Tuesday, March 13, 2007

How to surf anonymously without a trace - ComputerWorld The punchline to an old cartoon is "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog," but these days, that's no longer true. It's easier than ever for the government, Web sites and private businesses to track exactly what you do online, know where you've visited, and build up comprehensive profiles about your likes, dislikes and private habits. And with the federal government increasingly demanding online records from sites such as Google and others, your online privacy is even more endangered. But you don't need to be a victim. There are things you can do to keep your surfing habits anonymous and protect your online privacy. So read on to find out how to keep your privacy to yourself when you use the Internet, without spending a penny. 4:51:27 PM

Do You Need to Surf Anonymously? Do You Need to Surf Anonymously?  An anonymous reader writes "Computerworld has up an article entitled 'How to Surf Anonymously without a Trace'. It purports to offer tips on how to avoid detection by anyone attempting to monitor your internet access. 'If you don't like the limitations imposed on you by [proxy] sites like the Cloak or would simply prefer to configure anonymous surfing yourself, you can easily set up your browser to use an anonymous proxy server to sit between you and the sites you visit. To use an anonymous proxy server with your browser, first find an anonymous proxy server. Hundreds of free, public proxy servers are available, but many frequently go offline or are very slow. Many sites compile lists of these proxy servers, including Public Proxy Servers and the Atom InterSoft proxy server list.'" [Slashdot: Your Rights Online] 4:48:57 PM

EFF: Paper: Who Controls Your Television? Today, consumers can digitally record their favorite television shows, move recordings to portable video players, excerpt a small clip to include in a home video, and much more. The digital television transition promises innovation and competition in even more great gadgets that will give consumers unparalleled control over their media. But an inter-industry organization that creates television and video specifications used in Europe, Australia, and much of Africa and Asia is laying the foundation for a far different future -- one in which major content providers get a veto over innovation and consumers face draconian digital rights management (DRM) restrictions on the use of TV content. At the behest of American movie and television studios, the Digital Video Broadcasting Project (DVB) is devising standards to ensure that digital television devices obey content providers' commands rather than consumers' desires. These restrictions will take away consumers' rights and abilities to use lawfully-acquired content so that each use can be sold back to them piecemeal. Consumers would never choose this future, so Hollywood will try to force it on them by regulatory fiat. DVB's imprimatur may put restrictive standards on the fast-track to becoming legally-enforced mandates, and existing laws already limit evasion of DRM even for lawful purposes. In effect, private DRM standards will trump national laws that have traditionally protected the public's interests and carefully circumscribed copyright holders' rights. Hollywood has long pursued this goal in the U.S., but its schemes in DVB have taken place behind the public's back and outside of scrutiny by elected officials. In this paper, we will summarize and expose Hollywood's plan. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the only public interest group to have attended DVB's closed technical meetings. As a condition of participation, DVB imposed restrictions on our ability to report on these meetings. Now, after key parts of DVB's new DRM specification have been sent to the European standards body and may soon be provided to other EU regulators, we are releasing this paper to help consumer organizations and EU regulators understand the significant public policy implications of various DVB work items.   CPCM: A System to Control Innovation, Competition, and Television Viewers  Despite record profits in recent years, American movie and television studios have not relented in their cries that new technologies are a mortal threat to their industry. They sued to block the VCR and the first mass-market Digital Video Recorder (DVR) in the U.S., and, having failed to stamp out recording in those efforts, they have increasingly turned to creating restrictive technical standards backed by law. 4:46:30 PM

Secure your enterprise data. Secure your enterprise data. For DuPont, Gary Min may have seemed a model employee. A research chemist at DuPont's research laboratory in Circleville, Ohio, Min was a naturalized U.S. citizen with a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania who had worked for DuPont for 10 years, even earning a business degree from Ohio State University with help from his employer. But Min's veneer of respectability began to crack on Dec. 12, 2005, when he told his employer he would be leaving his job. [CSO Online Data Security Briefing] 3:57:32 PM

© Copyright 2007 Paul Hardwick. Last update: 3/18/07; 9:51:30 PM.