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Maniacal is spelled wrong.
Maniacal is spelled wrong.
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Oh man...I hope they can distinguish between what I am beating off to vs. the random internet crap I click on. While it's true I watched a 10 second clip of a 600 lb woman in a bikini laying on top of a happy-as-hell 100 lb man. It does not mean I touched myself while doing so.
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Wait..let me act surprised? Do I looked surprised? How about now?
Always assume the Internet is being monitored by somebody..if not your ISP, then some federal agency. Thankfully, most of us are boring enough that the powers-that-be will move on and try to find somebody that's doing something convictible.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-90338-100x100.png\")
When they have the model that the Bush administration projects and enables, why would any ISP give a shit about the first amendment?
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-252038-100x100.png\")
So since I am on someone else's wifi network .... they are going to be targeted with ads for metal detecting & tentacle rape porn?
Since I like using wifi networks that are not neccessarily mine.... I dont post intimate details about my life that can be traced back to me specifically. I also dont access my bank or other financial info online with this computer or wifi networks.
I am already paranoid about what I say/put online as it is.
If you use gmail, point your browser to
[mail.google.com]
(that's https) instead of
[mail.google.com]
This SSL encrypts your email not just during login, but while you are reading/sending emails. So at least your ISP will have to do some work before reading your email.
Really? Time to start surfing more grandpa porn...
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For all I care, my ISP can look at what I do online:
1) I'm an active Consumerist reader (gee, is that one way to tell them that they're in for a fight if they do something stupid and think that they can get away with it)
2) I'm active in a couple of credit related communities.
3) I like to collaborate lesson plans for a high school class online with my teaching partner
4) I tend for my finances daily
5) I love to download. Period.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-41865-100x100.png\")
For all I care, the ISPs can all go to hell if they invade my privacy like this. All I can hope for is a few congressional representatives to throw a stink about this but I'm guessing our rights to privacy takes a backseat to potential ad revenue. I fear I will regress into a cabin out in the woods and become a hermit if news like this keeps happening.
As one who supports the USA Patriot Act, I hate this. In what non-government sanctioned situation should my ISP be allowed to look at my private stuff?
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-270366-100x100.png\")
Which is why on my home pc I only view cuteoverload and lolcats.
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I started out laughing at the pic (great pic), then sobered when I got to the article.
Damn.
So, uh, is there a way to encrypt your traffic? Anything?
glad i rent and someone elses name is on the bill *thumbs up*
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Next year, they will probably find a way to bill for this consumer-protection monitoring -- maybe a CPM fee
@landsnark: Don't know if you noticed, but Google redirects you to a secure site anyway. Your two links end up in exactly the same place.
@jefffromNY:
\"As one who supports the USA Patriot Act, I hate this. In what non-government sanctioned situation should my ISP be allowed to look at my private stuff?\"
Sorry for you on this one jeffery, but I think you already know the answer is that the ISP's can and do anything non-government that they please because the will to stop this practice doesn't effectively exist.
If they could also reply to my emails for me that would save me a lot of time and wouldn't bother me so much then if they read my email then.
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I wonder what happens when you are working from home, and viewing secure information. Hm.
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Having started an ISP back in ancient times, my first reaction was to say we only put this stuff in our TOS to cover our asses during network and account troubleshooting. Oh, it also helped when an Aryan group used us for their website before we realized it. (oops)
But, given the rampant spread of identity/behavior sales it's hard to imagine a situation where nobody would use their position in the data stream to harvest private information.
Hey, if it isn't illegal it must be okay, right? /gag
@HRHKingFriday: you should be using something like a secure vpn connection already or your company is pretty stupid.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-108858-100x100.png\")
I remember back during my Prodigy days (93ish), when ISPs used to send back your email if you used profanity, that the courts ruled it unlawful for ISPs to track email. What happened?
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I hate this just as much as anyone else who hates people needlessly meddling in their lives, but it seems to me to be just another sign that privacy in America is dead and not coming back to life anytime soon.
If you're really worried here, read up on things like mix nets and onion routing. There are ways to foil your ISP. If you really don't want them reading private email, get an account through a service other than your ISP, then connect to it using TOR. The email service provider doesn't know who you are (unless identifying info is containted in the email, or you give it to them) and your ISP has no clue about the email account. Alternatively, you could use PGP or some other sort of public key crypto system.
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Hold on everyone! I want to assure you that all of your ISPs take your privacy rights very seriously. They will not invade our rights, except for ATT who got caught in bed with the NSA. But all the others are looking out for us. I'm almost certain.
