Greetings. Well, if there's one thing I've come to expect from the United Kingdom's Privacy International and its sometimes amusing leader Simon Davies, it's a sense of disproportion straight out of a bad LSD trip regarding some key privacy issues.

Not that Simon is always wrong. He's upset about Viacom's demand for YouTube log data. I agree that this is a matter of great concern.

But often PI seems to be largely engaged in an anti-Google agenda, and Simon's latest target seems to be the upcoming launch of Google Street View in the UK. Even with Google planning to obscure faces and license plates for local images there, Simon is setting deadlines for Google to respond to his queries and threatening complaints to the British Privacy Overlords -- well the "Information Commissioner" in any case. Various other observers in England have suggested that Street View would be entirely legal there, by the way.

I argue in favor of Google Street View -- I consider it a very useful service with acceptable privacy parameters as currently deployed.

But for PI to complain about Street View in Great Britain has all the hallmarks of a bad joke. The UK is utterly saturated with over four million highly-intrusive, real-time, live, and frequently abused (sometimes in the most inane ways) surveillance (CCTV) cameras under government control -- something like one camera for every fourteen people there. And according to most polls, the public over there overwhelmingly supports this Orwellian infrastructure, buying into the bogus claims that falsely attempt to portray the cameras as crime-busting super tools.

Privacy International is a vocal critic of the UK government camera surveillance system -- and that's to their credit. But when they waste their limited resources on harmless and reasonably implemented services like Street View -- which obviously pales to utter insignificance as an issue compared with government camera abuse -- they're letting their traditional bias against Google get the better of them again, and this can diminish PI's standing generally when it comes to other privacy-related matters as well.

With the UK government spying into every nook and cranny with their powerful and invasive camera systems, it's nonsensical to complain as Privacy International is doing about a useful service like Street View, which at least gives ordinary citizens a bit of photographic assistance while navigating their way amongst the cameras of Her Majesty's surveillance state.

--Lauren--

Greetings. When a large corporation shows a lack of respect for the public, it shouldn't be surprised if the public at large shows an increasing disrespect for them. The media giant Viacom seems well on the way toward providing the world with an object lesson of how to take an already bad situation and stab oneself in the heart with it.

By now you've probably heard that Viacom has convinced a judge to order that Google turn over comprehensive records of who watches which videos on YouTube. We're talking tens of terabytes of log data, apparently. Viacom claims that since only "made up" login names are involved, and IP addresses that (at least in the case of dynamic addresses -- statics are another matter) don't directly map to individuals without additional data from ISPs, there are no privacy concerns.

This is bull of course. I assume Viacom has smart enough technical people involved in their ongoing battle with YouTube to know that there are a variety of ways in which those frequently interlinked login names, and even dynamic IP addresses that may be stable for months at a time or longer, can be used to dig down to the point where fully-identified dossiers of viewing habits would be entirely feasible. And video viewing habits are among the most personal of entertainment choices that we make.

Is it likely that this order will be narrowed or otherwise diluted on appeal, and/or that Google and Viacom will agree to additional anonymization of the log data? Yeah, probably one or more of these could happen. Do I wish that Google would keep less log data around that attracts these sorts of obnoxious and dangerous fishing expeditions from various private and governmental entities? Yes, that too, though I recognize the complexity of the issues involved in determining what log data to keep, for how long, and on what basis.

But right now my contempt is reserved for Viacom's modus operandi in this case -- their demanding that all YouTube users' activities be stripped bare, including video viewing that has nothing whatever to do with Viacom programs, so that Viacom can continue their attempt to blame their business model worries on kids uploading clips to YouTube after school.

I frequently note that I have sympathy for intellectual property holders who feel at a loss in the brave new world of the Internet. The times are changing rapidly and many of the old rules -- however much some observers might pine for them -- are becoming ineffective and impossible to effectively transpose into the Internet environment. This is true whether or not Viacom and Google reach a financial settlement, and would still be the case even if YouTube shut down completely. The materials of concern to Viacom would migrate elsewhere on the Net, probably in a form even more difficult for Viacom to categorize.

I'll admit that much of the respect that I ever had for Viacom was seriously depleted several years ago, when one of their shows tried to trick me into appearing in a humilating situation under false pretenses. But hey, that's Hollywood, and nobody would have been affected other than me.

But now Viacom is showing disrespect not for a few individuals, but for vast numbers -- untold millions one assumes -- of innocent YouTube users. That's a poison of a different color all together.

