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The House just voted to wipe out the FCC’s landmark Internet privacy protections

washingtonpost.com

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Re: The House just voted to wipe out the FCC’s landmark Internet privacy protections

#171

Post by M_Grey »

toss1941 wrote: post #31
pnathan wrote: post #19

This, right here, is the consequence of the withdrawal from politics many geeks advocated very strongly in an earlier time. "Everything is corrupt, it doesn't matter"... turns out to only be a viable philosophy when things mostly work well enough . What we have in protections and freedoms were purchased through a ton of hard work by prior generations: the liberty to slack and think that it just works ok is a nice sid…

I always interpreted that resignation as "both sides are terrible, so I'm going to keep voting for my side". I wonder how many people really felt strong enough about politics to claim both sides are equally bad and then decided not to vote on that basis alone.

That attitude is true to a point, but surely people don't think that Gore would have invaded Iraq? That difference alone strikes me as so obvious and tangible, that there's no excuse for these kinds of false equivalences anymore.

Re: The House just voted to wipe out the FCC’s landmark Internet privacy protections

#172

Post by Preemo »

ballenf wrote: post #132
tomohawk wrote: post #114

Before getting all spun up, I'd dig a little deeper on the issue than what the WaPo does in this piece. These regulations were only voted on late in 2016 and never went into effect. To do the regulations, the FCC reclassified the internet as basically ye olde telephone system, which then made it subject to their purview based on laws created in the 1930s. This is classic overreach. Congress never gave this authority…

I'm confused. If these rules that were repealed never went into effect, or only partially, does that mean that our data was already (or is currently) being sold? Does this legislation explicitly condone the collection or sale of browsing data? (I'd still rather have the protection than not, but can't seem to find a good detailed explanation.)

Verizon has been doing this since at least 2012. It's sure as sh*t AT&T and others (not just mobile providers) are doing it as well.

Re: The House just voted to wipe out the FCC’s landmark Internet privacy protections

#173

Post by anigbrowl »

masonic wrote: post #158
alistproducer2 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Although Washington Post isn't quite Brietbart yet they appear to be headed rapidly in that direction from my perspective So you've never actually been to Breitbart then? I checked it regularly before the 2016 elections and, in those days, it certainly earned its nickname "stormfront lite." They've toned it down since the additional scrutiny and subsequent mainstreaming of the Trump era, but WaPo has never been and…

WaPo has never been and will never even come close to Breitbart. Well, they certainly weren't close to the Obama administration or Clinton campaign like WaPo was, as clearly revealed in numerous WikiLeaks-exposed email exchanges. Meanwhile, if you see any factual errors on Breitbart, by all means post them.

You don;'t need facts when your product is bigotry rather than information.

Re: The House just voted to wipe out the FCC’s landmark Internet privacy protections

#174

Post by ComradeTaco »

che_shirecat wrote: post #159
tomohawk wrote: post #114

Before getting all spun up, I'd dig a little deeper on the issue than what the WaPo does in this piece. These regulations were only voted on late in 2016 and never went into effect. To do the regulations, the FCC reclassified the internet as basically ye olde telephone system, which then made it subject to their purview based on laws created in the 1930s. This is classic overreach. Congress never gave this authority…

I don't understand why people like yourself have to try to reframe and deflect attention on everything to fit your political narrative. Why can't you just see the problem for what it is and hold the representatives with your political affiliation accountable? Who really cares who our "traditional" privacy regulator is if neither of them end up able/willing to do the regulating? Why are you trying to frame this as a m…

He's quoting a woman that accepted more than 650k from ISPs for reelection campaigns.

Re: The House just voted to wipe out the FCC’s landmark Internet privacy protections

#175

Post by saint_fiasco »

ComradeTaco wrote: post #99
bipvanwinkle wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although this is mostly true, it's not entirely true (at least in the house).

You're correct and I edited my comment. I suspect that that may just be a tactic to save face in vulnerable districts rather than a sincere desire to oppose the bill.

That's a good point. Are the Republicans who voted against the bill relatively unpopular with their constituencies?

Re: The House just voted to wipe out the FCC’s landmark Internet privacy protections

#176

Post by slantaclaus »

marvindanig wrote: post #4

Before we jump in a shock and talk about the TFW political disaster there is happening in DC at the moment I want to ask a question: Is there a simple guide or steps that I can follow to make myself anonymous? I know there is TOR and VPNs, how can I go about setting it up?

I'd recommend a VPN service called Private Internet Access. StrongVPN was the one I used to use. Either way, you don't have to set anything up on your smartphone or computer so long as they support your OS with an application.

Re: The House just voted to wipe out the FCC’s landmark Internet privacy protections

#177

Post by tzakrajs »

Forbo wrote: post #43
tzakrajs wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all fine an idea until people use steganography to hide encrypted messages in plain sight.

Good luck scaling that. Things like DesuDesuTalk have pretty limited adoption for a reason.

Using jpg or other images is one method, but I imagine that you can use steganography in a variety of mediums. The only constraint is that the eavesdropper must not know that the cipher text is inside of the metaphorical plain text, otherwise you are throttled.

In other words, the secret must have the same heuristics as any plain text. Can you fool the sensor that detects ciphertext? Great -- no throttle for you!

Re: The House just voted to wipe out the FCC’s landmark Internet privacy protections

#178

Post by thearn4 »

toss1941 wrote: post #31
pnathan wrote: post #19

This, right here, is the consequence of the withdrawal from politics many geeks advocated very strongly in an earlier time. "Everything is corrupt, it doesn't matter"... turns out to only be a viable philosophy when things mostly work well enough . What we have in protections and freedoms were purchased through a ton of hard work by prior generations: the liberty to slack and think that it just works ok is a nice sid…

I always interpreted that resignation as "both sides are terrible, so I'm going to keep voting for my side". I wonder how many people really felt strong enough about politics to claim both sides are equally bad and then decided not to vote on that basis alone.

Quite a few potentially:

http://imgur.com/a/ebvfk

Re: The House just voted to wipe out the FCC’s landmark Internet privacy protections

#179

Post by gwu78 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #136
gwu78 wrote: post #56

This thread may grow long and maybe turn to the topic of HTTPS. SSL with SNI exposes plaintext hostnames/domainnames on the wire for anyone to read, aggregate and sell, not to mention tamper with. It should be an optional extension. For many users it adds no benefit. For some users, it breaks their software and adds needless complexity. Now the privacy advocates have a reason to dislike it too. Just say no to SNI.

Please describe a way to do SSL without the domain being visible that can work for most sites. What would you encrypt the hostname with ?

I would not use SSL. Why spend time learning and fiddling with something that is so flawed? If I was serious about encrypting traffic I would use CurveCP. SSL is simply a nuisance I tolerate to read the www. Every minute I spend learning about it is wasted time... because I could be spending that time learning about something better, like CurveCP. The spread of SNI has just made SSL even more annoying.

Re: The House just voted to wipe out the FCC’s landmark Internet privacy protections

#180

Post by blurbleblurble »

kej wrote: post #100
atomi wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_...

15 House Republicans voted against it: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2017/roll202.xml

They're the ones who brand new congress needs to be courting
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