EFF Call for sign-ons: ISPs, networking companies and engineers opposed to FCC privacy repeal

Wed Mar 29 19:25:34 UTC 2017

Sorry guys. A bit of Percocet on the brain here. Yay broken spine! I meant
a tizzy about AT&T and their spying on home fiber customers. They claim
they don't do it anymore and offer the lower price to everyone.

--
Ryan Stoner

On Mar 29, 2017 2:17 PM, <jason at schwerberg.com> wrote:

> Ryan,
>
> No, we're in a tizzy over a house resolution that was passed just
> yesterday.
>
> http://thehill.com/policy/technology/326145-house-votes-
> to-send-bill-undoing-obama-internet-privacy-rule-to-trumps-desk
>
>
> On 2017-03-29 04:34, Ryan Stoner wrote:
>
> All if you are in a tizzy over a policy that's been dead for a while.
>
> <
> https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2016/
> 09/30/att-internet-fees-privacy/%3Fsource%3Ddam
> --
> Ryan Stoner
>
>
> On Mar 29, 2017 6:26 AM, "Rich Kulawiec" <rsk at gsp.org> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Mar 29, 2017 at 05:48:11AM -0500, Mike Hammett wrote:
>
> What is lost if AT&T or Comcast sells my anonymized usage habits?
>
>
> They're NOT anonymized.  Aren't you paying attention?
>
> Anonymization -- *real* anonymization -- is hard.  Hard means expensive.
> It also reduces the sale price of the data.  There is no reason for any
> of these companies to spend the required money in order to sell the data
> for less than they could get otherwise.  Why should they reduce their
> obscene profits?  (a) Nobody's going to make them and (b) most people
> are as ignorant as you are and therefore aren't demanding it.
>
> It's much easier and more profitable to *claim* that the data is
> anonymized,
> maybe make a token (and worthless) gesture at making it so, and laugh all
> the way to the bank.
>
> And let me note that in passing that even if -- and this is a very faint
> "if" --  they're really anonymizing your data, it's not anonymized
> at the point of collection.  Sooner or later, someone with access --
> whether authorized or not -- will tap into that.  Of course they will,
> it's far too valuable to be ignored indefinitely.  Maybe it'll be an
> insider operation, maybe it'll be just one person, maybe it'll be outside
> attackers, maybe it'll be an intelligence or law enforcement agency.
>
> The point is that these data collection operations are obvious,
> high-value targets, therefore they WILL be attacked, and given the
> thoroughly miserable history of the security postures in play, they
> WILL be attacked succcessfully.  So even if you're foolish and naive
> enough to believe the professional spokesliars at AT&T and Comcast,
> you should always keep in mind that this data will *not* be confined to
> those operations.  It will be for sale, in raw unredacted form, on the
> darknet to anyone who can pay and/or it will be loaded into the data
> warehouses of any agency that chooses to acquire it.
>
> ---rsk
>
>
>