6 ms·

Why one Republican voted to kill privacy rules: “Nobody has to use the Internet”

67 points by AdmiralAsshat 10y ago

nebabyte 10y ago
Nobody has to have any information either I mean hey, nobody has to participate in a democracy. It'd be so much more convenient if I could just, like, dictate what would happen, and they had no way of looking it up The internet's such a fad I'm just so sick of hearing about, let's just let companies buy it up and kill it off
- pmoriarty 10y ago
  Nobody has to read, so it's ok if your library reading records be made public. Nobody has to get medical treatment, so your medical records should be made public. Nobody has to have sex, so there should be a publically accessible camera in your bedroom.
  - nebabyte 10y ago
    Now why can't more of my constituents be like this upstanding citizen.
ams6110 10y ago
This is probably mostly an age thing. I mostly agree that "nobody has to use the internet" because for most of my life there was no internet, at least no consumer internet, and I have personal experience living a happy, productive life quite well without it. Many people over 60 today really don't use the internet much if at all. A younger person who has never known life without a mobile device and ubiquitous internet might well have a different view.
- vijayr 10y ago
  This is probably mostly an age thing Argued that way, nobody has to use phone, digital camera and a whole bunch of other things. Part of the job of being a law maker is to understand the needs/interests of all people, not just old people because the lawmaker happens to be old. A sensible person would find out the usage of the internet, its impact, privacy etc before making (even though he himself might not use) a decision. I don't drink, but that doesn't mean I should vote down any bill that has anything to do with alcohol without understanding what it is about, right?
  - rayiner 10y ago
    > Argued that way, nobody has to use phone, digital camera and a whole bunch of other things. Part of the job of being a law maker is to understand the needs/interests of all people, not just old people because the lawmaker happens to be old It's not just because the lawmaker happens to be old, but also because voters happen to be old. He's a Congressman, so he has to get reelected every other year. Half of those elections will be midterm elections. Almost twice as many voters will be 65+ as will be 18-29.
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  I also grew up without internet but the definition of things you have to have to function in society evolves all the time. 20 years ago you were fine without internet but nowadays it's much harder to do without. 150 years ago you were perfectly fine without car, today less so in many areas. Same for phone, access to doctors, electrical power, running water, grocery stores and so on. Society evolves.
AndrewKemendo 10y ago
The problem is he's not technically wrong, but he is holistically wrong. You also don't have to use electricity, gas, water utilities or hospitals. However our society has progressed to the point that these things are considered basic services now if you want to live inside of common society. I'm not sure if he is intentionally ignoring this aspect or really is too disconnected with reality. I say that because frankly I know a lot of people his age who don't use the internet directly at all. I know even recently there was a exec that was being groomed for a major position at a top 5 tech co, who didn't use internet directly and had his secretary print out emails for him, that he would mark up and she would transcribe in response. It's more common than you think in the govt.
- ericcumbee 10y ago
  Actually Not having electricity or water service in a occupied house is considered a building code violation in some municipalities.
  - Tloewald 10y ago
    Internet access is considered a basic necessity in several countries too.
    - ericcumbee 10y ago
      You misunderstand...in some municipalities if you were to opt to not connect your house to the power grid, or water mains you would cited.
- rdiddly 10y ago
  Nice way of putting it (technically vs. holistically). I wouldn't go so far as to declare anything a basic service, even something I've used almost every day of my life like electricity. I simply view it as "something that's nice to have" and therefore something we shouldn't squat down and take a huge dump on for no reason.
- noonespecial 10y ago
tabeth 10y ago
So many of the problems surrounding this would be fixed with: 1. More representatives per capita 2. Shorter (and limited max) term limits. There's nothing wrong with what he's saying here. The problem is that his view, though representative of some portion of the population, are over-represented due to the lack of representation in general.
noir_lord 10y ago
Ask 1000 randomly chosen people 10 basic questions about a subject, work out the average score. If a Congressperson/Senate member can't get a better score than the average of the 1000 on that subject then they don't get to vote on the legislation. (I'm not serious..but sometimes I wonder). I call it the "Yogi Test" (smarter than the average bear).
- chadgeidel 10y ago
  Sounds good. Until you try to define "1000 random people" and "10 basic questions". :-)
  - make3 10y ago
    And who picks the answers, and who scores
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    The nice thing about a percentile score is that you have enormous leeway in how difficult the questions are. And it's not that hard to find people that are mostly not experts on a subject.
- nostromo 10y ago
  Most regulations are already written by "experts." Oil companies write oil regulations, bankers write banking regulations, etc. I don't think this is an ideal state.
  - ouid 10y ago
    the problem there is not their expertise, but their interests. you can insist on both.
EGreg 10y ago
