Research Paper: Privacy after Sept 11 and the internet

Well, at this time in the year my class is doing research essays. Semi-free-topic, and I chose privacy rights, particularly (although not exclusively) in relation to the internet, and I was wondering if you guys could help me brainstorm anything else I'm missing from my 'list-of-things-to-think-about'.

1. New Bills/Acts from our beloved government (Patriot act, DCMA, etc.)
2. Online marketers and how they are using information (Abused cookies, Spyware)
3. Governmental proposals (Easier wiretaps, "Magic Lantern", etc.)
4. TEMPEST

And a few other minor half-vague areas. At any rate, I have to do some research, and think on what should be done, perhaps justifying it philosophically. I was just curious as to what you guys perceived as the real hot-spots to take a look at. This might sort of border on copyright issues and personal use etc, but I don't think it'll overlap that much.

I think that pretty much sums it up. Especially that first point

1 .New Bills/Acts from our beloved government (Patriot act, DCMA, etc.)


You could write a paper on that one alone and it would keep you busy for months.....longer!



(I assume under that first point you'll be covering topics such as Carnivore and Magic Lantern?)...

What about that new Gun Owning/Dell thing....?

Could be of some intrest eh? :)

I agree with Conf1rm3d_K1ll. You could write a whole paper on the first point alone. If it was me, that's what I'd focus on. The following questions might be worth asking:

What level of privacy can people reasonably expect?
Are the changes in legislation an effetive solution with regards to the campaign against terrorism?
If not what are some better recommendations?

Just my 2 cents :).

Yeah, I know... just... <shrug> Brainstorming. Take a brain, a thunderstorm, and wash well. Some of my other ideas for topics were pretty (comparatively) obscure, cheating in online games, open source feasibility in the marketplace, video games and violence...

FBI/CIA: Wah wah wah, cryptography is bad! We could have caught these villians (we didn't know about them) before they did it if only you people weren't so unwilling to let us look at your underwear at all times of the day or night!
Later News: No crypto was used by the terrorists at all. And they weren't stopped.

don't forget about clintons 'intelligent transportion system'. meant to monitor internal security on our nations hyways. This has been sold to the general public as way to help eleviate congestion and packaged under the name 'ez-pass'. rf transcievers are being used until an effective way is found to 'read' license plates, which was the original plan.
after that a record will be kept of everyones travels.

Hmm... Perhaps a car case-mod is in order... Forget those wimpy windows in the chassis and the hard drives, or the cathode lights... Let's put a nice little retractable black metal cover over out license-plates, eh? Just press this button on your dash...

Seriously though, I think that would definitely be a privacy invasion. The "real" criminals would most likely get a cheap-but-works-from-a-distance replacement plate.

Terr,

One additional aspect to think about is the change in US "jurisdiction" definition in the PATRIOT act and such.

It used to be that, for a computer crime to fall under US jurisdiction, either the culprit, or the victim or the server had to be on US territory. However, with the change in law, if one or more packets used for this crime TRANSIST through the US (which is not difficult in view of the shape of the Internet), it becomes a crime that falls under US jurisdiction.

As an example, suppose that a Dutch cracker steals a password from a Thai company through the use of a server located in South Africa, chances are very high that his communications will transit the US. This makes him punishable by US law in a US court.

Does it make sense? Not to me ...

Cheers,

BrainStop

Echelon, need I say more? :)

Terr: Any chance of you letting the world see the final copy when your done? I know that I (as well as a few other people) would be interested to see how you go :).