Question for Dr. Paul - Privacy

[DamianTV]

I recently had the opportunity to ask Dr. Paul a question while he was here in Reno but I had to make my question so brief that I dont think he had time to give me any sort of a viable answer. Mostly it was just due to being so extremely brief, like 10 seconds brief literally. So is there a way that anyone knows of that I can direct a question to Dr. Paul personally?

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My original question was this: "What do you think we can do to fix online privacy vs. companies?" His answer (again no time) was "By contract only". Unfortunately I dont think his answer matched my intended question so I'll just ask everyone here.

By the way Im new to these forums and this is my 3rd post, so hello everyone.

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Ok, let me explain my position a little bit better. I work in computers and some of the stuff that I see in regards to peoples privacy is absolutely atrocious. For example, when I help a customer to hook up a brand new computer out of the box and get it online with their ISP, there are things that I see in regards to their privacy that are so far beyond invasive that I dont wonder why these companies dont just start putting cameras in our houses and showing them ads on their TV's and telemarketing calls based on the content of the conversations that people have inside thier own homes.

Now on a technical level, this is what I see. When I first set up these customers computers and it initially gets online, I will run a program to show all of the open network connections on that computer. You can do this also by going to Start > Run ( or Start Search on Vista) > and type in "cmd" in the box (no quotes), which will bring up a DOS window. Once in the DOS window, type in "netstat -a", which shows all of the open network connections on a persons computer, and what they are connected to. For example, since you are looking at this website, your computer should have an open connection on it to this website, which will list in the DOS window. This is what I currently have open on mine:

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\DamianTV>netstat -a

Active Connections

Proto Local Address Foreign Address State
TCP biohazard:microsoft-ds biohazard:0 LISTENING
TCP biohazard:1029 biohazard:0 LISTENING
TCP biohazard:1040 biohazard:0 LISTENING
TCP biohazard:3260 biohazard:0 LISTENING
TCP biohazard:3261 biohazard:0 LISTENING
TCP biohazard:44334 biohazard:0 LISTENING
TCP biohazard:44501 biohazard:0 LISTENING
TCP biohazard:1027 biohazard:44334 ESTABLISHED
TCP biohazard:1029 biohazard:1035 ESTABLISHED
TCP biohazard:1035 biohazard:1029 ESTABLISHED
TCP biohazard:1038 biohazard:44334 ESTABLISHED
TCP biohazard:1040 biohazard:1042 ESTABLISHED
TCP biohazard:1042 biohazard:1040 ESTABLISHED
TCP biohazard:44334 biohazard:1027 ESTABLISHED
TCP biohazard:44334 biohazard:1038 ESTABLISHED
TCP biohazard:1319 ronpaulforums.com:http TIME_WAIT
TCP biohazard:1392 ronpaulforums.com:http TIME_WAIT
UDP biohazard:microsoft-ds *:*
UDP biohazard:1028 *:*
UDP biohazard:1030 *:*
UDP biohazard:1039 *:*
UDP biohazard:1041 *:*
UDP biohazard:44334 *:*
UDP biohazard:1051 *:*
UDP biohazard:1314 *:*
UDP biohazard:1900 *:*
UDP biohazard:1900 *:*

C:\Documents and Settings\DamianTV>

Ok most of that looks pretty unimportant and for the most part it is, but what I see on my customers computers is completely different. Computers right out of the box and just online has open connections to BUY.COM, CLICKTRACKER.COM, TRAFFICSPY.COM, etc. And that is without even having any webpages open. On average there are between 10 and 20 before we open a web browser. Why is it that all of these websites need to have an open connection to your computer without you even looking at their site? Because they are SPYING on you. Now the real problem that I have is not that they are even spying on you but they are doing so with out your knowledge or permission. Its not my place to tell someone else how to live their lives or who to do business with, and I would not say anything if they would have asked for your permission, or even told you about it. But this is insane, and its only going to get worse and worse and worse. I believe that if I am doing something that is not related to the internet, that I have an expectation of privacy, and that should be honored. With dedicated internet connections that are always online, these companies can track and spy on some things that you do, and we know it will just get worse to the point they track what you type in on your computer, what programs you run that are not related to them at all and just about everything that you are doing period. I have a problem with that, and I think you should too. Like I said, I dont care if you choose to let them track you, its not my business to try to tell you how you should live, but when they dont ask your permission period, you should have a problem with them doing this too.

