Tag: internet privacy
The Republican Party Is Ready To Sell Off Your Internet Privacy At A Level That Boggles The Mind

The Republican Party Is Ready To Sell Off Your Internet Privacy At A Level That Boggles The Mind

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Trump’s new Chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, recently co-authored what is either an intentionally or naively deceptive op-ed in The Washington Post.

Pai suggested that when Republicans in the House and Senate – without a single Democratic vote in either body – voted to legalize your Internet Service Provider – your ISP – to sell your personal (and you-thought-private) browsing information and the content of your emails and video-viewing to anybody they choose, they were actually working to “protect” your privacy.  He knew this, he wrote, because critics of the GOP policy “don’t understand how advertising works.”

That claim is unadulterated BS.

He starts out saying that an ISP would never sell your private browsing\emailing\viewing history because it “would violate  ISP’s privacy promises.”  True enough, at this moment – because those privacy policies reflect the law that banned such behavior.

But anybody who’s ever bothered to read online Terms Of Service knows that such policies can, quite literally, be changed in less than a day, to accommodate new legal opportunities. To think they won’t is either naïve or profoundly disingenuous.

At the core of this debate is a simple concept that Pai’s op-ed goes out of its way to obfuscate.  It’s the question of whether the internet and access to it should be a “public” space (i.e. “part of the commons”) with a We The People government-regulated expectation of privacy, or a hypermonetized private/corporate/billionaire-regulated space where you are left to the tender mercies of giant corporations and their owners/managers.

Think of it like your phone company.

There was a time, in the early days of telephones, when there was very little privacy to a phone call. “Agnes” at the phone company (operators in the 1920s and ‘30s were nearly always women) could, as she plugged your line to your neighbor’s line to establish a connection, listen in to your conversation (a common theme in old movies). Party lines were notoriously insecure.

So, in 1934, Congress updated the laws regulating radio to include telephony, creating the FCC, and wrote Title II of the FCC regulations, which basically says that the phone system is a public utility (necessary for public safety, the public good, etc.), and that therefore the phone company couldn’t listen in to your conversations.

Imagine, instead, that the newly-formed 1934 FCC had  taken the position that Pai and his Republican allies argue for – that phone systems were purely profit machines for the companies that own them, and they could monetize them anyway they wanted based on the content of your phone calls.

Agnes could listen in and tell her boss, “He’s discussing a big business deal,” or, “He’s having an affair!”  The phone company could then sell that information to a competing company or your spouse, or buy or sell stocks based on it (a theme in several 1920s stories), thus increasing their profits. Maybe Agnes could even get herself cut into the deal.

Additionally, Agnes could (again, check out the old movies) even “censor” you, telling you you shouldn’t be having that affair, or cutting your connection just when you’re in the heat of passion or about to consummate a business deal with which she disagreed.

Can you remember any in-depth reporting on net neutrality or privacy? They’re treated as if they’re irrelevant, even though they’re at the core of most of our daily lives.

The modern version of this isn’t hard to imagine.  Giant ISP companies Comcast and Time-Warner already own MSNBC and CNN respectively, and given the near-complete absence of on-air discussion of net neutrality or the GOP’s recent anti-privacy legislation, it’s not unreasonable to assume that, at the very least, talent and producers on those networks know better than to embarrass their employers with these issues.

But now that those ISPs can read – and regulate – your browsing (remember, less government regulation means more power for billionaires and their corporations to regulate you), what happens when your favorite website runs an article critical of one of these giant ISPs?

You could find that Alternet takes minutes to load a page, whereas more corporate-friendly sites like Breitbart or others funded in part by billionaires are blazing fast. At first it would probably be a simple pay-to-play, but since censorship is already rampant on our corporate “news” channels, it’s not a stretch to expect it to come soon to your web browser.

Back in 1934, to prevent the telephone version of this sort of corporate intrusion into our lives, the FCC, through Title II, said that the contents of your phone conversations were yours – private – and other than the distance you were calling or the length of time you were on the phone, they couldn’t charge less for a call to Mom or more for a call to your stockbroker.  (Business lines could charge more, mostly for a business listing, but privacy was still intact.)

Phone service is still that way today, and when former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler put the internet under Title II, he extended those privacy protections to what are, in effect, your online activities and conversations.

Pai and his Republican buddies in Congress, assert (now successfully) that your use of the internet is not a protected communication, that the internet is not a “public good” or a “public utility,” and that everything you say or do online can and should be turned into extra revenue sources for the big ISPs that then pass big bucks along to the GOP through lobbying and campaign contributions.

This is why he argues that instead of the Federal Communications Commission overseeing the internet, regulatory power should be shifted to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). It’s not about “communications” in his mind; it’s about “trade/commerce.”

While a number of totalitarian and “raw capitalist” nations agree with Pai, every other fully functioning democracy in the world considers the internet to be a public utility like telephony.

Pai and his GOP buddies have instead moved us in the corporate-authoritarian direction of China – where the state can not only listen in on everything you do on the internet, but can censor it, while private companies can monetize it.

