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AT&T willing to spy

arstechnica.com — So much for privacy.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jun 13, 2007

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  • The_Wallbanger, on 10/11/2007, -5/+79Government and corporations doing each other's jobs... prepare for the new world order.

    When the digital monitoring arms race gets heated, plan on falling back to snail mail. Unless FedEx starts scanning your mailed CD's and documents.
  • xXShadowstormXx, on 10/11/2007, -1/+55Raise awareness of this action! Tell your friends and coworkers to avoid using AT&T.

    That's bull.
  • mulling, on 10/11/2007, -2/+56Oh god I hope they do this. Once they start inspecting packets they lose their claim to common carrier status. This means they're liable for EVERYTHING that happens on their wires. I can almost hear the thousands of lawyers licking their chops in anticipation.
  • mrfreeziexp, on 10/11/2007, -4/+46Well, time for me(and others) to switch from at&t DSL...
  • chris4404, on 10/11/2007, -4/+40All the reasons not to buy one, this is the reason you chose?
  • moocow1452, on 10/11/2007, -1/+34Who do you turn to, when every ISP is falling to the government.
  • ViRaZ, on 10/11/2007, -2/+32Guess I'm not buying an iPhone.
  • GRTWHT, on 10/11/2007, -0/+28FTA: "In addition to running a massive network of its own, AT&T runs a good chunk of the backbone infrastructure in the US. It's a rare bit of traffic that can make it to its destination without passing on to an AT&T-owned network."
  • JonForTheWin, on 10/11/2007, -10/+34If you don't already know that AT&T is in bed with the NSA by now, you're an idiot.
    Just ***** Google it: Mark Klein


    http://gnupg.org // Be polite to others, USE IT
  • blackfog, on 10/11/2007, -0/+23"ATT has many "secret rooms"
    i could really careless, if your not doing anything wrong, which 99% of everyone is doing, the gov wont touch you."

    You are just playing into the government's hands with this sort of thinking. Surrendering your privacy and civil liberties with the reasoning "you have nothing to hide, so who cares?" is an awful way of thinking. It's people that think like you that make me sick, it empowers the government every power to dismantle our privacy and work on every other civil liberty we have. I have nothing to hide, does that mean I want the government snooping around in my business for no reason? HELL NO!
  • fac3less, on 10/11/2007, -1/+23Please be WELL aware that EVEN if you DO NOT utilize AT&T for an internet service provider YOUR TRAFFIC still goes over THEIR NETWORKS when accessing the internet.

    They are a 'bandwidth carrier' as well and a lot of the snooping is going on there. Even if you do NOT utilize AT&T your content is STILL being SNIFFED. If you have an account with ANY form of AT&T (Cingular & the likes) TERMINATE it.

    It's far too late with their systems they've integrated into their datacenters (read up on it) however we can still kill them where it matters. Their pockets.

    Convince your friends, family & acquaintances to all DUMP any AT&T accounts & services. Convince them to ALSO dump the stock for something a bit more privacy friendly.

    Thank you.
    (and my apologies for the capital letters. Folks don't seem to realize that their traffic is still going over AT&T even if they don't utilize AT&T and we all need to educate each other on the issue)
  • djSyndrome, on 10/11/2007, -0/+19Where I live, AT&T (formerly SBC) runs the telephone service. You can't get DSL without going over an AT&T-provided hardline.

    Of course, the cable alternative is Comcast - just as nosy and twice as expensive.
  • Ramble, on 10/11/2007, -1/+19Even if something runs over an AT&T backbone you could still encrypt it.
  • mulling, on 10/11/2007, -0/+17habemus: "Let's say the government was on to Muhammad Atta before 9/11 and wanted to intercept his communications. "

    That wouldn't have made a lick of difference. The 9/11 squad were smart/paranoid enough to not use the internet or telephones to plan the attack. Any future attacks will do the same, I promise you.