Why should you care? Most of the time this is used for advertising. Now ads themselves arent harmful, although some would dispute that in situations like showing ads of unhealthy products to kids, and who cares if they are targetting you for specific advertising. Again they didnt ask your permission. But it isnt going to stop there. These companies are going to get greedier and look for new ways to make more money off of the information they collect off of you as our economy goes further and further into the black hole of indebtedness to the Federal Reserve Banksters. The next thing that we will run into is not just targetted advertising, but the sale of your information and it WILL cost you dearly.

Right now, doctors and Insurance Companies / HMO's are not supposed to be able to sell your medical information. But there isnt anything that says they cant start buying information related to your medical history. So all those club cards you got so you can save five cents on five hundred dollars worth of groceries? That will start (if it isnt already) being sold to the Insurance Companies and HMO's so they can raise your insurance rates. This tactic will be sold to the people as why should you pay more for someone that is unhealthy. Most people will inevitably go for it because they want to try to save money. But Im sure we all know how the Insurance Companies already work and you really wont save any more money, they will just jack up everyones rates and no one comes out of the mess for the better.

Ok, how about a more really real world perspective. Your kid is having a birthday party so you go to the store and buy some soda, icecream and cake for them, and you use your club card to get your discount. Later on down the road, something happens and you have to go to the hospital, but its okay because you have health insurance provided by your employer. Well your insurance company sure as hell isnt going to want to pay any part of your doctor bill so they review your history and find a reason to deny your medical claim, and low and behold they come back and say that you have unhealthy habits (due to the purchase of the cake and icecream, regardless if you ate any or not) and use that as a reason to deny your claim. Then you get stuck trying to foot the bill that should have been covered by the insurance company to begin with. And while you get sucked into this long drag out fight with them, you still have to pay the doctor bills because they havent, and rent / mortgage, car payment, insurance, power, credit card, cable, water, gas, food, and every other bill you have, that continues to pile up because of the exessively high doctor bill, and thanks to our wonderful sound economy being so strong, well cut to the chase, declare bankruptcy. All this happens while you stress about not being able to go back to the doctor to get the treatment you need for the serious condition you have and without that treatment can expect to die. That is the ultimate price you can expect to pay for having that "club card" that saves you x% on your purchases at your favorite mega supermarket conglomoration. Now this is a worst case scenario, but realisticly, we will all die eventually and something will kill us. Some of us it will be sudden, and some of us it will be a long painstaking process, and it is those people that will find this worst case scenario to hit a little closer to home than the far fetched idea this appears to be to most people at first. Once you get sick, you have to start fighting your insurance companies to pay the bills they say they would pay and to get the treatment you need. Ever try taking a test while you are sick? It doesnt go so well. And giving insurance companies ways to screw you over doesnt help your situation one bit either. But the trump card will be when they deny your claim because you bought too much bacon one time.

Now in that case, privacy was a major contributing factor, but just having privacy alone wouldnt totally fix that situation, but it is fuel for the fire.

I think that people in general have a preconceived notion that anyone that has access to your personal data is honest, and truthfully it just isnt so. A small percentage of people in every walk of life is going to be a bad person. Whether they have been convicted of it or not is mute point, well in fact its the ones that havent been convicted that we should be concerned about. So there will be bad people no matter where you go, whether it is the guy that spits in your food at your favorite fast food shop, the priest that molests little boys, or Politicians nuff said. Even if its not the companies, and mega corporations that are out to get you, the employees that work for them may be.