If Viacom's goal is to create legions of otherwise law-abiding consumers who might now feel some satisfaction out of pirating Viacom shows -- just to spite Viacom's intrusive actions in this case ... well ... judging from the scuttlebutt around the Net, Viacom may have succeeded in a way that could haunt them for quite some time to come.

--Lauren--

Greetings. Some offhand comments by Google's Vint Cerf at a recent event seem to have a triggered a panicky "Vint Cerf proposes nationalizing the Internet" buzz that's been ramping up fairly rapidly.

Holy BitTorrent, Batman! Army paratroopers seen dropping into parking lots at AT&T and Comcast, while the Transportation Security Agency orders us all to remove our shoes before surfing the Web!

Settle down, everyone. As usual with these kinds of stories, the truth is significantly different from the breathless buzzing.

Here's how Vint described his thinking on this issue to me last night, presented verbatim. And I'll note right here that I agree 100% with his analysis. If the Internet is really the essential infrastructural and economic pillar that is claimed all around, it's time that we started treating it that way.

- - -

Comments From Vint Cerf

"In a NYC event called Personal Democracy Forum, the question of broadband access came up. There isn't enough facilities based competition in broadband and in my opinion there isn't likely to be. I expressed the opinion that perhaps the Internet should be treated more like the road system. You don't have multiple roads going to your house for example. Instead, it is a common resource. I said something like "maybe we should treat the Internet more like the road system."

In the UK, BT has been split into a wholesale Internet business and a retail business. Anyone can buy raw Internet service at wholesale and then operate any application service above that. Capacity is priced based not on bytes transferred but on maximum rates of use (usually capped). The idea is to provide new incentives for broadband Internet providers to keep the system open to new applications and to promote substantial competition, not at the facilities base but above the IP layer. At present, the incentives do not favor such a posture."

End of Vint Cerf's Comments

- - -

--Lauren--

Greetings. Writer Christopher Hitchens used to refer to the Bush administration's waterboarding of suspects as an "extreme interrogation" technique.

Now he calls it torture.

See what changed his mind in this video, as he experiences waterboarding first hand.

--Lauren--

Greetings. As the "Google conspiracy freaks" seem to be gathering with increasing frequency, I find it necessary to once again note a new situation where it appears that good deeds by Google don't go unpunished.

In today's saga, anti-Obama bloggers are essentially accusing Google of censorship, by virtue of supposedly permitting Obama supporters to manipulate Google's blogging platform and block anti-Obama blogs.

That the Google system apparently misclassified the blogs in question is seemingly not a matter of dispute, but the evidence suggests that the problem was caused by an unintended consequence of Google's aggressively effective anti-spam mechanisms, which like all other complex mechanisms created by mere humans, can be subject to error.

In fact, if Google didn't aggressively filter for spam-related materials in that environment, the entire related infrastructure could quickly fall into useless chaos and people would be screaming at Google about that, we can be sure.

As anyone who has worked with spam filters knows, there is a complicated balance involved in spam detection, and it's inevitable that sometimes mischaracterization of traffic will occur. In very large and by necessity highly automated environments, this can potentially result in problems such as those reported in this situation.

Just like any other responsible party faced with such a situation, Google will analyze the circumstances that triggered this event and I have no doubt make appropriate changes to help avoid a repetition.

So let's try to keep these sorts of events in perspective. Nobody was killed, no planets were detonated, the space-time continuum is (according to my instrumentation) still humming along in its usual somewhat inscrutable fashion.

Complex systems (and even many simple systems for that matter) are almost never perfect. Making a Matterhorn out of a pimple, as in this case, doesn't advance the ball in a useful and positive way for anyone.

--Lauren--

Greetings. Well, today's the day that political expediency and anti-science stupidity combine for the banning of handheld cell phones while driving in California.

I've discussed this topic here several times before, noting that virtually every study shows no reduction in accident rates when talking on a hands-free cell phone vs. handheld units. In fact, there are concerns that people fumbling around to dial and answer hands-free units may actually make matters worse.

Even the Luddite who spent years pushing through this legislation admits that the science and studies are against him, but he's convinced that having both hands on the wheel is safer. Of course, the law doesn't require two hands on the wheel -- which would be fairly difficult for stick drivers like me in any case, eh?

