to the point just below where too many people start writing their representatives. Up until that point, both the operators and the government are happily collecting your money.

Re:Actually, it isn't such a free market.

[sizzzzlerz]

I certainly don't dispute what you're saying about regulated vs unregulated businesses. However, in reality, there is no real regulation by the gub'mint any more. Our "so-called" representatives have been bought and paid for by those same businesses and, miracles of miracles, regulation has gone away to be replaced by "market forces". Unfortunately for those without paid-for access to a congressional whore, this results in the kinds of actions being taken by ATT/SBC/PacBell/ATT who do it because they know that they can get away with it. Write your representative daily if you want. Ask your friends and neighbors to do the same. It ain't gonna mean jack. There simply isn't anybody Washington that cares.

Re:Actually, it isn't such a free market.

[joebob2000]

No argument here.

Peoples' complaints are focused into support for legislation that promises to help the situation, but the real motivation is for the government to get access to a new source of tax and/or power. They argue that they need powers and money to solve the problems, but once they get the power and money, somehow the process stops. If the people complain, they say they need more money and more laws to do more. They are not lying, its just that their definition of "more" is not the same as the peoples'.

If more people became chary of letting the government "help", things would be better in the long run.

Re:Mindless tautologies

[voice_of_all_reason]

Lucky for you I have my "tactical strategy against islamists" manual with me.

Step 1: Pull all facets of our government out of the middle east. Completely. Let private enterprise handle all trade and relations, under the laws of each respective country.

Step 2: Immediately cease all spending allocated to national security. Shutter the NSA, CIA, and FBI. Let states handle law enforcement. Return all money to The People.

Step 3: US Citizens love their government. "Islamists" lose the major impetus for hating the Great Western Satan. Profit.

Re:Effective tool

[RabidMonkey]

Really? I didn't realize that, since I have not heard of one terrorist activity being prevented by the NSA. After all, what are wiretapped grandmas going to do?

I'm not a fan of the NSA, or any agency that listens to my phone calls etc, but in their defense ... do you think if they caught someone, they'd have a big news paper article about it and have interviews on CNN? I suspect they'll be really quiet about it, so people don't know just how much they listen to, how they do it, etc.

I suspect they've heard a lot of things that has led to many investigations/arrests etc ... but we'll never hear about it.

t.

Re:Effective tool

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Well figured out! I had no clue what wahlah meant. I though maybe it was some Arabic expression meaning something like "by the grace of God" or some such thing.

I guess AT+T is no longer a "Common Carrier"

[denis-The-menace]

If AT+T claims ownership of all traffic flowing on its network, then all special interest groups will finally have somebody to sue with big $$ when something "bad" is found on the Internet.

AT+T will now be a lightning rod for lawsuits, frivolous or not.

HAHAHA

[Il128]

AT&T gets to moderate you!

Backbone

[nurb432]

Eventually i bet your data hits an ATT network on its way from here to there. They are the largest on the planet.

I wonder if this info gets passed down to people that use their network but thru resell service.

And who ever said you had a right to privacy when you voluntarily sign up for a COMMERCIAL service. The only argument for privacy is with the government, if you have some sort of law that protects it. Like we do here in the US.. Not all people in the world have that right guaranteed.

Re:Backbone

[ksheff]

And who ever said you had a right to privacy when you voluntarily sign up for a COMMERCIAL service.

This Court consistently has held that a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties. - US Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun

if anyone did, it wasn't any of the Nine in black -- (hmmm...I wonder if JRR had them in mind when creating the ringwraiths :)

Welcome to the United States of Commieland

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to the United States of Commieland !!

Re:Effective tool

[oh_my_080980980]

You really are a moron aren't you. Yeah the terrorist don't know they are being watched just like the Mofia don't they are being watched. How stupid are you? OF COURSE THEY KNOW THEY ARE BEING WATCHED. In fact the only ones who don't know they are being watched are US citizens because are President said he would never spy on US citizens. Of course he lied! Then he goes on a public relations crusade to convince US citizens that illegal syping is a good thing. So the president is even telling the terrorists they are being watched!! God you really are stupid.

Re:Effective tool

[scaryjohn]

You're mixing your left wing and right wing code-words and conspiracy theories so thoroughally I can't tell which side you're actually on.

Say what you want about the lack of meaningful policy choices between Democrats and Republicans — on IP law reform, for example — but they have very different sets of boogiemen they trot out to scare their supporters to the polls.

For the full article

[Anonymous Coward]

Day Pass Cookie:
http://www.salon.com/news/cookie756.html

Just Great

[the_mushroom_king]

What really irks me is that many people are hostage to a phone company. In some area I'm sure AT&T is the only land line company around. If cell coverage is bad, you are pretty much stuck with AT&T unless you want to go without a phone (like thats even an option in today's world). Thank God, I live is urban SoCal with plenty of choices. I feel for Ma and Pa Kettle in rual areas where AT&T is the only game in town.

