22 ms·

US Senate votes to undo FCC internet privacy rules

• gradi3nt 10y ago
  So if I ask my ISP if they are selling my data do they have to admit it? Or can they now do it in secret?
  • omginternets 10y ago
    >So if I ask my ISP if they are selling my data do they have to admit it No. More often than not, you'll get a hand-wavy and/or misleading answer.
  • 0xfeba 10y ago
    They'll say they are always striving to provide the best consumer experience. AKA they would probably sell your dog to you if they thought they could get away with it.
• splitrocket 10y ago
  Time to buy a VPN service from a country that's reasonably sane. I'll gladly sacrifice money and latency for privacy.
• mythrwy 10y ago
  Obligatory notice that Washington Post has been putting out a lot of clickbait lately. There might be something to this but given the recent track record I'm less than convinced.
  • ldjb 10y ago
    I'd definitely like to hear the other side of the story. It's hard to get a proper sense of the situation with just a single viewpoint.
    • freeone3000 10y ago
      Something like http://fortune.com/2017/03/22/senate-vote-repeal-fcc-broadband-privacy/ http://fortune.com/2017/03/22/senate-vote-repeal-fcc-broadba... ? It could be phrased as removing onerous regulation from ISPs that doesn't apply to websites, limiting federal overreach into what should be a free-market problem.
      • Pharylon 10y ago
        Ah, yes, the "free market" of state-granted monopolies.
      • aanm1988 10y ago
        That's a poor argument. Putting aside my personal opinion that the "free market" is a bullshit reason almost all the time, it clearly doesn't apply to ISPs. Too many regional monopolies. I can choose to avoid websites I think aren't trustworthy. I can use duckduckgo instead of google, for example. I can't really get around my ISP without jumping through a lot more hoops.
      • st3v3r 10y ago
        The only way you could make that argument is if you feel that ISPs should be able to do this in the first place. I, for one, feel they absolutely should not be able to do this under any circumstances. As such, I do not see it as overreach, or anything that the market should be "solving".
  • epistasis 10y ago
    This is an unsubstantiated smear, that does not match with my experience in any way. And in any case, this is a real bill, that people had been warning about for days from many different sources.
    • mythrwy 10y ago
      It matches my experience exactly. I'm sorry you feel differently but it isn't an "unsubstantiated smear".
      • tupshin 10y ago
        No. It is unsubstantiated because you have provided no substantiation. To anybody that is not you "their recent track record" is not a meaningful statement without some context or citation.
        • deleted 10y ago
          [deleted]
      • mythrwy 10y ago
        You can look for yourself. Here are some examples: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/what-is-going-on-at-the-washington-post/article/2612346 http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/what-is-going-on-at-the-wa... I'm not saying everything they print is wrong, I'm just saying it is worth taking their headlines with a grain of salt and looking deeper into the issue.
        • hprotagonist 10y ago
          And linking to their cross-town politically opposite paper's editoral page is _very convincing_. Oh, yes.
        • mythrwy 10y ago
          @hprotagonist Yes, but my point isn't ideology or it's opposite. It's click bait headlines that have a distorted take on the actual event. If you don't see these type of headlines as clickbait (for whatever reason, ideology perhaps?) then we'll have to just disagree. (full disclosure, I disagree with a good share of Washington Post's ideology and consider much of what they print little short of propaganda, but that's just me.) Oh, and I don't like what I perceive as sensationalist clickbait headlines, no matter what the ideology is.
  • aanm1988 10y ago
    Specific examples please.
    • mythrwy 10y ago
      Read the thread above?
      • aanm1988 10y ago
        I did. Thank you for the examples, but I am unconvinced and still believe you are just another person with an anti-media agenda.
        • mythrwy 10y ago
          Can you prove it? Ah, well then, you see how that works. Turns out there is a lot subjective in the world. But what would you say this is? https://theintercept.com/2016/12/31/russia-hysteria-infects-washpost-again-false-story-about-hacking-u-s-electric-grid/ https://theintercept.com/2016/12/31/russia-hysteria-infects-... My only point is you can't glance at Washington Post headlines and have a guaranteed accurate picture of the event. Which is true. Ideology aside.
          • MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
            >My only point is you can't glance at Washington Post headlines and have a guaranteed accurate picture of the event. Which is true. Ideology aside. You also can't glance at ANY headlines from ANY publication and "have a guaranteed accurate picture of the event." Which is true. Ideology aside. So why the need to point it out specifically in the case of the WaPo?
            • mythrwy 10y ago
              So other outlets do it also? Washington Post is one of the most egregious clickbait sensationalism offenders lately (as far as major media). Look at their headlines then go to something like Reuters for example and look at the difference in corresponding headline. If you still claim "not clickbait" I guess you are entitled to your opinion but I don't care for it and am suspicious of what they print in general now (per this type of headline/article https://theintercept.com/2016/12/31/russia-hysteria-infects-washpost-again-false-story-about-hacking-u-s-electric-grid/ https://theintercept.com/2016/12/31/russia-hysteria-infects-...).
  • mcphage 10y ago
    This is a perfect example of Ad Hominem—no discussion of the content of the article, just a blanket dismissal because you dislike the source.
    • mythrwy 10y ago
      I didn't even read the article. Just noting their track record with headlines.
