I have a lot of issues with this. This should have never been recorded by a government agency.
Be careful what you wish for.
Judge Orders FCC To Hand Over IP Addresses Linked To Net Neutrality Comments
31–40 of 82 posts
Re: Judge Orders FCC To Hand Over IP Addresses Linked To Net Neutrality Comments
#32This is definitely a touchy subject. As the article notes, this will remove the privacy from all people who commented on net neutrality, but it will also allow 2 NYTimes reporters to try to figure out why there were fake comments that led to the loss of neutrality for the people. The separate question that still needs to be figured out, is who is going to be penalized for lying to the american people and taking away…
The privacy aspect to this is definitely touchy: > The FCC argued in court that making the millions of IP addresses contained in the logs publicly accessible would constitute an “unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” And while [Judge Schofield] didn’t entirely disagree, she said the agency had failed to adequately spell out how anyone would be harmed by the disclosure. > Regardless, Schofield said she also decid…
Would a good middle ground would be add some salt to each unique IP, hash the addresses, and hand hashed data over?
Re: Judge Orders FCC To Hand Over IP Addresses Linked To Net Neutrality Comments
#33Data corruption in 3, 2...
"Sorry, we unknowingly purchased crappy SMR disks for storage and backups, and they borked all data after a few resyncs. Blame Western Digital!".
Re: Judge Orders FCC To Hand Over IP Addresses Linked To Net Neutrality Comments
#34What bugs me the most is that the government either doesn't really want to know who's interfering with the democratic process or they know and they're not telling us. The former implies extreme ignorance, the later implies agency capture to the point the FCC is no longer a public institution.
I mean, if you dig with any seriousness, it's pretty likely that THEY actually manufactured it.
Re: Judge Orders FCC To Hand Over IP Addresses Linked To Net Neutrality Comments
#35What bugs me the most is that the government either doesn't really want to know who's interfering with the democratic process or they know and they're not telling us. The former implies extreme ignorance, the later implies agency capture to the point the FCC is no longer a public institution.
I seem to recall at the time some pretty clear signaling from Pai and the FCC that their decisions were really not going to be influenced by the comments no matter what they contained.
Re: Judge Orders FCC To Hand Over IP Addresses Linked To Net Neutrality Comments
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m a bit confused about the privacy issue here. Isn’t the (alleged) commenter’s full name and address published along with their comment in the public filing? If the commenter’s address is already published what other information can be gleaned from their IP address? Is the fear that someone could use it to piece together a person’s web history?
The New York times isn't seeking the name or address in their request, just some other metadata about each comment including the IP and user agent header. Gizmodo failed to link to the actual opinion with this info: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7906482/33/the-new-york... Edit: upon reading more, now I'm not sure if the NYT already has the names and addresses and is just seeking the metadata or if they don't n…
> The New York times isn't seeking the name or address in their request, just some other metadata about each comment including the IP and user agent header.
The point of the person you're responding to is that the NYT doesn't need to seek names or addresses, because they're already public information. Anyone can go look up the docket and see them[1].
So, their argument I believe is that, given that the names and addresses of the filers of comments are already publicly available, what further privacy concern is there in releasing IP address information?
And there might be one. IP address & UA might further allow me to correlate the user's activity elsewhere; some comments didn't submit names or addresses — IIRC these were "required" but some people filled in the fields with things like "none".
There were also allegations that the names of some comments were falsified on comments not in favor of net neutrality. IP address information might lend evidence to or against those allegations.
[1]: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/filings?proceedings_name=17-...
Re: Judge Orders FCC To Hand Over IP Addresses Linked To Net Neutrality Comments
#37Please put the word "fake" back in the title.
Re: Judge Orders FCC To Hand Over IP Addresses Linked To Net Neutrality Comments
#38This is definitely a touchy subject. As the article notes, this will remove the privacy from all people who commented on net neutrality, but it will also allow 2 NYTimes reporters to try to figure out why there were fake comments that led to the loss of neutrality for the people. The separate question that still needs to be figured out, is who is going to be penalized for lying to the american people and taking away…
Is there any realistic expectation of anonymity when it comes to FCC comments?
They usually publish the names of people who commented don't they? I know mine was accessible.
Re: Judge Orders FCC To Hand Over IP Addresses Linked To Net Neutrality Comments
#39I remember that there were websites that allowed users to comment on NN that had pre-made comments already completed. The user only needed to enter a valid email address and could then forward the comment to the FCC or erase and put in their comment in their own words. I could see how this would look like obvious spam if users did not take the time to modify the form into their own thoughts. This shall be very intere…
The point is whether canned responses came from a "organic" groundswell of concerned citizen or a handful of astroturfers.
Re: Judge Orders FCC To Hand Over IP Addresses Linked To Net Neutrality Comments
#40[deleted]