Are You Being Tracked? 8 Ways Your Privacy Is Being Eroded Online and Off | | AlterNet

Are You Being Tracked? 8 Ways Your Privacy Is Being Eroded Online and Off | | AlterNet: 1. Tracking

The Carrier IQ controversy exposed the long-festering problem of the Unique Device Identifiers (UDID), 40-digit-long strings of letters and numbers that distinguish one device from another. Most troubling, it cannot be blocked or removed by a user. (A report by the Electronic Freedom Foundation details how CIQ works.)

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Some Facts About Carrier IQ

There has been a rolling scandal about the Carrier IQ software installed by cell phone companies on 150 million phones, mostly within the United States. Subjects of outright disagreement have included the nature of the program, what information it actually collects, and under what circumstances. This post will attempt to explain Carrier IQ's architecture, and why apparently conflicting statements about it are in some instances simultaneously correct. The information in this post has been synthesised from sources including Trevor Eckhart, Ashkan Soltani, Dan Rosenberg, and Carrier IQ itself.

First, when people talk about "Carrier IQ," they can be referring to several different things. For clarity, I will give them each a number. You can think of senses 2, 3 and 4 as being "layers" of code that are wrapped around each other.

1. The company, Carrier IQ, Inc.;
2. a core software library that is written by Carrier IQ Inc. and which is present on all of the 150 million handsets;
3. a Carrier IQ application or program running on a phone, which includes the software in layer 2, but also additional porting code written by handset manufacturers (sometimes called "original equipment manufacturers" or "OEMs"), mobile network operators ("telcos"), or baseband chipset manufacturers;
4. the entire Carrier IQ stack, which includes the program described above as layer 3, but also often includes other code within a phone's Operating System and Baseband Processor OS to send data to layer 3. Like layer 3, this code is written by handset manufacturers, telcos or baseband manufacturers.1

Graphic by Parker Higgins

The huge amount of disagreement about various points, such as whether Carrier IQ logs keystrokes and text message content, is a result of using the term "Carrier IQ" to mean one of these four different things, as well as the fact that layers 3 and 4 vary on depending on which manufacturer built the phone, and which network it was customized for. Finally, there is an additional configuration file (called a "Profile") that controls the behavior of layer 2 and determines what information is actually sent from the phone to a carrier or other Carrier IQ client. Profiles are programs in a domain-specific filtering language; they are normally written by Carrier IQ Inc. to the specifications of a telco or other client.

There is consensus agreement that layers 2–4 collect information that can include location, browsing history (including HTTPS URLs), application use, battery use, and data about the phone's radio activity.2 The Carrier IQ Profile that is active on the phone determines where this information is intentionally transmitted, under what circumstances, the way in which it is filtered or processed beforehand, and whether it contains unique phone identifiers.

Our client Trevor Eckhart (whose research set off the present firestorm) and his subsequent collaborator Ashkan Soltani have shown that on some phones, dialer keypresses and SMS text are being written to system logs by layer 4 code. However, it seems that only much more limited types of keystroke and SMS information can make their way down from layer 4 into the underlying layer 2 Carrier IQ software.3 Unfortunately, our current belief is that the layer-4 logging that has been observed, which goes to Android system logs, is in fact being inadvertantly transmitted to some third parties and otherwise made available to other applications on the device.4 This happens when crash reporting tools collect copies of the system logs for debugging purposes. The recipients of such transmissions are unlikely to have anticipated receiving keystrokes, text messages, URLs or location information through such channels, but that can in fact happen on some of the phones to which Carrier IQ has been ported. What this means is that keystrokes, text message content and other very sensitive information is in fact being transmitted from some phones on which Carrier IQ is installed to third parties.

The complexities of this situation explain the apparent contradiction between claims by Carrier IQ Inc. and researchers examining code written by the company, who have said that the company does not collect full keystroke data or the content of text messages, and others who say that they have observed this happening. People on all sides of this debate may be simultaneously correct.

The information that we need now is a complete history of all of the Profiles that carriers have ever installed on their customers' phones, to learn what the carriers meant to collect. This would be a good place for regulators and others to start their inquiries. Separately, and equally importantly, the carriers and the OEMs need to take the steps necessary, whether OS updates or better yet, removing Carrier IQ software entirely, to stop the overbroad logging and transmittal of sensitive user data out of their customers' phones.

