Congress repeals broadband privacy rules. Now what?

[Tek7]

So our government has dispensed with even the illusion of consumer privacy by repealing broadband privacy rules.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/congress-sides-cable-and-telephone-industry

I'll save my opinions until I can cool my head a bit.

The more pressing matter is: What do we do about it?

I'll be looking for a reliable, trustworthy VPN service that can work at the router level. (I have DD-WRT firmware installed on my router, which I suspect will make things easier.)

What do you all recommend we do to protect our online privacy now?

 

[CowRocket]

This is going to be weird coming from me. I don't see a problem with it, they have been doing it the whole time. Now its just out in the open. No amount of VPN/security will block them from gathering data. Your best bet is to just go with it. You want to be "private", your going to have to unplug.

I know this is written about in the Bible, but cant think of it. I just woke up.

 

[Tek7]

This is going to be weird coming from me. I don't see a problem with it, they have been doing it the whole time. Now its just out in the open. No amount of VPN/security will block them from gathering data. Your best bet is to just go with it. You want to be "private", your going to have to unplug.

I'm not willing to give up the fight just yet. I'm suffering from breach fatigue just like everybody else, but I feel a responsibility to push back and protect my personal information.

Yet the more I read, the bleaker the situation looks. VPNs are an imperfect solution at best and, depending on service, a gateway for even more severe issues. Opinions vary on which tools and methods are most effective at protecting privacy.

I'll stop typing and backspacing my opinions, but I'd still like to hear from the technically inclined among us regarding options to at least mitigate the decline of privacy in the US.

 

[Atown]

admittedly, there can be some good that can come from this.

Child Pornography (intentional or non-intentional) viewing will be visible and so there is potential for greater capture of individuals that search for that material.

I know ISPs already work on that issue a bit but this gives greater power to do something about it.

I think Google or more so microsoft, may create ways for the web browser to hide or encrypt better and allows for more industry to be created around this niche as well.

I think its also not the end of the story either, but just the beginning of the conversation.

 

[The Mighty Gerbil]

Yup seems like a bad thing but I'm not informed enough to say definitively. Not really sure why ISPs need to be put on equal ground with Google but I'm also not a real fan of the eff.

I will say I am far more alarmed about Obama giving China control of the ICANN, the body that governs domain name registration for the world. I don't like my ISP being able to sell my data but China is far worse and control over the ICANN is farther reaching. Just putting it in perspective, one doesn't make the other acceptable.