Re:wait... the cable co isn't tracking what I watc

[Abcd1234]

Did anybody else find that the most shocking/suprising part of the article?

Not at all. OTOH, I work in the cable space. In short, there are laws in the books which severely limit the data which can be sent back from a DSTB. As for their purpose, that seems pretty obvious: in the world of digital cable, *something* needs to decode the cable signal and display it on your TV.

write your own policy

[Anonymous Coward]

this is pure bullshit. anyone can write anything, but that does not mean it has legal force.
there are 2 things you can do to protect yourself from this crap.
1
write your own policy. include things such as "acceptance of my monthly payment will constitute full agreement to my terms" and the ever wonderful "i reserve the right to change any part of this agreement at any time, for any reason, regardless of any notice given" and a priotiry clause "should there be any conflict between policies, my policy shall take precedence over any contrived by the company"

2
send them a separate request asking if their privacy policy constitutes any form of legal advice as to your contract and your rights within it. if there is no legal advice then it may be an unfair contract, ie big company with lots of lawyers can take advantage of average joe, with no lawyer, and said contract could be voided.

3
subpeaona any and all records that they have on you. if they just said that they want to comply with legal requests they will have to do this.

4
once you have these records, demand that they are erased, and take it to court. you could actually sue them for a lot here, because there is no real way they can erase it, too many copies floating around...

Time to drop SBC

[insanechemist]

I already dislike AT&T and after they merge with SBC I had an inclination to drop their DSL service - this is the final nail in the coffin for me

perhaps it has to do with this article in Salon

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Perhaps the announcement is a kind of innoculation agaisnt criticism it is sure to receive fr omthe revelations in this article on Salon.com.

OK, so you have to watch a brief advert. Just do it and read the article. It's worth your time.

The article starts with: "In a pivotal network operations center in metropolitan St. Louis, AT&T has maintained a secret, highly secured room since 2002 where government work is being conducted, according to two former AT&T workers once employed at the center."

and it gets more gruesome from there.

Those who are willing to sacrifice liberty for security, deserve neither.

RS

Property Ownership

[CherniyVolk]

Notable changes include notification that AT&T will track viewing habits of customers of its new video services Homezone and U-Verse, which is forbidden for cable and satellite companies, as well as explicitly stating that the customer's data belongs to the company: 'While your account information may be personal to you, these records constitute business records that are owned by AT&T.

First off, how can my personal actions (viewings) be:
1) qualified
2) or, considered 'property', and 'property' of a third party?

Most importantly, my personal data is INHERENT to my being, and can should NOT be considered "property" of any third party. So, AT&T is fundamentally disregarding the legitamacy of individual personalities. I abhor the thought that AT&T thinks, MY first and last name is THEIR property to distribute for profit to advertisement firms, law enforcement et al. I, nor any substantial information indicative to my essence, is MY property and NOT theirs. If they wish to continue abstracting data that can pinpoint an individual, then any funds received off of exploiting that data should forfiet to the victim, royalties of some kind.

Of course, AT&T is now a monopoly since they sucked up all the Baby Bells, so we have no choice but to bounce charged electrons through their copper at some stage of communications. And, it's probably more an interest of the government, so there is nothing the consumer or "market" or populus can do about it. (We don't vote on who is placed in high paying positions at AT&T, nor do we have any real control over the choice of legislation our politicians choose to condone; to make it worse, Americans have no real choice of philosophical, legal, business, political preference of the politicians we are forced to choose from.)

I would ask American forefathers what they would do in this situation... but the only person alive today that might have a resembling answer is the one we are hunting in Afghanistan.

Re:Effective tool

[Lord Kano]

I have no problem with wiretaps, if they are warranted. These days, it is not difficult to get the warrant...you could just show some evidence that the person may be linked to a terrorist organization, and wahlah, you have a warrant.

I think that you meant "Voilà", it means "Here".

LK

Re:Effective tool

[dgatwood]

I find this to be a much more ironic quote:

Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber -- a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.

...

These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends. They stand against us, because we stand in their way.

---George W. Bush in an address to Congress
9:00 P.M. EDT, September 20, 2001

The terrorists have already won.

AT&T can be dealt with

[Anonymous Coward]

Just how big do AT&T(SBC) think they are ..

They would be quite easy targets on an IP level feed there data gathering systems so much crap they cant handle the amount same for any other system if there aint enough users out here with the ability to cripple them (on an ip level) then the internet is no where as big as is reported ..

Pete .

Waddya know...

