Get paranoid: Your ISP knows too much

analysis
Aug 27, 20072 mins

Reason No. 4: Detailed logs. Of everything you've ever done online

If you think Google knows more about you than your parents do, imagine the kind of dope your ISP could drop if pushed to give up the goods.

“We are more trusting of ISPs than we should be,” says Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute. “You may not be able to see it, but there’s a big stream of data going out of your house through your ISP. It’s foolish to rely on ISPs to protect us from their own interests or the government’s interests in us.”

And it’s that second party’s interests that send the deepest shivers down most folks’ spines.

“I’ve even heard stories that some ISPs are reselling anonymous data about their traffic,” Harper adds. “Won’t that suck if we find out the anonymized data they’ve been selling can be de-anonymized and re-identified.”

Can you trust your ISP? Don’t be so sure.

[ Paranoia index | Reason No. 3: The Feds are on your tail ]