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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.

61 of 404 comments (clear)

  1. Lots of valuable information... by Neuroelectronic · · Score: 5, Funny

    About what VPN i use.

    1. Re:Lots of valuable information... by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What Neuroelectronic said; this will mean more revenue for VPN providers, at least from people who have the technical expertise to set up VPN use.. or that actually understand that 'privacy' is not a sign of mental illness or criminal activity, but a basic human right.

    2. Re:Lots of valuable information... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      VPN recommendations? Any that work for a whole house wireless network?

    3. Re:Lots of valuable information... by omnichad · · Score: 5, Insightful

      LOTS more, because VPN providers can also sell your browsing data.

    4. Re: Lots of valuable information... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Any VPN caught selling information would be detrimental to its business.

    5. Re:Lots of valuable information... by JoeyRox · · Score: 2

      You're just moving who has access to which sites you visit - instead of it being your ISP it'll be your VPN service provider.

    6. Re: Lots of valuable information... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Privateinternetaccess.com I've used it before and was impressed. Why I like them:

      1.No logs are taken
      2.Can work with router or as an app
      3.Only 3.33 monthly
      4.Also works as a proxy
      5.Can pay for it anonymously with gift cards
      6.Its focused towards family privacy so it doesn't paint a giant target on you like some Torrentfreak extreme VPN

    7. Re:Lots of valuable information... by ninthbit · · Score: 2

      PIA installed on a pfSense firewall. Then the wifi router can be put in AP mode and the tiny CPU won't bottleneck your wifi.

    8. Re:Lots of valuable information... by dpilot · · Score: 3, Informative

      Which raises a red flag to every TLA around, saying "Add this guy to the watch list."

      --
      The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
    9. Re:Lots of valuable information... by gnick · · Score: 5, Insightful

      An ISP caught selling your info is still an ISP. A VPN provider caught selling your info won't be a VPN provider for long.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    10. Re:Lots of valuable information... by sed+quid+in+infernos · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly. Most people don't have a choice of ISP. They do have a choice of VPN, so VPN providers are subject to market forces.

    11. Re: Lots of valuable information... by BeaverCleaver · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The more legitimate users on tor, the less true this becomes.

    12. Re: Lots of valuable information... by Wormsign · · Score: 2

      Isn't TOR basically compromised now?

    13. Re:Lots of valuable information... by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 2

      I say we go back to the way things were pre-Internet, and actually talk to people, face-to-face, in private places, with no cellphones or computers around. Then the bloody bastards will be forced to get off their fat asses and actually work for their surveillance data, rather than just sit in an office and poke at a keyboard for it. Before too long we'd find them being a whole lot less nosy, when it actually costs them orders of magnitude more in dollars and man-hours.

  2. Time to sign up for a VPN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What the subject says...

  3. Sad day for land of the free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yet another freedom evaporates thanks to corporate greed and political corruption

  4. Senator Browser History by Scorpinox · · Score: 5, Funny

    Someone should start a kickstarter to buy and release the browsing history of every US Senator who voted for this.

    1. Re:Senator Browser History by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's both really funny and yet a really good idea that we could all get behind.

  5. Lose anonymity, lose bargaining power. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Companies want to extract maximum revenue from careless and casual customers and would grudgingly provide better deals to informed customers who insist on fair deals. They try to give coupons and deals to the informed customers and charge the rack rate for the customers who don't bother. Till now they could only do this at broad categories.

    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
  6. Re:Again like I said! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Judging from the vote along party lines it certainly seem that socialists care a lot more then the fascists.

    (also not touching the flame bait portion)

  7. This is America. Privacy is dead. by frovingslosh · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:This is America. Privacy is dead. by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      While you do have a point about gov't snooping; gov't snooping and corporate snooping are mostly two different issues. Both are problems.

    2. Re:This is America. Privacy is dead. by HornWumpus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's unlikely there will be a legal solution to corporate snooping.