This is a huge contrast to Canada or the European Union, which have both declared internet neutrality a basic human right and use of the internet to be part of a telephone-like common carrier process with appropriate privacy protections enforced by governments answerable to average citizens.

As to Pai’s suggestion that, “Internet service providers have never planned to sell your individual browsing history to third parties. That’s simply not how online advertising works,” I commend to you what is probably your own experience.  Private, for profit companies already can – and aggressively do – sell your personal usage information.  It’s a robust business, in fact.

And it can be a bit disconcerting.

Five years ago when my wife had breast cancer (now gone, thankfully) and began googling the topic and buying chemo supplements, pretty much any computer she used, as soon as she signed into anything that would identify her, began popping up ads for chemotherapy wigs and other cancer accessories. (One wonders what kinds of ads follow around heavy porn users.) An overweight friend similarly has weight-loss ads following her all over the internet, from town to town, from computer to computer.

Giant search engines and a plethora of private sites enthusiastically sell your usage of their sites; it’s at the core of their business models. And, arguably, that’s not a violation of the spirit of Title II, because it wasn’t “Agnes” selling the contents of your “conversation” – instead it was the person/company to whom Agnes connected you.

Pai’s argument is basically that if Google can sell or use your information, then Comcast, AT&T, Time-Warner, etc., should be able to, too.

But there’s a fundamental difference.  If you don’t want Google to sell or use your information, you can use a search engine (like www.duckduckgo.com) or an online store that promises not to.

But your internet service provider sees everything you do on the internet, right down to the keystroke level.  They can monitor every VOIP conversation, make note of every search or purchase, and transcribe every email or IM. Just like your phone company, before Title II, could listen in on every one of your phone calls.

And, who knows?  Maybe that’s next on Pai’s agenda.

Thom Hartmann is an author and nationally syndicated daily talk show host. His newest book is “The Crash of 2016: The Plot to Destroy America — and What We Can Do to Stop It.

This article was made possible by the readers and supporters of AlterNet.

New Internet Privacy Repeal Makes VPN Usage More Important Than Ever

Unless you’ve been under a rock with no WiFi, you’re well aware that Congress and President Trump have opened up your browsing history to the highest bidder. Under changes to FCC rules signed by President Trump last week, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will no longer need your approval to sell information about where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing online.

Alarming, yes…impossible to get around, not so much. The first step to protecting your online data is limiting your browsing to HTTPS-protected sites, as indicated by the green lock in your address bar. Especially when entering passwords or credit card information, you should be extremely cognizant of this. Unfortunately, HTTPS can only go so far in protecting you, and you have little control over which websites employ it.

While your ISP won’t see the ways in which you interact with an HTTPS website, it will see which websites you visit in the first place. By enlisting the services of a Virtual Private Network (VPN), all your actions on the web will stay completely anonymous in the eyes of your ISP thanks to military-grade encryption. It’s never been more important to have the resources of a trusted VPN provider on your side. Thankfully, quality VPNs are neither difficult to set up nor overly pricey. Here are three worthy options:

VPN Unlimited: Lifetime Subscription ($39, 92% off)

One of the most respected names in the VPN game, VPN Unlimited offers full protection while surfing the web, with server locations in 39 countries around the world. With unlimited bandwidth and lightning fast connection speeds, it’s no wonder that VPN Unlimited earns top marks from trusted sites like TechRadar and VPN Service Providers, as well as the Top VPN of 2016 honor from the venerable PC Mag.

Windscribe VPN: Lifetime Pro Subscription ($79, 91% off)

When is a VPN not a VPN? When it’s a heck of a lot more…which definitely describes the package of services available through Windscribe. While Windscribe cloaks your web traffic and secures your personal info from hackers or snoops like the standard VPN, Windscribe also comes with a full suite of computer privacy tools like anti-tracking apps, an ad blocker, secure link generators, firewall protection and more.

VPNSecure: Lifetime Subscription ($39, 91% off)

If you’re as annoyed as the rest of us when you can’t watch a certain video or steam due to geo-blocking restrictions, VPNSecure has you covered in that respect in addition to performing the encryption duties of a solid VPN. Thanks to their Smart DNS feature, you can bypass those regional boundaries and watch your Netflix, Hulu and other favorite services anywhere in the world. VPNSecure is a well-respected choice that will mask your IP address, encrypt your traffic and keep absolutely no logs of anything you do on the web.

This sponsored post is brought to you by StackCommerce.

Trump Signs Repeal Of U.S. Broadband Privacy Rules

Trump Signs Repeal Of U.S. Broadband Privacy Rules

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday signed a repeal of Obama-era broadband privacy rules, the White House said, a victory for internet service providers and a blow to privacy advocates.

Republicans in Congress last week narrowly passed the repeal of the privacy rules with no Democratic support and over the strong objections of privacy advocates.

The signing, disclosed in White House statement late on Monday, follows strong criticism of the bill, which is a win for AT&T Inc, Comcast Corp and Verizon Communications Inc.

The bill repeals regulations adopted in October by the Federal Communications Commission under the Obama administration requiring internet service providers to do more to protect customers’ broadband privacy than websites like Alphabet Inc’s Google or Facebook Inc.

