response 50 of 98:

Jul 7 06:40 UTC 1996

Yes, but not possessing membership information is (a) not an option and (b)
not what we're discussing.

response 52 of 98:

Jul 8 17:08 UTC 1996

I have some non-profit marketing experience, and could probably work with 
this. So, I guess this counts as volenteering.

response 54 of 98:

Jul 13 20:34 UTC 1996

I am confused, from beginning until now, I am in a friendly mood to ask Grex,
a little bit request, "You" said that to me, really make me upset.

response 56 of 98:

Jul 14 03:39 UTC 1996

*ahem*
TRANSLATOR!

response 58 of 98:

Jul 15 02:13 UTC 1996

Please, wfy, do not be upset.  There is nothing personal in this.  So far as
I know, you are a great guy, and we thank you for your friendliness and
willingness to donate to Grex.

We simply cannot make the promise you ask.  We cannot make it to you.  We
cannot make it to anyone.

If we promised you absolute anonymity, we would be lieing.  There are
possible circumstances where we might be legally required to reveal
information you give us.  We'd love to be able to make the promise you ask,
but as good citizens of the US and of the Internet, we cannot.

response 60 of 98:

Jul 15 10:25 UTC 1996

Anyone who needs complete anonymity should stay as far away from computers
as possible.

response 62 of 98:

Jul 15 14:33 UTC 1996

so you're the one showing up on my caller ID! :)

response 64 of 98:

Jul 15 19:29 UTC 1996

Hogwash.... There are rational limits on anonymity - particularly when 
you are using someone elses hardware/tools/phoneline..

Only a damn fool would let a complete stranger in the house; to make a 
call; that ends up being some damned 900 number racking up the phonebill.

If *THAT* is the sort of civility you are discussing, then the hell with 
it.. I'd slam the door in the guys face.

There ain't THAT great a difference in my hyperbole and the topic you are 
discussing - you have a problem proving who you are to gain greater 
access? Too bad, move on and set up yer OWN internet connection...

WHAT!?!  What's that you say? Yer ISP would fingerprint you? TS...

response 66 of 98:

Jul 16 06:09 UTC 1996

in regard to #64 ... whilst connected, i had the following emailed to me,
please consider the implications:
  
From tstest Mon Jul 15 06:04:47 1996
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 1996 06:04:45 -0400
From: ts testing <tstest@cyberspace.org>
X-within-URL: http://www.13x.com/cgi-bin/cdt/snoop.pl
To: tstest@cyberspace.org
Subject: snoop.pl
Status: R


   
      CDT Thanks [1]Justin Boyan, [2]Eddie Codel, and [3]Sameer Parekh for
      their work with the demonstration
      
   Center for Democracy and Technology Anonymizer logo
     _________________________________________________________________
   
  Who's Watching You and What are You Telling Them?
  
   Many people surf the web under the illusion that their actions are
   private and anonymous. Unfortunately, there is more information
   collected about you than you might think. Every time you visit a site,
   you leave a calling card that reveals where you're coming from, what
   kind of computer you have, and many other details. Most sites keep
   logs of all visitors.
   
   Here's a sampling of the kind of information that a site can collect
   on you (please wait a moment):
   
  Hi! This is What we know about you:
  
     Your email address appears to be tstest@cyberspace.org.
     You are affiliated with Cyberspace Communications, Inc..
     You're located around Ann Arbor, MI. [map of MI]
     Your computer is a Unix box.
     Your Internet browser is Lynx.
     You are coming from grex.cyberspace.org.
     I see you've recently been visiting [4]this page at www.cdt.org.
     
     
     
   
   
  But Others May Know A Lot More...
  
   As a small non-profit public interest organization, CDT's web pages
   reside on a server run by our (very accommodating) Internet service
   provider, and as a result, our ability to collect even more revealing
   personal information than what is displayed above is limited. However,
   a web site operator with the right equipment and the desire to do so
   can easily obtain your e-mail address, the exact files you viewed, and
   other detailed information without your knowledge. And you reveal
   information to web site operators both directly and indirectly.
   
   
   
  How Your Personal Information Gets Collected
  
   Web sites and Web browsers
   
   Your personal information (including your hobbies, political and
   product interests and ways to contact you, such as your e-mail
   address) can be collected by web sites in two ways: directly or
   indirectly.
   
     * Passive recording of Transactional Information: The transactional
       information revealed in the normal course of surfing the net
       reveals a great deal of information about your online activities.
       When you visit a particular web site, for example, the webmaster
       can determine what files, pictures, or other information you are
       most interested in (and what you ignored), how long you examined a
       particular page, image or file, where you came from, where you
       went to.
       
       Web servers collect transactional information in order to allow
       the system operator to perform necessary system maintenance,
       auditing, and other essential system functions. However, when
       correlated with other sources of personal information, including
       marketing databases, phone books, voter registration lists, etc, a
       detailed profile of your online activities can be created without
       your knowledge or consent.
       
     * Cookies: Additionally, many web browsers contain a feature called
       "cookies," or client-side persistent information. Cookies allows
       any web site to store information about your visit to that site on
       your hard drive. Every time you return to that site, "cookies"
       will read your hard drive to find out if you've been there before.
       For example, try visiting [5]this web site twice.
       
     * Direct disclosure of personal information: A growing number of web
       sites offer users the ability to register with the site. In many
       cases, registration brings real, important benefits, such as
       access to special areas, timely information, discounts, etc. While
       registration or other mechanisms by which users divulge personal
       information to a web site provide some obvious benefits to a
       users, it also provides the site's operator with a detailed
       picture of how you use the site.
       
   Regardless of how the information is obtained, a great deal of
   personally identifiable information is revealed in the normal course
   of surfing the web.
   
