Privacy

With all due respect for the views of my colleagues (here and here) and commenters at Technology Liberation Front, former Sen. Bob Kerrey had this, and other, mature insights in an op-ed which appeared yesterday in The Hill regarding whether to include immunity for telecom carriers in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reauthorization: Consider the atmosphere: the president had gone before Congress and said “one vial, one canister, one crate, slipped into this country, could bring a day of horror like none we have ever known.” So if these companies refused to cooperate, by implication, that dark day could be on their conscience. And now they cannot even defend themselves in court, because the details of the investigations remain Read More ›

I surmised here that it would be costly for ISPs to retain customer data pursuant to a new proposal in the House of Representatives, and subsequently came upon a news report from a couple years ago in which industry sources predicted the cost of a similar proposal under consideration in the European Union would be quite large: For AOL, retaining communications data for one year would add an enormous cost, said de Stempel. “There are huge amounts of data involved. AOL has 329m user sessions a day, and its customers send 597m emails, and we’re just one ISP.” De Stempel said that to save all communications data on its UK customers for just one day would require 100 CDs. “If Read More ›

The Senate Commerce Committee approved a modified version of S. 687, a bill sponsored by Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) which would target a variety of malicious practices that include: computer hijacking, spam zombies, endless loop pop-up advertisements and fraudulent software installation. A similar measure (H.R. 29) introduced by Rep. Mary Bono (R-CA) and Rep. Ed Towns (D-NY) has passed the House. The House has also approved H.R. 744, by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), which addresses criminal penalties and prosecutorial tools related to spyware. Spyware legislation is beneficial because it will promote consumer awareness and assist law enforcement. But technological solutions to the problem may ultimately prove more important. The industry Read More ›

It is already against the law in the U.S. to interfere with someone else’s computer or commit traditional crimes with the aid of a computer, however many countires have gaps in their criminal laws governing computer-related crimes and have become havens for cyber-criminals. Another problem is that electronic evidence of crime is difficult for law enforcers to locate and secure when it crosses borders. A treaty is awaiting final Senate approval that would fully criminalize computer-related offenses in other countries and require each country to have the power to quickly preserve and disclose stored computer data, compel the production of electronic evidence by ISPs, to search and seize computers and data, and to collect traffic data and content in real Read More ›