When I was out driving earlier today, I saw one women swerving while putting on make-up, and a guy weaving all over while apparently wolfing down a burger. Another car almost didn't make a stop while the woman inside appeared to be screaming at her kids in the back seat -- all classic distractions unaffected by the new law. However, I saw several people now driving illegally but safely with handheld cell phones.

There are already laws against distracted driving. The new cell phone law (as applied to adult drivers) is both unnecessary and counterproductive -- the latter by making people erroneously believe that they're safer with hands-free phones while driving.

This sort of "feel good" law that flies in the face of science, studies, and logic, is an example of our political system operating as a pandering pomposity of the most inane kind.

--Lauren--

Greetings. AT&T must be feeling pretty good right now knowing that immunity for their possibly illicit wiretapping operations is imminent -- and nobody can accuse them of not having a sense of humor about the whole thing.

In honor of their no longer being federally tariffed as in the past, AT&T is sending out to their customers the official phone company Terms of Service. I must admit that I laughed out loud when I pulled it from the envelope to reveal eighteen pages of fine print and legalistic terminology that wouldn't have been out of place in a Hollywood contract or a non-disclosure agreement at NSA.

The pages unfolded like the many credits at the end of the classic animated program Rocky and His Friends ("All on this itty-bitty card!") -- surprising the cat who happened to be standing beneath me at that moment.

Outside of the inherent humor in the length of the "agreement" itself and the concept of sending residential telephone subscribers documents detailing "Force Majeure" specifications, another hilarious gem was buried in the contractual verbiage.

AT&T points out in one section that if you don't take steps to encrypt or otherwise secure your communications on the AT&T network, your communications are subject to interception by third parties.

Alert the media! AT&T says "Your calls and data may be tapped!" Not exactly headline news, guys. We know "cover your behind" legalese when we see it.

However, the mailing of the agreement, even though only a fraction of the recipients will have the requisite legal training to understand most of it, may still serve a useful purpose for some subscribers.

In my case, I was able to use the AT&T document as a handy makeshift splatter shield while doing some work on my bike yesterday.

Who says that there's no upside to being an AT&T customer?

--Lauren--

Greetings. Since my posting yesterday expressing strong distaste for ICANN's plans to vastly expand the global top-level domain (gTLD) naming system, I've received some interesting analysis and reports from the current Paris ICANN meeting itself. They boil down to one inescapable and extremely unfortunate fact.

ICANN has seemingly become dangerously beholden to moneyed interests, and pretty much everyone else now gets short shrift -- to the detriment of the Internet and its users at large. I don't even really blame ICANN's people and participants for this per se -- structural problems with ICANN, some reaching back to its essentially ad hoc creation in the first place (and arguably to the death of Internet pioneer Jon Postel) have essentially guaranteed this state of affairs.

While there do appear to be attendees at the Paris meeting who are concerned broadly about DNS stability under the new ICANN plan, the vast bulk of attendees see the upcoming gTLD gold rush as yet another way to line their pockets with greenbacks and euros -- the vast majority of attendees are apparently registrars and registries (and their minions) -- they know which side their bread is buttered on.

Priorities at the meeting were reportedly set in the ICANN version of the Twilight Zone. While long-winded (and palpably boring) monologues restating existing positions on squeezing money out of new gTLDs took most of an afternoon, truly important issues like IPv6 reportedly got barely five minutes.

One correspondent expressed to me his belief that the complicated (and still incomplete in key respects) ICANN procedures would likely keep us from being flooded with millions of new gTLDs overnight -- but implied (and I agree with this part completely) that voluminous and expensive litigation by particularly aggressive and militant applicants could result in literally any outcomes, however bizarre and disruptive to the Internet and its users -- and the world at large -- those outcomes may be. I would add that this particular correspondent took a much more upbeat stance in a public posting on a major mailing list today -- leaving out most of the strong misgivings and concerns that they expressed to me in private e-mail. I don't care to speculate on the reasons for this discrepancy.

I was also blamed indirectly for the problems. Participants in Paris who bemoaned the current state of affairs regarding ICANN apparently expressed some exasperation that interested parties (such as myself) -- who are concerned about genuinely important Internet issues -- haven't actively participated in the ICANN process, attended the meetings, and otherwise tried to alter the existing ICANN trajectory into a sensible course.

Outside of the fact that many persons -- including me -- don't have the resources to fly around the world to frequently exotic ICANN meeting locales (at this stage, paying for gas just to get around L.A. is a concern), there is another key factor at work.