Conservatives have one hammer for every nail: the free market. The invisible hand always does better than government. Deregulation is always good. (There are three exceptions to this with many conservatives: free trade is bad, army is unlimited good, fossil fuels must be subsidized). That's what leads to such statements. It doesn't matter how ridiculous a corner they will paint themselves into. They can deny that basic supply and demand exists. When backed into a corner they just exclaim "socialism doesn't work! Look at USSR!" (And then together with neocons proceed to sanction and undermine more regimes to make sure they are right.) It's kind of a religious conviction. Capitalism is the unofficial religion of the USA the same as Islam is in Saudi Arabia. Don't believe me? Try to say publicly that capitalism has faults and your criticism of capitalism itself would be instantly deflected to something else, or else you will be quickly ostracized. This religion will soon come up against the hard facts of automation causing demand for human labor to drop, undermining the conviction that wages will always be the primary way for people to get money.
- digitalzombie 10y ago
  > the free market. The only libertarians on the senate was two republicans and they both voted to sell online privacy. I guess that's real free market there.
nostromo 10y ago
I'm confused about what data the ISPs actually have access to. It seems over 90% of my online activity is now https. That means they have access to very little that can be useful to an advertiser. (I suppose they have my DNS lookups, but it's trivial to change DNS to a company you trust.) It's interesting how universally hated ISPs are. Google and Facebook, from a technical standpoint, are much scarier in what they know about everyone on the internet. Yet few people seem to care that they use our browsing and search data to target us to advertisers.
- advisedwang 10y ago
  Thanks to SNI the hostname you are connecting to is usually visible to a snoop.
- openasocket 10y ago
  > I suppose they have my DNS lookups, but it's trivial to change DNS to a company you trust That won't solve it, there's still what's called "passive DNS". With passive DNS someone between you and the internet (in this case your ISP) simply tags and stores all DNS packets it sees before forwarding them to wherever they're supposed to go. From that they can determine which domains you are resolving even if you aren't using their resolver. They can also block DNS requests, and even send you their own responses. That last part doesn't matter as much as you'd think: they can't just redirect you to an Ad server because they wouldn't be able to authenticate the SSL connection. I should also add that this DNS snooping has legitimate and ethical uses. A big reason to do this is to deal with malware. Often malware uses certain domain names as their command and control server. If this malware has spread far and wide and could affect a lot of your customers, you can black hole the domain name so that, if you have the malware and it tries to resolve mycommandandcontrolserver.biz, the ISP intercepts the request and send back an NXDOMAIN, or have it resolve to 0.0.0.0, or resolve it to a particular server that simply closes every connection it gets so you can figure out which customers are affected and contact them. They can also get the hostname for https connections the initial SSL connection sends the hostname in plaintext (called SNI). But getting that requires reconstructing the TCP stream for connections in real time, and that's just not very practical at ISP scale.
- 10y ago
nickbauman 10y ago
People who have Internet access are increasingly using it to get or keep their jobs. They don't really have a choice. Consider the following analogy: Nobody has to use a car. They can just stay home and be unemployed. Especially in rural Wisconsin. So when carmakers install tracking devices into that car, they can use your movement data as a way to make money. If you don't like it, walk or take a bus.
colmvp 10y ago
So as automation and AI are predicted (and to some extent, already have) to displace a lot of jobs over the next few decades, I feel that making the internet more accessible is America's best interest, as it may be able to make education MORE accessible through free online resources like Khan Academy, YouTube videos, downloadable textbooks, online study groups (Slack, forums), so that the average American has a better chance at switching careers, along with being more informed about things like the environment, their personal health (physical and mental), and government resources in their local area that might help them. In my city (and I'm sure it's the same around the U.S.), libraries are packed because they provide internet and a safe, free space to learn.
blunte 10y ago
Someday these old fuckers who are ruining our world will die. Then maybe there will be thoughtful progress of humanity.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- dagw 10y ago
  But then you will be the old fucker completely out of touch with the strange stuff the kids are into these days and the lame things they worry about.
  - xyzzy4 10y ago
    Not necessarily. Technological progress seems to be slowing.
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      > Technological progress seems to be slowing. Comedy gold. Really? How long ago since you thought 'mail' was something a guy carried for you? How long ago since you thought a phone should be wired to a wall? How long before that when you thought a computer was something that banks used?
      - ouid 10y ago
        How long since the last time a major technology was invented that changed how you live your day to day? When that happened, how long had it been since the previous one? I bet the first number is bigger than the second number.
        raisedbyninjas 10y ago
        1. The smartphone (iphone 2007) 2. The internet (early 1990s)
thetli8 10y ago
Honestly, banning lobbying from Congress might solve the multitudes of issues we're handed down from the government. http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-isp-web-browsing-privacy-fire-sale http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-isp-... I'd suggest that companies, individuals and interest groups file suggestions (similar to amicus curiae) if they want their voices heard. Congress shouldn't be influenced by outside money.
- pgwhalen 10y ago
  What exactly does banning lobbying look like in a representative democracy?
vermontdevil 10y ago
This is the same guy who wrote the Patroit Act. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Sensenbrenner https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Sensenbrenner Fuck him.
bwb 10y ago
What the republican party has become makes me sad for any real conservative :(
- jopsen 10y ago
  Yeah, thanks Obama! He is the one who made it so hard for republicans to both: A) Disagree with Obama, and B) Have a reasonable political position. Sarcasm may occur... :)