  • 24gttghh 10y ago
    I quote from [0]: >Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That Congress disapproves the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission relating to “Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services” (81 Fed. Reg. 87274 (December 2, 2016)), and such rule shall have no force or effect. Which undoes [1]. From the summary on the first page: >The rules require carriers to provide privacy notices that clearly and accurately inform customers; obtain opt- in or opt-out customer approval to use and share sensitive or non-sensitive customer proprietary information, respectively; take reasonable measures to secure customer proprietary information; provide notification to customers, the Commission, and law enforcement in the event of data breaches that could result in harm; not condition provision of service on the surrender of privacy rights; and provide heightened notice and obtain affirmative consent when offering financial incentives in exchange for the right to use a customer’s confidential information. [0] https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/34/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-joint-re... [1] https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-12-02/pdf/2016-28006.pdf https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-12-02/pdf/2016-28006.p... edit: the headline appears accurate.
  • guelo 10y ago
    Sorry but that's just plain disinformation. You can go look at the legislation itself. The Senate voted for this. There are no alternative facts.
  • dang 10y ago
    Would you please not post unsubstantive comments to HN, and especially not about divisive topics? Provoking and perpetuating off-topic flamewars counts as trolling, even if you didn't intend it that way.
    • asdfgadsfgasfdg 10y ago
      I'm surprised she has not been shadowbanned yet. Is there an explicit policy on this or is it at mod discretion?
    • mythrwy 10y ago
      I really believe as I stated about clickbait headlines and checking into the actual facts, but if stating that is going to produce this intense of a reaction (which I suppose is trolling even if not intentionally) than by all means I'll desist.
• jzl 10y ago
  If you aren't already using a non-logging vpn for all traffic, all the more reason to switch now. Probably preaching to the choir here. But it's so simple to setup and use one, much less intimidating than most people realize who have never used a VPN before. Once you start using one you practically feel naked whenever connecting without it, even at home.
  • geoffmcc 10y ago
    I'm sure it varies by provider/location, but the one I am with is decently priced and if I do a bandwidth test its only about 5MBPS slower when connected compared to when I am not. I forget what the upload was, but it was good enough for me.
  • jasonkostempski 10y ago
    Recommendations? Last time I thought about it, PIA was the recommended service but I know this stuff can change on a weekly basis. Edit: In US, not opposed to loosing speed going overseas, I've got more than enough. Also, how do people typically pay?
    • burkaman 10y ago
      https://thatoneprivacysite.net/vpn-comparison-chart/ https://thatoneprivacysite.net/vpn-comparison-chart/ seems like the most comprehensive way to pick one.
    • elbrian 10y ago
      I've been using AirVPN for a couple years and love it. They allow you to use OpenVPN instead of a proprietary client, which is nice.
    • joshstrange 10y ago
      I am a big fan of PIA and have been a customer for over 2 years now. I pay $40/year and it works great on my MacBook and iPhone.
  • penagwin 10y ago
    Is there an adequate (or easy?) solutions for gamers? I'm ok with a bit of extra latency (30ms -> 50ms lets say), but I'm not at all ok with that for say Counter Strike.
• pdelbarba 10y ago
  How much does HTTPS circumvent this? In theory the ISP would only know what domain you were on, but not what content you were viewing, correct?
  • tribune 10y ago
    Sure, but still, which domains a person uses can say a lot about them. Not to mention ISPs have access to a wealth of other information about their customers including physical location (down to the address, they bill them)
    • __jal 10y ago
      Unless you have a friendly local ISP, I strongly suggest using a third-party DNS provider as well. OpenDNS is lovely for this, or piggy-backing on one that you know actually returns valid results (and doesn't sell the logs) is good. If you're already a Google user, use theirs - they are still part of the surveillance-entertainment complex, but at least they don't lie about DNS.
      • exabrial 10y ago
        You'll also need to use dnscurve. Setup an RPI as your local DNS resolver using dnscurve and have your router hand out your rpi as your lan's DNS resolver. None of this matters if you rent your router from your isp
        • edraferi 10y ago
          I need a tutorial on setting up privacy protections against an ISP. Any recommendations?
          • komali2 10y ago
            No doubt, seems like there's a lot of opportunity to set up some clear-cut guides for dummies like me to protect ourselves. Kinda surprised there isn't a general guide from a VPN provider, would be a great opportunity to both upsell their services and promote whatever their staff (probably) care a great deal about (internet privacy).
• coldpie 10y ago
  Don't forget to vote.
  • WalterSear 10y ago
    My vote doesn't count, and my party colluded to keep my presidential candidate off the ballot.
    • givinguflac 10y ago
      The difference is all the trump voters that said the exact same thing actually went out and voted. Lo and behold, their votes counted.
      • WalterSear 10y ago
        I voted. Even though I knew, going into the booth, that my vote counted for nothing, thanks to the electoral college. Please stop pushing the false narrative that if only everyone voted, the kleptocracy would grind to a halt. It's culturally entrenched at this point.
        • coldpie 10y ago
          If maybe 1 or 2% of people in swing states who thought like you decided to vote instead of deciding not to vote, the outcome may have been different. You are one voice in three hundred million. So is everybody else. Please vote.