With truly the greatest of respect for ICANN's hard-working people, I still would suggest that many observers of ICANN feel that its structural processes are broken in ways that cannot be significantly influenced by persons with contrarian views vs. ICANN's existing modus operandi.

Many of us believe that a dramatic change in "Internet governance" is long overdue, and that this cannot be accomplished within the existing structure of ICANN, despite ICANN's best efforts. Such a belief does not engender an obvious enthusiasm for spinning wheels and fighting battles whose outcomes are usually predetermined.

However, I do have a few ideas for useful new gTLDs. How about:

dot-shameful
dot-ripoff
dot-greed
dot -- oh, you get the idea.

When the most accurate way to predict the outcome of controversial Internet technical issues is to employ the maxim "Follow the Money!" -- well, to call it a sad state of affairs is a supreme understatement.

--Lauren--

Greetings. With all of the high-priority issues we face today regarding the Internet --like assuring network neutrality, or even getting decent Internet services to the 80% of the world's population that doesn't have them now -- it's distressing to see that ICANN is poised tomorrow to potentially trigger a confusing and likely highly litigious, wasteful, and disruptive land grab in new global top-level domain names (gTLDs).

While ICANN's theoretical rationale for loosening up the domain name environment is not utterly without merit, the likely real world implications of a relative flood of new top-level domain names should be pretty obvious to even a casual observer of the Net over recent years.

Everybody and his brother will want a top-level name. ICANN will be deluged with applications. Clever crooks will find ways to game the application and auction processes in league with shady registries. Name confusion and phishing will rise to new heights. Full employment for lawyers is guaranteed, as trademark disputes -- and other legal disputes filed against ICANN's decisions regarding particular names, balloon to capture as much oxygen as possible. The dot-ex-ex-ex controversy and related censorship concerns associated with the horrible idea of a sex-centric TLD will rise yet again from the grave.

And through it all, ICANN will be spinning its wheels with a complicated and expensive process while so many more important Internet issues are rotting essentially ignored on the sidelines.

ICANN needs to get over their "domain names as issue #1" fetish once and for all. Some minor relaxation of the gTLD structure is probably warranted, but not the waste of time, money, and other resources that their current plan seems sure to trigger -- and we could definitely live without the consumer confusion and risks that will arise from this mess as well.

Enough is enough. It's time for ICANN to get its priorities straight.

--Lauren--

Greetings. It appears that once again Congress is preparing to grant the telephone companies retroactive immunity for their illegal Bush administration wiretapping operations. Negotiators have built in a meaningless new district court aspect but in reality it's still plain old immunity.

The real issue here isn't whether the telcos were just "following orders" or not, but rather the more important point that if immunity is granted, we likely lose any significant ability to ever find out how far into the illicit wiretapping depths the administration was willing to go, since the raft of pending lawsuits would probably be dismissed.

This is unacceptable. The House "compromise" should be rejected.

--Lauren--

Greetings. Though we may think of corporations as being entities unto themselves -- and in a legal sense they are in many ways -- in reality even the largest are of course actually made up of people.

If you want a way to peer into the minds and sensibilities of the folks running any particular firm, observing the methodologies that they use to try advance their agendas is at least as illuminating as looking at the resulting policies and outcomes themselves.

It's been popular for years in various quarters to bash Microsoft. Some of the criticisms are well deserved, others are not. I've personally always tried to keep as objective a keel as possible on this score.

But a theme that has frequently emerged when folks are critical of MS is the concept that Microsoft is a serial bully in its business practices. Software licenses that bully. Distribution agreements that bully. OS integration architectures that bully. And so on.

The bullying question has come up again in the context of the recent attempt by Microsoft to forcibly acquire Yahoo -- a sequence that while officially ended is viewed as only being in temporary suspended animation by many observers. And while it is undoubtedly true that mistakes by Yahoo management set the stage for the takeover attempt, the attitude of MS in this instance, even while it was obvious that the attempt itself would likely drive significant Yahoo talent to seek more stable environs, seems to carry MS' business bullying signature.

But there's a current case of MS playing hardball outside normal bounds that you may never have heard about, even though it could very well affect you negatively in the wallet and in other unfortunate ways down the line. And in some respects it's even more illuminating. As usual, MS isn't the only player involved, and while the underlying issues are rather technical, many of the associated methods would seem rather familiar to any student of the old Chicago political machine.