Think of it this way, all these companies have all this information on you and they sell it to every company thats willing to pay the price. One of these companies that you've never done business with has their network hacked (and not the stereotype hacker geek that is 30 years old and lives in his parents basement) and steals a bunch of information. One of the things he manages to get is your social security number, which he can then use to completely steal your identity and turn your life into a living hell. Wouldnt it be safer for you if these companies didnt have this information in the first place? If that were the case it wouldnt matter if the hacker did get into the network as there would be nothing there worth while for him to steal. Hacker: "Oh look I broke into your garbage can." Victim: "Good for you there is nothing worth while in it, why do you think I dont lock my garbage?"

This leads me to my next point: Your Privacy and your Personal Security are Directly Proportional.

The less information that a person can get about you, the safer you are. I think everyone who has joined this forum will know the good old Ben Franklin quote “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.” And that is exactly what is happening. Your privacy and government security are INVERSELY proportional however, as is your privacy and corporate profits. Your privacy is the enemy of both companies and the government, and is your best friend. On the government side, I dont really see what the problem is with getting a search warrant. We have reason to believe you may be doing something to harm others in your house. Fine, get a warrant, or worthy probable cause, and arrest them. Now its thought police where if you think different than the way they want you to think, under the (un)Patriot Act, you are considered a terrorst. On the corporate level, we saw that 3 years ago you bought too much salt so we had to raise your health insurance rates 374% over the last two years, so uh that last claim you had? Denied.

Doing business with a company is like having unprotected sex.

AIDS and other STD spread a lot of time by having unprotected sex because when you have sex with one person, you are essensically having sex with everyone they have ever had sex with. Business now is no different. Doing business with one company now means that every other company they do business with now knows as much about you as the original company does. Telemarketers are a good example of that. And the more companies that have detailed information about you, the more risk you are in of having your identity stolen, or worse.

On a personal note, I think and act as a Free Man, I believe in the Constitution, in what America should be, in the Bill of Rights, and most importantly, a balance between our government and its people. And that puts me in a bit of a bind as I dont know, within the laws of the Constitution, how to put the government and these corporations back into their place where they both must respect everyones Constitutional Rights, where any new laws abide by the laws of the Constitution. I know a lot of you are smarter than me, how would you approach or fix the situation? Or how do you feel about everyone trying to spy on everything that you do or just your privacy in general?

[angrydragon]

Cliff notes?

I think what he meant is that with contracts, if one doesn't follow the contract, the other person is able to sue for damages or something.

[Corydoras]

The privacy problem is so huge now and the invasions of privacy so pervasive that I think Ron Paul has to focus on only the governmental side and each of us personally has to take ONE piece of the problem and work on that.
I think for you, the EFF is the way to go:
http://www.eff.org/work
My "thing" is medical privacy, where I try to make people aware of how little they have:
http://www.aclu.org/privacy/medical/index.html

I use physical cash at brick and mortar stores. I do not use a store savings card unless they will let me have one without my giving my name (yeah, I miss out on some deals). I don't register software if I can use it and get updates without. I use a pay-per-minute cellphone I initialized and then I immediately deleted my personal information using the company's website. I buy transit passes cash only, not through work or by using a credit card. If I buy things online, I tend to order from the smallest companies I can deal with, and never booksellers. These are completely inadequate gestures, but they make me feel better.

I don't know what to do about online privacy, honestly. I am aware that RPFs sends data to Akamai. But where the phone companies keep records of your calls, there isn't much precedent for protecting privacy in technology usage.

Basically it's a sorry situation all the way around.

[cowb0y]

There is no longer any such thing as privacy, and there never will be again, so long as we live in a technological age. The best one can do is try to minimize information leakage and stay "under the radar" (whether it's from government or commercial abuse). Even avoiding recordable transactions can make you look suspicious, theoretically.

I personally rely on open-source software (Kubuntu Linux (http://kubuntu.org/); sourceforge.net (http://sourceforge.net)), give out only as much information as I need to, and monitor important accounts, etc. (standard identity-theft recommendations), but there's only so much you can do and still be "plugged-in."

Not until our government is back under control, and consumers can dictate contracts and terms to corporations (through consumer activism and organization) will there be any hope of having anything remotely resembling an effective "right to privacy."

Freedom in all it's forms requires a constant struggle to maintain it (http://www.eff.org/).