• 1. Carrier IQ Inc. provides reference code for telcos, handset and chipset manfuacturers implementing layers 3 and 4, which is sometimes used and sometimes not.
• 2. Carrier IQ calls these observable variables "metrics". The metrics are effectively an API that layers 3 and 4 use to make reports down to layer 2.
• 3. Eckhart and Soltani have demonstrated this on phones that run modified variants of the Android OS as customized by OEMs and telcos, but we should stress that Android as an OS is not to blame here. Android's relative openness has facilitated research on the situation, but the Carrier IQ stack has been ported to iPhones, BlackBerry devices, Symbian and Windows Mobile devices, and non-smartphones as well; we do not know what if any bugs exist in any of those ported versions of the stack.
• 4. The Android OS has a fine-grained permissions model in which any newly-installed software must disclose to the user that it may read copies of system logs before being installed. This is a good security design, but unfortunately, most users would not associate permissions to read system logs with permissions to read the sensitive information that some ports of the Carrier IQ stack are writing to the logs. Applications that come pre-installed on phones do not have the same install-time permissions dialog, but these apps at least sometimes use clickwrap dialogs. So we may face a situation where companies have taken some steps to try obtain consent from users for crash-reporting and debugging transmissions, without anybody being clear about how sensitive the data in those transmissions would end up being.

Thank You Jesus Christ for Creating The Way of Your Word!

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Collecting rainwater now illegal in many states as Big Government claims ownership over our water

Collecting rainwater now illegal in many states as Big Government claims ownership over our water: Fight back against enslavement
As long as people believe their rights stem from the government (and not the other way around), they will always be enslaved. And whatever rights and freedoms we think we still have will be quickly eroded by a system of bureaucratic power that seeks only to expand its control.

Because the same argument that's now being used to restrict rainwater collection could, of course, be used to declare that you have no right to the air you breathe, either. After all, governments could declare that air to be somebody else's air, and then they could charge you an "air tax" or an "air royalty" and demand you pay money for every breath that keeps you alive.

Think it couldn't happen? Just give it time. The government already claims it owns your land and house, effectively. If you really think you own your home, just stop paying property taxes and see how long you still "own" it. Your county or city will seize it and then sell it to pay off your "tax debt." That proves who really owns it in the first place... and it's not you!

How about the question of who owns your body? According to the U.S. Patent & Trademark office, U.S. corporations and universities already own 20% of your genetic code. Your own body, they claim, is partially the property of someone else.

So if they own your land, your water and your body, how long before they claim to own your air, your mind and even your soul?

Unless we stand up against this tyranny, it will creep upon us, day after day, until we find ourselves totally enslaved by a world of corporate-government collusion where everything of value is owned by powerful corporations -- all enforced at gunpoint by local law enforcement.

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I I Love You Dearest Loving Lord Jesus Christ.

LG BE06LU11 Optical Drives - 6x External Blu-ray Disc Rewriter - LG Electronics US

LG BE06LU11 Optical Drives - 6x External Blu-ray Disc Rewriter - LG Electronics US: This is not an LG issue. Microsoft has put this website out to assist customers with their disc drive. Please go to support.mircosoft.com/kb/982116. Follow the steps on the screen to update your drivers on your unit. There is a chance that your unit will work after that. If you are in warranty, please call one of our product specialists at 1-800-243-0000.
3 months, 2 weeks ago
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I I Love You Dearest Loving Lord Jesus Christ.

The Fascinating History of How Corporations Became "People" -- Thanks to Corrupt Courts Working for the 1% | | AlterNet

The Fascinating History of How Corporations Became "People" -- Thanks to Corrupt Courts Working for the 1% | | AlterNet: The Fascinating History of How Corporations Became "People" -- Thanks to Corrupt Courts Working for the 1%
Occupiers could direct their energy not only at Wall Street, but also at its enablers, in Congress, and ultimately, at the high court.

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Occupiers could direct their energy not only at Wall Street, but also at its enablers, in Congress, and ultimately, at the high court.

November 23, 2011 |

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Perhaps there were truly free markets before the industrial revolution, where townspeople and farmers gathered in a square to exchange livestock, produce and handmade tools. In our modern world, such a market does not exist. Governments set up the rules of the game, and those rules have an enormous impact on our economic outcomes.

In 2007, the year of the crash, the top 1 percent of American households took in almost two-and-a-half times the share of our nation's pre-tax income that they had grabbed in the 40 years folliwing World War Two. This was no accident – the rules of the market underwent profound changes that led to the upward redistribution of trillions in income over the past 30 years. The rules are set by Congress – under a mountain of lobbying dollars – but they are adjudicated by the courts.

