Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 534 posts

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

#221

Post by mjevans »

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 ?

Establish an enciphered, unauthenticated, connection to an IP.

This is now a tunnel.

Over that tunnel:

* If you've connected before attempt to reuse the cached credentials to further establish a connection to the requested certificate. This validates prior authorization of being the target host.

* If the above fails or if it's a new host, ask for the certificate, perform extensive validation including REQUIRING that the external revocation check authenticates and confirms non-revoked.

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

#222

Post by Analemma_ »

tbrownaw wrote: post #194
ignu wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and that's why bills like this pass.

Right. The only way to stop Kang from ruining everything is to vote for Kodos instead.

You can keep using clever witticisms like that if it makes you feel better, and meanwhile bills like this will keep passing along party lines.

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

#224

Post by _alias »

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…

This whole discussion is disheartening. When I first heard about this is came to HN to get the facts and try to actually form an opinion, because honestly I can't figure out what the bill is supposed to change and how. Instead I find people pontificating along party lines like every comments section across the internet. Where's the analysis and insight? Where's the objectivity? I've come to expect more from this site and I know we can do better.

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

#225

Post by openasocket »

mjevans wrote: post #221
Dylan16807 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

Establish an enciphered, unauthenticated, connection to an IP. This is now a tunnel. Over that tunnel: * If you've connected before attempt to reuse the cached credentials to further establish a connection to the requested certificate. This validates prior authorization of being the target host. * If the above fails or if it's a new host, ask for the certificate, perform extensive validation including REQUIRING that…

How do you create an encrypted connection to an IP address? Just a regular Diffie-Hellman key exchange? That's pretty easy to MitM, and then the attacker can view the certificate the server passes, which will contain the domain name. A little more involved than sniffing SNI, because now you need to scale out MitM-ing instead of DPI, but pretty much the same problem.

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

#226

Post by thejohnhenry »

breatheoften wrote: post #200
kobeya wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the truth matters. You're reacting to this based on the politically spun narrative that was fed to you when you first encountered the issue. The truth is actually a fair bit more complex. This is a case of a regulatory agency overstepping its bounds and seizing jurisdiction outside of the domain allowed for it by Congress. That's the language in which the bill is framed, the the way in which it has been discu…

The FTC previously proposed essentially this same rule and was shot down by the courts as not having authority.

Do you have a link or further information on this?

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

#227

Post by pseudalopex »

thejohnhenry wrote: post #226
breatheoften wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FTC previously proposed essentially this same rule and was shot down by the courts as not having authority.

Do you have a link or further information on this?

The Ninth Circuit ruled that the FTC had no authority to regulate common carriers: https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2016/08/29/1...

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

#228

Post by equalarrow »

Being that this is a pretty red vs. blue issue, there's not a ton ton can do about it if you live in non-red states.

The eff is an obvious choice and I'm a member and have been for almost 20 years.

In my mind the big thing is people that vote for republicans don't fully understand that they are voting for non-privacy, pro-business, and really, pro-military. Granted, there are some dems that can fall into this trap and 9/11 pretty much ensnared all but a few into the reactionary mindset. This actually took true visionaries and leaders to overcome; few and far between.

So, really, local debate has to happen in the red states where these majorities are elected. This is a long uphill battle, but the message of "mega-corporations are not your friends" has to be paramount and when you're not earning tech salaries, we are part of the problem.

For coal miners and all these higher profile ise cases, we need to re-connect with the human and community level. That's the disconnect right there; it's easier to get angry about 'the swamp' than it is to try to take your own local municipality into your own hands or figuring out how to stay local vs. state.

California, New York, etc - these aren't the battlegrounds. They are the future. The majority of their population already agrees on global warming, privacy, tech, etc. They're one step behind bitcoin/ethereum/altcoins globalization.

But for somone in W. Varginia that's a coal miner that has been laid off (a big Trump talking point), these things matter On a massive level.

So there's our schism - how can we provide a forward thinking, longer term vision that helps the common citizenry? In my mind, everything this repubican extremist 'president' represents are big interests and reducing their unfettered access to unlimited profits, regardless of what that means.

Your (what's left of it) privacy and whatever else is fair game.

I'd advise to (of course) moving to tor, vm's and seriously, cryptocurrencies. Currency is a great way to start hacking back towards 1:1, person:person transactions which leads to a less decentralized money system.

And, If course, money underpins pretty much all us entrepreneurs do.

So, we do have options. :-/ These options include vpn, tor, cryptocurrencies, ethereum, etc.

Edit: mobile spelling corrections.

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

#229

Post by pcmaffey »

deathanatos wrote: post #218
pcmaffey wrote: post #54

Welp, now there's a real market opportunity for 'open' ISP's. I would gladly pay more to a smaller ISP with slightly higher latency for guaranteed privacy. SpaceX's planned satellite internet will hopefully fill this void for the world... until Elon dies and it's taken over by the evil, ignoramuses of corporate greed.

Given the obvious barriers to entry for an ISP, realistically, how is there a "real market opportunity for 'open' ISP's" when new ISPs themselves can't even get a foothold? For example, Google's recent attempt with Fiber: as much as I wish it were to succeed, they seem to have run into a lot of red tape. For broadband Internet, my understanding is that most have exactly one choice; in my experience, usually one of Co…

Yes, it's troubling. Huge infrastructure costs. Regulations. And with little to no differentiation between service providers, the incentive really hasn't been there for competition.

But all is not lost. There are municipalities that are providing a competing internet service. Internet is fast approaching a public good/right, so I believe this is a worthy approach. Here's an example near me: http://www.timescall.com/longmont-local-news/ci_28030675/lon...

As mentioned, SpaceX will circumvent the local restrictions and limitations of 'wire in the ground' with their satellites.

And now, if there are some ISPs that will sell your data and some that won't, that differentiation may open up the door to greater competition. Perhaps even, that's a silver lining to breaking up the ISP oligarchy that exists now.

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

#230

Post by noobermin »

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…

It's not only complacency, although it is a large part of it. Some of the main issues here is money in politics, gerrymandering, the gutting of the civil rights act. In fact, the most central issue here is probably money in politics.
Post reply on HN