privacy

FCC dismantles itself along with common carrier broadband rules

27 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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The common carrier rules imposed on Internet service providers in 2015 are now being peeled back a slice at a time by a very different Federal Communications Commission. On Thursday, the FCC voted on party lines to exempt ISPs with 250,000 or fewer subscribers from consumer transparency rules, and on Friday chairman Ajit Pai said that consumer privacy rules would be either put on hold or scrapped by the end of this week. Both the privacy and the transparency rules are descended from the 2015 common carrier decision.… More

Consumers must have clear choices under new broadband privacy rules

4 November 2016 by Steve Blum
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Gobbledygook not allowed.

The Federal Communications Commission has finally published the actual privacy rules for Internet service providers it approved at last week’s meeting. In more than 200 tightly packed pages, the FCC tries to offer detailed definitions of what kind of information ISPs can’t share or use without explicit, opt-in approval from customers, what kind is usable with assumed, opt-out permission, and what kind is exempt from either.

There’s a big loophole that the FCC only partially closes: charging customers different prices based on whether or not they give up their privacy rights.… More

FCC approves stricter consumer privacy rules for ISPs and telcos

28 October 2016 by Steve Blum
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Secure shopping.

The Federal Communications Commission voted 3 to 2 along party lines yesterday to implement privacy requirements for Internet service providers. If your ISP wants to, say, sell your web browsing history to Facebook, it will need to get your permission first. Facebook, on the other hand, will still be running under the Federal Trade Commission’s looser rules, since it’s an edge provider and isn’t regulated by the FCC.

We don’t know what the rules actually say – that’s a secret, despite the open vote – but a revised summary released afterwards clears up a few outstanding questions.… More

ISPs should need permission to sell to sell subscriber privacy

26 October 2016 by Steve Blum
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Your choice to make.

Mystery continues to swirl around privacy regulations for Internet service providers. The Federal Communications Commission is set to vote on new rules at its meeting tomorrow, but with only a vague summary released to the public, no one outside of chairman Tom Wheeler’s circle of trust knows the details. One particular issue – the ability of ISPs to share your web browsing history – bears watching.

The FCC’s summary pegs web browsing history as the sort of sensitive information that ISPs will have to keep private, unless subscribers give positive permission – opt in – to share it.… More

Privacy is absolute, security is relative. Or so FCC hints

7 October 2016 by Steve Blum
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Sûreté, non pas tant.

Internet service providers – mobile, wireline and fixed wireless – will finally have well defined privacy protection standard to meet if the Federal Communications Commission approves new rules proposed yesterday by chairman Tom Wheeler. Naturally, he only released his own summary; the actual draft rules weren’t released. The FCC keeps details of decisions secret from the public until after they vote. And until after they’ve discussed those details with deep pocketed lobbyists stakeholders.… More

Niche computer maker Purism turns lack of trust into a selling proposition

12 June 2016 by Steve Blum
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Simple security comes at a cost.

If you want to know what every bit on your computer is doing, I mean really know, then you’re the kind of customer that Purism has in mind. The South San Francisco company makes a range of Linux-based laptops and tablets with 100% open source software not-quite-preinstalled. That includes applications of course, but also device drivers, the boot system and everything else.

Not-quite-preinstalled means that the device comes with all the software and a totally naked hard drive.… More

Blackberry shares the big one with the cops

17 April 2016 by Steve Blum
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Blackberry’s sole remaining selling proposition – security – has gone up in smoke with the revelation that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has the master key to decrypt messages on consumer phones. Investigative stories by Vice and Motherboard document how the Mounties read encrypted messages, and leave little doubt that it was with the company’s active assistance…

Neither the RCMP, nor BlackBerry ever confirmed where the global key actually came from and the documents shed little light on the matter.

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Police can't grab your data or hack your stuff in California without a warrant

11 October 2015 by Steve Blum
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It’s still okay to ask politely, though.

California now has “the nation’s best digital privacy law“, or at least that’s how the Electronic Communications Privacy Act is being described in the press. Governor Brown signed the bill on Thursday. It requires a police officer or any other government employee or agency to get a search warrant before seizing electronic data or trying to access it without permission.

According to the analysis prepared for the state senate…

The warrant shall describe with particularity the information to be seized, including by specifying the time periods covered, and as appropriate and reasonable, the target individuals or accounts, the applications or services covered, and the types of information sought;

The warrant shall require that any obtained information unrelated to the objective of the warrant shall be sealed and not subject to further review, use, or disclosure unless a court issues an order that there is probable cause to believe that the information is relevant to an active investigation, or is otherwise required by state or federal law.

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FCC's unwritten privacy rules will have an equally ill-defined effect on Internet business

25 May 2015 by Steve Blum
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We can hope.

Your Internet service provider collects a lot of information about you and they use some of it for marketing purposes. AT&T is getting particularly aggressive about doing so, offering a discount on its GigaWeasel service to customers who agree to let it watch what they’re watching, and target ads accordingly..

Assuming that the Federal Communication Commission’s new, common carrier Internet regulations go into effect next month, the restrictions on what ISPs can do with their knowledge of you will get tighter.… More

FCC issues Catch-222 advisory

23 May 2015 by Steve Blum
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I’m glad we had this chat.

In case you were still wondering, the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to bring Internet service and infrastructure under common carrier regulation was not simply about whether Comcast can block you from watching Netflix. As a statement from the FCC’s enforcement bureau emphasises, there are a lot of other rules involved, particularly those that deal with how Internet service providers use and/or safeguard information about you.

Except, no one, not even the FCC enforcement bureau, knows what those rules are.… More