The Supreme Court, with a right-wing majority under Chief Justice John Roberts, has become a body that leans too far toward the “1 percent” to be considered a neutral arbiter. So whether they know all the ins and outs of the court's profound rightward shift or not, those protesting across the country as part of the Occupy movement are motivated by its corruption as well.

While conservatives constantly rail against judges "legislating from the bench," it is far more common for right-leaning jurists to engage in “judicial activism” than those of a liberal bent. That's what a 2005 study by Yale University legal scholar Paul Gewirtz and Chad Golder found. According to the scholars, those justices most frequently labeled "conservative" were among the most likely to strike down statutes passed by Congress, while those most frequently labeled "liberal" were the least likely to do so.

A 2007 study by University of Chicago law professor Thomas J. Miles and Cass R. Sunstein looked at the tendency of judges to strike down decisions by federal regulatory agencies, and found a similar trend. The Supreme Court's "conservative" justices were again the most likely to engage in this form of "activism," while the "liberal" justices were most likely to exercise judicial restraint.

The most notorious case of activism by the Roberts court was its ruling in Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, which overturned key provisions of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, rules that kept corporations -- and their lobbyists and front groups (as well as labor unions) --- from spending unlimited amounts of cash on campaign advertising within 60 days of a general election for federal office (or 30 days before a primary).

At a 2010 conference, former Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Florida, put the potential impact of Citizens United in stark terms. “We’re now in a situation,” he told the crowd, “where a lobbyist can walk into my office…and say, ‘I’ve got five million dollars to spend, and I can spend it for you or against you. Which do you prefer?’”

To arrive at their ruling, the court’s conservative majority stretched the Orwellian legal concept known as “corporate personhood” to the limit, and gave faceless multinationals expansive rights to influence our elections under the auspices of the First Amendment.

“They wanted to hear the possibility that that’s the way the constitution would read to them,” said Grayson. “So they picked an issue out of the air that nobody had conceived of [as a First Amendment case] because 100 years of settled law meant that corporations cannot buy elections in America, and they not only allowed corporations to buy those elections, but they made it a constitutional right.”

Early on, the plaintiffs themselves had decided not to base their case on the First Amendment. It was the conservative justices themselves who ordered the case re-argued fully a month after a ruling had been expected, asking the lawyers to present the free speech argument they’d earlier abandoned.

In his dissent, Justice Stevens noted that it was a highly unusual move, and that the court had further ruled on a Constitutional issue that it didn’t need to consider in order to decide the case before it -- the diametric opposite of the principle of “judicial restraint.” He charged that the conservative majority had "changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law."

That's nothing new. The Citizens United decision simply advanced a bizarre legal doctrine, developed during the last 150 years, that effectively codifies the power of corporate interests.

Corporate personhood's origin in English law was reasonable enough; it was only by considering companies “persons” that they could be taken to court and sued. You can’t sue an inanimate object.

During the 19th century, however, the robber barons, aided by a few corrupt jurists deep in their pockets, took the concept to a whole new level in the United States. According to legal textbooks, the idea that corporations enjoy the same constitutional rights as you or I was codified in the 1886 decision Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. But historian Thom Hartmann dug into the original case documents and found that this crucially important legal doctrine actually originated with what may be the most significant act of corruption in history.

It occurred during a seemingly routine tax case: Santa Clara sued the Southern Pacific Railroad to pay property taxes on the land it held in the county, and the railroad claimed that because states had different rates, allowing them to tax its holdings would violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The railroads had made the claim in previous cases, but the courts had never bought the argument.

In a 2005 interview, Hartmann described his surprise when he went to a Vermont courthouse to read an original copy of the verdict and found that the judges had made no mention of corporate personhood. “In fact,” he told the interviewer, “the decision says, at its end, that because they could find a California state law that covered the case ‘it is not necessary to consider any other questions’ such as the constitutionality of the railroad’s claim to personhood.”

Hartmann then explained how it was that corporations actually became “people”:

In the headnote to the case—a commentary written by the clerk, which is not legally binding, it’s just a commentary to help out law students and whatnot, summarizing the case—the Court’s clerk wrote: “The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The discovery “that we’d been operating for over 100 years on an incorrect headnote” led Hartmann to look into the past of the clerk who’d written it, J. C. Bancroft Davis. He discovered that Davis had been a corrupt official who had himself previously served as the president of a railroad. Digging deeper, Hartmann then discovered that Davis had been working “in collusion with another corrupt Supreme Court Justice, Stephen Field.” The railroad companies, according to Hartmann, had promised Field that they’d sponsor his run for the White House if he assisted them in their effort to gain constitutional rights.

