
The Senators that introduced a bill to let telecoms sell your internet history - remx
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2017/03/24-senators-introduced-bill-let-telecoms-sell-private-internet-history/
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M_Grey
In no way am I disputing the accuracy of the article, or the necessity for
alarm and precautions. I will however say, that PIA sells the kind of services
you might look for to combat such measures, so consider the source too.

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personjerry
So if telecoms can't legally sell the data, doesn't that mean that there is no
need for the services of PIA?

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blunte
There are many uses for a VPN beyond this privacy concern. My two reasons I
use it are: 1\. I'm on someone else's wifi that I don't fully trust (or is an
open wifi) 2\. I need to "be" in a country different than where I'm currently
using my computer. This is the most common need, since I'm an American expat
living in Netherlands (and traveling in other countries).

~~~
M_Grey
As someone who enjoys British television, but is maddened by geoblocking of
content that _is not otherwise available, even for purchase_... yes, just
that.

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Animats
How do I order the Internet history of Senators?

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aerovistae
Things like this, more than anything else, are what makes me wonder how anyone
can view Republicans as anything short of working against their constituents.
It just baffles me.

Why would _anyone_ want this?

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rhino369
Americans might prefer ad subsidized isp service.

We by and large want ad subsidized browsers, email, phone operating systems,
television, you name it.

Why should the law protect privacy for only one service when Hundreds of
billions of dollars of spying goes on in other industries?

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greglindahl
If there was a free market in ISP service, that would be perfectly fine.
Almost all of the US is nowhere near a free market in ISP service.

I've never understood why libertarians believe in the market so much that they
believe in the markets which aren't free.

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ci5er
Really? I've never met a libertarian that thought that local licensure
(data/voice/video transport, taxis, hair-dressers, coffin-makers, whatever)
was anything but a corruptocrat's protection racket.

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sundvor
Wow, with untrustworthy politicians and super dodgy ISPs like these, who needs
the CIA to spy on you? At least the CIA would keep it more or less in house.

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1001101
It's a feature. If they're allowed to disclose it, and you agree to the terms
of service, what expectations of privacy do you have?

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techsupporter
And that would be awesome if we had meaningful competition (and, in this case,
I mean more than even _two_ providers) from local Internet providers.

It is not out of the realm of possibility, if ISPs and mobile providers start
putting in "you agree by subscribing to our services that we can harvest,
sell, package, and distribute your access history to any company we deem
suitable" their terms of service, that I wouldn't have any choice of provider
who _doesn 't_ do this.

If both Comcast and CenturyLink do this, I'm SOL for wireline broadband. If
T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon all do this--and why wouldn't they all, as
a group?--I'm SOL for wireless service.

So that's six companies to completely foreclose having a choice.

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drdaeman
By the way. What are the obstacles for new ISPs in the US? Is it municipality-
related issues (cities disallow building any new networking infrastructure and
no fibers/lambdas available for rent, or availabe only at prohibitive prices),
or peering issues (peering prices are impossible or no one even wants to
accept you as a peer unless you're a big telco) or something else?

I just worked for about ten years for various ISP companies in Russia (in a
relatively small town), including one "start-up" ISP where I was a first and
only software engineer until we had grown up. While I haven't dealt with
actual physical aspect, or legal issues, I had an impression that white things
were sort of unpleasant, it wasn't prohibitive. So, curious how things are in
US and why there are regions with almost monopolistic ISPs. Thought US must've
had a freer market than our post-USSR legacy with all the licensing and
regulations.

~~~
techsupporter
There are two big obstacles:

1) Building a last-mile network is _very expensive_. There is a lot of
backbone-style fiber in the ground but getting end customers connected to that
network is a complex maze of permits, digging, pole attachments, and so on.
Just the manpower alone is staggering. Verizon spent years and billions on it
and all they have to show for it now is a disgruntled former CEO and having
fobbed off 2/3rds of their former wireline territories off onto Frontier and
Fairpoint.

2) There is _a lot_ of people-based inertia to overcome. As individuals,
people object to having streets dug up, new equipment boxes planted in places,
and all of the general dust and noise that construction of any kind creates.
Plus your competitors will try to throw up roadblocks and, let's face it, they
have more money and influence than you do. And if you want to do more than
serve single-family houses and townhouses, you will have to negotiate with
building owners for access. Even when the residents are the owners, like
condominiums, there's still a process to gain access to walls.

Then you have to consider how you get your wires from A to B; do you go above
ground (easier but then you have to get access to the poles, which may be
privately owned, and then you contend with the owners of the poles and the
people who consider any new wires on poles to be unsightly) or do you bury
(digging up streets, sidewalks, and utility easements has gotten a lot easier
but you are still bound to disturb something and Woe Betide You if you
accidentally hit a natural gas line)? And then, if you want to serve an "area"
instead of "a city," what do you do when you need to cross city or county
borders? Or a major highway (that's likely owned by the state government)? Not
all cities are compact; take Dallas, it is both _large_ and contains _three_
separate municipalities inside of its general area.

So, yeah, it's really hard and it gets harder the more people you have in a
space, though the subscriber possibilities are much greater.

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tegansnyder
Doesn't this data already exist in the form of ISP data brokers? I'm thinking
of data that makes its way to into the hands of some marketing companies that
show anonomized URL level traffic for a given website. Essentially giving you
ability to see analytics on a website you don't own. Anybody know who the big
players/ISP data brokers are?

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sytelus
Is the article overblown? I thought the bill was about removing regulations
that was hard to enforce technically... I didn't thought the bill gave a black
check to telcos to sell internet history without consent.

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drdaeman
There's a certain good aspect to this. Users should be aware that networks
(any, be it their FTTH or a WiFi hotspot in some cafe) can - theoretically and
practically - access and analyze their traffic.

I'm NOT saying that such capability or legality of third parties accessing
that data is a good or bad thing. It's complicated. I'm sure only that the
fact that proper user awareness on this matter is a good idea.

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lurchpop
Surprised and disappointed to see rand paul there

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Terr_
Why surprised? It seems perfectly in line with American Libertarianism: Let
the corporation do whatever it wants and tell the customer to go to (or
create) a competitor.

If someone complains about monopolies or power-imbalances, simply blame the
government, and assure them that removing all regulation will _eventually_ fix
the problem.

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Buge
Why does the article mention net neutrality?

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masonic
They are oddly content with the Obama Administration having that same policy
for 97% of its tenure and the same effect for 100% of its tenure (the rule to
limit it was only put in a _week_ before the election and had yet to take
effect).

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drcross
What is the _actual_ plan? To harvest DNS requests?

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drdaeman
That, and NetFlow (or similar) records. While that's just "metadata"-level
stuff it can basically reveal a lot about anyone's daily habits.

If a network really wants to dig into the traffic, L7 protocol analyzers
(plain HTTP requests, SNI from TLS handshakes, etc) can be quite close (not
exactly, but given some statistical tricks - very close) to what someone may
see standing behind one's shoulder.

And I've heard some ISPs are really into the foul game, and were caught
injecting their own JS into non-authenticated traffic. That was to inject some
warnings or ads or whatever (I've read that, like, an year ago and forgot the
details), but it could also be spyware^W telemetry, diagnostics and analytics
service.

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klarrimore
What a hilariously misleading title.

