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Charter to Insert Ads into Web Pages Its Broadband Customers Visit - Via Threat Level:
Charter Communications, one of the nation's largest ISPs, plans to track the web surfing habits of its customers in order to insert its own ads into web pages being visited by its customers, making it the first large American ISP to inject content into traffic its customers pay them to deliver.
In letters being sent to its 2.7 million high speed internet customers, Charter is billing its new ad insertion program as an 'enhancement' for customers' web surfing experience. The letters were first reported by BroadbandReports.com user on Sunday.
Browsing the web can become more like flipping through your favorite magazine, where you see ads that are appealing to you and enhance your enjoyment and the utility of the experience.
Users can opt out of the system, but have to give their full name and address to get an opt-out cookie. The process would have to be repeated for every browser on every computer in a home to block the service, and would have to be reset if cookies are ever deleted.
Charter is entering tricky legal and political territory. The company claims that the program won't show users more ads than they saw before – which means that Charter plans to overwrite the ads from sites like Wired.com. Such a move could easily lead to lawsuits. read more »
Counterfeits, Trojan Horses, and shady distributors - Via Freedom to Tinker:
Last Friday, the New York Times published an article about counterfeit Cisco products that have been sold as if they were genuine and are widely used throughout the U.S. government. The article also raised the concern that these counterfeits could well be engineered with malicious intent, but that this appears not to have been the case. There was an immediate Slashdot thread as well, but a number of issues are still worth commenting on.
First things first: the facts, as best we understand them. The New York Times reports that approximately 3500 counterfeit Cisco components (worth $3.5M) have been discovered as a result of a two-year FBI investigation. A Cisco spokesman is quoted saying that they found “no evidence of re-engineering.” In other words, we’re talking about faithful knock-offs of legitimate products.
If you go to the FBI’s unclassified PowerPoint presentation (dated January 11, 2008), you’ll see all the actual information. This is a fascinating read. read more »
ACLU Commends Net Neutrality Hearing - Via American Civil Liberties Union:
WASHINGTON – The American Civil Liberties Union commends Chairman Edward Markey (D-MA) of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet for holding a hearing today on the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008 (H.R. 5353), legislation designed to keep the Internet free for open discourse.
Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative office said, "This legislation is a good first step in protecting the Internet from blocking, censorship and discrimination by powerful phone and cable companies." Frederickson said the hearing and the legislation are "important measures to bring net neutrality the attention it needs." She added that the ACLU, which has been fighting for First Amendment freedoms for 87 years, encourages members of Congress and the FCC to take immediate action to safeguard free speech and innovation online. read more »
Internet Mysteries: How Much File Sharing Traffic Travels the Net? - Via Threat Level:
How much of the traffic on the internet is peer-to-peer file trading?
Everyone seems to agree it represents a lot of the traffic, but the truth is no one knows (with the possible exception of the ISPs and backbone providers in the middle, and they aren't telling or sharing raw data).
One of the most recent reports on P2P traffic came from a traffic optimization firm called Ellacoya in June 2007. Their report said that http-based web traffic had overtaken peer-to-peer traffic on the net, thanks to streaming media sites like YouTube. read more »
The Freenet Project - Freenet 0.7.0 release candidate 2 now available:
24th Apr, 2008 - Freenet 0.7.0 release candidate 2 now available
Freenet version 0.7 Release Candidate 2 is now available for public testing. Release Candidate 2 features many bugfixes and a number of usability improvements.
Freenet is a global peer-to-peer network designed to allow users to publish and consume information without fear of censorship. To use it, you must download the Freenet software, available for Windows, Mac, Linux and other operating systems. Once you install and run Freenet, your computer will join a global, decentralized P2P network. You will be able to publish and consume information anonymously, either through your web browser, or through a variety of third party applications. read more »
What's Up with the Secret Cybersecurity Plans, Senators Ask DHS - Via Threat Level:
The government's new cyber-security "Manhattan Project" is so secretive that a key Senate oversight panel has been reduced to writing a letter to beg for answers to the most basic questions, such as what's going on, what's the point and what about privacy laws.
The Senate Homeland Security committee wants to know, for example, what is the goal of Homeland Security's new National Cyber Security Center. They also want to know why it is that in March, DHS announced that Silicon Valley evangelist and security novice Rod Beckstrom would direct the center, when up to that point DHS said the mere existence of the center was classified.
Those are just two sub-questions out of a list of 17 multi-part questions centrist Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) sent to DHS in a letter Friday. read more »
FBI wants to move hunt for criminals into Internet backbone - Via Ars Technica :
FBI director Robert Mueller's testimony to the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives on Wednesday gave a tiny glimpse of the future of law enforcement online, and it raised some tough questions about the evolving line between public and private in a networked world.
