Some time ago, I posted to a message board topic where some idiot was
arguing that people shouldn't worry about their privacy if they have
nothing to hide. It was an angry post because I can't stand it when
someone says that. It is an ignorant and simpleminded argument to bring
into a debate about privacy.
Most people have nothing to hide and they would still require a
search warrant before allowing the police to search their home. Wanting
privacy to be respected has absolutely nothing to do with whether or
not you have something to hide.
I decided to start a topic on this at SpywareInfo's forums to see how other people deal with that argument. The topic has been going strong for several months.
The latest response was a really interesting one and I've decided to show it here:
"When someone gives you the old "I have nothing to hide" argument, what do you usually say in return?"
When I hear this my blood boils, I feel my hackles rise and I want
to reach through my monitor and inflict serious bodily harm upon their
sheepish, emasculated, brainwashed arses!
Then, after I have calmed down, I patiently explain to them how such
a statement is based upon empty rhetoric and not logic. I explain to
them that in order for people to be truly free and enjoy the so called
democratic rights our protective politicians claim we have, people must
feel free. They must feel free of suspicion and they must feel a sense
of trust, that people must be respected and not to be watched over
their shoulder all the time. That society advances by the unfettered
actions of truly free people, not those huddled in a corner, fearfully
grasping their meager material possessions to their chests and calling
the police to hunt down any person that displays the least bit of
individuality. Creativity and progress come from those that are free of
fear and distrust.
But then I just sigh and walk away, knowing that the true spirit of
humanity is actually lost to the vast majority of people on this dismal
planet.
It turns out that some of those who say they don't worry about their
privacy because they have nothing to hide sometimes are lying. When
these people's privacy is invaded unfairly, they squawk just as loudly
as anyone else. Read this story at the Willamette Week Online and you'll see what I mean.
The most comprehensive FAQ that I know of about Direcway is at BBR.
I've had Direcway since December 2002. In short, it sucks, but at least it ain't dialup.
The lag is god awful. Minimum latency, by the laws of physics, is 600ms, and more usually twice that. Forget ever playing any online game. Pages take nearly 5 seconds to even begin loading. FTP and email are so painfully slow you want to gouge out your eyes.
The download speed can't be beat (depending on what satellite/transponder they activate you on), but upload is a joke. All customers on a transponder fight for the same 128kbps upload speed. Dialup is better and more reliable for uploading any file larger than 20kb. When you do upload something, don't hold your breath because you will probably max out at 20-45kbps.
Yes, rain/snow/heavy cloud cover knocks it offline. Since you're in the north, it will go down easier than it would here (weaker signal the further north you are). I usually have to cycle the modems when the rain knocks it off. It fills up with static (probably could be grounded better).
This probably won't apply to the new Dway 6000, but the model I have (4000 I think) has software which Direcway uses for A.) Remote Access and B.) Popping up full page advertisements. See here for details.
Tech support is a joke. Don't bother. Go to Copperhead or BBR if you need help.
I don't know about the newer system, but I'm behind a NAT (and I think this applies to everyone unless you pay for a static IP). You cannot run a server because of the NAT. SSH probably won't work. I can't use VNC unless someone on the server side initiates a client connection to me first.
Then, there is FAP. FAP (Fair Access Policy) is a joke. If you download more than 169MB within 4 hours, they firewall your connection. They claim they throttle it to dialup speed, but that is a lie. The internet connection dies for hours after the FAP kicks in. If you decide to download a.ISO or other large file, use dialup because it'll download slower but in much less time than trying to work around FAP.
I would suggest taking a very hard look at Starband before spending any money with Direcway. I plan to switch to them myself as soon as I can afford to do so because of Direcway's popping up ads on my PC. I need to recover from Christmas first.
Run the ircd yourself on an internal company server and deny it access to the internet.
If you need to allow people outside the company internal network in, find out what IP address your employees will be connecting from ahead of time, make certain you are opered (/oper [ircop name] [oper password]) and check their IP address when they connect.
If it gives you a non-numerical address, use the/dns command to do a nslookup. ex//dns dpc6682193179.direcpc.com would give you the IP address 66.82.193.179.
If the person claiming to be Bob Smith emailed you ahead of time saying he was going to use that IP, then it's him. If it's nowhere close, then it's not. -
I don't obfuscate at all. I use a server side script to generate a form. The client (browser, spambot, whoever) never sees the address. It is not possible to figure out the address, no matter how determined the spammer is.
As far as I am concerned, the best way to deal with a computer problem is chat combined with a message board (for log files, or in case the people in chat don't have a clue). This assumes the problem hasn't escalated to the point that the PC can't get online.
My message board helps hundreds of people remove advertising parasites every day. They post, someone strolls by and answers the question, and generally the problem is cleared up pretty quickly. If they want help immediately, they can come into the chatroom and point us at their message board thread and we'll take care of it then and there.