      The only possible solution to government snooping is technical. Which will solve the first problem as a bonus.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  8. What difference, at this point, does it make? by stolidobserver · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:What difference, at this point, does it make? by PoopJuggler · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It doesn't matter when you got your rights, it only matters when they were taken away. That's like if the English retook the colonies after the Revolutionary War and the colonists just said, "Whelp, we had a nice 5 months of liberty. Oh well.."

  9. Plutocracy by Tablizer · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Plutocracy by squiggleslash · · Score: 3

      Seriously, is there an actual reason for this that isn't corruption or some kind of libertarian ideological nutcasery?

      I try not to take these things at face value, but everything looks like blatant corruption from here. It might give me some faith in humanity to know there's a good reason beyond "Ayn Rand would approve, and so does my wallet."

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    2. Re:Plutocracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't understand why this comment is marked as "insightful" it is at the least ignorant and at the worst bigotry. While that might be how you and the people you associate with and the news organizations you follow view Republicans just realize Democrats aren't viewed any better by Republicans than Republicans are viewed by Democrats. If you think your group is on some moral high ground then you aren't really educated and don't really know anything about people in this country. If you were educated or did know anything about people across the country then you would know that the Republicans think Democrats are just as much a group full of rats and garbage as you think the Republicans are. And this is the root of our problems in this country. Everyone thinks their group has all the right answers and that the other group is a bunch of greedy rats. Guess what, there are good and bad people in every corner of this country, you can find good and bad Republicans/Democrats/Upper class/Middle class/Poor/Movie Stars/Corporate Executives/etc... everywhere, so lets stop acting like children and realize that the only right answer will always be to compromise. We have to compromise on everything so that we get things that work well for most people. As long as we are unwilling to compromise then we will continue to see garbage like this where the Republicans overturn something the Democrats did and the Democrats overturn something the Republicans did, it's madness!

    3. Re:Plutocracy by meta-monkey · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Seriously, is there an actual reason for this that isn't corruption or some kind of libertarian ideological nutcasery?

      The Republicans think the FTC should be regulating what businesses sell what information to others, not the FCC. The tail end of the Obama FCC said "naw, we're going to do that instead."

      That's the actual point of contention, but "Republicans gonna tell everybody about your midget porn for cash" is better clicks.

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
    4. Re:Plutocracy by PoopJuggler · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't see any Democrats supporting this bill. I don't see any Democrats trying to dissolve the EPA. I don't see any Democrats repealing the Stream Protection Act. I don't see the Democrats cutting education funding. I don't see the Democrats taking away people's health insurance. I don't see the Democrats defunding Planned Parenthood. I don't see the Democrats pushing through oil pipelines. I don't see the Democrats endorsing coal. Jesus, I could go on and on.

    5. Re:Plutocracy by GameboyRMH · · Score: 2

      Can't wait to see the FTC introducing rules any day then, to close this loophole, since it's about assigning regulation to the most relevant authority and not selling away every American's privacy. I'll start my waiting clock now. Shouldn't be long right?

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    6. Re:Plutocracy by meta-monkey · · Score: 2

      Was your privacy sold away before 3 months ago?

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
    7. Re:Plutocracy by DamnOregonian · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No, the Republicans know the FTC doesn't have the legal jurisdiction to rule on this, and are thus claiming that it is the realm of the FTC to rule on. The FCCs jurisdiction by passed law was less contentious, so Obama sent it that way to get the job done, since he knew damn well the Republicans weren't going to clearly empower the FTC to do it, since they are idiologically against the idea of limiting the size of dildo you're allowed to penetrate American consumers with.

      But your story sure sounds so much easier to defend.

  10. For the Republican readers by Billly+Gates · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:For the Republican readers by Billly+Gates · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If you lean libertarian, then be libertarian. Switching to Democrat is essentially the polar opposite of libertarian. It makes no sense.

      Libertarians believe in liberal human rights, less wars, seperation of church and state, and less government colluding with big business. Democrats stand for these too.

