buylotrogold

What do the current and proposed restrictions on our internet privacy implicate for the future?  Will we have untethered access to our information?  Who will be watching? I think about these questions because of my obsession with online data storage.  All of my 'important' information is in the cloud.  I formerly felt that this was a huge plus on my life, as I used to experience a slew of data loss from busted IBM and Western Digital harddrives.  But, now I wonder who has access to my information.  Knowing my Google login would allow anyone to completely screw me over.  Even worse, the government having access to my data poses a huge privacy concern.  I am a pirate.  I do a lot of shady things through Google, maybe it's time I start using hushmail.com, or perhaps I should recalibrate my internet moral compass. Regardless, evidence of my wrong-doings should be blatantly obvious to the FBI agent looking at my Google file. What if someone found themselves logged into my account without having even hacking?  This is happening to facebook users on the AT&T network https://www.eff.org/deep_link_s/2010/01/some-lessons-att-facebook As for Internet Providers, Verizon has long been rated the number one is customer satisfaction.  In highschool when the MPAA was cracking down on illegal downloading, Verizon refused to give up individuals with reported IP addresses.  Cable companies, on the other hand, were quick to send letters and terminate services. What about premium internet?  Will everyone always have access to the same internet or will certain people be paying a premium for priority access? Its difficult to know the truth regarding issues of net neutrality.  I like following what the Electronic Frontier Foundation<https://www.eff.org/abouthas to say.  They send out nice wrap-up emails. Lastly, what happens when Google becomes the government?  What happens when Google actually starts policing its users?  Am I going to get a bill for all the bad things I've done over the years?  There will be no place to hide besides the darknet <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_web.  While many of torrent trackers are publicly visible from Google, I belong to only one group which could really be considered a darknet organization.  Closed registration for almost 8 years, the community is really tight.  The day wdma gets shut down will be the saddest day of my life, seriously.

Just wanted to share this glorious EFF mailing.  Highlighted for busy people - Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -

Before you read this, realize that I do not necessarily believe exactly what I've written, but rather I am presenting an argument in order to hopefully come across someone with a counter argument, so that I may further my understanding. Enjoy: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/fbi_calls_for_isps_to_keep_brows... This scares me. America is _base_d around freedom. 200 years ago when America was founded, they made it clear that citizens were free to posess arms. This had a lot to do with the fact that governments are oftentimes unstable, despite safeties set in place by prior members. Our founders wanted to ensure that if our government went to crap, that our people could set it straight. If we couldn't do it through politics, we had the right (weaponry) to change it by force. These days, while there are more guns owned by American citizens (in total) than entire armies of some nations, the times have changed. advances in weaponry and strategy have essentially rendered any american civil war by gun weilding citizens a failure before it were to even begin (at least unless lead by a rogue branch of our own military). The good news is, that while the collective military force of the American non-military citizens is mundane, advances in information technologies have slightly tilted the odds in our favor. A large majority of american citizens have instant access to (relatively) unbiased, uncensored information, via the internet. How people interact with this information is an altogether different subject, because the fact is, humans are gullible creatures. That's how we've ended up with the crazy radical christians in our midwest, after all. But there are Americans, (humans, rather) who use the internet not to find solid answers, but conflicting arguments, and then use their own understanding of life and the world to develop their own synthesis of the two idealisms, and that minority gives me some semblance of hope for the future. This minority is a group of people who use the internet as a tool to learn, to seek out truth in whatever shady place it might be hiding, and they scour the internet without much worry as to who is watching, because it is likely that no one is. If the FBI maintains a record of every US citizens online history, then they effectively destroy any potential citizen lead uprising. think about the *long term consequences* of allowing something like this; not only would they know what you've been looking at, but where you've been looking at it. Up until recently, the online world was distinct from the offline world. After all, the internet was only something that could be navigated through a computer that had to be plugged into the wall! Times have once again changed, and in every moment that passes the internet and the real world become ever more closely intertwined. If the FBI gained this sort of authority, in 5 or 10 years from now when geocaching becomes widespread, not only will they know where you've been looking while you're sitting at home browsing from your desktop, but they will know exactly where you've been *in the real world*. Look at foursquare.com for example. People consciously 'check in' at the places they enjoy, because there is a reward system in place for giving up your historical-locational privacy. Concepts like these are cool, they're fun, and socially beneficial. However, foursquare and geocached tweeting are primitive applications of very new technologies. Its easy to imagine a future in which your personal electronic devices keep a constant track on where you are at any given point in time. While that private information could be potentially useful to yourself for various personal reasons, i think the publication of this information is dangerous to a persons freedom, because it is even more useful to third parties; advertisers can use the information to sell highly targeted location _base_d ads, insurance agencies can use it to tell how fast (and _base_d off the output of their risk algorithm, how recklessly) you're driving your car, but what scares me the most is that the government could use it to literally know exactly what you're doing, at the exact time and location that you're doing it, unless you take *ridiculous* measures to fool them. And thus, as a result of a concrete, permanent tap on our browsing activities, our government would not only have military superiority, but insanely advanced informational superiority over its citizens as well. I suppose its helpful to try and define what freedom truly is; I mean, I suppose anyone has the freedom to do whatever they like so long as they are operating in private. Perhaps it make more sense to think of freedom as the ability to do whatever you like in the presence of others? Anyways, I've got to go to class. Sorry for the rant. Please refute me, or agree and build upon what I'm saying. I'd prefer a retutation