[pcosmar]

Ron Paul is a leading advocate for Privacy. You can check his position here,
http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/topic.php?id=6
He said this,
http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/document.php?id=517

Privacy and Personal Liberty

The biggest threat to your privacy is the government. We must drastically limit the ability of government to collect and store data regarding citizens’ personal matters.

We must stop the move toward a national ID card system. All states are preparing to issue new driver’s licenses embedded with “standard identifier” data — a national ID. A national ID with new tracking technologies means we’re heading into an Orwellian world of no privacy. I voted against the Real ID Act in March of 2005.

To date, the privacy focus has been on identity theft. It was Congress that created this danger by mandating use of the standard identifier (currently your SSN) in the private sector. For example, banks use SSNs as customer account identifiers because the government requires it.

We must also protect medical privacy. Right now, you’re vulnerable. Under so-called “medical privacy protection” rules, insurance companies and other entities have access to your personal medical information.

Financial privacy? Right now depositing $10,000 or more in cash in your local bank account will generate a federally-mandated report to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network at the United States Department of the Treasury.

And then there’s the so-called Patriot Act. As originally proposed, it:

* Expanded the federal government's ability to use wiretaps without judicial oversight;
* Allowed nationwide search warrants non-specific to any given location, nor subject to any local judicial oversight;
* Made it far easier for the government to monitor private internet usage;
* Authorized “sneak and peek” warrants enabling federal authorities to search a person’s home, office, or personal property without that person’s knowledge; and
* Required libraries and bookstores to turn over records of books read by their patrons.

I have fought this fight for many years. I sponsored a bill to overturn the Patriot Act and have won some victories, but today the threat to your liberty and privacy is very real. We need leadership at the top that will prevent Washington from centralizing power and private data about our lives.

As to Computer privacy, Most people using Micro$oft do not realize that they DO NOT OWN their Operating System. Micro$oft OWNS it, and everything done with it.
Read your EUALA.
This is why I no longer use their products. Window$ comes with spyware included, and has backdoors built in. I spent some time trying to secure XP before I gave up and switched to Linux.

[user]

To date, the privacy focus has been on identity theft. It was Congress that created this danger by mandating use of the standard identifier (currently your SSN) in the private sector. For example, banks use SSNs as customer account identifiers because the government requires it.

It's awesome how Ron Paul just gets it right virtually every time. He's beyond politicians.

[AlexMerced]

It's a free market, an ISP can do what they want, but then you free to switch ISP's, he lower the barriers to entry for someone to start an ISP. The better ISP will win, which a better ISP will be one that doesn't regulate what you can see.

Any avid internet user would know which ISP is the "free-est"

I fyou think otherwise, read the 10th amendmant

[cowb0y]

It's a free market, an ISP can do what they want, but then you free to switch ISP's....
The problem with ISPs is that many people have very limited options (basically, either slow access or access through one evil company versus another). Most cable companies carve up their sales territory (oligopoly). The only real competition in broadband is between evil phone companies and evil cable companies. Advances in technology (cellphones as modems, WiMax, broadband-over-TV, etc.) will help.

But regardless, broadband providers will always control our access to information (much like the old media companies have been doing), and are starting to play a more "active role" in determining our ability to share (at reasonable cost) information.

Of course, it would help if our government actually protected our privacy rights rather than violating them (http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/att/faq.php) constantly.

[user]

The problem with ISPs is that many people have very limited options (basically, either slow access or access through one evil company versus another). Most cable companies carve up their sales territory (oligopoly). The only real competition in broadband is between evil phone companies and evil cable companies. Advances in technology (cellphones as modems, WiMax, broadband-over-TV, etc.) will help.

But regardless, broadband providers will always control our access to information (much like the old media companies have been doing), and are starting to play a more "active role" in determining our ability to share (at reasonable cost) information.

Of course, it would help if our government actually protected our privacy rights rather than violating them (http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/att/faq.php) constantly.
cowb0y, the government is to blame for cable monopolies in the first place.

[AlexMerced]

cowb0y, the government is to blame for cable monopolies in the first place.

BINGO!!!