67 points by AdmiralAsshat 10y ago

Nobody has to have any information either I mean hey, nobody has to participate in a democracy. It'd be so much more convenient if I could just, like, dictate what would happen, and they had no way of looking it up The internet's such a fad I'm just so sick of hearing about, let's just let companies buy it up and kill it off

pmoriarty 10y ago
Nobody has to read, so it's ok if your library reading records be made public. Nobody has to get medical treatment, so your medical records should be made public. Nobody has to have sex, so there should be a publically accessible camera in your bedroom.
- nebabyte 10y ago
  Now why can't more of my constituents be like this upstanding citizen.

ams6110 10y ago

This is probably mostly an age thing. I mostly agree that "nobody has to use the internet" because for most of my life there was no internet, at least no consumer internet, and I have personal experience living a happy, productive life quite well without it. Many people over 60 today really don't use the internet much if at all. A younger person who has never known life without a mobile device and ubiquitous internet might well have a different view.

vijayr 10y ago
This is probably mostly an age thing Argued that way, nobody has to use phone, digital camera and a whole bunch of other things. Part of the job of being a law maker is to understand the needs/interests of all people, not just old people because the lawmaker happens to be old. A sensible person would find out the usage of the internet, its impact, privacy etc before making (even though he himself might not use) a decision. I don't drink, but that doesn't mean I should vote down any bill that has anything to do with alcohol without understanding what it is about, right?
- rayiner 10y ago
  > Argued that way, nobody has to use phone, digital camera and a whole bunch of other things. Part of the job of being a law maker is to understand the needs/interests of all people, not just old people because the lawmaker happens to be old It's not just because the lawmaker happens to be old, but also because voters happen to be old. He's a Congressman, so he has to get reelected every other year. Half of those elections will be midterm elections. Almost twice as many voters will be 65+ as will be 18-29.
maxxxxx 10y ago
I also grew up without internet but the definition of things you have to have to function in society evolves all the time. 20 years ago you were fine without internet but nowadays it's much harder to do without. 150 years ago you were perfectly fine without car, today less so in many areas. Same for phone, access to doctors, electrical power, running water, grocery stores and so on. Society evolves.

