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

71–80 of 534 posts

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

#71

Post by aaronbrethorst »

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…

First off, you're disappointed that one of the two primary political parties in the United States unambiguously agrees with you on this issue?

Six more flipped Republicans would have killed this bill, which would have meant this wouldn't happen. You have the ability to make a real difference here by calling your Representative and telling them how you expect them to vote.

But, instead, what I'm hearing is that you're throwing up your hands and saying 'party line votes!' Call next time. It'll make a difference.

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

#72

Post by _qbjt »

gravity13 wrote: post #46
vhost- wrote: post #23

Doesn't this mean the government can basically buy user data through shell corps and bypass warrants all together?

Does this mean we can crowdsource and buy the private browsing history of our favorite representatives and post them online for everybody to see?

That's a lot of money that could go to other causes like the EFF. Black hat hacking is cheaper and has the potential to reveal much more about the people that voted for this.

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

#73

Post by vancan1ty »

Something that is not mentioned in the article is that the FCC regulations in question were passed in October 2016 and have never gone in to effect. So, to be strictly accurate, the vote does not roll back any regulations which actually ever affected the internet.

Sources: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/03/02/fcc-sets-... http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/03/28/broadband...

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

#74

Post by ComradeTaco »

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…

The votes in both the house and the senate were almost entirely along party lines. Every republican in the senate that voted, voted for this act and every democrat in the senate that voted, voted against this act.

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

#75

Post by cmurf »

chocolatebunny wrote: post #45
make3 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

until they start throttling encrypted traffic systematically

That would piss off all big businesses that have remote workers that have to VPN to their networks.

Business level service would permit and not throttle VPN. For consumer products, it will (probably) be an add-on. Whether they block or throttle or do both, is a market opportunity each ISP will decide.

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

#77

Post by afarrell »

afarrell wrote: post #47
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…

One problem is that legislators need to make decisions on a wide range of domains. This leaves them subject to influence by expert lobbyists and party whips. Critical thought about an issue requires much more time and study than most people have except for their own specialization. I assume you know how to pitch manure, program a computer, and cook a tasty meal. Yet tell me, how long would it take you to butcher a ho…

The solution to this problem isn't to forsake specialization. It is to admit that specialization exists and for legislators to specialize in synthesizing the arguments of both lobbyists and their constituents and to be aggressively transparent about them. This requires a lot of work though -- a legislator would have to write a lot of posts that sounded like "and today I met with Yan Zhu from the EFF. She argued that secure encryption was vital to America's ability to reduce the cost of communication in healthcare by enabling trust in ... I was skeptical because X, and Y etc". The barriers to this happening are:

- Constituents don't generally follow their congresspeople. Nobody is subbbed to /r/HoR12thdistrictofCA.

- Legislators don't have the time to do such updates because they spend a lot of it fundraising.

- Being honest about how they evaluate arguments would leave legislators open to the scorn of people who think the government officials should never have misconceptions or make errors of reasoning.

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

#78

Post by harryh »

gravity13 wrote: post #46
vhost- wrote: post #23

Doesn't this mean the government can basically buy user data through shell corps and bypass warrants all together?

Does this mean we can crowdsource and buy the private browsing history of our favorite representatives and post them online for everybody to see?

Legally yes. Practically no.

There is no ISP in the business of selling the data for a single individual by name.

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

#79

Post by bipvanwinkle »

ComradeTaco wrote: post #74
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…

The votes in both the house and the senate were almost entirely along party lines. Every republican in the senate that voted, voted for this act and every democrat in the senate that voted, voted against this act.

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

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

#80

Post by vancan1ty »

asimjalis wrote: post #35

Is there another side to this debate or is it really this black and white?

One thing that I think is being ignored and was not mentioned in the article is that the referenced regulations were passed by the FCC near the tail-end of the Obama administration and never actually went into effect. So, strictly speaking, this vote did not change ISP regulations, it just keeps them the same as they have been in the past.
Post reply on HN