Senate votes to let ISPs sell your Web browsing history to advertisers

The inventor of the Web doesn't want you to use a VPN

-- Tom

 

He's coming from an extremely limited and privileged perspective.

 

Straight from the horse's mouth (or wherever):

Editorial by Ajit Pai, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and Maureen Ohlhausen, acting chairman of the Federal Trade Commission.

It shows where we are headed and the thinking, or lack thereof, behind it.

"No, Republicans didn’t just strip away your Internet privacy rights..."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/no-republicans-didnt-just-strip-away-your-internet-privacy-rights/2017/04/04/73e6d500-18ab-11e7-9887-1a5314b56a08_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-e:homepage/story#comments

 

Dissecting the (Likely) Forthcoming Repeal of the FCC’s Privacy Rulemaking

-- Tom

 

"US privacy rollback can cause headaches for corporate security pros"

"Corporate security pros can add a new task to their busy days: handling panicky employees worried about privacy who are using the onion router (Tor) browser as a way to protect their online activity.

That practice translates into additional security alerts that require time-consuming manual sorting to determine whether the persons behind Tor sessions are friend or foe, says George Gerchow, vice president of security and compliance at Sumo Logic.**

Ever since US congressional action started some weeks ago to roll back privacy regulations governing ISPs, Gerchow says has seen a dramatic increase in the use of Tor for accessing his company’s services, meaning security analysts have to check out whether the encrypted, anonymised traffic coming through Tor is from a legitimate user...

In some cases, finding out means directly contacting the person whose log-in was used to confirm that their credentials have noit been compromised. Tor sessions used to crop up once a week or so, but now they roll in as often as 15 times a day, he says..."

http://www.techcentral.ie/us-privacy-rollback-can-cause-headaches-corporate-security-pros/

**Sumo Logic is a cloud-native, machine data analytics service for log management and time series metrics.

https://www.sumologic.com/

 

He is, but hey! He is Sir and father of WWW and all that ....

But he is also wrong. Elite won't give one **** if the people protests or not.

That's what really annoys me when it comes to things about computer privacy industry.

In my mind, it's totally in passive, reactive mode, instead of trying to think of the future, worst case scenarios that could happen and trying to invent workarounds beforehand.

And then they happen and it's too late

 

Well, one can use VPNs and protest.

 

An earlier comment said that using OpenDNS offers NO protection from an ISP with respect to privacy. I believe this statement BUT will someone please explain why this is so?

Also, what is a VPN? How doI find a good/honest one? And about how much do they charge?

P.S. Please excuse my ignorance This area of security is totally new and confounding to me.

 

Maybe "NO protection" is extreme. But even using third-party DNS, ISPs can see all Internet traffic, including the DNS requests.

A VPN is a "virtual private network". So all traffic between you and the VPN server is hidden. That is, packets to and from the Internet are encapsulated and encrypted inside packets to and from the VPN server. It's hard to find unbiased advice about VPNs. The short list on Wilders is AirVPN, BolehVPN, IVPN, Mullvad and PIA. Plus a few others that some experienced folk like. Other good sources are https://thatoneprivacysite.net/ and my site https://vpntesting.info/ VPNs cost about $20-$200 per year. Avoid the free ones, because then you're the product.

 

@mirimir Thanks for posting. Noob on this here, so seeking your (or anybody else's ). Having glanced at the above, I guess I would opt for IVPN or Mullvad (cheaper) or BolehVPN (jurisdiction).

My question is: I live in South Africa. How well would these perform with no servers locally? Would that be an issue ... else should I be looking at e.g. ExpressVPN which has local server (but rates poorly on business ethics).

Also without a server in South Africa, would it not be possible to have a South African IP address when necessary, which could possibly affect banking or say, or accessing my local iTunes account?

I am less concerned about evading access restrictions, more about security - and performance.

Edit: Guess I should have posted here: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/thr...-but-clueless-about-how-it-would-work.393061/

 

Well, South Africa is rather on the edge. And I've heard that last-mile ISP service can be iffy. You're right that a local server would provide better performance, because of lower latency. So I'd say to look for VPN services with servers close to South Africa. Depending on which cables are being used, the Middle East or Mumbai might be good. Or maybe Spain, around the other way. Then look at TOPG's page to see how he rates them.

I don't recommend using VPNs with real-name services like banks, or even iTunes. The privacy gain is minimal, and there's the risk of having accounts frozen because it looks like you're being hacked. VPNs would provide better security for doing banking etc from WiFi hotspots. But for that, you'd be better served by running a VPN server at home, to remotely use your regular ISP.

 

New Browser Act would restore restrictions on sharing browsing history

https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/19/15666538/browser-act-data-sharing-web-companies-isp-privacy

 

Rep. Marsha Blackburn, the woman who is sponsoring this "New Browser Act," is schizophrenic?

When The Congress voted earlier this year to undo the Federal Communications Commission's privacy rules prohibiting ISPs from sharing or selling customer's personal data without their consent, Blackburn stated:

"Pleased that the House voted to roll back the FCC's flawed ISP privacy rules and taken steps to protect consumers."

'[Consumer privacy] will be enhanced by removing the uncertainty and confusion these rules will create, ' said Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who chairs the House subcommittee that oversees the FCC..."

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/thr...g-history-to-advertisers.392919/#post-2663697

The internal inconsistencies in her above statements and the very title of her new act demonstrate her grasp of the issue:

"BROWSER ACT" ?? WTF is that? Sounds like a law to regulate competition between Microsoft, Mozilla, and Google.

 

Ironic isn't it?

 

"Ironic" and "Pathologic."

 

GOP lawmaker who helped kill ISP privacy rules proposes new privacy rules

-- Tom

 

If there is to be any intelligent discussion/understanding of this subject, by its nature it is inherently political -- this is how Washington "works."

"How Congress dismantled federal Internet privacy rules

Congressional Republicans knew their plan was potentially explosive. They wanted to kill landmark privacy regulations that would soon ban Internet providers, such as Comcast and AT&T, from storing and selling customers’ browsing histories without their express consent.

So after weeks of closed-door debates on Capitol Hill over who would take up the issue first — the House or the Senate — Republican members settled on a secret strategy, according to Hill staff and lobbyists involved in the battle. While the nation was distracted by the House’s pending vote to repeal Obamacare, Senate Republicans would schedule a vote to wipe out the new privacy protections..."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-congress-dismantled-federal-internet-privacy-rules/2017/05/29/7ad06e14-2f5b-11e7-8674-437ddb6e813e_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_privacyrules-1250p:homepage/story#comments

NB: "The Lawmaker" who is the subject of the article linked in lotuseclat79's post above who "proposes new privacy rules" is Marsha Blackburn.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/thr...ory-to-advertisers.392919/page-3#post-2677553

from the WP article that is the subject of this post:

"...Lobbyists from trade groups funded by large broadband companies — including Leibowitz’s group and the Consumer Technology Association — made phone calls and held small, private meetings with Republican congressional aides, according to Hill staff, consultants and lobbyists on both sides of the issue. They were shopping for bill sponsors and approached Flake and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who had been vocal opponents of the rules when they were being crafted at the FCC. The two agreed to champion the cause...

...Blackburn declined to comment for this article."

 

Yes, money

But hey, it's never prudent to trust ISPs too much. That data is just too valuable, to too many adversaries.