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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

#51

Post by quillo »

I would expect that this will have an unexpected (?) side effect of further weakening the capabilities of packet inspection by intelligence agencies through increased utilisation of VPN services, especially those outside of the US.

At face value this is a good thing for privacy, but I am concerned that when lawmakers realise their error they will just legislate themselves out of the hole by making access to VPN services harder.

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

#52

Post by disposition2 »

callinyouin wrote: post #17

Does anyone know if this works retroactively? Is every data-hungry company soon going to know all of our past browsing behavior?

The removed rule wasn't slated to go in to affect until 2018.

Edit: The rule was intended to stop existing practices or prevent companies from doing this in the future.

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

#53

Post by slang800 »

callinyouin wrote: post #17

Does anyone know if this works retroactively? Is every data-hungry company soon going to know all of our past browsing behavior?

The regulations that are being repealed were passed on October of 2016, so data-hungry companies already have whatever browsing history you gave them.

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

#54

Post by pcmaffey »

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.

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

#55

Post by sehugg »

disposition2 wrote: post #44
doctorshady wrote: post #3

It's a bit disappointing to see that aside from a few abstained votes, everybody just chose to vote along party lines. Do these people just rubber stamp a bill because there's a D or an R next to it? Even if it meant more nay votes for the bill, I really wish we had representatives that vote based on critical thought rather than what their friends were doing. I mean, as long as I'm dreaming too, we should give assemb…

More or less. You might have a few R's (Amash?) that will pull the Libertarian card saying that free market should resolve this one it's own...choosing to ignore reality...the monopoly (just about) every American faces when it comes to choice for an ISP. And obviously all the D's will vote yes as the rules were created and established in a Dem FCC / Presidency. Despite party, it is sad to see quotes like Blackburn's…

That's the roll call vote, the actual vote is here: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2017/roll202.xml

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

#56

Post by gwu78 »

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.

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

#58

Post by jonathansizz »

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…

A core problem is that it's much easier to break things than to build or maintain things, so huge amounts of work can be eliminated very easily, whether through neglect or design.

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

#59

Post by SteveNuts »

Not that I'm necessarily OK with either, but what's the difference between this and the myriad of other sites that are collecting your browser habits/search history and selling it?

I'm not for this at all vote at all, and I'm not sure why Trump supporters are, I'm just trying to come up with a good argument for why it's worse.

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