[116635] in Cypherpunks
Re: FW: Is Privada Snake Oil?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sean Kelly)
Mon Aug 16 20:30:02 1999
From: Sean Kelly <sean.k@mindspring.com>
In-Reply-To: <99921504273ED211969D00104B6AB2F55F3B44@fileserver.zks.net>
Message-ID: <0003523d64827463_mailit@mail.mindspring.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 20:09:22 -0400
To: cypherpunks@toad.com, coderpunks@toad.com
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Reply-To: Sean Kelly <sean.k@mindspring.com>
>The NYTimes article at
>http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/08/biztech/articles/16data.html talks
>specifically about how they do escrow identities for tracking purposes, yet
>this article talks about how good the system is because it isn't vulnerable
>to subpoena. Dan even talks about how this information can be abused in his
>article on Scientology at http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,37383,00.html )
Thinking up uses for this information would not be hard. Now, instead of
your cookies residing on your home pc, they reside on Privada's. All of your
traffic goes through there as well. All their product is is a glorified
proxy server with a questionably secure encrypted link between it and your pc
(the articles I've seen just say it's encrypted, not even how). In return
they get all your cookies, can log not only your web surfing habits but
technically everything you do (since they claim they can proxy everything for
you -- hooray!), and in return you get "security" as none of that can be
traced back to your ip, except by subopena (and they WILL turn over info if
they are in the US and are requested to by the police, of that I have zero
doubt, which means any time the law gets concerned, you're in even worse
shape than if you had connected straight from your home pc). I wonder if
Privada promises that the data they compile will not be sold to companies to
be used as marketing data. Possible abuses of the info get worse from there
(credit card numbers, personal information, you name it). Wow, this is sure
something I'd rush out to get, where do I sign up?! This is a corporation or
government agency's wet-dream. Who are their backers?
Sean
