Fund raising: non-profit to setup privacy enhancing ISP & mobile phone service
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If anybody here is concerned about privacy there is an effort to setup a privacy enhancing ISP with the potential to serve 70 markets in the US. A related project to develop the technology is under way already and the founder is Nicholas Merrill is working on raising funds to setup an organisation and infrastructure. He is experienced with these endeavours having setup an ISP and been involved in fighting the FBI and DOJ in federal court. Some of you may be familiar with the case. He was under gag order for six years and was supported by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Here is a link to the fund raising page if anybody would like to donate:
http://www.indiegogo.com/calyx?a=543603
They have a goal of raising a million dollars. Currently they have raised a little less than 2%.
With the current efforts to remove privacy from the internet, mandatory data retention, ever greater copyright enforcement, mandating that people be disconnected from the internet, etc. even a privacy-respecting ISP and/or mobile phone carrier will still find itself subject to the laws of whatever jurisdiction that it operates in. Even if those laws are unjust it would still need to abide by them.
It seems like the better thing to do is focus on decentralizing the internet to avoid these type of matters rather than creating another ISP and/or mobile phone carrier.
With the current efforts to remove privacy from the internet, mandatory data
retention, ever greater copyright enforcement, mandating that people be
disconnected from the internet, etc. even a privacy-respecting ISP and/or
mobile phone carrier will still find itself subject to the laws of whatever
jurisdiction that it operates in. Even if those laws are unjust it would
still need to abide by them.
It seems like the better thing to do is focus on decentralizing the internet
to avoid these type of matters rather than creating another ISP and/or mobile
phone carrier.
I am a member!
You should probably read the summary of what they are doing. It sounds to me
like they are merely developing the tools and making them easy to implement.
A privacy respecting ISP doesn't mean one that doesn't comply with the laws.
For instance many ISPs abuse users trust/privacy.
For instance the ISPs here redirect users non-existent DNS requests to an add
based search engine. This deviates from the standard.
Other examples for instance are data retention. The US has no data retention
law at the moment although every ISP logs IP/Billing information. While
service providers have to release that information they can only be required
to release what they retain. An ISP could simply not log IP/Billing
information, an email service provider does not have to log this either, nor
a forum, or other Internet service.
While this doesn't get around the snooping by the NSA in regards to wire taps
the ISP is trying to thwart mass illegal surveillance of its customers. They
describe VPN and similar services which might due this to an extent or make
it harder. Still- this might also imply they are working on freedombox or a
similar device. Maybe they would distribute this device as part of the modem
given to customers and/or router.
I am a member!
You should probably read the summary of what they are doing. It sounds to me like they are merely developing the tools and making them easy to implement. A privacy respecting ISP doesn't mean one that doesn't comply with the laws. For instance many ISPs abuse users trust/privacy.
For instance the ISPs here redirect users non-existent DNS requests to an add based search engine. This deviates from the standard.
Other examples for instance are data retention. The US has no data retention law at the moment although every ISP logs IP/Billing information. While service providers have to release that information they can only be required to release what they retain. An ISP could simply not log IP/Billing information, an email service provider does not have to log this either, nor a forum, or other Internet service.
While this doesn't get around the snooping by the NSA in regards to wire taps the ISP is trying to thwart mass illegal surveillance of its customers. They describe VPN and similar services which might due this to an extent or make it harder. Still- this might also imply they are working on freedombox or a similar device. Maybe they would distribute this device as part of the modem given to customers and/or router.