[iminplaya]

The Domino Theory really does work. First you get a government that can openly violate your rights with impunity. Now, one by one, the corps are following suit. And we like it! The election results prove it. And don't give me any of that crap about "stolen" elections. Nobody put up any significant resistance. We've had three elections since 2000 and it remains business as usual. Or better yet, tell me how much things have changed since Vietnam and Watergate. Or since Teapot Dome for that matter. So either vote your conscience in November or quitcherbellyachin' damn it! At the very least, direct your anger to those who put you all into this predicament...your friends and neighbors. You know, the 99% of you that voted "yes, lets keep things the way they are", leaving that brave 1% holding the bag. Which leads me to the question, 'Who's more influenced by big money? The politicians, or the people voting for them?'

Re:Effective tool

[heinousjay]

Very convincing. Nothing like an emotional diatribe filled with pejorative anger to sway opinions. You, sir, are a master.

It's still got the word "legal!"

[StreetStealth]

It's disconcerting, but notice it still ends in "other legal processes."

Minimized though it is, it's still a reference the rule of law. Here's hoping that last sentence doesn't get any shorter.

If applies to Cingular or DSL=no termiantion fees?

[Palal]

If this privacy policy change applies to AT&T Yahoo DSL and/or Cingular Wireless then I believe you have a free pass => no fees to terminate your contract as stated in your contract. Now I'm not sure if this applies 100%, but I believe there's a clause for terminating your contract if it's changed. Don't know if this applies to privacy policy changes though.

Re:Effective tool

[sgt_doom]

You can't really blame the guy, now can you???

Now, after all, some of these really simpleton posts lately all seem to originate at the same humongous address in Arlington, Virgina, at least they do from my tracebacks. Anyone know anybody who posts out of a five-sided building?????

Reject the new policy

[Anonymous Coward]

As a SBC Yahoo DSL customer locked into one for their 12-month contracts, is there a way to "reject" the new policy, or is it at least reason enough to get out of the contract without the usually horrendous early termination fees?

Obligatory Car Analogy

[Kattana]

Had some interesting points come in a discussion about this and thought I would share.

Soultron: your bandwidth stream is not your property
Soultron: it's their property on their network
Kattana: Is your car on a road not your property because you dont own the road?
Quaoar: eh, analogies between information and tangible objects tend to break down
Kattana: Is your mail not your mail when it leaves your mailbox?
Quaoar: better
Kattana: much better, since its illegal to open mail in most cases.
Quaoar: of course, the argument there is that mail is handled by a public entity.
Soultron: is a cop allowed to stop your car and inspect it? is the post office allowed to inspect mail?
Kattana: and it contains your information.
Soultron: tampering with mail is only a crime when a private citizen does it
Kattana: cops and post office workers are _goverment_ employees
Quaoar: but the total "privateness" of telcoms is up for debate. They're one of the more involved corporate sectors in government business.
Quaoar: Soul, only if they have probable cause or a warrant/court order/whathaveyou of that sort. On both questions.
Kattana: AT&T is a private entity, they should not be allowed to open your packets any more than your packages.

PS, anyone know what laws apply to private mail carriers such as FedEX? are they even "mail carriers"?
PPS, I am posting chat in a comment posted on /. and that amuses me, if only I had a blog to quote it in.

What I told Comcast...

[Lightness]

"This is regarding the Comcast Privacy Policy and it's favorable comparison to AT&T's revised privacy policy.

AT&T recently modified their privacy policy to include the statement:
'While your account information may be personal to you, these records constitute business records that are owned by AT&T. As such, AT&T may disclose such records to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process.'

I understand that "account information" includes personally identifiable billing information, personally identifiable usage patterns, and personally identifiable email transmissions, web browsing, and instant message text.

Thank you for protecting my personal information, and also aggregating all other usage to eliminate personally identifying usage patterns.

Please NEVER adopt a privacy policy that abandons respect for individuals, or threatens your "common carrier" status like AT&T has done.

If you now advertise your hightened respect for individuals over that policy adopted by AT&T, you may garner additional market share. You certainly have my good will.

Also, please check your agreements with AT&T for any Comcast services which use AT&T supplied network infrastructure. AT&T may have declaired any network traffic as "business records" which they now claim is "owned by AT&T", unilaterally negating your privacy promise to your customers."

Dropped AT&T - Switched to Verizon 1 hour ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

Goodbye AT&T,
and take your spying with you!

Hopefully Verizon is better?

To Paraphrase...

[nleaf]

AT&T: "Haha! Its our Social Security Number now, bitch!"

In another 10 years...

[SonicSpike]

We'll all be carrying AR-15s and have mortor rounds buried somewhere on our property.

Meaningless...