   Commercial Online Service Providers
   
   Commercial online service providers are configured in a variety of
   ways, but generally, little personally identifiable information is
   revealed to Internet sites visited directly from an online service.
   
   If you subscribe to a commercial online service, your service provider
   has access to lots of information about your online activities. These
   records are generated in the normal course of using the service, and
   are important for billing and maintenance purposes. However, not all
   services treat the use and disclosure of this information the same
   way. CDT'S Clearinghouse on Privacy Policies focuses first on the fair
   information practices of the [6]major commercial online service
   providers, including America Online, Compuserve, Microsoft Network and
   Prodigy.
   
   Later, CDT will focus on other Internet entities, such as browsers,
   content providers, and Internet service providers.
   
   
   
  Why should you care?
  
   Although it may not seem like it, someone is following you through
   cyberspace. Every time you retrieve a file, view an image, send an
   e-mail message or jump to a new web site, a record is created
   somewhere on the Net.
   
   While much of this information may never be used, it can be, and you
   have little control over it. In the hands of a marketer with a
   powerful computer, or the government, it is possible to build a
   detailed profile of your tastes and preferences by monitoring your
   online activities. The information can be used to send you unsolicited
   e-mail or snail mail, to call you, or to even put you on a list of
   people likely to support a particular political candidate. A single
   piece of information about you can support a tremendous range of
   activities. For example, if your repeated visits to web sites
   containing information on cigarettes results in free samples, coupons,
   or even e-mail to you about a new tobacco product, you may not be
   concerned. However, if your visits to these web sites result in
   escalating insurance premiums due to categorization as a smoker - now
   you're beginning to get concerned.
   
  Privacy Policies and Practices
  
   In the United States, there is no comprehensive law that protects
   people's privacy. Instead a patchwork of Constitutional, statutory and
   private sector guidelines that protect different areas of your
   informational privacy.
   
  CDT's Web Site Privacy Policy
  
   Like virtually all web sites, CDT collects information to analyze
   traffic patterns and to perform routine system maintenance. We do not
   use the system logs or other records for any other purpose, nor do we
   sell, rent or otherwise disclose our mailing lists.
   
   For the purposes of this demonstration, we will use information
   generated during your visit to the Privacy Web site to illustrate
   examples of what information you are revealing to us. None of the
   information generated during the course of your visit to this
   demonstration will be used for any other purposes, and logs will be
   purged on a regular basis.
   
  How to Surf without Being Watched
  
   [7]The Anonymizer
   
   The Anonymizer was created by Community ConneXion ("C2") for those
   whose illusions of anonymity have been shattered. It is a web site
   that shields your personal information from the other web sites that
   you visit. By visiting the Anonymizer web site before visiting other
   web sites, you are assigned an anonymous identity which is revealed
   (instead of your real identity) as you surf the web. It allows you to
   surf freely, even if you follow a hypertext link to another web site,
   without having to worry that the web site you are reading is keeping
   track of who you are and your interests.
   
   
     _________________________________________________________________
   
   [8]Continue to the CDT Privacy Issues Page

  
just in case anyone thought about leaving cookie crumbs ......
Oh, the address is    www.cdt.com  although the included URL tends
to suggest "otherwise."

response 68 of 98:

Jul 17 04:52 UTC 1996

Yeah, if that bothers you, you should see the amount of information that
the pointcast thingy can get about you. People love it though, because
it gives them some value, too. 

As a grex webmaster, I would like to point out that Grex keeps detailed log
information about accesses to its web site as well. The logs are not readable
to the public, but are summarized weekly and published in our web stats area.

We do not provide or sell access to the detailed information in these logs.
Not all web sites so limit their use of this info. But after all, they 
are providing access to the information and services on their site to *you*.

OK, now back to our discussion of privacy.

response 70 of 98:

Jul 17 11:03 UTC 1996

Hm. Perhaps the term should be "webMASTER"? I too am curious about the extent
of the information being collected on/by this open system. Pray tell . . .?
I don't have a problem with srw or his ethics one whit, but others
may not be so deserving of trust and confidence. I think sites should
give clear notice of the statistics they compile and the depth of individual
knowledge they acquire. Anything less is potentially misleading at best. Oh,
I don't mean to imply anything bad at all about the people running Grex,
based on what I know, but I am concerned with unknown people on system X. 

response 72 of 98:

Jul 17 16:35 UTC 1996

Grex in general logs a lot and keeps the logs a long time.  A lot of people
are tempted to use the anonymity on Grex for illegal purposes, so we feel a
certain level of watchfullness is required to prevent Grex from becoming a
hacker haven and public nuisance on the net.  We do try to be very conscious
of the senstivity of the information we have.  I think we are more
trust-worthy than most places.  If you are really troubled about us logging
the information your give us, give us less information.  Some sophistication
may be required to do this.

They give a "sample of the information they have about you" in that web-page
up there.  Fact of the matter, that's about all they have.  It consists mainly
of (1) information about how you connected to their web-site (that is, you
connected via cyberspace.org).  When you connect over the internet, you
connections can be followed back to you.  It also consists of (2) information
about your browser.  When you make a web connection, you browser pass various
information about its configuration along so that the right data can be sent
back.

The fact that this information exists does not mean that they can easily get
more.

response 74 of 98:

Jul 17 17:08 UTC 1996

If you can convince the party twits to access our Web page, then
maybe we can get something on them.  >8)

Seriously, brighn, the most recent party twits that folks have been
complaining about have been using local dial-ins, which is
nowhere near the same as telnetting in.  To find out where these
people are calling from, we have to deal with Ameritech, we
can't just auto-trace their calls.