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Tech firms seek to frustrate internet history log law

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Tech firms seek to frustrate internet history log law

#41

Post by throwaway7767 »

shp0ngle wrote: post #23

The most scary thing for me is that both political left and political right is nowadays for increasing surveillance - and there is no one in opposition. Except probably for Pirate parties, which are mostly irrelevant.

> The most scary thing for me is that both political left and political right is nowadays for increasing surveillance

Right, because like many important but sparsely discussed issues this one doesn't fit into the left-right distinction. Unfortunately there are still many voters who like to compress the issues down to a single scalar value so they can place themselves on some easy-to-understand axis.

Break away from it. State involvement in economic policy is only one of many issues to consider when voting for a government.

Re: Tech firms seek to frustrate internet history log law

#42

Post by pmlnr »

wotstowaway wrote: post #35

In fact, it's already possibly (and easy) to obtain the un-anonymized browsing history of millions of people. I was part of a (journalistic) team that got their hands on a free sample from a company that offers "website traffic analytics", and which uses browser extensions as well as mobile apps as their main surveillance tools. The data set contained the complete browsing history of almost 3 million German Internet…

> So although the government is a real threat to citizens privacy

That's not privacy which is under threat any more. Say you visit a website of random content in January. Website goes out of business, someone else buys the domain and puts flagged content on it in September.

Now... how do you prove you were visiting a different site? Trigger an archive.org call on each and every site I visit? Dig up domain name changes? I've been dealing with DNS for 10+ years and I have no idea how to dig up historical domain owners, especially not with the hide options.

This goes way, way beyond privacy issues.

Re: Tech firms seek to frustrate internet history log law

#44

Post by [deleted] »

manarth wrote: post #19
userbinator wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drugs, child porn (sometimes even adult porn), and terrorism seem to be the most-used arguments for authoritarianism. Unfortunately they are also quite convincing in the "you have nothing to hide" sense.

"sometimes even adult porn" Which is also currently up for discussion: "UK to censor online videos of 'non-conventional' sex acts" https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/23/censor-no...

[deleted]

Re: Tech firms seek to frustrate internet history log law

#45

Post by stevetrewick »

noja wrote: post #6
iamben wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. It makes no sense. "Let's bring in a law that logs everyone not seeking to avoid detection." Any serious criminal/terrorist will use a VPN, disposable phones with end to end encrypted messaging, or pen and paper. Any criminal/terrorist that doesn't take these measures shouldn't be a problem to prevent in the firstplace.

So where is the conversation about that ? If this measure will not catch the very people it is intending to catch, what is its purpose?

To make you censor yourself so they don't have to. Same deal with the porn one. There was a piece by Alec Muffet not so long ago discussing the consultation process for age verification. All those involved knew that the headline group (teenagers) the law was supposed to protect were by far the most likely to circumvent the measures, so any such system is essentially not fit for its stated purpose.

Even if the intent is to play well with the authoritarian and/or socially conservative portions of the electorate, the effect will still be self censorship.

My SO and I both have to undergo enhanced disclosure and barring service checks on a regular basis for our jobs, one of which is in education. The UK Department of Education just effectively prevented Milo from speaking at his old school 'because extremism'. So how should I be feeling right now about following links from Reddit or other forums discussing US electoral politics that might lead to Breitbart? What if there's another situation like Sad Puppies vs the Hugos and I'm trying to get a picture of what's going on and I click on a link to find a Vox Day equivalent? Did I just endanger one of our prospects for future employment? Hard to say. Will using a VPN service get us tagged as 'something to hide' and affect our eligibility to work with children and vulnerable adults? Don't know. Worth betting someone's career on?

Re: Tech firms seek to frustrate internet history log law

#46

Post by wotstowaway »

pmlnr wrote: post #42
wotstowaway wrote: post #35

In fact, it's already possibly (and easy) to obtain the un-anonymized browsing history of millions of people. I was part of a (journalistic) team that got their hands on a free sample from a company that offers "website traffic analytics", and which uses browser extensions as well as mobile apps as their main surveillance tools. The data set contained the complete browsing history of almost 3 million German Internet…

> So although the government is a real threat to citizens privacy That's not privacy which is under threat any more. Say you visit a website of random content in January. Website goes out of business, someone else buys the domain and puts flagged content on it in September. Now... how do you prove you were visiting a different site? Trigger an archive.org call on each and every site I visit? Dig up domain name change…

Concerning historical domain data, there are several vendors (e.g. Domaintools) that provide this kind of information, and domain registrar information usually contains the registration date for the domain, so proving it was a different site is possible.

You're absolutely right though that it's highly problematic if we use automated tools to analyze this kind of data, as many people can end up in the wrong category due to either flawed analysis methods or faulty data.

Again I'd say that currently the greater threat comes from private companies that will use this data to build "shady" rating systems which will affect the daily lives of many people, without giving these people a chance to verify or oppose the data being used against them.

Re: Tech firms seek to frustrate internet history log law

#47

Post by ebbv »

wotstowaway wrote: post #35

In fact, it's already possibly (and easy) to obtain the un-anonymized browsing history of millions of people. I was part of a (journalistic) team that got their hands on a free sample from a company that offers "website traffic analytics", and which uses browser extensions as well as mobile apps as their main surveillance tools. The data set contained the complete browsing history of almost 3 million German Internet…

Some portion of people who choose to install a browser extension being traceable is worlds different from the government mandating that ISPs track all internet activity of all U.K. citizens.

That distinction should be plainly obvious.

Re: Tech firms seek to frustrate internet history log law

#50

Post by typeiierror »

Brian K. Vaughan's comic Private Eye [1] foreshadows what might happen if this dataset is breached. The premise is the digital cloud "bursts" - all private data is suddenly dumped and searchable - forcing people to completely abandon their identities and assume new ones - changing their name, appearance, re-starting their careers, etc.

When you consider this in the context of technologies like Voco [2] and Face2Face [3] that can fabricate a speech or make a fake "hot mic" video from a public figure, it makes you wonder if we'll ever be able to prove things are __true__ in the future, and what the value of our identity is if it can be shattered beyond repair due to negligence from a third party. What do we do then? How do you cryptographically sign yourself?

[1] http://panelsyndicate.com/comics/tpeye [2] http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37899902 [3] http://www.graphics.stanford.edu/~niessner/thies2016face.htm...

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