    Also, it sounds like you'd like to trade a bit of liberty for some security. As Franklin said, you deserve neither and if you got your way, you'd lose both.
  • SpookyET, on 10/11/2007, -1/+17I just switched from Charter to BellSouth's IFITL (Integrated Fibre In The Loop). As you all know, "BellSouth is the new AT&T." Yes, unfortunately, I only have two horrible ISPs in my area.

    Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!
  • venicerocco, on 10/11/2007, -0/+15Hostbusters?
  • DevilsLeftHand, on 10/11/2007, -1/+15Sued by who? You can guarantee the government will step in and protect them. SBC bought Pacific Bell, Nevada Bell and Ameritech, the government didn't care. SBC bought AT&T, the government did nothing. AT&T bought Bellsouth and took complete control of Cingular, the government looked the other way. They are the largest telecommunications provider on earth, and the government is perfectly fine with letting AT&T do whatever they want. In some states, their pricing is no longer even regulated (Missouri). As long as AT&T cooperates with the government and acts as a monopoly On their behalf, get used to this sort of invasion of civil liberties.

  • kolobcreek, on 10/11/2007, -0/+14WTF why is this a surprise to anyone?

    How tight do you have to be with the government to get a complete monopoly over all land based telephones in the US? What makes you think the tiger can change his stripes? Maybe it would help you to think of AT&T as just an extension of the government.
  • Konrad9, on 10/11/2007, -0/+14They are immune to anti-monopoly legislation in return for violating the constitutional rights of paying customers.
  • ryanmetcalf, on 10/11/2007, -3/+15Ghostbusters!
  • atheinostic, on 10/11/2007, -1/+12If you know any AT&T customers, make sure to tell them to drop the bastards. I've been telling everyone to ditch AT&T since the NSA spying thing became public. Maybe we can all make their wallets bleed just a little for their proto-fascist behavior.
  • xman00, on 10/11/2007, -1/+12There is a big gotcha for AT&T if they do this. By declaring themselves protectors of IP and sniffing personal packets, they risk losing their status as a neutral carrier backbone afforded to them by the DMCA. So they could now be held libel for not preventing copyrighted material traveling over their network. It's kind of like if AOL were to declare a kid-friendly chatroom but then fail to implement the proper safeguards to prevent child predators from identifiying the children in the chatroom.

    Lawyers, start your engines!
  • fuzzmeister, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9It's not like Verizon is a paragon of customer protection...
  • Marijuana, on 10/30/2007, -0/+9AT&T is basically a monopoly. You can try to change to other providers but those providers are being attacked by the big money hungry corporations. I blame corporations, they completely ***** our government ever since we started recognizing corporations as "persons". Interested?

    www.uuworld.org/2003/03/feature1a.html
  • mpn401, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8AT&T = American Traitors & Tattletales
  • inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8
    One day you while you make a call from your cell phone (bought via eBay from China)... you may hear this..

    "AT&T (brrling).... the iPhone that you use to make this call is pirated... this network doesn't allow use of such equipment... please stand back for self destruction sequence... thank you for using AT&T.... 5..4..3..2..1....."

  • kaiser44, on 10/30/2007, -1/+9What did you expect. These people do not care about you they care about profits and profits can only be secured if they bend to the will of the Government and they do this for sweet deals in the future.
    It is not about you , it never has been and never will be.
    The best thing to do has been posted already, drop the service if possible .
  • Jammerdelray, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9Only Alternative is Comcast which is not any better and probably worse.
  • zydeco, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8You should remove all the curtains and window shades from your home. After all, you're not doing anything bad in your home, right? So what are you hiding?
  • shootdashit, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9it's a little hard to avoid using them for telephone services. i was going to go to vonage, but that doesn't seem like a good move now.
  • MrFlesh, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7None of you understand.......this is a money making ploy....there is too much information.....they know 10,000,000 drug deals happen everyday. There's nothing they can do about it...you can't throw that many people into jail at once. This is a ploy for corporations and government to lock down the internet. It's been a thorn in corporate america and the governments side. Christ one dell tech support agent gets mouthy with a customer and 1,000,000 people read it on the consumerist and dell is flooded with emails. The musci industry is getting hammered not only by p2p but the huge selection of not only drm free music but online indie labels. People used to be ignorant of what the government was doing in different states, industries, markets, etc and now everyone can compare notes and come up with evidence (not just conjecture) that our leaders and business do not have this countries best intrest in mind...let alone macaka's campaign going down in flames because of one youtube video. They are not putting this system in place to come and steal you in the night...they want this system in place to shut you up. American business has decided it does not want to go into the future competing with new ideas and solutions. It's gone intoi preservation mode and it want's to lock ***** down.....even though it always leads to collapse...these greedy dumb ***** let thier egos tell them that some how this time will be different.
  • DrIce926, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8*sigh*