The rules had not yet taken effect but would have required internet providers to obtain consumer consent before using precise geolocation, financial information, health information, children’s information and web browsing history for advertising and marketing.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai praised the repeal in a statement late on Monday for having “appropriately invalidated one part of the Obama-era plan for regulating the internet.” Those flawed privacy rules, which never went into effect, were designed to benefit one group of favored companies, not online consumers.”

Pai said the FCC would work with the Federal Trade Commission, which oversees websites, to restore the “FTC’s authority to police internet service providers’ broadband privacy practices.”

Republican FCC commissioners have said the Obama rules would unfairly give websites the ability to harvest more data than internet service providers.

The action is the latest in a string of reversals of Obama administration rules. On Monday, the FCC reversed a requirement that Charter Communications Inc extend broadband service to 1 million homes that already have a high-speed provider.

On Friday, Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T Inc. said they would voluntarily not sell customers’ individual internet browsing information.

Verizon does not sell personal web browsing histories and has no plans to do so but the company said it has two advertising programs that use “de-identified” customer browsing data, including one that uses “aggregate insights that might be useful for advertisers and other businesses.”

The American Civil Liberties Union said last month Congress should have opposed “industry pressure to put profits over privacy” and added “most Americans believe that their sensitive internet information should be closely guarded.”

Trade group USTelecom Chief Executive Jonathan Spalter in a statement praised Trump for “stopping rules that would have created a confusing and conflicting consumer privacy framework.”

Last week, 46 Senate Democrats urged Trump not to sign the bill, arguing most Americans “believe that their private information should be just that.”

Republicans later this year are expected to move to overturn net neutrality provisions that in 2015 reclassified broadband providers and treated them like a public utility – a move that is expected to spark an even bigger fight.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Bill Trott)

IMAGE: President Trump speaks in the East Room of the White House. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

An Elegy For John Gibson

An Elegy For John Gibson

This is an elegy for John Gibson.

He was a married father of two, a pastor and a professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He is said to have loved fixing cars and to have had an oddball laugh. In photos, he and his wife Christi and their two kids come across as a goofy, fun-loving bunch. Pictures of them radiate joy.

Christi Gibson found her husband dead of suicide in their home on Aug. 24. Last week, she told CNNMoney that John left a note in which he said he was struggling with depression — and shame. In July, you will recall, news came that Ashley Madison, the website that brokers adulterous relationships, had been hacked and that the hackers were threatening to publish a list of 32 million customers — names, financial information, sexual fantasies. Gibson killed himself just days after they made good on that threat.

You see, his name was on that list. In his note, says his wife, he expressed profound remorse. “What we know about him,” she told CNN, “is that he poured his life into other people, and he offered grace and mercy and forgiveness to everyone else, but somehow he couldn’t extend that to himself.”

This is an elegy for a man who was guilty of an all-too-common sin, one committed by presidents, potentates, plumbers, and policemen, an everyday hypocrisy enacted millions of times before John Gibson came into this life and millions of times in the short few days since he left it.

This is an elegy, then, for an average guy who found himself caught in the gears between the cheater’s website and the thieves who targeted it, opposing forces that barely knew he was there, who crushed what mattered to him and never even heard it breaking.

There is something distinctly modern about this tragedy. Once upon a time, not so long ago, none of this would have been possible. We had not yet developed the means to break into one another’s lives like a flimsy back door off a dangerous alley, had not yet figured out how to bring cameras, microphones and the Internet into those areas of our existence we once marked as off limits.

So this is an elegy for the right to privacy.

Ashley Madison has extended condolences to Gibson’s family — surely that was much appreciated — but had you visited the website Thursday, you would have found little sign of anything amiss. The ubiquitous brunette counseling discretion with an index finger to her pouty lips is still there. Under the “Affair Guarantee Program,” you are promised a refund if you can’t find a suitable partner to cheat with.

“Life is short,” goes the tagline. “Have an affair.” The first part of that certainly proved true for Gibson. He was 56.

And, lest you think the release of sensitive information on 32 million customers might be bad for business, be advised. The company claims it is growing since the breach.

So this is an elegy for basic common sense.

Ashley Madison is founded upon the implicit idea that you can have betrayal without consequence. The family of the late John Gibson would beg to differ. Families of other suicide victims believed to be linked to this hack probably would, too.

Yet the company continues to broadly enable betrayal and in the process, to destroy families in a hundred different ways quieter and less tragic than suicide, but ultimately just as effective. The cheaters website has described its customers as “free-thinking people who choose to engage in fully lawful online activities.” Which suggests Ashley Madison is guilty of its own all-too-common sin, one frequently seen among drug dealers and pimps. Namely: rationalizing and justifying a toxic business because there is money to be made.

Sadly, this is not an elegy for that.

(Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, FL, 33132. Readers may contact him via email at lpitts@miamiherald.com.)

Photo: A photo illustration shows the Ashley Madison app displayed on a smartphone in Toronto, August 20, 2015. REUTERS/Mark Blinch