          • WalterSear 10y ago
            Utterly irrelevant. My vote won't count more either way. I have no control over swing state voters. If maybe there weren't swing states, the outcome would have been different. The system is set up this way for a reason - so that people like you can tell people like me that if they only voted, things would be fixed. Maybe they would, but, like I said, my vote doesn't count, so I can't really vote for it, can I? :)
• seibelj 10y ago
  I was sick of having to install VPN software on all of my devices, and couldn't on some of the older ones, so I put the VPN inside the router itself. Plug for one of my side businesses https://easyvpnrouter.com/ https://easyvpnrouter.com/ You can do it yourself, but it's a big hassle, maybe someone finds this useful.
  • _qbxp 10y ago
    I've wanted to setup my router with my VPN, but the only thing stopping me is that, AFAIK, some services won't work with most big VPN services - like Netflix. I use iVPN and can't stream Netflix while connected.
    • kinkrtyavimoodh 10y ago
      Not just Netflix (where it makes some sense because they are forced by content distributors to enforce geo-fencing of content), but I have had random websites stop working on VPN. Often I've given up on a website thinking it's a bug on their end, before realizing that it's not working because I am on VPN. Maybe they do it to prevent anonymous attacks or something, I dunno, but it's quite annoying because they fail in very vague and unclear ways.
    • rbritton 10y ago
      I have a private Streisand server [0] running for that reason. I got tired of dealing with most of the IPs for big VPN services being blocked on a lot of websites. [0]: https://github.com/jlund/streisand https://github.com/jlund/streisand
      • cortesoft 10y ago
        Where do you run it? Some of those same sites that block VPNs also block AWS IP blocks, and may also block other cloud providers as well.
      • wakkaflokka 10y ago
        I would be interested in this as well. 1. Where are you hosting it, and do you ever get blocked from certain services or websites? 2. How much does it cost? Is it a fixed cost, or bandwidth-dependent? 3. What do your down/up speeds look like when connected?
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• exabrial 10y ago
  Be sure to go read the actual regulations before subscribing to the rhetoric, there's more than one guilty party here. Once again though, we the people lose and the Democrats/Republicans​ win.
  • mcantelon 10y ago
    Obama admin did little about NSA domestic spying (and James Clapper perjured himself, but is amazing still considered credible by the media), so the idea that neither party cares about privacy is, indeed, correct.
    • root_axis 10y ago
      The statement is true, but its reasoning is built on a disingenuous lack of nuance in the context of a pertinent privacy issue split along party lines. Saying "neither party cares about privacy" clearly fails to convey anything meaningful in this particular instance.
    • wfo 10y ago
      No, the idea the neither party cares about privacy is not entirely incorrect but it's a ridiculous oversimplification and lacks any nuance. We are in a discussion thread talking about an instance where the US government voted to essentially remove all privacy protections for Americans, and it was completely down party lines. Every Democrat voted against it. Every single one. Nearly every single Republican voted for it except for a couple with some principles -- e.g. Paul, who most Republican politicians would love to get rid of and mostly ignore. I don't really like Obama admin views on domestic spying either, but government spying for "national security" reasons with FISA warrants is quite far away from "free-for-all, all of your most personal and private history is now available to the highest bidder". While I disagree with both, I can see the nuance there, and so can the 48 Democratic and Independent senators.
      • amitdeshwar 10y ago
        Too bad the Republicans with principles couldn't muster up enough principle to actually vote no instead of abstaining.
• blitmap 10y ago
  Well this is kinda fucking disgusting. I had previously thought lawmakers may simply not understand the issue they're ruling on - which is too common. I don't understand why this needs to remove the ability for the FCC to do it's job. To curtail it's ability to enact similar privacy protections in the future. How could anyone in good conscience think this is good for the people? Dear god fuck it all. (let's not even consider how an ISP analyzing traffic to sell would have an unfair advantage to other advertising agents like Facebook)
  • pera 10y ago
    They may think most constituents don't care about privacy at all, so why protect it? Or maybe they think the free market will somehow fix it? In any case, Americans should show them that they are actually interested in their privacy: https://act.eff.org/action/don-t-let-congress-undermine-our-online-privacy https://act.eff.org/action/don-t-let-congress-undermine-our-...