    Reading this just makes me sad.
  • UnFriendlyFire, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6@habemus

    They could do it by getting a court order. That would not necessitate routine spying on everyone. Don't trot out the old "we have to spy on everyone or no one" BS
  • Chesko, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6Yes, but who decides what "wrong" is? You? AT&T? The government?

    Do you see how slippery this slope gets yet?
  • ViRaZ, on 10/11/2007, -3/+9Well what's your main reason?
  • vulgrin, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5"It's not like Verizon is a paragon of customer protection..."

    Is ANYONE anymore?
  • fuzzmeister, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5@JonForTheWin
    Nice job answering a ridiculous comment with another ridiculous comment.
  • inactive, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7"All of this appears to be in the talking stages for the moment, though, so we'll have to wait awhile to find out exactly how Big Brother-ish it turns out to be."
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------>

    If we're hearing about it, it's already in place and has been for years.
  • dakilla91, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6This sucks...I have AT&T!!
  • 1053r, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5You may have the option to get some form of fixed wireless. People often overlook that option, but it is there. I thought for years my only two options were cable and DSL, but some hard searching online found me a third option, and I am posting this comment Ma Bell free...
  • MrFlesh, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4

    yeah just like there were no problems for the jews in germany right they didn't do anything illegal....oh wait the laws were changed so everything they did was illegal. That's the problem with your train of thinking. You assume rule of law is the game of today and it's not. You assume they will uphold the laws, and it's proven they won't and you assume they won't change the laws, but they've proven they will. Look at all the botched and flat out wrong paramilitary police raids that have been going on for several years now. Look at the number of innocent deaths and raids...let alone over enforcement....



    http://www.cato.org/raidmap/

    Your way of thinking will not keep you safe....nor free.

  • scottmcguire, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5F@#K'EM !!
    They don't own the internet !!
  • Bobski, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6You modded me down for speaking the truth?

    Read up on the ATA tape. Ma Bell had the ability to instantly know who called whom, when and for how long since the Forties. All that BS years ago about having to keep callers on the line so the could manually "trace" the call through the switching equipment was bogus.
  • tomarocco, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4The point isn't about AT&T as an ISP, it's about AT&T as a backbone provider. Big difference...and a scary difference.
  • tomarocco, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Definitely worse.
  • venicerocco, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Do you actually think "EVERYTHING" costs so much because people steal? If that was true, why are each and every CEO, CFO and Board member of each and every large US corporation a multi millionaire if not billionaire?

    Something doesn't add up about your understanding of the world.
  • gordeaoux, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4@habemus

    If the government was onto Atta before the attacks, they wouldn't need to look at everyone's data, just his. Computers are binary, reality is not.
  • tomarocco, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4AT&T will be getting you busted for Thought Crimes once the iPhone comes out.
  • KraigR, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Why am I not surprised. AT&T will do anything for the person who pays them the most. ***** douchebags!

    STOP CENSORSHIP!!!!!
  • Disjunto, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4@avalontor: the devs of ff and opera have experience in security on win based machines, apple don't. still, apple should have done some kind of testing
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