[rtechie]

These "Privacy Policies", pack-in "licences" and other arbitrary contracts corporations try to cram down your throat have no REAL legal weight at all and quickly collapse when challenged in court, which is almost never because the lawyers who write these things KNOW how meaningless they are. These agreements DO NOT allow corporations to break federal, state, and local laws which is what AT&T has done. They're just intimidation, pure in simple.

So what can we do?

The answer is pretty simple. Corporations are obliged to follow the law, not arbitrary policies they assign to themselves. The answer to stop these shenanigans is to lobby Congress to pass a comprehensive Privacy Act, and then lobby the White House to enforce it. Private lawsuits like EFF's help too, give them money.

Or, for a more practical solution, consider assassinating AT&T's Board of Directors. Here's a list: http://att.sbc.com/gen/investor-relations?pid=5629

I'm not sure there was ever *real* privacy... ever

[Anonymous Coward]

These days we have government and corporations playing Big Brother. In the old days, it was lords, churches, and the ever popular gossip system (i.e. good old fashioned social networks). One can argue who has it worse, but at least back then, you could go to the next village over and start with a relatively clean slate for a while, and one village's practices never really affected any other's...

Re:Mindless tautologies

[pete6677]

If you think these ideas will really remove the Islamists desire for world domination, I can get you a great deal on some oceanfront property in Kansas.

Re:Effective tool

[colanut]

... do you think if they caught someone, they'd have a big news paper article about it and have interviews on CNN? I suspect they'll be really quiet about it, so people don't know just how much they listen to, how they do it, etc.

Yeah, not like when the Pakastani Intelligence Service got their hands on an actual Al Queda laptop, and the Administration crowed about it in the press before the info on it could be confirmed, secured or acted on...

AT&T insists change not "knee-jerk"

[HangingChad]

What else are they going to say. But if you have to put out a press release to say something is not knee-jerk, you might as well be placing a full page ad in the Washington Post that it is a knee-jerk reaction. Story on Yahoo!

Re:Effective tool

[WhamsterHeel]

Where are you getting these stats from?

Is this home users only?

[Lord Kestrel]

I'm wondering if this is a change for home users only, or will they be doing the same for corporations as well. I don't want them to be sharing the Internet usage of my company to other "business interests", ie my competitors.

Re:Effective tool

[ceejayoz]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign _Intelligence_Surveillance_Court

It is also rare for FISA warrant requests to be turned down by the court. Through the end of 2004, 18,761 warrants were granted, while just five were rejected (many sources say four). Fewer than 200 requests had to be modified before being accepted, almost all of them in 2003 and 2004.

Re:I'm not sure this applies to AT&T Yahoo! DS

[proxima]

It's become clear that this is exactly what it applies to (as well as AT&T TV service). Still, the claim of ownership applies to "Account Information" (billing info, etc) and not "Usage Information" (web sites visited), and certainly not the content you upload. Still, it's unclear exactly what they log and under what conditions they would share it to say, the government.

Re:Effective tool

[thoughtlover]

"Most of their communication now takes place on websites outside of the United States jurisdiction and most of the conversations are encrypted and coded.

Now, how would you know that? (insert Homer Simpson's voice) Unless..... Oh my god! Marge! Slashdot has ferreted out its first terrorist!

Hi, my name is Patrick Riot

[Travoltus]

Just call me 'Pat'.

I don't get the problem is with companies volunteering your browing history to the Government. You people don't seem to understand what it takes to ensure our national security.

So what if warrantless searches of phone and internet records is 'unconstitutional'? Our safety is more important than our rights. I'd rather every phone call, web browser click and private conversation be made a matter of instantly-available public record. In fact, I imagine everyone having access to this information. Imagine a beowulf cluster of vigilant people listening in on everyone else? Terrorists could never hope to hide! This'll also weed out criminals like pedophiles and drug users. Imagine the possibilities!

This'll also weed out disagreeable people, gays, pagans, communists, and of course little male geek crybabies sobbing at night about being stuffed into lockers.

Come to think of it, the total loss of privacy will ensure that society is more homogenous and harmonious. No more deviants would be allowed to fester unchecked in dark corners of our society. Trolls would be wiped out.

Go, AT&T! For a stronger, secure America!

[...end right wing parody]

Re:Dropped AT&T - Switched to Verizon 1 hour a

[Valdrax]

Nope. Verizon's also helping the NSA spy. Qwest is the only hold-out.
But, hey, the market'll sort it all out right? Just as soon as Qwest becomes someone I can switch to...

Re:Effective tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it a federal offense for a mail carrier who "opens, secretes, embezzles, or destroys"?

Packet = Package
E-Mail = Mail

Re:Effective tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Or at least they should be liable under some kind of DMCA violation.

The read/copy rights on the packets ARE clearly marked in their headers.
By circumventing this "technology"...

Re:Mindless tautologies

[Mister Whirly]

I'm pretty sure just doing Step #1 would about do it.