    • specialist 10y ago
      I worked on election integrity issues for a decade. Verify the machines work correctly, protect the secret ballot, keep admins from purging the voter rolls illegally, etc. My opponents had (effectively) infinite time and resources. They will forward their agenda relentlessly. Year after year. Non stop. To "win", I had to show up EVERY SINGLE DAY for EVERY SINGLE BATTLE FRONT. Well. One day I stayed home. After ten years of preventing internet voting (in my state), the legislature suspended the rules, fast-tracked the internet voting bill (no public hearings), and it passed unanimously. I asked my representatives, who had previously committed to never passing such a bill, "WTF?" "Well, we didn't hear any opposition." (Fruit flies have longer attention spans.) -- What I'm trying to say is that people do care. I traveled my entire state and had broad public support for my platform (use "citizen owned" open source software, protect voter privacy, universal voter registration). But we're outclassed, outgunned, and outmaneuvered. You cannot expect anyone anywhere do The Right Thing. But if you bring the heat, the powerful will see the light. The only times I got my way is when I brought pressure. Build coaltions, fill public hearings, letters to the editors, endorsements, resolutions, orchestrate protests, etc. This book is a very good primer. http://www.becomingacitizenactivist.org I also strongly recommend the Camp Wellstone training for organisers. http://wellstone.org
• DannyBee 10y ago
  So, it's weird. I was on reddit this morning, and there seemed to be a bit of astroturfing going on about this. The comments i replied to, which all claimed "this was a power grab by the fcc from the ftc" (which is ajit's talking points), are now deleted. In fact, every account i can find that said similar things is now deleted. https://www.reddit.com/user/danberlin/comments/ https://www.reddit.com/user/danberlin/comments/ (click on context for any of them). In any case, for the curious, here's the history here: The FTC historically did privacy for ISP's. FTC has no section 5 authority (IE to make those kinds of rules) for common carriers. It's specifically exempted by the FTC act, and has been for 90 years. This has been upheld in court. See https://iapp.org/news/a/the-att-v-ftc-common-carrier-ruling-and-how-it-changes-common-carrier-regulation/ https://iapp.org/news/a/the-att-v-ftc-common-carrier-ruling-... In June 2015, the FCC reclassified the ISP's as common carriers. Tada, the FTC rules no longer apply. So the FCC regulated them with roughly the same set of rules. Now they've undone this. Now the claim is "well, the FTC should be doing it, it was just a power grab by the FCC". But that's not really accurate. The power grab, if any, was reclassifying them as common carriers. Once that was done, they pretty much had to regulate them because the FTC can't. Because the FTC still doesn't have authority to regulate them, and they are still classed as common carriers, there is a void. Now, it may actually be better for the FTC to be regulating them. But it's definitely the case that, for the moment, no privacy rules will apply to them because the FTC can't regulate them until the FTC's common carrier exemption is repealed. See Maureen(an FTC commissioner)'s speech here: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements/893473/151204plispeech1.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements... Note, the speech is out of date a bit, because since then, the 9th circuit court ruled that the exemption is status based, not activity based, despite what the FTC wants.
  • fpgeek 10y ago
    Makes me wonder if this is at least partially intended to create a reason to roll back common carrier status.
  • belltaco 10y ago
    I'm a mod of that sub. Next time just send us a modmail so we can look into such behavior and hopefully tackle it.
• noobermin 10y ago
  This should serve as a reminder that a) elections matter and b) "both sides do it" is utterly false.
  • mixedCase 10y ago
    >"both sides do it" is utterly false. So Obama stopped the NSA mass collection program during its administration?
    • 0xfeba 10y ago
      No, but he pushed to implement net neutrality and the rules in question. Sorry, I'd have to agree. "Both sides do it" is an easy platitude, but Democrats aren't trying to teach the Bible in schools, that Evolution is a lie, that Climate Change is a lie, that wealth trickles down, that more of the "free market" can somehow solve our gigantic healthcare problem, that smoking doesn't kill, that abortion is murder but somehow women who have one shouldn't go to jail for it, that there's no such thing as a wall between church and state, oh wait--Islam?! Yes there's definitely a wall between Islam and state; that keeping guns regulation free makes us all safer, the list goes on. I'd agree the left has some problems and they do the same emotional manipulating just to get votes. But they also just happen to be manipulating people about issues that are mostly factually supported.
    • cortesoft 10y ago
      That is a completely separate thing?
    • st3v3r 10y ago
      NSA spying is far, far, far different than having all your info available to the highest bidder.
    • adrr 10y ago
      NSA spying on citizens wasn't because of corporate interests. Obama was extremely paranoid that a terrorist attack would affect his legacy and reputation.
• yeukhon 10y ago
  Who in the right mind would propose cutting EPA budget? This current government. Who in the right mind would want to offer health care to fewer Americans? This current government. With all the allegations and lying we read about this current administration, there is no sanity neither at the White House nor on the Capital Hill. I never like the fact Senate election is every six years. There should also be a fixed term for all representatives and senators. (Disclaimer: do not support Trump, but not Democrat / Republican, both parties are dirty in their own way). If one day voters are given a secure voting application they can vote on all issues, it will be great.
  • colordrops 10y ago
    I would argue that they are not in their _right_ mind.
    • amptorn 10y ago
      This subtracts from their responsibility.
      • colordrops 10y ago
        I don't believe so. Everyone goes through varying degrees of sub-optimal mental states, and unless they are completely debilitated by something like schizophrenia, they are responsible for bringing themselves out of whatever place they found themselves in.
  • bluejekyll 10y ago
    > (Disclaimer: do not support Trump, but not Democrat / Republican, both parties are dirty in their own way). With current winner take all voting structures in the US, this isn't exactly an option. Winner-take-all voting systems end up with only two parties, because that is the only viable way to win. What we need is ranked choice voting so that voters are not penalized for supporting third and fourth options. > If one day voters are given a secure voting application they can vote on all issues, it will be great. I'm not sure I share your confidence in that. A representative government has it's positives, such-as people who are dedicated to govern while we all work, etc. And with only 50% turn out, or less, you'd get a skewed populous actually voting on these things.
• notmarkus 10y ago
  Breakdown of party affiliation and vote YEAs ---50 R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R NAYs ---48 D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D I D D D D D D D D D D D D I D D D D D D D D D D D Not Voting - 2 R R (https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=115&session=1&vote=00094 https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_...)
  • koolba 10y ago
    It's interesting how the non-fixed font size makes the Ds look like they're more than the Rs.
    • spinlock 10y ago
      let's replace the electoral college with non-fixed fonts!
    • jacquesm 10y ago
      I'd suggest RLE: Yes: 50 Republicans No: 46 Democrats and 2 independents Abstentions: 2 Republicans edit: tx fjert!
      • fjert 10y ago
        >No: 48 Democrats and 2 independents I think you meant 46 Democrats and 2 Independents.
      • deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  • dwaltrip 10y ago
    That's incredible. Our two party system is so clearly suboptimal, yet there seems to be no strong agreement, or even leading ideas, on what we can do to improve it. One day... if we can overcome our deeply set ideologies...
    • 10y ago
• davexunit 10y ago
  Every day there's a new reason to be ashamed to be American.
• api 10y ago
  Encrypt all the things.
  • cortesoft 10y ago
    Encryption does not solve this problem at all. They aren't selling the CONTENTS of your traffic, they are selling the DESTINATIONS.
    • true_religion 10y ago
      Isn't some destination information encrypted under HTTPS? The only thing that might leak is the final public IP address.
      • cortesoft 10y ago
        Only the path portion.... the dns name is passed unencrypted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication
• Jamieee 10y ago
  Was looking at setting up a PiHole to kill ads on my home network anyway - maybe it's time to just get a better router that I can do that on and hook up to my VPN provider in one box. Anyone got any suggestions?
  • spinlock 10y ago
    This is what I'm thinking. We can't rely on our government to do the right thing so we need to do it ourselves.
  • givinguflac 10y ago
    I've had good luck blocking ads on my Asus RT-AC87U running MerlinWRT. It can block ads by installing AB-solution and also supports VPN both to your network from elsewhere and for routing your entire WAN through VPN if desired. https://www.ab-solution.info https://www.ab-solution.info and http://asuswrt.lostrealm.ca http://asuswrt.lostrealm.ca
    • PTRFRLL 10y ago
      +1 for MerlinWRT, it's great. Easy to install and let's you do some awesome things vs. stock ASUS firmware. The OpenVPN client is pretty powerful too. Using policy-based routing, you can send some traffic to the VPN and other to your normal WAN.
• haswell 10y ago
  > The resolution also would bar the FCC from ever enacting similar consumer protections. It now heads to the House. This is honestly the most frightening thing to me. Even if prevailing opinions change, they can't bring these regulations back in the future? This seems...majorly problematic. Edit: The Ars article [1] expands on this a bit further: > The Senate today used its power under the Congressional Review Act to ensure that the FCC rulemaking "shall have no force or effect" and to prevent the FCC from issuing similar regulations in the future. I'm not well versed in the Congressional Review Act and what its invocation means here, but I've seen commentary to the effect of "The FCC won’t be able to try again, even if Congress gets back on board". [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/senate-votes-to-let-isps-sell-your-web-browsing-history-to-advertisers/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/senate-votes-to-...
  • maxerickson 10y ago
    Congress can still make changes, they are just preventing administrative changes. It's not weird or scary, it's how the US system works, the executive branch is given authority by legislation and legislation can take it away.
  • bichiliad 10y ago
    This is always something that's baffled me, mostly since it seems totally counter to how the democratic process should work (apart from the fact that it seems totally petty). Does that mean that this resolution would have to be repealed in order for the FCC to make similar policies again? That sounds less like "never enact policies like this" and more like "now it'll take one extra round of voting before new privacy-related policies can be enacted".
    • rayiner 10y ago
      Congress cannot make any law that Congress cannot unmake. Congress can, of course, prevent a regulatory agency from doing something, because the regulatory agency's power to make law derives from Congress's delegation of that authority to the agency. (I'll leave aside the discussion of how that's totally unconstitutional.)
• dv_dt 10y ago
  Someone should start a project to gather and share as much information on the lawmakers as possible within the new legal bounds of what is now allowed.
• jps359 10y ago
  If you knew someone in particular worked as a member of the CIA/NSA or as a politician, couldn't you (possibly unknowingly) sell their personal browsing history to a foreign adversary (and give that adversary leverage over the individual)?
  • wfo 10y ago
    Or someone who is a sysadmin and works on the power grid, or someone who is a technician at a huge datacenter, or someone with admin rights on the corporate network of Boeing, Lockheed, or, or...
• revelation 10y ago
  This isn't even about privacy only, at stake are also things like "supercookies" inserted by ISPs. It's quite unbelievable that you could try sending a bitstring over IP and have the ISP change that, legally. It's like USPS ripping up mail and occasionally adding some advertisements or rewriting your text.
• radley 10y ago
  Get ready for dark patterns 2.0 :(
• godmodus 10y ago
  Forgive them father, they know not what they do.
• clwg 10y ago
  Does this apply only to the first hop or to anyone that packets route through?
• cheath 10y ago
  Conservatism in the US hypothetically is supposed to encompass the preservation of people's privacy from the interference from others - including by the government, individuals, and companies. But I think it's very telling that when companies interests and individuals interests conflict, then the favor recently has been towards the "freedom" of the companies at the expense of the individual. It's a shame.
  • komali2 10y ago
    "Conservatives" in the US should not be confused with the actual definition of "conservative." Nor should the republican party be confused with people that care about Republican ideals.
    • TillE 10y ago
      It's not just label confusion, it's an active contradiction in the principles most of them constantly espouse vs. the actual policies they enact. But it is a little silly to have a "republican" party in countries (USA, France) where the monarchy is long gone.
      • humanrebar 10y ago
        American conservatism is conserving a different political history than you find in Europe. "Way back when", America was a constitutional republic with a distinct federal government with distinct separation of powers. That's the "good old days" that are conserved in America. So it's not "silly" except that the same word "conservative" means different things in different contexts. Though that's true of the words "liberal", "democratic", "federal", and "republican" for that matter.