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Meh. Government is worse. I've never heard of anyone getting placed on an ISP no-fly list for what websites they have visited.
So...is my ISP reading this as I type it right now?
Probobly. I wouldn't worry. If you want to talk about dirty things with people through e-mail it's not like they can come put you in jail for it. I don't care what they read from me. Offcourse I'm not working with underground agents to take over islands either.
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Hi Verizon! FYI: I hate you! I only still use you because of that God-forsaken contract!
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-202659-100x100.png\")
@jefffromNY: you do know that it's the Patriot Act which leads to this sort of behavior being oked by the government, right?
The Patriot Act is one of the worst things the Gov. has done in a very long time.
There's a huge stink going on about this in the UK. Apparently, BT, the UK's incumbent phone provider and a large ISP, trialled a new profiling system in 2006 without informing customers, and this may be illegal under UK wiretapping law. See [news.bbc.co.uk]
Phorm is UK company which is also talking to US ISPs: [www.nytimes.com]
![\"user-pic\"](\"/mt-static/support/assets_c/userpics/userpic-313764-100x100.png\")
Everybody knows that real stalkers wait in their cars in the parking lot while you're at work. And they've changed. All they want is for you to give them just one more chance. Just one. Please. Well then, I'm not leaving. Go ahead and call the police. This is public property--what are they gonna do?
It has already been said, but the USAPATRIOT act is what allows the ISPs to do this.
--------
@Others:
No clause in any contract with your ISP allows them to look at any banking or HIPA-covered information, fortunately. The government isn't even allowed access to HIPA-covered data without a warrant, PATRIOT or no PATRIOT.
So, at least for the time being, you're safe in your banking and insurance-related activities.
Actually, the HIPA part only covers you unless there's an express consent agreement - but your physician and/or insurance company would have to be a party to that agreement, as well.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-22828-100x100.png\")
Patriot act has nothing to do with it. ISP's our busineses which own their servers, network switches and routers, and of course the high-bandwidth connections to the backbone. They can stipulate whatever they want in their contracts and you either agree or don't agree. It doesn't require any sort of special acts, just standard contract law.
Fact: ISP's our not federally regulated, accept under standard FTC and FCC rules (mostly pre-existing).
Fact: If you want to send sensitive, personal or otherwise private information to someone, don't use e-mail.
Fact: If you have to use e-mail, use encryption. Plenty of free solutions out there.
Fact: Employees of many businesses which are granted special access to do their job may well abuse their authority to \"snoop\". Snooping is far more prevalent than anyone has realized.
As for the articles, they are a bit over-sensational. No ISP can actually employ the time and/or people to actively read all of their customers e-mails. And it's substantially more difficult to even try this if an ISP is not actively hosting your e-mail.
My ISP doesn't host my e-mail. I control the server all my e-mail goes to and all my e-mail traffic with that server is encrypted. The Datacenter the server rides on could sniff all the traffic from my server and read my e-mail. But it'd take a lot more resources than they could afford. It's a small little datacenter.
But seriously, the Washington Post part is probably full of dozens of errors. I rarely see mainstream news journalism ever properly comprehend the technology they report on.
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Can and Do are two different words. I doubt they do. It costs too much to employee people to do that, and they probably only do it on request by the government.
Anyone who has ever worked with packet sniffers, knows you guys are freaking out. There are so many different kinds of packets, and with broadband, so much more information coming through. It would take some extreme software I've never heard of it, or 20 million brilliant packet sniffing experts to 'spy' on their customers.
I went to look for the cute bunnies and found them humping and then.......
\"Internet service providers are actively tracking 100,000 users, reading every email they send and every website they visit.\"
How many employees does it take to read the e-mails of 100,000 people on a regular basis?
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azntg: They'd be fools to let it get out that they do this, because the main defense they have against expensive-to-comply-with \"internet decency\" legislation is actually that they're just a portal, and can't monitor content.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-113423-100x100.png\")
@Blueskylaw: \"How many employees does it take to read the e-mails of 100,000 people on a regular basis?\"
About 567, all based in Banglore, and all making about 5 Indian rupees per hour.
@Blueskylaw: \"How many employees does it take to read the e-mails of 100,000 people on a regular basis?\"
They only need employess to read the emails that set off the automated keyword filters.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-33861-100x100.png\")
So... any given tech at my isp is jerking off to the same porn I am?
Sweet, we're like splooge-brothers.