Hartmann noted that even after the ruling, the idea of corporate personhood remained relatively obscure until corporate lawyers dusted off the doctrine during the Reagan era and used it to help reshape the U.S. political economy.

Nike asserted before the Supreme Court . . . as Sinclair Broadcasting did in a press release last month, that these corporations have First Amendment rights of free speech. Dow Chemical in a case it took to the Supreme Court asserted it has Fourth Amendment privacy rights and could refuse to allow the EPA to do surprise inspections of its facilities. J.C. Penney asserted before the Supreme Court that it had a Fourteenth Amendment right to be free from discrimination—the Fourteenth Amendment was passed to free the slaves after the Civil War—and that communities that were trying to keep out chain stores were practicing illegal discrimination. Tobacco and asbestos companies asserted that they had Fifth Amendment rights to keep secret what they knew about the dangers of their products. With the exception of the Nike case, all of these attempts to obtain human rights for corporations were successful, and now they wield this huge club against government that was meant to protect relatively helpless and fragile human beings.

Such is the power of a corrupt judiciary.

Returning to the present, while Citizens United is arguably the Roberts court's most widely criticized ruling, it was not the only time the majority has bent over backward to protect the interests of corporate America and the 1 percent. Legal reporter Dahlia Lithwick, writing on Slate, condemned the court's “systematic dismantling of existing legal protections for women, workers, the environment, minorities and the disenfranchised.” Those who care about spiraling inequality, she wrote, “need look no further than last term at the high court to see what happens when—just for instance—one’s right to sue AT&T, one’s ability to being a class action against Wal-Mart, and one’s ability to hold an investment management fund responsible for its lies, are all eroded by a sweep of the court’s pen.”

The takeaway is that those camping out in town squares across the country must direct their energy not only at Wall Street, but also at its enablers, in Congress, and ultimately, at the high court.

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet. He is the author of The 15 Biggest Lies About the Economy: And Everything else the Right Doesn't Want You to Know About Taxes, Jobs and Corporate America. Drop him an email or follow him on Twitter.

Revive the Seven Council Fires | Lakota People's Law Project

Revive the Seven Council Fires | Lakota People's Law Project: The American Indian Tribes of the Great Plains are often referred to today as the Great Sioux Nation, but traditionally we refer to ourselves as the Oceti Sakowin—the Seven Council Fires. Deeply connected to one another and to all living beings, family has always been extremely important to us. We think in terms of “all our relations” and when we die we are judged by how good of a relative we have been. Politically we organize ourselves according to a system of kinship, with the extended family—tiospaye—at the center. Responsibility towards relatives extended outwards in networks, to the nation—tonawan—and ultimately to the Seven Council Fires, composed of the seven nations in our land:

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Political Corruption: Literature and links

Political Corruption: Literature and links: - Sent using Google Toolbar

	Political Corruption
	Introduction
	Political corruption cases
	Challenges and options
	Literature and links

About Redefining the Dream

About Redefining the Dream: challenging Americans

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In these times of insecurity, we need new stories, narratives, and heroes to help define ourselves and find pathways forward. The Redefining the Dream program seeks to inspire, engage, and challenge Americans to re-examine our cultural values on consumption, "the good life", and never-ending economic growth. We want to create a new national conversation about the limits of consumption, our shared values, and how we can better our lives, our communities, and the environment.

Strategies include:

Storytelling & Influentials: We will use cultural and creative personalities, thought leaders, and artists to tell a new American story and provide new visions of the future using creative media formats such as animations, webisodes, contests, and mini-documentaries. We also invite members/viewers to share their own stories, experiences, ideas, solutions, and actions toward achieving a more sustainable vision of a new American dream.

Starting the Conversation: We will host a series of webinars and community and city dialogues to discuss our cultural values on consumerism and the challenges and opportunities currently facing Americans during the twin economic and ecological crises. We will engage people from both academia and everyday life to promote theories, articles, research, and stories on the transition to the “new economy.”

Outreach & Constituency Building: We will develop targeted outreach and partnerships to new constituencies, including Do-It-Yourself audiences and the next-generation leaders and youth media groups to help define new ways of living and working.