      Now economically one can argue they agree with Republicans. True. But look at the GOP today? They believe in big government to create monopolies, fight wars for oil companies, restrict trans/gay/womens rights, want creationism taught in the classroom and have altered books in the state of Texas already, etc. Being for limited government only applies to big companies in the GOP.

      The election of Trump showed me ideology and religion matter more than facts or competency. I can't stand by supporting someone who has 7% of the vote and doesn't know where Syria is on a map when I can change an existing party instead.

    2. Re:For the Republican readers by Billly+Gates · · Score: 2

      All the GOP where I live in Texas supported Trump to make God happy. Simple.

      This sounds absurd to slashdotters but I AM DEAD serious. God is pro corporation because the pastor said so. Liberals are evil horrible people out to take their church and guns away to literally the majority of people where I am at in rural areas.

      It was religion as why would anyone vote Republican? It is because of gay rights and abortition and teaching the book of Genesis in the classroom. That is the most important and only issues these voters care about.

      Majority voted for CLinton as a reminder. The rural southern states voted for Trump because their pastor said so. Plain and simple.

    3. Re:For the Republican readers by meglon · · Score: 2, Informative

      When you start off with your head up your ass, you can only spout the bullshit that's collected in your mouth,

      1 - the president doesn't have the authority to repeal an act, such as the Patriot Act....congress does; you know, like the republican house that did absolutely nothing while Obama was in office. You too fucking stupid to remember that far back?

      2 - https://www.washingtonpost.com...
      https://www.bloomberg.com/poli...
      http://www.rollcall.com/news/r...
      I mean seriously, how fucking stupid do you have to be to not see EVERY damn news article about Gitmo closing had republicans blocking Obama from doing it? Are you seriously that fucking stupid, or is the problem you just can't fucking read?

      3 - this just sounds like you being a typical whiny ass republican dipshit who can only spout catchwords they here coming out of some other republicans ass.

      4 - just quit being a lying bitch. If you're in a red state that didn't expanded medicare, the problem is your fucking ideologically driven cocksucking republicans who'd rather see people die than get medical help.

      5 - http://abcnews.go.com/Politics... You're just a fucking stupid parrot.

      6 - have to say, i can't find this rabid-cocksucking-republican talking point anywhere, so i have to assume you're simply full of shit like all the other republicans conspiracy theory fuckwads. http://fairuse.stanford.edu/ov... for reading not tied to some cocksucking republican lying bitch. 7 - here you're just full of shit. opinions are like assholes... like you. Obama didn't obfuscate government transparency more than any other president before him, although VP Darth Cheney probably did much worse without cocksuckers like you saying anything about it. Now you have the worthless twat Trump in office, who appears to be bought and paid for by Russia, and a bunch of co-conspirator republican traitors who won't hold him accountable. Fucking republicans are what's wrong in this country.... traitors, liars, and all around pieces of shit.

      --
      Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
  11. Overreach by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    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.

  12. Re:Again like I said! by Billly+Gates · · Score: 3, Insightful

    so socialists care about person privacy?

    (not responding to republican == KKK nonsense)

    Funny these so called socialists who are really democrats that are center right all voted against it. What do you say about that?

  13. If you want to go to jail. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  14. Re:Again like I said! by WheezyJoe · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, lessee. Under Dem administration, FCC restricts ISP use of consumer info, protects privacy. Three months into a GOP administration, party-line vote takes it away so ISP's can sell you out to anyone willing to pay up. Don't need a math book to figure this one out.
    Remember that when the pornpolice break down your door, or sends you a friendly extortion note.

    --
    Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
  15. Why do Republicans hate people? by s1d3track3D · · Score: 2

    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.

  16. Time to poison the data pool by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:Time to poison the data pool by Thelasko · · Score: 2

      ruinmysearchhistory.com

      I am not brave enough to do it. I doubt most people are.