Everyone at my site is a volunteer. It would be easy for a company already paying to provide tech support to pay employees to do the exact same thing we do.
I can't imagine trying to tell people over the phone how to fix a problem. I'd sooner have them install RealVNC on their box and let me log in to do it myself (something I've done a couple times).
Off the top of my head, Western Digital (until it became public knowledge) used to use it for showing ads. Real Player bundles it, but that thing is so full of ads it's impossible to tell where they come from.
HP and Compaq bundle it in all of their home PCs and some users swear it produces ads. I've never seen real proof of it.
Other companies like Kodak and F-Secure bundle it for its actual purpose, facilitating software updates. I understand it drives their tech support crazy trying to explain why they use adware for updates.
Backweb really should have some policies for their "partners". The behavior of Logitech and others has ruined its reputation.
Push ads? Push them where? You need an application to show an ad, unless you invade an existing application the way true spyware does. If Logitech applications are forcing you to look at ads, that's a problem with Logitech, not Backweb.
I'm sitting here trying to figure out what might have confused you. It really was pretty clear what I said.
To repeat, Logitech and several other companies use Backweb technology to display advertisements instead of using it it for its intended purpose (software updates, corporate communications, etc).
Yes, Logitech is the one misusing it. What's your point? It is being misused and needs to be removed. The software is displaying advertisements to someone who may or may not have been informed of the fact that it was going to do that (depends on who is bundling it). People want the ads to stop, so the software is targeted. That is the purpose of the software.
The reason Backweb is targeted is because it is force-installed by Logitech and some others. It is used to push advertisements and there is no disclosure that it will be used in this way. That is a valid target.
Cookies are targeted for the obvious reason, tracking by the likes of Doubleclick and sextracker. No antiadware program can ignore cookies because the users wouldn't take it seriously.
This is my web host as a matter of fact. I am aquainted with the two guys that run the company and most of the techs and they absolutely do not tolerate spamming at all.
I've watched them in the IRC support channel more than once watch the TCP connections on a server go through the roof, check the smtp server, and sure enough some asshole has sent a spam mailing through it. They nuke the smtp processes every single time and lock that domain every time.
AOL seems to selectively block emails from my domain. About half the people who attempt to join my message board from aol.com never receive the email that confirms their address and have to send me an email asking me to fix it manually. My replies always get through.
355 of 11,000 subscribers are @aol.com. They don't seem to block my newsletter or newsletter confirmation. Although their garbage email client breaks the confirmation link and I have to do it manually for someone about three times a week.
Maybe a good middle ground would be that at the end of the year (or maybe month), AOL were to send an email to their clients "Our filters blocked XXXX emails identified as spam from reaching your mailbox." (It would have to be infrequent enough that they don't consider it worse than the spam they're preventing.)
I like the way K9 shows its statistics. Although, I'd prefer it showed it only once instead of twice.
Just started trying it out for a review. Almost as good as Thunderbird for spam filtering.
Last time I checked, most of Humanity considered slaughtering protesting citizens with mechanized infantry somewhat more heinous than allowing companies to sue them in a courtroom.
Get your priorities straight buddy because you sound like a real idiot.
This is the part they either refuse to see or are too stupid to see. They can't make much money selling songs because they waste money on DRM that doesn't stop pirates and restricts only legitimate buyers. They sell formats that people don't want to use, like.aac,.wma and whatever else. They refuse to sell plain.ogg and.mp3 files because they fear that people are going to share them out.
Here's a clue for ya asshole. They're already sharing your damned music, without paying for it first. How is refusing to sell the format people want to use doing you any good?
People want mp3s. People want oggs. SELL IT TO THEM SO THEY DON'T HAVE TO FIND IT ON KAZAA FOR FREE.
What the hell are they teaching in business schools these days? Has "How to sue your userbase into oblivion for fun and profit"? replaced "Supply and Demand 101"?
Please take note. This is how you deal with people pirating your signals without being viewed as jackbooted thugs. You find people buying and selling equipment designed specifically to do that.
Contrast this to your current methods which involve extorting protection money out of people who do NOT pirate your signals simply because they bought a programmable smart card with a wide range of possible uses, one of which *might* lead to the pirating of your signals.
Economic common sense has never stood in the way of a war. France was Germany's biggest and most important trading partner in 1940. They invaded it anyway.
The Soviet Union would have been much better off and would have survived if they had spent four decades trading freely with Western Europe instead of arming themselves to conquer it by force.
It may be incorrect, but you can't mute an action sequence. It would boring and awkward to watch it.
That there are Humans thousands of lightyears away with an advanced interstellar civilization is also incorrect, but that didn't stand in the way of portraying it. The key word here is "fiction".
