Privacy Related Internet Sites

• EFF The Electronic Frontier Foundation, includes information on free speech, encryption, privacy, and intellectual property. "The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a non-profit civil liberties organization working in the public interest to protect privacy, free expression, and access to public resources and information online, as well as to promote responsibility in new media."
• EPIC The Electronic Privacy Information Center - a comprehensive and well-established site, inculding late-breaking news and alerts as well as archives.
• Golden Key The Internet Privacy Coalition; supports free availability of strong encryption. News, resources, and alerts.
• Doug Monroe's Privacy Page Credit reports, personal information, medical records, criminal records, and more.
• Privacy Rights Clearinghouse Fact sheets on telemarketing, junk mail, credit reporting, stalkers, medical records, employer intrusions, and more.
• Consumer Project on Technology Pages on Telecommunications Regulation, Intellectual Property, Privacy, and Antitrust Enforcement.
• Vortex The Privacy Forum: privacy in the "information age".
• Fingerprint Fingerprinting, retinal scans, digital signatures, SSANs, and other ways for the government to track you. "Where are your papers?"
• InfoWar Privacy, espionage, terrorism, and the military. Graphics intensive, slow.
• How to Get Rid of Junk Mail, Spam, and Telemarketers What (little) you can do to keep yourself off of mailing lists. Here's the address munging FAQ.
• Consumer Information Organization Telemarketers, Junk E-Mail, and Washington Watch.
• Spam Unwanted Commercial E-mail (UCE), Excessive Multi-Posting (EMP), and Excessive Cross-Posting (ECP or Velveeta)
• JCR Junk E-Mail Site Since nothing else works, legislation is called for. Support the Smith bill, avoid the Murkowski and Torricelli bills. Links to CAUCE
• Junk Fax Law 47 USC Sec. 227 (01/16/96). Some think this might apply to UCE, but nobody has tested that theory in the courts yet.
• Rowan vs. Post Office Department 397 US 728 (1970)
  • Right of postal recipient to be let alone supersedes advertiser's right to communicate
  • "[A] mailer's right to communicate must stop at the mailbox of an unreceptive addressee."
• Cookies can be used to track your activities for telemarketing purposes, but most users don't even know about them.
  • The most prevalent implication against using cookies is privacy. As Privacy Times editor Evan Hendricks states, "Cookies represent a coming effort by organizations to monitor people's interest in their products and services through the covert gathering of personal data without their knowledge and consent."
  • [But], new versions of Netscape and Microsoft Explorer have options to turn off the capability to receive cookies. Therefore, if one deletes the cookie file or activates the option to prevent receiving cookies, very little information will ever be captured from the user.
  • Andy's HTTP Cookie Notes A non-technical explanation with security tips, problems, and links, including one to Netscape's technical specification
  • Cookie Central uses of cookies, cookies and viruses, the dark side, stopping cookies, and a FAQ.
  • Cybersnoops A journalist's take on cookies.
  • Cookies Penn's cookie page, a long list of links with everything you could ask about cookies.
• Chain Letters are illegal; here's what to do:
  • Chain Letters The USPS on chain letters.
  • National Fraud Information Center NFIC helps consumers report fraud and offers helpful advice on how to avoid becoming a victim.
  • 18 USC 1302
  • 18 USC 1341
• Scams
  • Phone Scams Messages telling you to call (809) xxx-xxxx to settle your bill or face litigation can be expensive
  • Employment Scams Including your social security number on your resume can be expensive.
  • The Woodside Literary Agency spams usenet with ads soliciting manuscripts, then demands a "reading fee".
  • Craig Shergold the (no longer) dying boy who wanted to set a record for get-well cards
• Memorable Quotes from EFF A collection of the wittiest and stupidest, most sublime and most inane comments ever said or written about free speech, cryptography, privacy, civil liberties, networking, government, communication, society, human nature, reason, optimism and pessimism, progress, and more.
• Memorable Quotes from UseNet A similar collection posted to UseNet by Giovanni8.
• Question Authority and The Authorities Will Question YOU!
  Perilous Times: Who's Watching Who? Conspiracy theories, Big Brother, employer surveillance.
• And here's the Risks Digest - a compendium of stories about what all can go wrong with computers.
• Finally, the Computer Privacy Digest is a forum for discussion of the effect of technology on privacy.