      --
      One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  17. For the Knee Jerks by footNipple · · Score: 5, Informative

    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?

  18. More Information by apharmdq · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  19. Re:Yeah, call your lawmakers by fnj · · Score: 2

    Old think. Stupid think. Sheep think. The ESTABLISHMENT owns everything. Democrat establishment, Republican establishment, it's all the same fucking thing.

  20. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  21. Re:Again like I said! by DogDude · · Score: 2

    That's funny. I'm aware of several companies that don't hire Trump supporters.

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
  22. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  23. It was never a law by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  24. Re:Again like I said! by Gr8Apes · · Score: 2

    That's funny. I'm aware of several companies that don't hire Trump supporters.

    Why would you hire a delusional paranoid pathological liar?

    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  25. Re:Again like I said! by lgw · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Stop being taken in by political theater.

    The mainstream of the Dems and GOP is the same party - the Deep State. They have the same goals - protect the financial interests of large donors (most of which donate to both parties, of course). They stage these pretend-fights to give have of the entirely corrupt crowd cover on any given vote.

    The Dems won the toss, and got cover for this enriching of donors. It means little.

    Both parties have outsiders trying to overturn the Deep State. You can see the old-school media is 100% onboard with the uniparty by how they treat the likes of Trump and Bernie.

    Trump and Bernie aren't faking. They desire actual change to this whole fucked-up corrupt system. Don't fall for the extreme-izing, the other-ing of these guys. They both have a lot of support from mainstream America. And stop being taken in by political theater.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  26. Re:#MAGA by fyngyrz · · Score: 2

    Irony is wasted on Fox News victims.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  27. Re:Again like I said! by andydread · · Score: 4, Insightful

    the point remains... on this vote the Fascists are certainly against privacy compared to the Socialists.

  28. Re:Again like I said! by meglon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You really should heed your own advice. The first thing you do is spout of some conspiracy theory bullshit that it would take a fucking idiot to believe.

    This is nothing more than the way things have been going for 35+ years... republicans fucking over the average citizen to give more money to businesses.

    --
    Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
  29. Re:Again like I said! by OhPlz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What happened over the last eight years to stop the NSA and CIA from spying on each and everyone of us?

    Absolutely nothing. That's (apparently) what you get with Dems in charge.

    This game is stupid.

  30. Re:Yeah, call your lawmakers by fnj · · Score: 2

    Yeah, yeah, yeah. And ObamaCare was passed without a single Republican vote. It works both ways. One branch of the Establishment party is a little less wrong on some things, and the same for the other branch on other things.

  31. Just a "mine" planted for political games by drnb · · Score: 2

    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.

  32. Re:Again like I said! by WheezyJoe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What happened over the last eight years to stop the NSA and CIA from spying on each and everyone of us? Absolutely nothing. That's (apparently) what you get with Dems in charge.

    Correct, and it's not cool. But the GOP hasn't lifted a finger to stop NSA and CIA spying so far on their watch, and I ain't holding my breath that Trump and Co. ever will. Are you?

    OTOH, the GOP acted real quick to kill off this little squeak of consumer protection which the Dems managed to keep in place in spite of heavy ISP lobbying.

    Besides, the NSA and CIA don't see dollar-signs from selling you out... but ISP's do, and that's the only reason they lobbied the GOP to do it. They will sell your info as many times as they can for whoever's willing to pay. That means a whole lot more people, companies, ad agencies, police departments, polling companies, employment contractors, local governments, anyone willing to pay up (even... the NSA and CIA) can learn what you do from the Internet service that you pay for.

    Put this in perspective: to even half-way avoid this you have to dump your ISP, and either stay off the net entirely or only connect using other people's ISP's, like stealing someone's wi-fi or parking outside a McDonald's. Yeah, you can VPN, but your ISP will be aware that you're using a VPN, and they'll be happy to tell that to anyone who's willing to pay.

    --
    Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
  33. Who said? by AutodidactLabrat · · Score: 2

    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.