Difference between revisions of "Talk:Student Projects:Privacy Internet"

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(User John):  The civil right of privacy is a composite of federal and state statutory law, administrative rulings, constitutional innuendo, common law traditions, and activist judicial case rulings.  Traditionally, Americans have been concerned with the power of governments, and as those powers grow, so does the individual citizen's need for privacy.  Today, the explosion of computer based technology provides the uncrupulous and the fearful with vast opportunities to invade the individual citizen's privacy.  As a member of this research team, I would like to see at least four sub-areas of this privacy issue explored:  1) a history of the building of the right to privacy; 2) a study of the flaws in the present patchwork of the right to privacy; 3) a serious look at the technological threats to privacy available for use, today and tomorrow; 4) a proposal for effective options to the present system - perhaps a Constitutional Amendment of Individual Privacy.  I have some data on the technological threat, such as Tempest related technologies.  Some of our more technically inclined members might enjoy such research.  As attorneys, Jim and I should be able to cover items 1 and 2, to a certain extent.  After basic research has been completed, all of us could have a good bull session or two, and we should be able to create a serious proposal for item 4.  Since the U.S. Constitution was mostly conceived in Taverns, I suggest that we consider similar accoutrements - to enhance the creative mood, of course.  Comments?  Alternative ideas?  We need to get our heads out of the clouds and grind away on something concrete.
 
(User John):  The civil right of privacy is a composite of federal and state statutory law, administrative rulings, constitutional innuendo, common law traditions, and activist judicial case rulings.  Traditionally, Americans have been concerned with the power of governments, and as those powers grow, so does the individual citizen's need for privacy.  Today, the explosion of computer based technology provides the uncrupulous and the fearful with vast opportunities to invade the individual citizen's privacy.  As a member of this research team, I would like to see at least four sub-areas of this privacy issue explored:  1) a history of the building of the right to privacy; 2) a study of the flaws in the present patchwork of the right to privacy; 3) a serious look at the technological threats to privacy available for use, today and tomorrow; 4) a proposal for effective options to the present system - perhaps a Constitutional Amendment of Individual Privacy.  I have some data on the technological threat, such as Tempest related technologies.  Some of our more technically inclined members might enjoy such research.  As attorneys, Jim and I should be able to cover items 1 and 2, to a certain extent.  After basic research has been completed, all of us could have a good bull session or two, and we should be able to create a serious proposal for item 4.  Since the U.S. Constitution was mostly conceived in Taverns, I suggest that we consider similar accoutrements - to enhance the creative mood, of course.  Comments?  Alternative ideas?  We need to get our heads out of the clouds and grind away on something concrete.
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== Group Roles ==
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I think it would be helpful if we provide a bit of background on each other so that we can see how everyone is going to fit into the project.
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Myself, I'm a technical guy.  I'm a senior programmer in games development.  I also have significant experience with technical writing and editing, which should come in useful.
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It sounds like we have two technical people (myself and Ryan) and two

Revision as of 18:31, 4 November 2004

Patchwork Laws

[TedZ]: I'm almost done reading the chapter in Asprey re: privacy. One point that I find interesting is that US law is a "piecewise patchwork" (my own interpretation of the text) of laws, and apparently that's ok with everybody in the legal system. Europe appears to have a more unified approach to privicay. Comments?

Ryank The author states that privacy is a nebulous concept and that different people will have different interpretations of what it means. I think the sectoral policy approach in the US is a direct result of this. I'm curious as to how satisfied people are with the EU omnibus legislation.

Interesting links

[Electronic Privacy Information Center http://www.epic.org]: has an article about RFID chips.

[AIM Association for Automatic Identification and Mobility: http://www.aimglobal.org/technologies/rfid]

[Electronic Frontier Foundation: http://www.eff.org/]

[Privacy on the Internet: http://reason.com/bipriv.shtml]

[Privacy and the Internet http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/law/st_org/iptf/commentary/content/2000041901.html]

Possible Topics -- random thoughts for outlining

[TedZ]

  • US Privacy Laws (contrast to European law?)
  • European Union Safe Harbor Program
  • Is technology outstripping the law? Witness several recent cases of stalking, where the stalkers utilized high tech equipment such as GPS transmitters, webcams, and spyware to harass victims -- in many cases, the stalkers' actions were "on the edge" of current law. In some cases, the court/lawyers had trouble even describing the technology that the stalker had used.
  • Relevant Internet technologies -- cookies, spyware (including remote-install no-warning versions!), forms and "voluntary" information.
    • Ryank http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/gribble/papers/spyware.pdf is a first cut at measuring the spread of spyware. The author first created models for 4 different types of spyware. A packet sniffer was then setup on UW's network and used to capture all network traffic for one week. The number of packets matching one of the model's signature was used to to determine the total number of infected machines on the network. The author found that 1,587 clients (5.1%) were infected with 1 or more spyware programs. Considering that there are hundreds of different types of spyware in the wild and only 4 were checked for this is a definite lower bound.
    • Ryank Can technology be used to ensure privacy rather than waiting for laws to be enacted? One of the reasons Firefox is gaining ground on IE is due to the fact that it is not as susceptible to hijacking attempts and spyware. Are self-regulation and grass roots organizations like EFF sufficient?
  • Ryank Carnivore (the FBI Internet 'wiretapping' toolkit)
  • P3P
  • Smart cards
  • Problems/Solutions


Ryank I realize its the name of the topic but did you guys want to focus exclusively on Internet technologies? That would rule out looking into things like smart cards and RFID chips. Then again, maybe its better to narrow the focus some. It looks like we have a mishmash of different subtopics now and I'm not sure how to tie them all together.

Ted Zuvich At this point, I don't have a problem with tossing up lots of ideas for consideration. I'm thinking of this as a sort of whiteboard brainstorming session. Maybe we could go with "IT and Privacy", which would be a little more inclusive of technologies like RFID chips. Here's my goal: by 10 PM PST on Thursday, Nov 04 2004, I want to have a rough outline up on this discussion page. I think I can pull this together for the group, if lots of discussion takes place.

Privacy and the Internet

(User John): The civil right of privacy is a composite of federal and state statutory law, administrative rulings, constitutional innuendo, common law traditions, and activist judicial case rulings. Traditionally, Americans have been concerned with the power of governments, and as those powers grow, so does the individual citizen's need for privacy. Today, the explosion of computer based technology provides the uncrupulous and the fearful with vast opportunities to invade the individual citizen's privacy. As a member of this research team, I would like to see at least four sub-areas of this privacy issue explored: 1) a history of the building of the right to privacy; 2) a study of the flaws in the present patchwork of the right to privacy; 3) a serious look at the technological threats to privacy available for use, today and tomorrow; 4) a proposal for effective options to the present system - perhaps a Constitutional Amendment of Individual Privacy. I have some data on the technological threat, such as Tempest related technologies. Some of our more technically inclined members might enjoy such research. As attorneys, Jim and I should be able to cover items 1 and 2, to a certain extent. After basic research has been completed, all of us could have a good bull session or two, and we should be able to create a serious proposal for item 4. Since the U.S. Constitution was mostly conceived in Taverns, I suggest that we consider similar accoutrements - to enhance the creative mood, of course. Comments? Alternative ideas? We need to get our heads out of the clouds and grind away on something concrete.

Group Roles

I think it would be helpful if we provide a bit of background on each other so that we can see how everyone is going to fit into the project.

Myself, I'm a technical guy. I'm a senior programmer in games development. I also have significant experience with technical writing and editing, which should come in useful.

It sounds like we have two technical people (myself and Ryan) and two

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