Slashdot Mirror
Senate Votes To Kill FCC's Broadband Privacy Rules (pcworld.com)
The Senate voted 50-48 along party lines Thursday to repeal an Obama-era law that requires internet service providers to obtain permission before tracking what customers look at online and selling that information to other companies. PCWorld adds: The Senate's 50-48 vote Thursday on a resolution of disapproval would roll back Federal Communications Commission rules requiring broadband providers to receive opt-in customer permission to share sensitive personal information, including web-browsing history, geolocation, and financial details with third parties. The FCC approved the regulations just five months ago. Thursday's vote was largely along party lines, with Republicans voting to kill the FCC's privacy rules and Democrats voting to keep them. The Senate's resolution, which now heads to the House of Representatives for consideration, would allow broadband providers to collect and sell a "gold mine of data" about customers, said Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat. Kate Tummarello, writing for EFF: [This] would be a crushing loss for online privacy. ISPs act as gatekeepers to the Internet, giving them incredible access to records of what you do online. They shouldn't be able to profit off of the information about what you search for, read about, purchase, and more without your consent. We can still kill this in the House: call your lawmakers today and tell them to protect your privacy from your ISP.
About what VPN i use.
What the subject says...
This is what we get when America votes Republican. Soon, someday very soon they will see the error of their ways and correct course. They had a great opportunity in this election, but the KKK and the Neo Nazis got out in force and voted for Trump.
Fatality
We'll make great pets
Yet another freedom evaporates thanks to corporate greed and political corruption
Someone should start a kickstarter to buy and release the browsing history of every US Senator who voted for this.
I wonder how much Comcast/Charter/whoever would want for 50 Senators' web browsing and instant messaging history? I'd bet there's some juicy stuff in there, and customer data probably comes cheap...
But if this gets joe-six-pack-of-beer to sit up and pay attention then it may be worth it.
To the extent that Joe S. Pack knows about and understands this equation, he mostly doesn't care.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Once they have individualized information, all customers lose their bargaining power. They will know exactly how much you can be squeezed. Unless you are constantly on the vigil and constantly know the best price for each product, you will be taken to the cleaners.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
The Democrats would be on a lot higher moral ground if they had shown any outrage about the Snowden revelations and what the NSA is doing to Americans during the Obama administration.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
What I'm seeing as the standout piece of information here is that this was only a law for a short time. This means it must have been legal to sell your information all along except for this short period of time. Now that someone has put a spotlight on it, I guess this will create jobs... in the web proxy industry. I detest both parties of government. If they aren't trying to oppress the majority with ridiculous laws they are trying to oppress the majority with a lack of sane laws.
I'm pretty sure if you polled voters, even those in red states, they'd mostly be against this. So why did the Senate do this? Because they get campaign funds and free campaign ads from big telecoms.
If this is not plutocracy in action, I don't know what the hell is.
Table-ized A.I.
That is what you get for voting for these politicians. But hey enjoy those tax cuts that you probably didn't get if you are not a millionaire.
To me I can not see how any smart technical person can vote for any Republican. As it stands today the GOP votes:
1. For mega corporations and monopolies from tech companies who are anti opensource
2. Believe climate change doesn't exist and is an invention of these elite socialists
3. Support Trump and his competency as shown on any news site
4. Hate highspeed internet and do not believe in infrastructure improvements
5. Believe more H1B1 visa immigrants are needed
6. Believe the bible should be taught in biology classes (it is in Texas!!)
7. Believe science should not be funded as it is only opinion oriented and not based on facts like you get from Church or Foxnews
8. Want more mega monopolies that limit internet and support throttling
9. Support snooping by corporations
10. Believe in unlimited funding by companies to elected officials to vote against your own self interests
11. Believes in old school coal and oil and does not want alternative sources of energy
Yes this post is going to anger MANY. But it HAS to be said. I lean libertarian myself but I am registering as a democrat as I feel as I.T. and science professionals who go to this site that the Republican Party is the biggest danger we face. Even more dangerous than Microsoft was back in the day.
