Posted on 01/27/2008 7:57:54 AM PST by holymoly
Discussions about Google's plan to buy DoubleClick raised the question whether an IP address is legally private.
Europe's top data protection officials are working to clarify a grey area of Internet law: the legal status of an Internet Protocol (IP) address.
The question of whether an IP address should be considered private data occupied much time at a hearing last week at the European Parliament regarding Google's planned acquisition of DoubleClick. If a person can be identified by an IP address, then the address is private, said Peter Schaar, the German data protection commissioner and chairman of the Europe-wide privacy group, the Article 29 Committee.
(Excerpt) Read more at pcworld.com ...
See also: “IP addresses are personal date, EU regulator says”: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1957585/posts
To my mind, it’s the hardware address that, if anything, should be considered private.
I hope this was a lucky guess—because you hit me spot on! Are you peeping in my windows? LOL!
When you connect to the internet from your home computer / network, you are most commonly given a temporary address that can and sometimes is, reused by the ISP, after you are finished with your session and log out.
This is very much like renting a car. Do you have an expectation of privacy when using Hertz’s car on the public highway?
All ur IP are belong to us!!!
;o)
Try to see if you can hack into my machine and delete all my data!
Warning: some strong language but funny as heck!
I know that. But it's the one truly unique thing that identifies your computer. An IP address can be from a single pool of NAT addresses that can be dynamically assigned, and not unique to any particular host device.
A single machine can have multiple IP addresses ... it is not unique.
Wrong IP
Wrong ISP
Right OS
Right Browser
Wrong City
‘95 - ‘00 Joined Cisco Systems as a network engineer.
:-)
I knew that CCIE would pay off sooner or later.
Yeah, if something is _broadcast_ then it is not private.
You can also change the MAC address of any Ethernet interface by issuing the correct control command to the chip.
Every ethernet chip has a “BIA” (burned in address) and the MAC address that it is using now, which in most cases is the BIA.
Back in the days of DECnet, no ethernet device on a DECnet network used its BIA. They all were set to a MAC derived from the area.node DECnet level 3 address.
Everyone forgets that you can change your Ethernet MAC addresses today, because the protocols that used to change the MAC address to match the level 3 configuration are no longer in wide use.
You said — “Warning: some strong language but funny as heck!”
Yup..., hacked himself into oblivion... LOL!
Regards,
Star Traveler
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