Privacy

Text editing blues

Like bad tasting medicine editing is an aweful process which is only done because of its obvious benefits. Its terrifying the amount of errors that can be spotted at this late stage. Today I even found an incomplete sentence… it simply tapered off like someone losing a chain of thought.

This is the begining up until the research question. Not sure about it though…

This work begins with the thesis that there is a strong relationship between the regulation of technology and the Internet based participatory democracy. In other words, the attempts to regulate technology have an impact upon the citizenâ??s participation in democracy. This work will show what this relationship is and its effect on democratic participation.
Taking its starting points from the recent theoretical developments in regulation, disruptive technology and role of ICT in participatory democracy, this work is the application of three theoretical discussions. These theoretical discussions are used in the empirical exploration of six areas: virus writing and dissemination, civil disobedience in online environments, privacy and the role of spyware, the re-interpretation of property in online environments, software as infrastructure and finally state censorship of online information. The purpose of these studies is to explore the effects of these socio-technical innovations upon the core democratic values of Participation, Communication, Integrity, Property, Access and Autonomy. The overall research question for this thesis is therefore:
What are the effects of technology regulation on the Internet-based participatory democracy?

To connect to an earlier ongoing discussion about the text: The book is now 257 pages long and 99 479 words long. Do you think that word can handle going over 100 000 words or will it simply melt…

Posted on by mklang

Mobile phone privacy

Gordon Gowâ??s report on Privacy in relation to prepaid mobile phones is out now. The report Privacy Rights and Prepaid Communication Services. A survey of prepaid mobile phone regulation and registration policies among OECD member states (download pdf here) makes interesting reading on the right to privacy.

The report comes at a time when terrorism is being used as a motivation for governments to limit or prohibit anonymous mobile telephones through prepaids.

Fifteen of the 24 countries that responded to the survey do not have an identity requirement; however, at least six countries considered and rejected a prepaid registration policy following a consultation process. These countries are Canada, Czech Republic, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands and Poland. The UK respondent indicated that the UK government might have informally considered and rejected registration.

The project website.

Posted on by mklang

Phone Tracker

The technology to track via mobile phones has been around for a long time. Despite this, most telecoms have been slow to offer this ‘service’ to a general public. Most probably this delay has its background in the need for more sofisticated administrative and technical solutions rather than ethical questionmarks.

The telecoms company Sprint has now begun to offer its Family Locator service

Sprint Family Locator gives you and your family peace of mind in the palm of your hand.

Locate Your Children in real-time, from either a registered “Parent” mobile handset or from the web.

Safety Checks let you know that your children have arrived at home or school on time.

For Only $9.99 a Month have quick, easy, and secure access to the location of up to 4 Sprint-Nextel handsets.

The emphasis is on paranoid parenting (Furedi 2001) i.e. to scare parents and create insecurity so that a need for a solution. This makes accepting the solution offered (in this case the family locator) is the only sensible thing to do. Never mind the fact that spying (even on your own children) is wrong. That those spied upon will devise creative solutions to avoid being spied upon. And that all systems such as these once implemented will be abused through some form of function creep.

Earlier similar posts: Spying on Cars and Privacy, GPS and Children.

Posted on by mklang

27 days

The snow has turned to rain so its all mushy wet snow and cold water. The result of the days work is +900 words and its 27 days until the grand hand-in. The focus of my work today was writing a short theoretical section on privacy to introduce the chapter on the relation between spyware and integrity. The thesis is now 170 pages long.

The recommended text of the day is “The Right to Privacy” written by Warren & Brandeis in 1890. They argue that there should be a right to privacy and that such a right can be understood to exist out of the legal principles of their time. The motive for writing this article is usually their anger at the Saturday Evening Gazette reporting of one of Warren’s daughters. One of the best quotes include

“Gossip is no longer the resource of the idle and of the vicious, but has become a trade, which is pursued with industry as well as effrontery. To satisfy a prurient taste the details of sexual relations are spread broadcast in the columns of the daily papers.”

“The intensity and complexity of life, attendant upon advancing civilization, have rendered necessary some retreat from the worldâ?¦”

Somehow this all seems very modern. The part about intensity and complexity of modern life seems almost strange considering it was written over 100 years ago.

One of the reasons why the article came about is the development of technology. The Kodak camera above was a radical development in photographic technology which enabled the photographer to become mobile and therefore allowed pictures to be taken with the fantastic portable technology. In addition to this the new technology meant that the motive did not have to remain immobile in a studio.

Posted on by mklang

Search engine privacy

Search Engine Watch has written a howto on privacy in relation to search engines. As part of the conclusion they write:

As you can see, ensuring your search privacy is tricky. The information you send is leaving traces in multiple places. The solution to ensuring privacy isn’t going to be as easy as passing a law that targets Google, Yahoo and the others. Ideally, the entire lifecycle of a search beyond the computer desktop needs to be considered from ISP through to tracking services. Searchers themselves also need to consider what they do on their own computer desktops.

via Question Technology

Posted on by mklang

Google Cookie & the law

You may have known, or if not you should know, that Google tracks and records all your searches. All the pages you came from, what you searched for and where you went. This is done by useing a persistant cookie (Cookies and Privacy faq). (UPDATE: LINK REMOVED)

The information is stored by Google but there are only speculations as to how the information is used. No matter how Google intended to use the information it is doubtful that they expected that courts might subpoena their information.