AndrewKemendo 10y ago

The problem is he's not technically wrong, but he is holistically wrong. You also don't have to use electricity, gas, water utilities or hospitals. However our society has progressed to the point that these things are considered basic services now if you want to live inside of common society. I'm not sure if he is intentionally ignoring this aspect or really is too disconnected with reality. I say that because frankly I know a lot of people his age who don't use the internet directly at all. I know even recently there was a exec that was being groomed for a major position at a top 5 tech co, who didn't use internet directly and had his secretary print out emails for him, that he would mark up and she would transcribe in response. It's more common than you think in the govt.

ericcumbee 10y ago
Actually Not having electricity or water service in a occupied house is considered a building code violation in some municipalities.
- Tloewald 10y ago
  Internet access is considered a basic necessity in several countries too.
  - ericcumbee 10y ago
    You misunderstand...in some municipalities if you were to opt to not connect your house to the power grid, or water mains you would cited.
rdiddly 10y ago
Nice way of putting it (technically vs. holistically). I wouldn't go so far as to declare anything a basic service, even something I've used almost every day of my life like electricity. I simply view it as "something that's nice to have" and therefore something we shouldn't squat down and take a huge dump on for no reason.
noonespecial 10y ago

tabeth 10y ago

So many of the problems surrounding this would be fixed with: 1. More representatives per capita 2. Shorter (and limited max) term limits. There's nothing wrong with what he's saying here. The problem is that his view, though representative of some portion of the population, are over-represented due to the lack of representation in general.

noir_lord 10y ago

Ask 1000 randomly chosen people 10 basic questions about a subject, work out the average score. If a Congressperson/Senate member can't get a better score than the average of the 1000 on that subject then they don't get to vote on the legislation. (I'm not serious..but sometimes I wonder). I call it the "Yogi Test" (smarter than the average bear).

chadgeidel 10y ago
Sounds good. Until you try to define "1000 random people" and "10 basic questions". :-)
- make3 10y ago
  And who picks the answers, and who scores
- Dylan16807 10y ago
  The nice thing about a percentile score is that you have enormous leeway in how difficult the questions are. And it's not that hard to find people that are mostly not experts on a subject.
nostromo 10y ago
Most regulations are already written by "experts." Oil companies write oil regulations, bankers write banking regulations, etc. I don't think this is an ideal state.
- ouid 10y ago
  the problem there is not their expertise, but their interests. you can insist on both.

EGreg 10y ago

Conservatives have one hammer for every nail: the free market. The invisible hand always does better than government. Deregulation is always good. (There are three exceptions to this with many conservatives: free trade is bad, army is unlimited good, fossil fuels must be subsidized). That's what leads to such statements. It doesn't matter how ridiculous a corner they will paint themselves into. They can deny that basic supply and demand exists. When backed into a corner they just exclaim "socialism doesn't work! Look at USSR!" (And then together with neocons proceed to sanction and undermine more regimes to make sure they are right.) It's kind of a religious conviction. Capitalism is the unofficial religion of the USA the same as Islam is in Saudi Arabia. Don't believe me? Try to say publicly that capitalism has faults and your criticism of capitalism itself would be instantly deflected to something else, or else you will be quickly ostracized. This religion will soon come up against the hard facts of automation causing demand for human labor to drop, undermining the conviction that wages will always be the primary way for people to get money.

digitalzombie 10y ago
> the free market. The only libertarians on the senate was two republicans and they both voted to sell online privacy. I guess that's real free market there.

nostromo 10y ago

I'm confused about what data the ISPs actually have access to. It seems over 90% of my online activity is now https. That means they have access to very little that can be useful to an advertiser. (I suppose they have my DNS lookups, but it's trivial to change DNS to a company you trust.) It's interesting how universally hated ISPs are. Google and Facebook, from a technical standpoint, are much scarier in what they know about everyone on the internet. Yet few people seem to care that they use our browsing and search data to target us to advertisers.

