Clearwire: Just Say No

[John van Oppen (list account)]

This is very much not normal practice...   Nor is it the law.   The
justice department can request all they want; it is not legally binding,
which is why they were negotiating with ISPs.

I can't see any reason that ISPs should be actively helping the
government do unsupervised surveillance on citizens.   In fact, I would
argue that this is exactly the opposite of what should be done:  In a
free society, people deserve to not be monitored unless the court
decides (based on evidence) otherwise.

It is also probably worth noting that they were never discussing logging
of URLs visited, what I have heard is that a mapping of DHCP or PPP logs
to users is all that is really important, so that an IP address can be
mapped to users based on logs of attacked sites (or the search engines).
The ISP I work for has always done this, but we most defiantly don't log
URL data.

John

-----Original Message-----
From: talk-bounces at seattlewireless.net
[mailto:talk-bounces at seattlewireless.net] On Behalf Of Jack Unger
Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2007 9:51 AM
To: SeattleWireless Talk List
Subject: Re: Clearwire: Just Say No

John,

Sounds like Clearwire is simply doing what the United States Government 
wants ISPs to do. Cheney Administration Justice Department Attorney 
General Alberto Gonzalez has regularly been requesting that ISPs retain 
customer data on Internet activities.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2006/06/doj-wants-isp-help-in-trac
king-website.php

This includes:

1. Websites Visited.

2. Internet Searches.

3. Who emailed Who.

Is there one good reason why Clearwire wouldn't or shouldn't do what the

Government asks it to do in order to "fight childhood pornography" and 
"fight terrorism"?

When someone opposes this Department of Justice request, what does that 
make them; a Child Pornographer or a Terrorist?

jack


John van Oppen (list account) wrote:

> The worst thing I have heard about with clearwire, is when a friend of
> mine got in a billing dispute and they presented a list of URLs this
> friend had visited and when.   While I don't make a claim to the
quality
> of the billing dispute, I do think it is amazing that they engaged in
> that level of logging of customer data.
> 
> This is why most of my friends have DSL lines from me.  :)  (Since I
> will do geeky things like give out subnets of routable IP space.)
> 
> John :)
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: talk-bounces at seattlewireless.net
> [mailto:talk-bounces at seattlewireless.net] On Behalf Of Tom Marshall
> Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 11:39 PM
> To: SeattleWireless Talk List
> Subject: Re: Clearwire: Just Say No
> 
> 
>>Worst case, I'll setup a tunnel to the Real World for VoIP
> 
> 
> I tried this and it works great.  Just needed a tunneling daemon and a
> few
> iptables rules.  Total time invested was about an hour.  I've spent
> longer
> on the phone talking to their support reps.
> 
> I don't understand how a company can be so myopic as to think that the
> strategy of making life difficult for the average user and annoying
the
> tech
> literate user enough to spread the word that their tactics are hostile
> is
> worth the short term gain of a captive audience.  But I guess there's
> precedent -- look at the RIAA and MPAA.
> 
> The real irony in this absurd situation is that I _did_ check into
VoIP
> from
> Clearwire and they don't provide it in my area (not that I would have
> paid
> their absurd prices but that's beside the point).  The situation
reminds
> me
> of a jealous ex-boyfriend -- "if I can't have her, then nobody can!"
> 

-- 
Jack Unger (junger at ask-wi.com) - President, Ask-Wi.Com, Inc.
Serving the License-Free Wireless Industry Since 1993
Author of the WISP Handbook - "Deploying License-Free Wireless WANs"
True Vendor-Neutral WISP Consulting-Training-Troubleshooting
Newsletters Downloadable from http://ask-wi.com/newsletters.html
Phone (VoIP Over Broadband Wireless) 818-227-4220  www.ask-wi.com



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