I did like how they handled most of the exlosions. A brief puff of fire that winks out almost immediately.
I think a more advanced civilization will have long since realized that software patents inhibit technological progress and that SCO-like behavior is grounds for immediate disintegration of the board of directors.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
Pardon me for plagarizing myself:
Some time ago, I posted to a message board topic where some idiot was arguing that people shouldn't worry about their privacy if they have nothing to hide. It was an angry post because I can't stand it when someone says that. It is an ignorant and simpleminded argument to bring into a debate about privacy.
Most people have nothing to hide and they would still require a search warrant before allowing the police to search their home. Wanting privacy to be respected has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you have something to hide.
I decided to start a topic on this at SpywareInfo's forums to see how other people deal with that argument. The topic has been going strong for several months.
The latest response was a really interesting one and I've decided to show it here:
It turns out that some of those who say they don't worry about their privacy because they have nothing to hide sometimes are lying. When these people's privacy is invaded unfairly, they squawk just as loudly as anyone else. Read this story at the Willamette Week Online and you'll see what I mean.
The most comprehensive FAQ that I know of about Direcway is at BBR.
I've had Direcway since December 2002. In short, it sucks, but at least it ain't dialup.
The lag is god awful. Minimum latency, by the laws of physics, is 600ms, and more usually twice that. Forget ever playing any online game. Pages take nearly 5 seconds to even begin loading. FTP and email are so painfully slow you want to gouge out your eyes.
The download speed can't be beat (depending on what satellite/transponder they activate you on), but upload is a joke. All customers on a transponder fight for the same 128kbps upload speed. Dialup is better and more reliable for uploading any file larger than 20kb. When you do upload something, don't hold your breath because you will probably max out at 20-45kbps.
Yes, rain/snow/heavy cloud cover knocks it offline. Since you're in the north, it will go down easier than it would here (weaker signal the further north you are). I usually have to cycle the modems when the rain knocks it off. It fills up with static (probably could be grounded better).
This probably won't apply to the new Dway 6000, but the model I have (4000 I think) has software which Direcway uses for A.) Remote Access and B.) Popping up full page advertisements. See here for details.
Tech support is a joke. Don't bother. Go to Copperhead or BBR if you need help.
I don't know about the newer system, but I'm behind a NAT (and I think this applies to everyone unless you pay for a static IP). You cannot run a server because of the NAT. SSH probably won't work. I can't use VNC unless someone on the server side initiates a client connection to me first.
Then, there is FAP. FAP (Fair Access Policy) is a joke. If you download more than 169MB within 4 hours, they firewall your connection. They claim they throttle it to dialup speed, but that is a lie. The internet connection dies for hours after the FAP kicks in. If you decide to download a .ISO or other large file, use dialup because it'll download slower but in much less time than trying to work around FAP.
I would suggest taking a very hard look at Starband before spending any money with Direcway. I plan to switch to them myself as soon as I can afford to do so because of Direcway's popping up ads on my PC. I need to recover from Christmas first.
Run the ircd yourself on an internal company server and deny it access to the internet.
/dns command to do a nslookup. ex/ /dns dpc6682193179.direcpc.com would give you the IP address 66.82.193.179.
If you need to allow people outside the company internal network in, find out what IP address your employees will be connecting from ahead of time, make certain you are opered (/oper [ircop name] [oper password]) and check their IP address when they connect.
If it gives you a non-numerical address, use the
If the person claiming to be Bob Smith emailed you ahead of time saying he was going to use that IP, then it's him. If it's nowhere close, then it's not.
-
Relax, those are Google adwords. It's showing those ads based on the word "Fax" all over that page.
What I get for posting before drinking my coffee. That asp version is here.
Whoops. He's moved things around a bit. That ASP version is here while the PHP version is at the link in my first post.
I don't obfuscate at all. I use a server side script to generate a form. The client (browser, spambot, whoever) never sees the address. It is not possible to figure out the address, no matter how determined the spammer is.
I VERY HIGHLY recommend this free php or asp email form.
ok, I'm impressed now. That shit caused a pop-up bomb even on Firebird.
Now excuse me while I wash my eyes in acid.
As far as I am concerned, the best way to deal with a computer problem is chat combined with a message board (for log files, or in case the people in chat don't have a clue). This assumes the problem hasn't escalated to the point that the PC can't get online.
My message board helps hundreds of people remove advertising parasites every day. They post, someone strolls by and answers the question, and generally the problem is cleared up pretty quickly. If they want help immediately, they can come into the chatroom and point us at their message board thread and we'll take care of it then and there.
Everyone at my site is a volunteer. It would be easy for a company already paying to provide tech support to pay employees to do the exact same thing we do.