    • CalChris 10y ago
      True Scotsmen should not be confused with real Scotsmen.
    • mtanski 10y ago
      When you say "Republican ideals" do you mean lower case 'r' republicanism vs Republicans? It's a pet peeve of mine. Same when people use democratic vs Democratic (party) interchangeably.
• mirimir 10y ago
  "Money doesn't talk, it swears." "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)", by Bob Dylan So everyone should use VPNs. One can allow direct non-VPN access to particular sites, such as Netflix, in firewall rules.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• root_axis 10y ago
  I wonder how ISPs would react to a script/app that generates a ton of DNS noise.
  • acomjean 10y ago
    M-x spook still works on some versions of emacs (the default mac one anyway). It was designed to throw off email surveillance, dated terms though. More details here: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Mail-Amusements.html https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Ma...
• gibrown 10y ago
  So does this mean I'll soon be able to go and buy the internet history of all Republican lawmakers? Cause that sounds fun...
  • coding123 10y ago
    That's what I was thinking too. I mean they're making it legal, so...
• daymannightman 10y ago
  ISPs have historically been granted certain protections due to the fact that they are simply providing the the delivery mechanism. Once they start inspecting and logging user data I believe those protections should be removed. What about HIPPA or other protections for PII? They are no longer simply a service provider if they log my medical details when I go to use my health care provider's website.
• cgb223 10y ago
  > approve a joint resolution from Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) that would prevent the Federal Communications Commission's privacy rules from going into effect So wait, are these new rules that would have gone into effect, or is this repealing old existing rules?
  • DrScump 10y ago
    No effect until December 2017 at the earliest (there are complex notification requirements that may not be met by then).
• daymannightman 10y ago
  ISPs have historically been granted certain protections due to the fact that they are simply providing the the delivery mechanism. Once they start inspecting and logging user data I believe those protections should be removed. What about HIPPA or other protections for PII? They are no longer simply a service provider if they log my medical details when I go to use my health care provider's website.
• mrtron 10y ago
  Obfuscate usage by blasting random requests out. Use about 100x the data your family normally uses.
  • acdha 10y ago
    It's hard to generate realistic data which can't be easily rejected with basic statistical techniques, and that also runs into the other problem that most large ISPs have or are introducing monthly quotas and traffic shaping. Most people wouldn't run a service like this and the ones who do would likely stop as soon as it interfered with their actual usage.
• diminoten 10y ago
  Does anyone have a neutral explanation of what this is? Does this affect an ISP's ability to pursue someone who is accused of IP piracy?
• startupdiscuss 10y ago
  Prediction: built in VPN products like Opera's will grow in popularity.
  • shorttime 10y ago
    thanks for posting this, didn't realize it had it built in. Just enabled.
• alistproducer2 10y ago
  I made an Ask HN related to this earlier that got no traction [0]. Due to this regulation repeal, I don't consider VPN's optional anymore. I asked people to share their VPN setups. I'd like to have my router route my traffic through one. 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13942059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13942059
• awqrre 10y ago
  Employers will start purchasing your browsing history if this passes?
• emehrkay 10y ago
  Imagine how valuable some users' history will be on the market. If I am an ISP and I know that the Zuckerberg household uses my service, that could prove very profitable for me.
• temp-dude-87844 10y ago
  While I strongly disagree with the outcome, let's be very precise on what was actually done. Today the Senate passed, with 50R in support, 46D and 2I opposing, 2R (including Rand Paul, a listed co-sponsor) abstaining, a very brief resolution [1]. The wording of the resolution is reproduced below: JOINT RESOLUTION Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission relating to "Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services". Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That Congress disapproves the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission relating to "Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services" (81 Fed. Reg. 87274 (December 2, 2016)), and such rule shall have no force or effect." This undoes the 73-page publication [2] published on 2016-12-02 by the FCC, most of which took effect 2017-01-03, some parts later on 2017-03-02, both after the election and one of them after the inauguration. I sympathize with what's at stake, but the victorious party's Senate issues a one-line rebuke of a sweeping ruleset coming out of the very tail end of the other party's lame duck session. While I support the Democratic position on this issue, I can't help but feel that the timing was a deliberate provocation timed to make the Republicans look bad. As entirely expected [3], this FCC ruling was indeed rebuked by the Senate and it now goes to the House, but the current FCC chair would've probably discontinued it under his leadership anyway. [1] https://www.congress.gov/115/bills/sjres34/BILLS-115sjres34pcs.xml https://www.congress.gov/115/bills/sjres34/BILLS-115sjres34p... [2] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/12/02/2016-28006/protecting-the-privacy-of-customers-of-broadband-and-other-telecommunications-services https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/12/02/2016-28... [3] https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/115-2017/s94 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/115-2017/s94
  • wyldfire 10y ago
    Thanks for the detail, I didn't know this was all lame duck activity. Not worth getting all hyped up for this.
  • yincrash 10y ago
    Are you sure the new FCC chair would have been able to remove those rules without the support of the rest of the commission?
• intrasight 10y ago
  I'm gonna call this the "get your friends and family on an VPN" bill.
• orbitingpluto 10y ago
  I haven't seen any mention of COPPA here. I would think that selling a child's internet habits would constitute a violation . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Pr...
