Privacy and the Future

1. Privacy and the Future Computer Science 01i Introduction to the Internet Neal Sample 13 February 2001

2. We will talk about... • HTML odds and ends: frames • Privacy on the Internet • Glimpses of the Future

3. Frames • Setting up framesets <frameset border=3 frameborder=1 cols="185,*"> <frame name="nav" src="nav.html"> <frame name="content" src="content.html"> </frameset> • Links inside frames <a href="content.html" target=content>Home</a> • Special Targets: <a href=”replacement.html" target=_new>Link</a>

4. Privacy

5. Privacy on the net • The net was designed for information sharing, not information hiding • Any machine on your local network can see any packet you send • You have no idea which route a packet takes through the network so you have no idea who can read your message • So don’t assume you’re anonymous on the net!

6. Data gathering is easy • Easy to collect information about someone surfing on the net, even without eavesdropping • Techniques include: • Cookies • IP address lookups (DNS) • Just giving it away

7. Cookies • A web site can set a “cookie” that is stored on your machine • Cookies are only sent back to the server that created them, and to any it allows • Stores whatever information it wants there • possibly username and password • whether or not you voted in an online poll • Usually incomprehensible to humans

8. Why cookies? • Imagine if Amazon had to store data about all of its customers at its server • Expensive, hard to manage • Makes customizing webpages easy for the server • Many commerce sites manage your “shopping cart” this way • Convenient for users

9. But cookies can be bad • A website can track your viewing habits • How long you spend at each page • What links you follow • Whether you click through an ad • Can then focus direct marketing to you, or sell your information to someone else • Hard to tell what it is doing • Insecure workstations

10. What can you do? • Do you want a site to know all these things? • Do you care? • Phone and credit card companies know quite a bit about you • But not in the same way • Setting cookies to off/confirm • Not always a good solution, inconvenient

11. The solution: Anonymity • www.anonymizer.com • Other proxies that will disable cookies and substitute their IP address for yours • Some are free: http://www.lne.com/ericm/cookie_jar/

12. Anonymity • Who needs anonymity? • We all do! • Anonymity is a fundamental component of a free society • Crime tips, abuse recovery, political statements, etc.

13. Anonymous Remailers • What if you’re a normal person and want to send anonymous email? • You can do it if you’re a hacker • Easier to just use an anonymous remailer http://www.gilc.org/speech/anonymous/remailer.html

14. Anonymity can be abused • Slander • “Spam” • Threats • Hackers • Criminals

15. Security: the Experts • Most are pretty paranoid • some good reasons to be • but some good reasons not to be • Cyber crime is actually falling in relation to the size of the net • But makes the news • On the other hand, why take chances?

16. Reasonable Rules for Security • Treat email as if it were a conversation in a crowded mall • Likely, no eavesdroppers, but you’re not sure • Use a free email service like yahoo mail for public statements or transactions or online flirting • use slightly different usernames and passwords for everything • they are easier to change or cancel

17. Future

18. Future Connections • Best current home connections? • DSL • Peaks at about 1.5 megabits • Available in limited areas • Can be expensive to install • Cable • Typically peaks at a few hundred kilobits • Limited area • Frequently congested

19. Short Term • Internet over power lines http://technews.netscape.com/news/0-1004-200-1564871-0.html?pt.netscape.fd.hl.ne • Over to 2.5 gigabits • In every home that has power • Probably cheap and well-regulated, like other utilities • Better latency? Not likely.

20. Medium Term • Complete wireless networking • Current models: • Cellular modems • 2 megabit microwave • Interactive satellite television • The real barriers to wireless are cost and control • Compare wireless to cable modems...

21. Long term • Completely thought-free • Do you ever wonder if a house has light switches? • Network interfaces everywhere • You can browse the web on your cell phone. Why not on everything else? • Everything will be wired • Does my toaster NEED to be surfing the web? • http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-201-342358-0.html?st.ne.fd.gif.d

22. How do we search? • Current best search engines can only be as successful as the user’s query allows • Result sets are usually very large, contain lots of irrelevant junk • Lack of information standards make it hard to form comparisons between products, services, etc. • Best? • www.google.com • www.altavista.com

23. How will we search? • Internet “Agents” will find things for us, sometimes before we know we’re looking • Microsoft Assistant (paperclip beast) • We ask the agent a question, then it gives us the right answer • “What is the fastest computer under $1500” • Getting there: • www.askjeeves.com - typing • www.generalmagic.com - talking?! • Now my refrigerator can order more milk

24. Internet education • Many universities doing it, for better or for worse • CS245 at Stanford: • homepage: www.stanford.edu/class/cs245/ • lectures: stanford-online.stanford.edu/courses/ • interaction: you can phone in questions (or email TAs) • Probably only for higher education, at least for a while

25. Internet and non-Internet? • What are the final distinctions? • At what point is something “on” the Internet? • Example: • Are telephones part of the Internet? • Better yet, will the Internet make telephone service obsolete? • www.dialpad.com - free long-distance

26. Conclusions • Only one: The Internet is getting to be like electricity, ubiquitous and “essential” • The rest, we can only speculate on

27. Your Internet Futures • Financial transactions will probably be done more and more electronically. • There will be fewer large internet sites. • The allure of surfing the net is basically over and that will make things difficult once people get settled into a few standard sites. • It will be tough for a new site to become established once a few major sites already have hold. I would predict a consolidation of sites within a particular area.

28. Your Internet Futures • Working for start-ups will become more attractive because these companies will be based on better business models. The strong start-ups will survive, and we will see more of these start-ups as time goes on and more people learn to apply Old Economy management styles and business models to New Economy start-ups on the Web. • The internet has been the largest growing phenomena in the history of man, but nothing can continue to grow at the rate that it has in recent history. It will continue to grow (more users, more businesses, more web-sites etc.) but it will start to slow down.

29. Your Internet Futures • Technology for the internet will only improve at an exponential rate in the near future. This will make things like video, television, radio, video conferencing etc. more common on the internet.

30. Your Internet Futures • Public concern for security will also be addressed with better encryption technology to protect consumers when making purchases, important e-mails, confidential documents etc. • Perhaps to somewhat censor the internet and track the users on the internet, I think that in the future a license to put something on the internet will be required.

31. Your Internet Futures • People will still want to use phones for communication, instead of doing all calls over the internet. • People may become more reclusive due to internet use. fin!