I can't imagine trying to tell people over the phone how to fix a problem. I'd sooner have them install RealVNC on their box and let me log in to do it myself (something I've done a couple times).
Off the top of my head, Western Digital (until it became public knowledge) used to use it for showing ads. Real Player bundles it, but that thing is so full of ads it's impossible to tell where they come from.
HP and Compaq bundle it in all of their home PCs and some users swear it produces ads. I've never seen real proof of it.
Other companies like Kodak and F-Secure bundle it for its actual purpose, facilitating software updates. I understand it drives their tech support crazy trying to explain why they use adware for updates.
Backweb really should have some policies for their "partners". The behavior of Logitech and others has ruined its reputation.
I'm sitting here trying to figure out what might have confused you. It really was pretty clear what I said.
To repeat, Logitech and several other companies use Backweb technology to display advertisements instead of using it it for its intended purpose (software updates, corporate communications, etc).
Yes, Logitech is the one misusing it. What's your point? It is being misused and needs to be removed. The software is displaying advertisements to someone who may or may not have been informed of the fact that it was going to do that (depends on who is bundling it). People want the ads to stop, so the software is targeted. That is the purpose of the software.
The reason Backweb is targeted is because it is force-installed by Logitech and some others. It is used to push advertisements and there is no disclosure that it will be used in this way. That is a valid target.
Cookies are targeted for the obvious reason, tracking by the likes of Doubleclick and sextracker. No antiadware program can ignore cookies because the users wouldn't take it seriously.
This is my web host as a matter of fact. I am aquainted with the two guys that run the company and most of the techs and they absolutely do not tolerate spamming at all.
I've watched them in the IRC support channel more than once watch the TCP connections on a server go through the roof, check the smtp server, and sure enough some asshole has sent a spam mailing through it. They nuke the smtp processes every single time and lock that domain every time.
AOL seems to selectively block emails from my domain. About half the people who attempt to join my message board from aol.com never receive the email that confirms their address and have to send me an email asking me to fix it manually. My replies always get through.
355 of 11,000 subscribers are @aol.com. They don't seem to block my newsletter or newsletter confirmation. Although their garbage email client breaks the confirmation link and I have to do it manually for someone about three times a week.
I like the way K9 shows its statistics. Although, I'd prefer it showed it only once instead of twice.
Just started trying it out for a review. Almost as good as Thunderbird for spam filtering.
Last time I checked, most of Humanity considered slaughtering protesting citizens with mechanized infantry somewhat more heinous than allowing companies to sue them in a courtroom.
Get your priorities straight buddy because you sound like a real idiot.
This is the part they either refuse to see or are too stupid to see. They can't make much money selling songs because they waste money on DRM that doesn't stop pirates and restricts only legitimate buyers. They sell formats that people don't want to use, like .aac, .wma and whatever else. They refuse to sell plain .ogg and .mp3 files because they fear that people are going to share them out.
Here's a clue for ya asshole. They're already sharing your damned music, without paying for it first. How is refusing to sell the format people want to use doing you any good?
People want mp3s. People want oggs. SELL IT TO THEM SO THEY DON'T HAVE TO FIND IT ON KAZAA FOR FREE.
What the hell are they teaching in business schools these days? Has "How to sue your userbase into oblivion for fun and profit"? replaced "Supply and Demand 101"?
Thanks. The one linked in the story keeps downloading as a corrupted file. Your's works.
I'll mirror it at http://www.spywareinfo.com/downloads/tools/xpsurvi valguide.pdf also. I intended to write a story about it, so I'll just mirror it myself.
Agreed
Dear DirecTV,
Please take note. This is how you deal with people pirating your signals without being viewed as jackbooted thugs. You find people buying and selling equipment designed specifically to do that.
Contrast this to your current methods which involve extorting protection money out of people who do NOT pirate your signals simply because they bought a programmable smart card with a wide range of possible uses, one of which *might* lead to the pirating of your signals.
Economic common sense has never stood in the way of a war. France was Germany's biggest and most important trading partner in 1940. They invaded it anyway.
The Soviet Union would have been much better off and would have survived if they had spent four decades trading freely with Western Europe instead of arming themselves to conquer it by force.
Service Pack 3 did. Service Pack 4 removed that language, so 2K is safe in that regard.
It may be incorrect, but you can't mute an action sequence. It would boring and awkward to watch it.
That there are Humans thousands of lightyears away with an advanced interstellar civilization is also incorrect, but that didn't stand in the way of portraying it. The key word here is "fiction".
I did like how they handled most of the exlosions. A brief puff of fire that winks out almost immediately.
I think a more advanced civilization will have long since realized that software patents inhibit technological progress and that SCO-like behavior is grounds for immediate disintegration of the board of directors. ;-)
LOL.... I have your web sites's address now. I'm going to return the favor when you least expect :P