• bleair 10y ago
  I think this could set an interesting change in motion. Assuming ISPs start selling their costumer's browsing behaviors I imagine we'll soon see a "marketplace" for selling of this style of information. This could be a win for startups as now they will have an easy place to sell the types of information they collect about users who have signed up for their service. It used to be a notion that "if you aren't paying for a service you are the product being sold". Now you can start to assume that your usage of a service or even any program you install on your device will in effect result in information about you being sold.
  • shostack 10y ago
    These marketplaces already exist via DMPs and data brokers like Axciom, Neustar, etc. There are cookie onboarding companies like LiveRamp, etc. that partner with companies and apps to load their cookie on login, map it to a hashed email, collect geo data, etc. and then resell that audience to these companies and advertisers to target/retarget against. A surprising amount of that happens behind the scenes in apps where you'd have no reason to suspect they were doing that (the infamous "flashlight app requesting tons of permissions" is one example), and no real way of auditing it short of monitoring your traffic for calls to their servers. I've heard rates around ~$8 CPM for each unique email-mapped user/mo (they pay you monthly even if it is the same user in Month 1 and Month 2 because the point is resetting the cookie that may have been previously wiped). Obviously various factors impact that pricing. Adobe is also making big moves in that marketplace space for their Marketing Cloud [1]. [1] https://marketing.adobe.com/resources/help/en_US/aam/c_marketplace_buyer.html https://marketing.adobe.com/resources/help/en_US/aam/c_marke...
• johnmurch 10y ago
  Someone needs to start publishing the web history of everyone who voted YES to showcase the power/data ISPs will have.
• erkose 10y ago
  https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
  • yborg 10y ago
    That does nothing for traffic analysis. Your ISP has the destinations for everywhere you go online, that information over time is itself valuable.
    • m3ta 10y ago
      If someone is concerned with their ISP knowing the sites they visit, they can use TOR or a VPN to re-route that traffic elsewhere. There is no way to avoid this. The way the internet works right now, someone at some point has to know which server you want to connect to. It's your ISP or your VPN provider or the TOR nodes you're connected to, or some other lesser-known program that obfuscates your identity.
    • erkose 10y ago
      Much less valuable then what I'm doing there.
• abootstrapper 10y ago
  Should we open up our wifi routers to confuse the traffic signal? How bad of an idea is that?
  • coolspot 10y ago
    -8 of -10 Very bad.
• oksawe 10y ago
  but but Hillary's emails. ugh
• mrfusion 10y ago
  Two days ago I was searching on Google for a model of car. About ten minutes later I get an email from my bank about their car loans. Very creepy! I guess we can expect worse than that now?
  • goodplay 10y ago
    Want to hear something creepier? I was looking to buy a car a couple of years ago, and was checking out a bunch of car dealerships that were adjacent to each other. Shortly after I decided to return home (or perhaps as I started to leave the area, can't recall), I received a promotional SMS from my phone carrier about special car deals. People forgot why privacy is important and why keeping records is very dangerous and shouldn't be carelessly, if at all, unless there is a genuine need for it. Unfortunately, and I resent having to say this, I think humanity will need a new lesson before things can get better.
• makecheck 10y ago
  This simple pass/fail measurement really has to go. Bills can contain way, way, way too much stuff and cause way too much damage to be simply accepted as all or nothing. What if bills could only implement 100% of what they say after receiving 100% of the vote? And if a bill splits 50/50 (as this one roughly did), the rule could be: tough, now you may only implement 50% of what you asked for; what will that 50% be? It should be obvious by now that the political party system tends to produce results that consider approximately 2 viewpoints instead of those of 100 senators or a million constituents. And it should be equally obvious that the election of representatives pretty much hands four years worth of arbitrary bills to the majority, counter-arguments be damned apparently.
  • umanwizard 10y ago
    The bill we're talking about was like two sentences long.
• teaneedz 10y ago
  When do we kill ad tech so that our data isn't as monetizeable?
• tracker1 10y ago
  Guess it's time to start using my VPN machine more...
• ajennings 10y ago
  Here is Senator Flake's explanation: https://www.flake.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/3/op-ed-for-the-wall-street-journal https://www.flake.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/3/op-ed-f... He says he just wants to go back to "the FTC’s successful sensitivity-based framework". Is he wrong? Is it spin? Jeff Flake is my senator and I honestly like him on so many issues. I'm very confused by this and trying to get to the bottom of it.
  • extra88 10y ago
    Flake's article is full of spin. The FCC declaring ISPs common carriers wasn't about "stealing" regulatory control over privacy from the FTC, it was the only way they could make headway on net neutrality. If Congress wanted to give responsibility for this back to the FTC, that's what they should be voting on, this doesn't do that. Using the rollback is just lazy. Edit: Oh, and Telecom Services was the largest donor industry to Flake's leadership PAC (not necessarily corruption, donors give money to politicians who already agree with them too). https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?type=P&cid=n00009573&newMem=N&cycle=2016 https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?type=P&c...
  • troisx 10y ago
    I can't understand how there's anything that Jeff Flake does that you can like. The only good thing about Jeff Flake in my opinion is that he has almost no chance of reelection because even most of his own constituents can't stand him.
• LeicaLatte 10y ago
  VPNs are the new passwords.
