Wired has discussion and documentation of how the National Security Agency conducts Internet surveillance, according to former AT&T technician Mark Klein.
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Technology and Privacy
“Net Neutrality” Grasstroturf
The opponents of broadband regulation have produced an amusing animation that pretty effectively skewers the campaign for “net neutrality.” Why, yes, of course it’s produced by large corporations seeking after their own interests. But the piece effectively points out that the campaign for federal regulation of broadband is also a product of large corporations seeking after their own interests.
So, if it’s a debate between two large corporate interests, we can drop the ad hominem and just discuss which group of large corporations is trying to protect its property and its investments, and which group of large corporations is trying to win rents through the legislative and regulatory process. Figured it out yet? Good.
(Cross-posted from TechLiberationFront)
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Submitted for your Disapproval: RFID in Government IDs
The Department of Homeland Security’s Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee will be considering a report on the use of RFID in identification documents at its meeting June 7th in San Francisco. A draft of the report has been posted with a request for comments.
The report has already generated a little attention. This Government Computer News story overstates the tone of the report, but it’s good.
From the DHS Privacy Committee Web site:
The Use of RFID for Human Identification (PDF, 15 pages – 127 KB) The DHS Emerging Applications and Technology Subcommittee of the Privacy Advisory Committee is seeking comments on this draft report. This report will be considered by the full Committee during the June 7, 2006 public Advisory Committee meeting in San Francisco, CA.
Please provide any comments in writing to privacycommittee@dhs.gov, by postal mail, or by fax by 12:00 p.m. EST on May 22, 2006. All Comments will be considered on an ongoing basis.
TechLawJournal Parses Phone Company Denials
TechLawJournal has carefully parsed the statements issued by Verizon and BellSouth denying participation in the NSA spying program. I’ll quote TLJ liberally here, with permission.
Regarding the BellSouth statement, TLJ notes that it took three working days and two weekend days to prepare a three paragraph response. As to the substance:
BellSouth uses the phrases “customer calling information” and “customer calling records”. In contrast, the USA Today article uses the phrases “phone call records” and “domestic call records”. BellSouth associates the word “customer” with the word “record”. There is a difference between what USA Today wrote, and what BellSouth now denies.
BellSouth portrays the USA Today article as asserting that BellSouth provided customer identifying information combined with the customer’s call information. In fact, the USA Today article only asserts that BellSouth turned over call information. Moreover, the USA Today article points out the difference. It states that “Customers’ names, street addresses and other personal information are not being handed over as part of NSA’s domestic program”. The article added that “But the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information.”
Thus, the BellSouth statement denies something that USA Today did not assert, and leaves undenied that which USA Today did actually assert.
Of course, it is another question whether BellSouth, in writing its statement, understood there to be a difference between “customer calling records” and “phone call records”, and intended its statement to constitute a non-denial.
On Verizon’s May 16 statement:
Verizon’s six paragraph statement is longer than BellSouth’s, but employs the same approach. It restates the assertions of USA Today, with variations, and then denies its restatements.
Verizon uses the phrases “customers’ domestic calls”, “customer phone records”, and “customer records or call data”. Like BellSouth, it adds the word “customer”. USA Today wrote about “phone call records”, without the word “customer”.
Verizon does at one point deny that it provided “any call data”, but it then immediately follows this with the phrase “from those records”, which is a reference back to “customer phone records”. This leaves open the possibility that it provided “call data” that it retrieved from a database other that “customer phone records”.
This is helpful insight from a dogged, independent reporter. And subscription rates are not too expensive either.
(Cross-posted from TechLiberationFront)
Microsoft and Big Brother
Microsoft has agreed to remain under Justice Department supervision until 2009, to ensure that it continues to be forced to give away its property to competitors. (That is, it will continue “to provide access to Windows communications code that would let competitors write software to link with Windows-powered personal computers with the same facility as servers using Microsoft software.”)
Given the relative success of Microsoft and the U.S. government when it comes to innovation, help for the American economy, and customer satisfaction, it would probably make more sense to put the U.S. government under Microsoft’s supervision until 2009.