Notes from the Electronic Cottage 5/5/17

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

May 1-7 is Choose Privacy Week. Should it matter to you? Give a listen and see what you think.

Items mentioned in the program:

krebsonsecurity.com/2017/03/post-fcc-privacy-rules-should-you-vpn/
www.eff.org/https-everywhere
addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/trackmenot/
chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/trackmenot/cgllkjmdafllcidaehjejjhpfkmanmka

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 4/27/17

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Congress recently rescinded FCC regulations that would protect our web browsing and other information gathered by Internet Service Providers from being sold or otherwise used without our permission. In this new situation of no oversight of ISPs by any federal agencies, what can we individuals do to help protect our personal privacy online? Here’s a start.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 4/13/17

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

There has been a lot of reaction to Congress’s recent repeal of proposed rules that would require Internet Service Providers to get out permission before using our personal browsing and other information to sell advertising or for other purposes. The Guardian newspaper asked Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web and winner of this year’s A.M.Turing Prize, the “Nobel Prize of Computing” what he thought about Congress’s action. The words “appalling” and “disgusting” featured prominently in his response.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 3/30/17

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Recently, we’ve seen headlines like “US Congress Votes to Let Broadband ISPs Sell Your Browser Histories.” Could this be true? Yup, it sure is so it becomes more important than ever for anyone who cares about personal privacy to take steps to preserve their privacy online themselves. In theory, most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have agreed to abide by a set of ISP Privacy Principles. A copy of those principles is available here: prodnet.www.neca.org/publicationsdocs/wwpdf/12717ctia.pdf. And most ISPs are supposed to provide a way for customers to choose not to have their personal information sold to others. Each ISP is supposed to have a way to opt out of tracking of their Internet activity. The link for Time Warner Cable, now Spectrum, is here: pc2.mypreferences.com/charter/privacy.

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