I won't even attempt to get into the deep details here. Head over to Google, and search for:

microsoft ooxml

... then spend the next few hours enjoying the tale in all its sordid glory. I strongly recommend doing this on an empty stomach.

The micro-synopsis is that over a number of years, a crucial ISO (International Organization for Standardization) process -- that will deeply affect how documents will be edited, manipulated, processed, and published -- has essentially been hijacked by Microsoft.

Microsoft's goal has been to make their own grossly bloated (6500+ pages!) and in many ways flawed "OOXML" document format the standard for the foreseeable future, instead of the existing, much more reasonably sized, and easily extensible Open Document Format (ODF). Document formats matter. They have impacts on everything from portability, to privacy, to the costs associated with word processing software and systems.

You've gotta be careful when reading the many sources you'll find on the OOXML topic -- and keeping events in chronological order is crucial. The plotline has more twists and turns than Colossal Cave, and more ways to confuse than cheap vodka.

My favorite character in the story is the gigantic OOXML document format itself, which might be classified as a deadly weapon if printed and then dropped from a low-flying aircraft.

Unnecessarily massive and complex specs are bad enough, but when the time to review such abominations is reduced to ridiculously short periods as in this case, the circumstances border on the Twilight Zone -- or late night legislative dealings in Congress -- take your pick. Blind everyone with volume, make sure there isn't time to properly read and analyze the material, then ram it all home for approval. "Fairness? We don't need no stinkin' fairness!"

And remember, if it looks like you're going to lose a key approval vote, be sure to use whatever underhanded techniques are necessary to win. In Chicago, the traditional method of choice was to make sure that every man, woman, child, and even deceased citizens would register the "proper" vote -- ideally multiple times in each election. In Microsoft's OOXML world, the parallel approach is to arrange for emerging countries that previously had no apparent interest in the proceedings to suddenly appear, vote for the Microsoft side, then conveniently vanish back into standards obscurity -- a procedural coup that is currently the subject of official protests filed with the ISO.

At this late stage of the game, it appears difficult to derail the OOXML blunderbuss, though with such wide support for the much more sensible ODF format by institutions around the world, it's just possible that the end result may not be quite the steamroller effect in terms of OOXML uptake that Microsoft has been counting on.

But this entire affair most certainly represents a teachable moment -- something of an x-ray image of Microsoft's soul -- or rather the souls of its management, since as I noted at the outset, even Microsoft is made of people -- but then again, so was Soylent Green.

If those people wish to play fair, all the more power to them. However, if they choose to play fast, play loose, and play the bully in their dealings with the international technical community, you end up with organizations and individuals much less worthy of our respect and patronage -- both now and in any future considerations and deliberations.

--Lauren--

Greetings. The related ISPs have been working to clarify aspects of the New York Times story that I discussed yesterday.

The upshot is interesting. In contrast to the implications of the Times piece, it appears that U.S. ISPs (unlike a newly penned deal in France involving French ISPs) will not for the moment be actively blocking any "class" of Web content, but rather will work to remove c-porn sites from their servers (something most people apparently assumed they'd been doing anyway ... ).

So the big to-do from the politicos about this aspect seems to best be filed under grandstanding.

But there is a very disturbing additional element to this story. Time Warner Cable says that they are cutting off subscriber access to all Usenet newsgroups (child porn was found in 88 of the vast number of total newsgroups). Sprint is cutting off 10's of 1000's of alt.* newsgroups (and what a war it was back when those were created long, long ago!) Verizon plans "broad" newsgroup cutoffs.

While Usenet newsgroups are certainly not the draw that they were many years ago, they still have an important role to play in the free exchange of legal information on the Internet today.

Using the presence of illicit materials in some portion of a content stream as an excuse to abolish or decimate the legal content is inexcusable. In fact, that sort of "guilt by association" and "we can get away with this because most people don't know about it" action is the very essence of a particularly insidious form of censorship.

Of course, the ISPs could argue that they're under no legal obligation to carry Usenet newsgroups in any form. This is true. But then, most ISPs aren't under a legal mandate to provide connectivity to any given Web sites, either.

So one might wonder, given these ISPs' eagerness to hoist much or all of the completely legal content of Usenet on the petard of fettering out c-porn, which aspects of the Internet will be next to fall into the line-of-sight of their big red cutoff switch?