In one amazing case Google “refused to comply with a subpoena issued last year for the records, which include a request for one million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period.” (Mercury News 18/1/2006).

OK – Google is attempting to refuse to hand over this information. However this does not mean that they will be able to refuse. In addition to this there is one question which seems particularly relevant. Why are they refusing to hand over this information? If they believe that any and all informtion should not be passed out then they are concerned with users privacy – this is however doubtful since they are themselves responsible for collecting the data in the first place.

If they disagree to this specific request but are in principle not against helping – this is a terribly civic minded approach however it raises grave concerns to many users. What happens when China asks for similar informaiton about computer users? What happens if your boss were to obtain all your searches – wha would such a picture say about you, and would it earn you a bonus?

The instance of organisations to collect data will always backfire. No matter the intended purpose of the data the process of function creep is inevitable. Technology and regulation is not the solution for this problem. The solution is to stop collecting the data. Or, in a perfect world, never to start collecting any data which is not absolutely necessary.

Posted on by mklang

Apple/iTunes reacts to privacy critics

In a recent update of Apple iTunes recent privacy problems emerged. This was followed by a storm of criticism. Apple has now tweaked the software to show that they are sensitive to the privacy concerns of their users – or maybe its that they are sensitive to criticism.

The EFF write

It is now offering a new update to the program that is a bit more privacy-friendly. A dialog box now asks you for your permission to activate the feature, and says that Apple does not keep any information related to your music library.

However privacy concerns still remain according to the EFF since some users have experienced that iTunes transmits its unique identifier the Apple ID.

Posted on by mklang

RFID Zapper

RFID has been seen as beign a potential threat to privacy. So the fact that someone came up with a way to destroy the RFID chip should not be surprising. The concept is soon ready and you can read about the RFID-Zapper here (also includes pictures).

The RFID-Zapper is a gadget to deactivate (i.e. destroy) passive RFID-Tags permanently. The development-team presently consists of two people. Goals are a proof-of-concept and the construction of at least one functioning and appealing prototype, as well as a documentation of the project, so that everyone can build an own RFID-Zapper.

Posted on by mklang

Minister of (in)Justice – part 2

Sweden has never had a Minister of Justice who has managed to push through so much legislation hostile to civil liberties in such a short space of time as the minister we have today: Thomas Bodström. Here are some of the highlights
Dagens Nyheter 22 December 2005.

Phone tapping – Secret surveillance with hidden microphones will be permissable for a long list of crimes (not only the present day murder, manslaughter and armed robbery. This is despite the fact that investigators have been unable to show whether these devices are efficient police tools.

Data retention – Sweden has stood on the forefront demanding that the EU implement data retention. The EU have now approved rules (BBC report) that will force ISP’s and other telecommunication companies to retain data for at least six months. This data includes the time, date and locations of both mobile and landline calls (as well as whether or not they were answered) along with logs of internet activity and email.

Hemlig telefonavlyssning. En regeringsutredning vill ge Säkerhetspolisen utökade möjligheter till hemlig teleavlyssning. Den ska ske även i “preventivt syfte”, alltsÃ¥ innan ett brott har begÃ¥tts. Enligt förslaget ska ocksÃ¥ den öppna polisen ges utökade möjligheter att registrera svenskarnas telefonsamtal, vilket Advokatsamfundets generalsekreterare Anne Ramberg kallar för “ett paradigmskifte i svensk tvÃ¥ngsmedelshantering”.

Den påtänkta lagstiftningen ger staten kraftigt utökade möjligheter att övervaka medborgarna. Tillämpningsområdet är ytterst brett och möjligheterna till ett rättssäkert förfarande minimala. Både Säpo och polisen skulle ges laglig rätt att kontinuerligt avlyssna miljöer som de finner intressanta. Varken någon lag­överträdelse eller konkret misstanke krävs.

Försvarets underrättelseverksamhet. En departementspromemoria föreslår att den traditionella signalspaningen ska utvidgas till att omfatta all trådbunden trafik som passerar Sveriges gränser. Försvaret ska alltså inte som i dag bara kunna övervaka etern, utan också telefonsamtal, e-post, fax och dylikt som strömmar genom landet naturligtvis utan domstolsprövning. Förslaget innebär ett genombrott för övervakningsstaten, särskilt om det kombineras med tankarna på att försvaret även ska hantera vissa polisiära uppgifter.

Secret Data Surveillance – A proposal has been put forward that will allow the police (with a court order) can enter and insert software to eavesdrop on individuals computers.

These are just a few of the ideas which have been pushed through on the ministers initiative or suggestion. There are many more examples of tough stances against civil liberties – all done to fight crime or terrorism.

handcuffs

Sweden is no longer the country fighting for rights and liberties but it is using the ghost of terrorism to frighten and bully through oppressive legislation. Leadership by fear. In addition to this the approach has been to argue that oppressive legislation actually improves civil liberties. In a comment on the recent data retention decision a fellow party official stated that data retention protects civil liberties. Swedish quote here – “Jag är tacksam och glad att vi fÃ¥r en gemensam lagstiftning för hela Europa. Det här är ocksÃ¥ garantin för att integriteten och de mänskliga rättigheterna inte Ã¥sidosätts, säger Inger Segelström, s”.

This is straight out of Orwell! Remember: “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength”. Big Brother would have been proud.

Posted on by mklang