Anyone with an IQ over 100 who is not a millionaire and works in the I.T. field needs to stop supporting these guys.
http://saveie6.com/
I know the article wants us to think this is a red vs blue debate, but before you pass a judgement on the republicans, go and actually read the regulation. Go ahead. I'll wait. Now try to implement that. Good luck! The real problem is the refusal to comprompise between these blundering politcal parties. The untold story is it appears the republicans wanted a much simpler form of regulation and the democrats being in power would not negotiate. Now the tides have turned and rather than ammend the overreaching regulation, the republicans are sticking it to the democrats. Guess who loses when we vote on party lines? Us.
I imagine just that would be very valuable. What are they thinking about today.. what news sites do they use...
Also the porn history of all the senators would be very interesting.
I can imagine reporters suing ISP's now for info on the senators if they sell the info to others and not to them.
Laws like this DO NOT work both ways. They never have, and they never will. A stunt like this will not motivate politicians to change their ways, but merely to punish you. They are the ones with the means to enforce double-standards, and they absolutely will.
Know your place.
If this means they can make some money by selling my info then perhaps my internet bill out-of-pocket will come down over time.
The only thing that will accomplish that is competition at the household level. When there is no competition they will continue to charge what they want.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
The Senate voted 50-48 along party lines Thursday to repeal an Obama-era law that requires internet service providers to obtain permission before tracking what customers look at online and selling that information to other companies.
The only way I can interpret this action is that Republicans value corporations over people.
What's worse than no data? Poisoned data. A collection of data where you cannot tell which is legit and which is bogus.
What we need is a tool that simply opens a LOT of connections to a LOT of servers worldwide. No need to hide your browsing in VPN. Hide it in noise.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The FCC Broadband privacy rules, IMO where simply excessive regulation IMO. The real data collection occurs at websites (Google, facebook, slashdot, etc.)
Basically to target people with advertisements. We have all seen it. Search for "product x" on amazon, and you see adds for product x and competitors when you browse other websites.
The FCC privacy rules wouldn't change that. The FCC privacy rules also required additional paperwork, monitoring, etc. by the ISP's even though they couldn't mine traffic data. Thus increasing the costs of the ISP's.
If you are unhappy about these rules being repealed, then you have been unhappy since AlGore invented the internet.
For the kneejerks, I humbly offer the original document this Senate resolution references:
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/...
I wonder if the Senate overturned this regulation because they hate privacy or because of the fact these are "legislature level" rules being enacted by unelected bureaucrats in the last days of an administration that did everything it could to control its citizenry without the approval of Congress.
And this is to say nothing of the fact that Google and their ilk shouldn't be allowed to indulge in their raging data collection fetishes without letting the big telcoms and isp's wet their beaks. Right?
No. HTTPS protects the traffic between the server and your machine, but it doesn't hide the URL you've requested, as you can only establish an HTTPS-connection in the first place after you've contacted the URL.
I mentioned this elsewhere, so I'll mention it here:
From what I've been able to gather, this is about S.J. Res. 34, a resolution disapproving the rule submitted by the FCC in December 2016 about protecting privacy of broadband and telecommunications customers. I've only browsed through the FCC rule, so I don't know the complete details on it just yet, but I would hesitate to jump to conclusions here.
First, I'd like to know better what the rule itself says, because depending on how it's written, there may be acceptable grounds for rejecting it.
Secondly, do know that this rule only came into effect on January 3 of this year. So up until 3 months ago, these supposed protections didn't apply to anyone. So if this resolution does completely pass, that means we roll back to how things were at the end of last year.
I'm going to hold off on losing my mind until I get the chance to read up a bit more on the FCC rule and the details behind it. Sometimes knowing the context of something makes it a lot more understandable.
will be the first customers for this data as well as the Ministry Of Web Browning History.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
For all the good it will do for you. Republicans own the House, the Senate, the Presidency, and about 2/3rds of the Governors currently. What they want they are going to get.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
HAAAA ahhahahahha ha ha heh
You think an ISP will actually lower your price because they can also make money selling your traffic information? Nope, it's just an added revenue stream. ISPs aren't not-for-profit organizations.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Unlikely, many of the advertising networks can already track almost everything you do today anyway, so don't expect an improvement.
