[IP] ISP Wiretapping: FCC, FTC, and Congress Need to Act Now!

Lauren really needs to calm down here.

After all, ISPs have property rights and property, coming first in the
Constitution, trumps everything else (the American declaration of
independence was supposed to say "life, liberty, and property" according
to Cato Institute and others who claim property and wealth trumps those
pesky things that Tom Paine called "The Rights of Man").

It would be an "unlawful taking" by the government to bar infrastructure
owners from spying on their users' every action. Unless the FCC, FTC,
and Congress are willing to pay billions of dollars to the ISPs per day
for lost maximizable " ad targeting revenue" caused by regulation, it
would really be unfair to prevent them from raping and pillaging packets
that flow over their wires.

Just as TV executives were right to say that their viewers should not be
able to skip ads or go to the bathroom during ads, ISPs should not be
forced to let users avoid targeting - in fact, it's a positive social
good to let ISPs profit from spying, so that more poor people can get
ISP services.

Hmm.. the same logic should apply to any regulations against gun
ownership by criminals. After all, barring owners from concealing
pistols under their coats limits the opportunity to rob grocery stores
and murder for hire.   This is a really serious "taking", too.

As some of our rural WISP friends tell us, and a brilliant co-creator of
twisted pair wiring tells us, ISPs deserve everything they can extract
from their users.   After all, it's their wires!

Free the ISPs!   Don't tread on them!

David Farber wrote:

Begin forwarded message:

*From:* Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com <mailto:lauren@vortex.com>>

*Date:* May 13, 2008 1:05:39 PM EDT

*To:* David Farber <dave@farber.net <mailto:dave@farber.net>>

*Cc:* "lauren@vortex.com <mailto:lauren@vortex.com>"

<lauren@vortex.com <mailto:lauren@vortex.com>>

*Subject:* *ISP Wiretapping: FCC, FTC, and Congress Need to Act Now!*

ISP Wiretapping: FCC, FTC, and Congress Need to Act Now!

http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000383.html

Greetings. Charter Communications has now announced

( http://tinyurl.com/4ggphq ) that they intend to "wiretap" (that's

the only appropriate term I can think of) subscribers' Internet

Communications, and use the search data obtained in this manner to

inject Charter's own targeted advertising into user data streams.

I believe that the "wait and see" timeout period on these abuses of

DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) technology has now expired, and we now

need to look to the FCC, FTC, and Congress for immediate actions to

protect ISP subscribers' privacy rights, and both the privacy and

business rights of the Internet services with whom those users

communicate.

Charter's plans seem very much in line with both the Rogers Cable

data insertion system ( "Google Hijacked -- Major ISP to Intercept

and Modify Web Pages" -- http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000337.html )

and the UK "Phorm" system ( "UK ISPs to Spy on Google Users (and

Others)" --

http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000375.html ), both of which I've

discussed previously at some length.

As I've noted, the use of content monitoring systems by ISPs on

other than a purely opt-in basis is nothing short of wiretapping (in

a practical sense that we all can understand, legal loopholes

notwithstanding). It is monitoring of communications between users

and Internet services, and all of the touted anonymization claims

and awkward opt-out cookies don't amount to a hill of beans.

This class of threats to privacy and business interests may have

been "merely" theoretical before, but now is concrete and real.

Users can in some cases take their own protective steps by

encrypting their communications whenever possible ( "Toward Pervasive

Internet Encryption: Unshackling the Self-Signed Certificate" --

http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000339.html ).

But now is the time for our legislators and regulators to earn their

salaries, and make it clear that ISPs are supposed to be carriers of

communications, not spying on, tracking, and modifying subscriber

communications for their own gains.

--Lauren--

Lauren Weinstein

lauren@vortex.com <mailto:lauren@vortex.com> or lauren@pfir.org

<mailto:lauren@pfir.org>

Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800

http://www.pfir.org/lauren

Co-Founder, PFIR

- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org

Co-Founder, NNSquad

- Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org

Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com

Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy

Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com

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