Question of privacy with reassigned resources

Thu Aug 5 12:54:34 UTC 2010

On 8/5/2010 8:04 AM, William Herrin wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 4:25 AM, Steven Bellovin <smb at cs.columbia.edu> wrote:
>> Clearly, the apartment complex owners could do that if
>> they so choose.  I'm not sure who you suggest should
>> "buy a box from mail boxes etc. yourself and set up
>> mail forwarding each time you set up a new apartment
>> complex" -- the ISP?  How does that help?  This is, as
>> you say, a way to contact the apartment complex owners, right?
> 
> Steven,
> 
> Getting a post office box is a standard and widely accepted way to
> receive mail when for any reason you don't want the mail addressed to
> your physical location. Companies like Mail Boxes Etc. take the
> service one step further - they'll repackage the received mail and
> send it to your physical address so you don't have to stop by and
> check the box. Essentially, they provide a second postal address for
> the recipient unbound from the recipient's physical address.
> 
> That's what you wanted, right? To avoid revealing the resource
> consumer's physical address?
> 
> 
>> The issues have to do with knowledge and expenditure.
>> For the most part, consumers and apartment complex
>> owners have no knowledge of IP geolocation or SWIP.
>> It is consumer privacy at risk here, but consumers have
>> no opportunity to opt out of this scheme even if they
>> knew about it.  "Discuss it with the apartment complex"
>> is generally null advice; apart from the fact that consumers
>> have exactly zero leverage in many markets, the apartment
>> managers (a) don't know about it, either, and (b) can't be
>> bothered to get a PO box and collect the (rare) mail from it.
> 
> If you feel that way, I suggest you take the issue up on the ARIN
> public policy mailing list. Solicit public consensus for a change in
> handling for SWIPs for "apartment complexes as ISP resellers." Absent
> such a change, redacting identity and contact info for the apartment
> management company remains simple fraud.
> 
> Regards,
> Bill Herrin

There's usually a 50/50 split between the HOA (Home Owners Association)
and the individual that are our customers.  In the case of a HOA it's
not that the HOA is reselling it's that we are contracted to service
every member of the HOA and the HOA gives us one check for everyone.