At work they blocked the installation of any browser extensions, which means all our web browsing includes ads (horrible corporate policy by the way) What happens though is that I search for a product, buy that product, and then for the next several months see ads for something that I already bought. I don't need 2 of them, so you're wasting your time advertising it to me again!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Pssst. The Senate does NOT rule the US. All legislation has to pass the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the President before becoming effective. This thing hasn't passed the House yet, and it hasn't reached the President's desk yet. I'm not telling you either the House or the President will likely derail it, but they might.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
1. It was an FCC rule, not a law passed by Congress. Resolution didn't repeal it. One section was struck because it didn't do anything to actually protect user privacy because of exemptions in rule, it didn't address privacy issues of services like Facebook, Google, Amazon.com, and because it likely violated 1st amendment protection of commercial speech by singling out ISPs while not addressing other communications service providers.
2. It was approved by the FCC 2-1 vote in late October 2016. It was a last minute decision that
3. It was scheduled to go into effect March 2 2017, but had been stayed after the election. The privacy rule has never been in effect.
4. It was an attempted power grab of the FCC over that of the FTC which, up until a ninth court of appeals decision in 2016, had regulatory jurisdiction over broadband data providers. Expect more regulatory reform to reverse the 9th court's ruling and to make it a requirement that any major change to a regulatory agency jurisdiction will need congressional approval first.
HTTPS helps to mitigate the problem, even though it doesn't solve it.
They still get the URL, but nothing more. I'd rather they didn't get the URL either, but at least they don't get the content.
But those emails! It would have been a disaster to have a president under FBI investigation, right?
You are welcome on my lawn.
To give out all the personal information on our beloved senators and their browsing habits. Expect to see a lot of porn sites on the R side.
Now you KNOW you don't. What are you going to do about it?
No, it just means they'll make more money.
Here's the key idea you have to understand when you see moneyed interests enabled to make yet more money:
"Trickle down" is a metaphor for the moneyed interests pissing on your head.
Also, this.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Is there a plugin for this? Even having the plugin installed would throw any data gathered into question
Twinstiq, game news
We see corporations go to great lengths to make sure their own data is protected by law and monetized but individual's personal data can be spied on and sold without consent or compensation. If I were to use my Internet connection to analyze my ISP's traffic I am an unauthorized hacker who could receive a prison sentence; my ISP on the other hand could profit by selling my location browser history to the highest bidder with no repercussions under this proposed law.
Being that corporations are entities defined by the State and gain all their power from the State let there be no doubt that the Republicans that support this bill value the power of the State over the individual, antithetical to their publicized platform of limited government and individual rights.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
They get the IP address but they do not get the URL. The TLS hand shake occurs prior to the HTTP request being sent.The URL will be encrypted on the first request.
We've been sitting on a bunch of data from the employees of the DoD, CIA, NSA, FBI and others. And our business partners in Russia and North Korea are eager to get a copy of it. This could be a "gold mine" for us.
Have gnu, will travel.
Selling anonymous usage data has been in the rules since day 1. Duh. That changed 5 months ago. Now by reverting to the old way people are saying the internet will die?
Pull your heads out of your collective asses.
Hey, we're all going to die, anyway, so why bother with breathing and eating?
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
Well, so much for the argument that the Democrats and Republicans are just the same.
Not one Democrat voted for this bill. Not a single one.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I don't know what version of HTTPS you're using but last time I check the entire HTTP request is done over a SSL/TLS connection. Yes they can see you make a connection to port 443 on google.com, but they can't see what your searched for on google.com.
See also: Why cable prices never go down, no matter how many ads and product placements are jammed into the programming. Bigger megayachts for execs, that's all it'll buy.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
... muhuhhuhaaaa
A company can spy on you and an "agency" needs a warrant from a judge ...
Hm ... /me peeking his nose
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Hi Sarah!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
The 'socialists' gave the FCC the power to prevent this, asshole.
Gave the power 5 months ago, was it even implemented yet? Apparently for nearly 8 years it was not important. In reality it was just a "mine" planted for political games, a manufactured talking point.
Also in reality this "socialist" president was quite fond of surveillance, drones, extrajudicial killings of US citizens, etc.
If this means they can make some money by selling my info then perhaps my internet bill out-of-pocket will come down over time.
Ya, that's why my cable bill went down when they started putting ads in their programming.
