As it turns out, new Verizon customers (although there are reports existing customers are getting notified too) have 30 days to opt out of something really nasty: Verizon will sell your browsing history and location history to marketers. Apparently, AT&T does something similar. Doesn't matter what phone - iOS, Android, anything. Incredibly scummy and nasty. I quickly checked my own Dutch T-Mobile terms, and they don't seem to be doing this.
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Member since:2011-01-28
Laurence,
"Encrypting your traffic would only hide the content of your traffic, but that data isn't really of interest anyway."
Really? The DPI contents reveals specific search terms, the videos you watch, etc. This is far more personal than knowing which IPs you've connected to. It's the difference between knowing you've connected to ebay, or knowing exactly which products you've been browsing (*).
* Not that I know what ATT & Verizon are actually doing with the data, but there's no doubt the URL/contents can reveal much more about you than the IPs do.
"However, what you can do is run a proxy (VPN, SSH tunnel or even just a straight up web proxy). At least then all of your traffic appears to be going to the same destination (the proxy) and thus their records of you are worthless."
Yes, onion routing tunnels like tor are probably the best defence against ISP tracking today & in the future.
http://www.torproject.org/
A side benefit is that it can be used to work around censorship as well.
Another thing to consider is that one's browser may be "leaky" regardless of the transport encryption. There is a chromium fork designed to strip out identifying bits from packets sent to google.
http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_chrome_vs_iron.php
Member since:2007-03-26
Really? The DPI contents reveals specific search terms, the videos you watch, etc. This is far more personal than knowing which IPs you've connected to.
It's the difference between knowing you've connected to ebay, or knowing exactly which products you've been browsing (*).
* Not that I know what ATT & Verizon are actually doing with the data, but there's no doubt the URL/contents can reveal much more about you than the IPs do.
Ahh yes, good point. I forgot that URIs and query strings are sent in the HTTP headers *facepalm*
Another thing to consider is that one's browser may be "leaky" regardless of the transport encryption. There is a chromium fork designed to strip out identifying bits from packets sent to google.
http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_chrome_vs_iron.php
Don't run Iron, it's a scam:
http://insanitybit.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/srware-iron-browser-a-r...
Member since:2009-05-19
Nope. What you searched for and what pages you visited is also interesting. The fact that you connected to one of the servers of BBC falls under a lot of categories - news, sports, entertainment, weather and a lot more. Or take visiting any of Google's services - there is known difference only with regard to GMail, while most other services have been moved under the www.google.com domain(ex. https://www.google.com/calendar/ is indistinguishable from https://www.google.com/search?q=test)
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
The day has finally come! Jolla has finally announced the launch device for its Sailfish operating system - and by god this is a looker. It's decidedly different from other phones out there, but it has good specifications and carries a relatively reasonably price tag - EUR 399, and it's up for pre-order today, shipping in the fourth quarter of this year.
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.
Member since:
2007-03-26
Encrypting your traffic would only hide the content of your traffic, but that data isn't really of interest anyway. It's who connected to where, when the connection was made and from where. You cannot encrypt that data as you have to go via your ISP / cell carrier.
However, what you can do is run a proxy (VPN, SSH tunnel or even just a straight up web proxy). At least then all of your traffic appears to be going to the same destination (the proxy) and thus their records of you are worthless.