advisedwang 10y ago
Thanks to SNI the hostname you are connecting to is usually visible to a snoop.
openasocket 10y ago
> I suppose they have my DNS lookups, but it's trivial to change DNS to a company you trust That won't solve it, there's still what's called "passive DNS". With passive DNS someone between you and the internet (in this case your ISP) simply tags and stores all DNS packets it sees before forwarding them to wherever they're supposed to go. From that they can determine which domains you are resolving even if you aren't using their resolver. They can also block DNS requests, and even send you their own responses. That last part doesn't matter as much as you'd think: they can't just redirect you to an Ad server because they wouldn't be able to authenticate the SSL connection. I should also add that this DNS snooping has legitimate and ethical uses. A big reason to do this is to deal with malware. Often malware uses certain domain names as their command and control server. If this malware has spread far and wide and could affect a lot of your customers, you can black hole the domain name so that, if you have the malware and it tries to resolve mycommandandcontrolserver.biz, the ISP intercepts the request and send back an NXDOMAIN, or have it resolve to 0.0.0.0, or resolve it to a particular server that simply closes every connection it gets so you can figure out which customers are affected and contact them. They can also get the hostname for https connections the initial SSL connection sends the hostname in plaintext (called SNI). But getting that requires reconstructing the TCP stream for connections in real time, and that's just not very practical at ISP scale.
10y ago

nickbauman 10y ago

People who have Internet access are increasingly using it to get or keep their jobs. They don't really have a choice. Consider the following analogy: Nobody has to use a car. They can just stay home and be unemployed. Especially in rural Wisconsin. So when carmakers install tracking devices into that car, they can use your movement data as a way to make money. If you don't like it, walk or take a bus.

colmvp 10y ago

So as automation and AI are predicted (and to some extent, already have) to displace a lot of jobs over the next few decades, I feel that making the internet more accessible is America's best interest, as it may be able to make education MORE accessible through free online resources like Khan Academy, YouTube videos, downloadable textbooks, online study groups (Slack, forums), so that the average American has a better chance at switching careers, along with being more informed about things like the environment, their personal health (physical and mental), and government resources in their local area that might help them. In my city (and I'm sure it's the same around the U.S.), libraries are packed because they provide internet and a safe, free space to learn.

blunte 10y ago

Someday these old fuckers who are ruining our world will die. Then maybe there will be thoughtful progress of humanity.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
dagw 10y ago
But then you will be the old fucker completely out of touch with the strange stuff the kids are into these days and the lame things they worry about.
- xyzzy4 10y ago
  Not necessarily. Technological progress seems to be slowing.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    > Technological progress seems to be slowing. Comedy gold. Really? How long ago since you thought 'mail' was something a guy carried for you? How long ago since you thought a phone should be wired to a wall? How long before that when you thought a computer was something that banks used?
    - ouid 10y ago
      How long since the last time a major technology was invented that changed how you live your day to day? When that happened, how long had it been since the previous one? I bet the first number is bigger than the second number.
      - raisedbyninjas 10y ago
        1. The smartphone (iphone 2007) 2. The internet (early 1990s)

thetli8 10y ago

Honestly, banning lobbying from Congress might solve the multitudes of issues we're handed down from the government. http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-isp-web-browsing-privacy-fire-sale http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-isp-... I'd suggest that companies, individuals and interest groups file suggestions (similar to amicus curiae) if they want their voices heard. Congress shouldn't be influenced by outside money.

pgwhalen 10y ago
What exactly does banning lobbying look like in a representative democracy?

vermontdevil 10y ago

This is the same guy who wrote the Patroit Act. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Sensenbrenner https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Sensenbrenner Fuck him.

bwb 10y ago

What the republican party has become makes me sad for any real conservative :(

jopsen 10y ago
Yeah, thanks Obama! He is the one who made it so hard for republicans to both: A) Disagree with Obama, and B) Have a reasonable political position. Sarcasm may occur... :)