• shmerl 10y ago
  As if we don't have enough snooping going on. Now ISPs want to sell behavioral profiles. In a sense they are worse than Facebook and others who hoard such profiles. In the case of the later, users at least have a choice to dump FB and use privacy respectful services. And FB collects what users do in regards to FB. With ISPs, not only they sit on the main pipe and can do deep inspection of all your traffic, users most often have no choice (at best a workaround like VPN, which isn't free and degrades performance). Crooks who voted for this must be same ones who advocate for police state.
  • rev12 10y ago
    > In a sense they are worse than Facebook and others who hoard such profiles. In every sense this is worse than Facebook and others, especially considering your second paragraph.
• ianamartin 10y ago
  So much of this conversation has turned political that I'm going to write this as a top-level comment instead of a response to any of the Republican/Democrat comments. We all want to perceive our political views as the result of deep, personal thought--reflection on our own moral guidance, our own observations about the world, our knowledge of the law. Or some combination of those things. We don't want to think that our political views are determined by something as arbitrary as where we grew up. But I think that we are, in fact, shaped more by our environments than we want to think we are. I grew up on a small farm in Texas. My parents happened to be university professors, so I had access to decent education and placed some value on the arts. In fact, I was a professional violinist for 20 years before I got into software engineering and data science. My working theory is based solely on my observations, and I haven't done a study to try to support this theory, but I am working on getting the funding to do such a study in a rigorous way. It's this: the primary driver of political philosophy is access to property. When you have access to cheap, functional property, you tend to lean Republican. When you don't, you tend to lean Democrat. The reasoning behind this is pretty simple. When you live in a place like Texas, you don't really need other people's rules. If you don't like the rules in your city, it's pretty cheap to go buy some land with little-to-no oversight from anyone and live your life as you please, so long as you aren't being really obnoxious. So you have to drive 2 hours to work instead of an hour? No big deal. Your freedom to live under your own rules is more important than that. Why would anyone compromise on their way of doing things when it's so easy to not compromise? It doesn't make any sense. Contrast that to NYC, where I've been living for almost 2 years. Everything is about compromise. Very few people can afford to just move to a place where no one cares--for a variety of reasons. You can't live in that kind of a dense population without accepting limitations to your freedoms. And you want those limitations in place because people are jackasses. So you agree to curtail what you are allowed to do so that you have some confidence that other people are similarly curtailed. There's a sort of minimum viable level of human decency that gets enforced. If you think of personal freedom in the sense that it ends when it starts to infringe on the personal freedom of another person, it makes sense that you are going to have more of it if there's no one near you for 10 miles vs. your next door neighbor living in what used to be the second toilet in your apartment. I don't see much of a conceptual problem with either attitude. I'm much happier in NYC than I ever was in Texas. Texas just doesn't have a whole lot to offer to a liberal, atheist, violinist, and software engineer. What I see as a problem is that people are incapable of understanding the different needs of different human situations and want to impose their own ideas on populations they do not understand at all. New Yorkers grow up riding the subway to school. They see all kinds of people from all walks of life and all different races from a very young age. I didn't even meet a black person until I was in college. New Yorkers don't understand how the south can be so racist. I can understand it. I don't condone it at all. But I can understand how it happens. We still have housing laws that allow what's basically racial segregation in Texas and all across the South. We have Senators and Supreme Court Justices from New York City who don't have a clue about how utterly different things are 2,000 miles away trying to enforce the compromises they absolutely need on the entire country. And conversely, we have idiots from Texas pretending that places like NYC, LA, SF, Chicago and other high-density populations just don't exist--pretending that anyone who doesn't want to compromise is completely free to just go someplace else. Both sides of the aisle are completely fucked in the head. They are wrong. There is no universal set of rules that make sense in both the context of sparse population/cheap land/driving culture and dense population/expensive land/walking or pub trans culture. To bring it back to something relevant to this particular conversation, I think you can apply this heuristic to the Senate, FCC, and FTC. As parties, yes. Both of the big ones are owned by corporate interests. That's clear. But they are owned by the ones they want to be owned by. The ones that they think are in alignment with their political philosophy. The Republican version of the story on privacy and net neutrality is that everyone has space to move to something else if they don't like it. Let the companies do what they want, and if users don't like it, they can go do something else. Which would be reasonable if Republicans weren't already in the pockets of all the major providers and have made it impossible for there to be another place to "move" to, in terms of internet providers. The Democrats did, unfortunately, almost nothing to protect users. The Democrats are too willing to compromise to get something done. In my opinion, it's the will/won't compromise that is fundamentally derived from the geography of where you live that is driving our politics now, including the politics of the internet. Republicans win because they don't compromise. It's not in their vocabulary. Democrats lose because they are, by nature, the compromise party. In a perfect world, both sides would get out of their shells and try to experience the places other people live. They would realize that one-size-fits-all compromise legislation does not, in fact, work for everyone all the time. And it can't really. But there are some cases that affect everyone equally: bottom 1%, top 1%, anything in between, the internet matters. This is one of the rare few instances where Republicans and Democrats should be holding hands and applying rules equally across the board. Those rules should be in favor of privacy and neutrality. No compromise, no matter where you are from or where your political philosophies came from. Net Privacy should be absolute by law as should Neutrality from the providers. That's all there is to it. In the absence of that, I see a good market opportunity for a social network like Facebook that is entirely encrypted and unscannable by the Intelligence Community. Totally private. No ads. You pay a dollar a month for this. Your data is yours, and you can leave at any time and take it with you in a reasonable format. I'm already working on that. Ping me if you are interested.