--Lauren--

Addendum: For those who may be unfamiliar with Usenet, the act of "cutting off access" in this case refers (as far as I know) to the ceasing of server services by the ISPs for providing the newsgroups in question, not to active blocking of the sort that would prevent persons from buying newsgroup access somewhere else -- at least assuming that similar outside pressures don't begin to collapse Usenet newsgroups distribution generally.

Still, as I originally noted, the ISP actions of ceasing to provide vast numbers of unrelated newsgroups because of offenses in other newsgroups qualifies, in my opinion, as an insidious form of censorship, especially in the current political climate. It's another domino falling.

--LW--

[ Thanks to Declan McCullagh at News.com for digging out some details regarding the sharp ISP blades aimed at Usenet newsgroups. ]

Greetings. As this New York Times article notes in passing, and I would suggest much more forcefully, efforts by ISPs to cut off access to any particular class of content may make it more difficult for "casual" searchers to access such sites, but will likely be largely ineffective against anyone with the will to work a bit harder to find such material -- and that's not even taking into account private, encrypted distribution networks.

Of broader interest perhaps is how much time will pass before "other entities" demand that ISPs (attempt) to block access to other materials that one group or another feels subscribers should not be permitted to see or hear. How long before search engines are urged, pressured, or ordered to remove search result listings that the government or other groups deem inappropriate under the political criteria of the moment?

In practice, of course -- as I've written many times -- effective censorship of the Internet is impossible. You can make access more difficult or more of a hassle, but in the end censorship efforts -- even for seemingly laudable goals -- will drive the materials of interest ever deeper underground into forms that make them even more difficult to track. That's just the way it is, like it or not.

--Lauren--

Blog Update (June 10, 2008): Update on ISP Actions Regarding C-Porn and Usenet

Greetings. The NNSquad Network Measurement Agent (NNMA) monitors network activity on computer systems, looking for and flagging a variety of potential problems. NNMA also includes a special function that attempts to detect reset (RST) packets that may have been injected into a TCP connection by any entity not located at the connection endpoints (for more on this feature, please see the NNMA methodology notes).

While the reset packet detection system included in this release is of interest, NNSquad views this package as more important in the long run as a development base for a broad range of network measurement functionalities and associated communications and analysis efforts.

The NNSquad Network Measurement Agent (NNMA) Beta 2.0.0.6 is released as open source software under the LGPL, by the Network Neutrality Squad project of People For Internet Responsibility (PFIR). It was developed from the "Buster" network management and security program, which was specifically open-sourced by its authors at Praemio, Inc. in furtherance of the NNSquad project. Additional licensing details are included in both the installable and source distribution archives.

This package is suitable for installation on Windows 2000, XP, and Vista.

Good luck, Mr. Phelps.

--Lauren--

Greetings. Senator Joseph Lieberman (aka Senator John McCain's "error-correcting" shadow) has joined the "blame it all on Google club" -- with demands that Google more effectively remove (or preemptively block?) al-Qaida and other terrorist-related videos from YouTube.

Google already pulls down videos after they're flagged by users for violating YouTube's violence or other relevant guidelines, but Lieberman seemingly wants Google to remove the videos on a more technically proactive basis. It should be easy he says, since the videos are already usually "branded" with the terrorist organizations' logos.

Interesting idea Senator -- but it won't fly. Prescreening the vast numbers of videos uploaded daily to YouTube is of course utterly impractical and unreasonable. True, Google now has a system in place to prevent certain (mostly relatively high-profile) copyrighted videos from appearing on YouTube, but this assumes the cooperation of the copyright holders who want to keep their materials off of YouTube.

The increasingly technically sophisticated producers and uploaders of terrorist videos presumably don't fall into that category.

If Google went through the time and effort to build a system to detect "Terrorist ID Bugs" (uh, "TIBs"), how much time do you think would elapse before such logos were no longer present in the produced materials, or simply cropped, replaced, or blotted out prior to YouTube uploading, specifically to thwart such detection systems? This could all be trivially accomplished using cheap and ubiquitous video editing tools. And by the way, in case you hadn't noticed, YouTube isn't the only fish in the sea when it comes to venues for Internet video distribution, either.

C'mon Senator, do you really think that the guys behind those horrific productions are idiots? They're not, you know. In the Internet age, censorship of the sort that you appear to desire -- even for laudable motives -- is effectively impossible.

That's simply the reality, whether you or anyone else likes it or not.

--Lauren--

Greetings. Presented for your reading (and my typing) convenience, here are two unrelated "social networking" items combined into one posting.

