Reply to Re: Millimeter talks about copyright
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Data ...
I agree with most of the points you make here, we both seem to agree that our personal information should remain personal. I won't speak to European law, being a Canadian IT tech, I am partially familiar with some of the American policies and would expect much of Europe to be at least comparable.
I will comment on e-mail in that in most democratic nations, email is now "expected to be" treated the same as paper mail, in that it includes specific information that is considered a part of our Identity, in the same light as a Passport and other Government issued Identification, as well as our telephone conversations.
In Canada, requiring a person to "give you their login password" is a criminal offense, and it is not lawfully obtainable even through Court Order. Even requesting to prove whether a specific document exists or not, is not legally enforceable, though once you have admitted a "specific document" does exist, they can issue an order of the court requiring to provide that specific document. I won't bore you with links to case law unless you ask.
If it was legal pry that deeply into the average citizen's private and personal life, there would be no need provide access points to our data nor to compile reports of all Meta-Data to be processed by those that do so. If there are laws that prevent them from listening in on our telephone conversation without proper authority from the court, they should not be collecting meta-data either. It is the sheer volume of the data they are routinely collecting, that makes it difficult to impossible to prevent.
To presume that 90% of the population should be overly policed in such a manner in hopes of catching a few of the 9 percent that may not be honest citizens and the less than 1% who are foreign entities possibly wishing to do us harm, may largely be a "make work" project with the benefit of serving also as a distraction from other events.
Unknown mechanisms:
Most mobile phones/tablet these days, include GPS capabilities as well as wireless or Bluetooth functionality. They also include a digital gyroscope which is primarily used to determine orientation and localization, on the scale smaller than what Gps speaks to. The Gyroscope acts as a transmitter to the device, but oddly, it has a wider reception range than most Bluetooth implementations. Much work is being done to reduce the power of this system to make it more difficult for intruders to realize our system exists on the network, with the intent to remove it from the list of known access points.
I don't think that suing Microsoft for selling buggy software would work.
Largely due to "economies of scale", and not merely rights and responsibilities.
I think open source may be a more viable option for those technically inclined, but not necessarily for the average person. The reason Microsoft has done so well is their early realization that most people don't want to care "how" their devices accomplish their task. As long as they can get on Netflix, do their banking, watch porn, book air fare, etc. etc., they are content. The largest reason Windows 8 is doing so well is, the average person doesn't want to have to remember where to click and how many times, they want to click on the picture of their aunt and start chatting, so they don't have to actually dial the telephone. I agree that open source provides a way to see if malicious code has been injected, but the majority don't know how to understand even rudimentary code, nor do the care to.
I think that having things "in the cloud" simply provides more access points for someone to steal your information, but anything wireless is already in the open air and can be picked up by anyone choosing to listen. Hardwired networks can be somewhat protected through masking but the fact that there is a wire at all, means there is still a potential connection point. The fact that NIC's aren't designed to pick up packets intended for them but rather, to reject all of the other packets that were not intended for them, shows where the real weaknesses are in the system.
Fortunately, another key ingredient to someone wanting to steal your data is, they have to be aware that you exist and that you have data to steal. Some of that has been under attack through social engineering practices, which is the mechanism used in 95% of all data theft. This is fortunate because the best protection is simply to educate the masses into becoming conscious of how they are giving themselves away.
I agree with most of the points you make here, we both seem to agree that our personal information should remain personal. I won't speak to European law, being a Canadian IT tech, I am partially familiar with some of the American policies and would expect much of Europe to be at least comparable.
I will comment on e-mail in that in most democratic nations, email is now "expected to be" treated the same as paper mail, in that it includes specific information that is considered a part of our Identity, in the same light as a Passport and other Government issued Identification, as well as our telephone conversations.
In Canada, requiring a person to "give you their login password" is a criminal offense, and it is not lawfully obtainable even through Court Order. Even requesting to prove whether a specific document exists or not, is not legally enforceable, though once you have admitted a "specific document" does exist, they can issue an order of the court requiring to provide that specific document. I won't bore you with links to case law unless you ask.
If it was legal pry that deeply into the average citizen's private and personal life, there would be no need provide access points to our data nor to compile reports of all Meta-Data to be processed by those that do so. If there are laws that prevent them from listening in on our telephone conversation without proper authority from the court, they should not be collecting meta-data either. It is the sheer volume of the data they are routinely collecting, that makes it difficult to impossible to prevent.
To presume that 90% of the population should be overly policed in such a manner in hopes of catching a few of the 9 percent that may not be honest citizens and the less than 1% who are foreign entities possibly wishing to do us harm, may largely be a "make work" project with the benefit of serving also as a distraction from other events.
Unknown mechanisms:
Most mobile phones/tablet these days, include GPS capabilities as well as wireless or Bluetooth functionality. They also include a digital gyroscope which is primarily used to determine orientation and localization, on the scale smaller than what Gps speaks to. The Gyroscope acts as a transmitter to the device, but oddly, it has a wider reception range than most Bluetooth implementations. Much work is being done to reduce the power of this system to make it more difficult for intruders to realize our system exists on the network, with the intent to remove it from the list of known access points.
I don't think that suing Microsoft for selling buggy software would work.
Largely due to "economies of scale", and not merely rights and responsibilities.
I think open source may be a more viable option for those technically inclined, but not necessarily for the average person. The reason Microsoft has done so well is their early realization that most people don't want to care "how" their devices accomplish their task. As long as they can get on Netflix, do their banking, watch porn, book air fare, etc. etc., they are content. The largest reason Windows 8 is doing so well is, the average person doesn't want to have to remember where to click and how many times, they want to click on the picture of their aunt and start chatting, so they don't have to actually dial the telephone. I agree that open source provides a way to see if malicious code has been injected, but the majority don't know how to understand even rudimentary code, nor do the care to.
I think that having things "in the cloud" simply provides more access points for someone to steal your information, but anything wireless is already in the open air and can be picked up by anyone choosing to listen. Hardwired networks can be somewhat protected through masking but the fact that there is a wire at all, means there is still a potential connection point. The fact that NIC's aren't designed to pick up packets intended for them but rather, to reject all of the other packets that were not intended for them, shows where the real weaknesses are in the system.
Fortunately, another key ingredient to someone wanting to steal your data is, they have to be aware that you exist and that you have data to steal. Some of that has been under attack through social engineering practices, which is the mechanism used in 95% of all data theft. This is fortunate because the best protection is simply to educate the masses into becoming conscious of how they are giving themselves away.