In a blog post on the hearing, CNet's Declan McCullagh reproduced the most relevant portion of the testimony—an exchange between Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Director Mueller on the subject of the FBI's role in detecting and stopping illegal activity on the Internet. Issa began the discussion with the analogy of an FBI raid on a bookie, where the Bureau obtains a warrant to get proof of illegal activity. He then moved to the subject of online crimes and the ongoing barrage of cyberattacks on civilian, government, and military targets, asking Mueller what types of legal powers he would need to be able to obtain proof of those attacks in order to bring a prosecution.
Mueller responded with the follow revealing nugget. read more »
FBI Wants Authority To Filter Net Backbone - Via Slashdot: Your Rights Online:
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf, writes "There are places where criminal activity is centralized: the backbone hubs located in hosting facilities across the country. All of the Internet's activity, legal and illegal, flows through these 'choke points,' and the feds, of course, are already tapping those points and siphoning off data. What Mueller wants is the legal authority to comb through the backbone data, which is already being siphoned off by the NSA, in order to look for illegal activity."
Which Gov Agency Should Be Your Computer's Firewall? - Via Threat Level:
First the NSA says it needs to examine every search and email on the internet to prevent an e-9/11 attack, then President Bush signs a secret cyber-security Presidential Directive to make that possible, while the Air Force has set up a cyber warfare division where cyber-security is played like a game of Space Invaders.
Not to be left out on the cybarmegeddon! action, the Department of Homeland Security plans to spearhead a "Manhattan Project" attempt to secure the internet. But there's no way FBI chief Robert Mueller is gonna let DHS honcho Michael Chertoff have all the bits, so this week he told a House committee that G-Men need to be living in the tubes, too. read more »
AT&T Denies Resetting P2P Connections - Via Slashdot: Your Rights Online:
betaville points out comments AT&T filed with the FCC in which they denied throttling traffic by resetting P2P file-sharing connections. Earlier this week, a study published by the Vuze team found AT&T to have the 25th highest (13th highest if extra Comcast networks are excluded) median reset rate among the sampled networks. In the past, AT&T has defended Comcast's throttling practices, and said it wants to monitor its network traffic for IP violations. read more »
ASC Behavioral Targeting Working Group Launched - Via Center for Democracy and Technology:
The Anti-Spyware Coalition has created a new internal working group to review privacy concerns raised by partnerships between behavioral targeting advertising companies and ISPs. The concerns stem from instances in which these business relationships result in all, or substantially all, user Web traffic being passed to advertisers with little or no notice. In many instances the activities raising privacy concerns are taking place by exploiting "borderline" acceptable practices in order to skirt anti-spyware products. The new working group will convene to specifically review current guidelines and recommend changes if needed.
(Read Original Article - Via Center for Democracy and Technology.)
FBI, politicos renew push for ISP data retention laws - Via The Iconoclast - CNET News.com:
WASHINGTON--The FBI and multiple members of Congress said on Wednesday that Internet service providers must be legally required to keep records of their users' activities for later review by police.
Their suggestions for mandatory data retention revive a push for potentially sweeping federal laws--which civil libertarians oppose--that flagged last year after the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the idea's most prominent proponent.
FBI Director Robert Mueller told a House of Representatives committee that Internet service providers should be required to keep records of users' activities for two years. read more »
No Corporate Gatekeepers for the Net - Via ACLU Blog - Free Speech:
Yesterday, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a hearing on the future of the Internet: a topic that should be of utmost importance to everyone congregating here.
Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) spoke of the heightened urgency of creating net neutrality, which government regulation that would prevent telecommunications companies from controlling Americans’ access to content on the Internet. Kerry reminded us that, as predicted, major companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon are policing and blocking content already: read more »
N.J. high court endorses online privacy - Via USATODAY.com:
In what's being called the first ruling to support a reasonable expectation of privacy online, the New Jersey Supreme Court has decreed that Internet service providers cannot release users' personal information without a valid subpoena. The justices said the state's constitution provides more protection against unreasonable searches and seizures than the U.S. Constitution.
Here's the unanimous ruling (pdf) in State v. Shirley Reid.
"The reality is that people do expect a measure of privacy when they use the Internet," read more »
Supreme Court rules Internet user has right to privacy - Via The Star-Ledger NJ.com:
The state Supreme Court ruled today that under the New Jersey Constitution an Internet user has the right to privacy in the subscriber information maintained by the individual's Internet service provider.
Ruling in the case of Shirley Reid, a Cape May County woman who was charged with hacking into her employer's computer system after police obtained her identity from Comcast by using a municipal court subpoena, the high court unanimously held law enforcement had the right to investigate her but should have, instead, used a grand jury subpoena.
The court upheld a state appeals court ruling that overturned the conviction for second-degree computer theft. read more »
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