First, more information has become available regarding the MySpace suicide indictment that I discussed a couple of days ago, and it appears that the risks I outlined then look even worse now.

Many legal experts seem to be generally in agreement that the anti-hacking law invoked in this case was never meant for this kind of situation and is really pushing the prosecutorial discretion envelope. Perhaps even worse, the conspiracy count attempts to prosecute a claimed conspiracy to violate MySpace's Terms of Service (TOS), and the creation of a phony "identity" on that site.

Wait a minute. Is simply violating the often insanely long and complex TOS at a site now a criminal offense, especially as relates to not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth when creating an online presence?

If you've never entered false information when signing up at a Web site, please raise your hand ... Hmm, not a lot of hands raised out there.

In this particular case, pretty much any young MySpace user could apparently have rather easily gained access to the profile and related information in question, but the authorities are attempting to prosecute an act of "phony identity" because -- apparently -- they can't find any truly appropriate statute to apply in this tragic harassment suicide case.

Already, I'm seeing news stories with headlines suggesting that using false identities on the Web might get you arrested. Please see my earlier postings for more discussion about why this is potentially such a dangerous situation for law-abiding Web users.

Onward to the next topic very briefly ... Facebook has pulled the plug on their connection to Google's "Friend Connect" service, claiming privacy violations on Google's part. I won't get into the details right now but since I've been asked about this I'll offer just a quick comment today.

As far as I can see, this situation is all about Facebook attempting to protect its own competitive position and essentially nothing whatever to do with privacy. I see no privacy-related problem with Google's handling of "Friend Connect" as relates to Facebook or other sites. It is clear that Facebook loses some element of control when users join "Friend Connect" -- but those users still have appropriate controls over their own privacy settings through the Google service.

If Facebook doesn't want to participate in the Google initiative that's Facebook's choice, but to inappropriately claim a purported privacy problem as a lame excuse undermines discussion and appropriate consideration of real privacy issues generally, and should not be tolerated.

After their "Beacon" fiasco -- a real privacy problem of their own making -- I'd hoped Facebook would be a bit more forthcoming, but apparently they still have a lot to learn.

--Lauren--

Greetings. Back in January, I discussed (Can You Go to Prison for Lying to a Web Site?) the tragic case of a 13-year-old girl who committed suicide after receiving upsetting messages via MySpace, and the efforts of authorities to find some way to charge the senders of the messages, based on MySpace's location in Beverly Hills.

Of particular concern to me was the apparent plan to declare that providing false information in a profile (e.g. to MySpace) was a crime.

I haven't seen the actual indictment yet, but word is that an L.A. Federal Grand Jury has handed down one count of conspiracy and three counts of "accessing protected computers without authorization" -- the latter counts presumably focused on the MySpace profile.

I continue to offer my sympathies in this situation. But I must also again proactively warn that creating a precedent declaring that the providing of false information in a Web site profile is in and of itself a crime would be terrible public policy. It would put the privacy of millions of law-abiding Web users at risk, who frequently choose not to provide accurate information at Web sites that they visit, simply to protect their own personal and/or financial privacy and security.

While there is very little if any true anonymity on the Net, we should all be concerned about the rising tide of demands to force all Internet usage to be verifiably identified, regardless of the seemingly laudable goals often associated with such efforts.

--Lauren--

Addendum: Just to be completely clear on a key point -- it's quite possible that MySpace could have a cause for action in this case based on violations of their Terms of Service. However, the federal "accessing protected computers" statute was designed to protect against hardcore computer hacking and related system penetrations, not for cases of this sort, and this law has never before been applied in this kind of situation.

Such "stretching" of the law, apparently in an attempt to mollify public opinion, is highly problematic and risks significant negative collateral damage to law-abiding Internet users in the long run.

--LW--

Greetings. Given all of the negative brouhaha regarding Google Street View, the overwhelmingly vast majority of which I consider to be unwarranted, I hope that Street View detractors will take note of Google's testing of technology to blur faces in Street View images.

There's no legal requirement forcing Google to do this (at least in the U.S., and I haven't heard of such requirements elsewhere), but they're clearly trying to go the extra mile in this regard.

It will be interesting to see if Google's mapping competitors are equally proactive.

--Lauren--

Greetings. Charter Communications has now announced 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) and the UK "Phorm" system (UK ISPs to Spy on Google Users (and Others)), 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).

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--