Yet another freedom evaporates thanks to corporate greed and political corruption
Actually this "freedom" never made it out of the vapor stage. The power to enact the policy was given last October, it wasn't to be actually implemented until around now. No "freedom" has been lost because no such "freedom" had ever been acquired. We are still operating under the same rules Obama thought were just fine during his 8 years, when he and his party needed corporate donations. And as if Hillary wouldn't have drafted the policy in some weak manner with workarounds for corporations so her corporate donations could keep rolling in.
Ok, not the full URL, but they still know who you are connecting to, which is something not everyone wants shared.
The IP is still something not everyone wants to share.
If it's public information which building you walk in to, and one of the tenants of that building is known to be in a business you don't want it to be publicized that you attend, you may not be happy that everyone knows you're in that building, even if there's no proof as to which tenant you visited. (and that's optimistic that from IP and the TLS handshake that they can't figure out the tenant, it's more likely they'd know which tenant, but not which room in their suite)
Not quite true. They get the hostname - as an HTTPS server may potentially serve multiple websites, it needs the hostname first in clear-text so it knows which certificate to use. But the rest of the URL comes later, and is encrypted.
Who said there was not a dime's difference between the party's?
One gave us our constitutional rights in the digital universe, the other took them away
I leave the math to the more rational among us.
If we had robust competition in Internet providers and I could just say 'screw you!' to the ISP selling my information to third parties and sign up with the ISP that, like duckduckgo.com, promises to protect my privacy as a selling point.
Unfortunately the current ISP's came from the overly-regulated (at local level) cable providers who used regulatory capture to establish regional monopolies, then politely behind the scenes refused to compete with each other. These business practices (and the county, City, and State regulators that where accomplices) make me sick.
Although it's very clear Republicans are wholly owned subsidiaries of big corporations it's very clear to me the real issue is legal bribery of our politicians. It's a damn shame that most people get so easily distracted from non-issues or just simply find all this boring to care. Removing money from politics would very likely make republicans less likely to sell their votes to the highest bidders.
If we're gonna be the data they sell, their services should be free of charge to ISP users.
Astro
Given (assume for argument) that there is no proxy setup by ISPs --- what is the functional difference (related to privacy) between VPN & HTTPS? HTTP I get - but with DNSSec and SSL what information can be gleaned from HTTPS?
Yes - I know what a VPN is - use them everyday. But what I don't understand is....what info of value is leaked from HTTPS ? Simply DNS lookups? They can't see inside the stream. OR--- is the concern that a lot of sites & apps are still using HTTP such that there's enough value to be gathered?
My company uses a web proxy and require MiM certificates installed - allowing them to monitor everything. Plus- DNS doesn't work (nslookup www.google.com returns nothing)... however typing https://www.google.com/ works and the certificate is NOT Google. Seems that Chrome was changed recently so you can't see who the issuer is anymore.
This really is the best way to look at things.
If people want "privacy laws" then those laws shouldn't be about what's not allowed to happen; the laws need to be about what is required to happen (the goal being to encourage common sense practices, because nobody can protect your privacy for you.). Make it so that businesses and people can't access government's network services without going through a darknet, for example. Do not allow any plaintext email communication with the government. Put into "REAL ID" that the issuing authority also has to sign the identified person's key and include the fingerprint on the ID card. Don't allow government money to be spent on computers containing any software which can't be audited and maintained. And so on.
Don't make anyone protect their privacy overall, but do make it so that they have to pay lip service to common sense in any interaction with government (and then let convenience and economy of scale take it from there; lazy people will then do the right thing). Or, just don't have privacy laws since, obviously, we don't really care. Pick one or the other.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
ok, this is semantics, the host is close enough to the URL for most purposes.
If you're seen visiting known-terrorist-conspiracy-site, do you really care if they know what exact page you loaded?
Do those who voted in favor of this know that their OWN browsing can and will be captured by their ISP, and the info sold to others?
Are they aware that their spouse, children, and relatives will have this data captured and sold?
Or, are those who voted in favor of this just saying that it is good for business and, thus, must be good for all Republicans?
Simple solution: Why not use PureVPN coupled with TOR and keep your smart devices on a separate router just like I am doing and forget about everything.