Last week, the House and Senate both passed a joint resolution that prevent's the new privacy rules from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from taking effect; the rules were released by the FCC last November, and would have bound Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the United States to a set of practices concerning the collection and sharing of data about consumers. The rules were widely heralded by consumer advocates, and several researchers in the computer science community, including myself, played a role in helping to shape aspects of the rules. more
Amidst U.S. Congress approval of legislation reversing Internet privacy rules, Major U.S. Internet providers, Comcast, Verizon and AT&T, said they would not sell customers’ individual internet browsing information. more
"In a defeat for digital privacy advocates, the House of Representatives voted Tuesday to allow internet service providers to sell information about consumers’ browsing history without their knowledge or consent," Molly Olmstead reporting in Slate. more
"The US Senate today voted to eliminate broadband privacy rules that would have required ISPs to get consumers' explicit consent before selling or sharing Web browsing data and other private information with advertisers and other companies," Jon Brodkin reporting in Ars Technica. more
WikiLeaks shook the internet again on March 7, 2017, by posting several thousand documents containing information about the tools the CIA allegedly used to hack, among others, Android and iOS devices. These classified files were obtained from the CIA's Center for Cyber Intelligence, although they haven't yet been verified and a CIA official declined to comment on this incident. This isn't the first time that the U.S. government agencies were accused of crossing the line and undermining online security and civil liberties, as it's been only a year since the infamous FBI-Apple encryption dispute. It's like "1984" all over again. more
One of the most striking and enduring dichotomies in the conceptualization of electronic communication networks is summed up in the phrase "the Internet as weapon." With each passing day, it seems that the strident divergence plays in the press -- the latest being Tim's lament about his "web" vision being somehow perverted. The irony is that the three challenges he identified would have been better met if he had instead pursued a career at the Little Theatre of Geneva and let SGML proceed to be implemented on OSI internets rather than refactoring it as HTML to run on DARPA internets. more
U.S. regulators on Wednesday blocked some Obama administration rules on the eve of implementation, regulations that would have subjected broadband providers to stricter scrutiny than web sites face to protect customers' private data. more
The emergence and proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices on industrial, enterprise, and home networks brings with it unprecedented risk. The potential magnitude of this risk was made concrete in October 2016, when insecure Internet-connected cameras launched a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Dyn, a provider of DNS service for many large online service providers (e.g., Twitter, Reddit). Although this incident caused large-scale disruption, it is noteworthy that the attack involved only a few hundred thousand endpoints... more
Largely unnoticed by technology and Brussels wonks, the European Commission's on adequacy for international data flows was released in early January. The primary aim of this document is to promote the EU's data protection regime as the global gold standard, to which other countries should aspire. In so doing, the Commission wants to remove data protection as a bargaining chip in free trade negotiations, insisting this should instead be dealt with separately, by opening adequacy negotiations with the Commission. more
US leadership and influence online stems from US innovation and corporate risk-taking. But it also is the direct result of US Government policy. In the early days of the web and e-commerce, the Clinton administration recognized they had to figure out a strategy to reconcile the internet, which is global, with laws and regulations, which are domestic. Instead of demanding negotiations for shared global rules, Administration officials put forward a set of principles, which they called the Framework for Global Electronic Commerce. more
"Activists and academics are calling on Canada's privacy commissioner to investigate after an executive order from President Donald Trump last week stripped Canadians and other foreigners of the limited digital privacy protections they had enjoyed previously in the U.S," Daniel Tencer reporting in the Huffington Post. more
"Last week, President Trump signed an executive order affecting the privacy rights of non-US citizens with respect to data residing in the US," Bruce Schneier writes in his security blog. more
The new year is upon us and it's time for our annual look at CircleID's most popular posts of the past year and highlighting those that received the most attention. Congratulations to all the 2016 participants and best wishes to all in the new year. more
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler has announced he will leave the agency on January 20, the day of President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration. more
In a note released this week, Google announced that it will begin publicly sharing National Security Letters (NSLs) it receives that have been freed of nondisclosure obligations either through litigation or legislation. more
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