Telcos crammed 8.5m fake comments against net neutrality into FCC's inbox

Broadband companies in 2017 launched an $8.2m campaign to repeal America's net neutrality rules that spent $4.2m to sway policymakers with millions of fake comments. But only their hired guns are being held accountable. Net neutrality, the proposition that broadband service providers should handle internet traffic without bias …

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, ya know, just issue people a government digital ID?

We could just play catch-up to Estonia and issue people a modern digital ID. We're talking about a few hundred million records, so it's not like we'd be building a massive piece of infrastructure here. It might take a bit to fill it up, but it would be a great excuse to fix the RealID fiasco at the same time.

People already have IDs and accounts at the state level, in the passport database, and social security, so it's not like this is a green field deployment either. Not a trivial undertaking either, but with a federated ID provider a bunch of problems, including more accurate survey data and direct democracy efforts like the one mentioned in the article become very reachable. Tough to face a RfC post when you have to crack a MfA token, and the owner gets a push notification their account signed into the FCC portal while they were on the can.

This won't fix access or equity issues, but it's a start, and a glaringly missing piece of the puzzle at present. Instead we let lobbyists from, you guessed it, Facebook and Google block efforts to do so in the hope they could provide (and control) those services themselves.

[Blackjack]

Re: Or, ya know, just issue people a government digital ID?

USA the country that insists on not having a National ID Card while also using extremely unsafe Social Security Card Numbers as a National ID Card.

[ecofeco]

Re: Or, ya know, just issue people a government digital ID?

Nailed it.

[Imhotep]

Re: Or, ya know, just issue people a government digital ID?

Social Security cards aren't supposed to used as ID cards. But, of course, they are.

Other cards used for identification, such as driver licenses, are generally issued by the individual states.

[Imhotep]

Re: Or, ya know, just issue people a government digital ID?

No, it doesn't mean that at all. A driver license was just provided as one example of the 'other' types of IDs issued at the state level.

[rcxb]

Re: Or, ya know, just issue people a government digital ID?

Schools typically issue student IDs to everyone, which are rather universally accepted as valid ID for minors.

Adults (old enough to drive) can get a cheap state photo ID without the driving test, typically through the same process, if desired.

[Headley_Grange]

Re: Or, ya know, just issue people a government digital ID?

In the UK a gas bill will do.

[Snake]

Re: National ID

There won't be a national-level ID card because [one part of our electorate] has been told to never, never trust government.

Trust Big Business, but never government. Just vote for *our* candidates...but never trust government.

Government will only embed the ID chips in your skull while you sleep and pre-crime your (wholesome Midwestern family value) thoughts! It's a conspiracy to convert you over to those evil, vile and psychotic liberals! Jesus never wants liberal values (just because he helped the poor and ostracized, railed against the rich and rejected material wealth...)!!

[martinusher]

Re: National ID

>There won't be a national-level ID card

Got a "Real ID" compliant driver's license? That's a Federal ID card, each license has got a unique "document number on it". That's your Citizen ID.

Of course, you don't have to get a Real ID compliant driver's license. Just don't expect to fly anywhere or enter any Federal property without additional ID such as a passport.

(BTW -- Embedding stuff in a person is so last century. Facial recognition is only the tip of the universal ID iceberg -- there's plenty of additional non-contact techniques that can be used to identify you.)

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: National ID

there's plenty of additional non-contact techniques that can be used to identify you

https://www.theregister.com/2004/12/14/alt_biometrics/

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Or, ya know, just issue people a government digital ID?

> [ ... ] extremely unsafe Social Security Card Numbers as a National ID Card.

And if we create National ID cards, how would we make a National ID Identifier safer than a Social Security Number?

Let's assume we do create such a National ID Card. Instantly, it becomes a form of PII. And it reduces to the same problem: any form of PII that can be used for illegitimate profit is a desirable and sought-after asset for miscreants.

Now we have two PII Identifiers to deal with, with all the associated risks and drawbacks, while not being any safer from abuse.

OK, let's increase the complexity: let's say now you need both Identifiers to get a credit card or apply for a loan or a mortgage, or some such. Some sort of Personal 2FA.

How difficult would it be for the "bad guys" to obtain both Identifiers and cross-reference them?

The moment one is required to enter both Identifiers into some website running on a misconfigured AWS instance, that someone is at risk of having their PII spilled on the Internet for everyone to peruse and profit.

The fundamental problem in the US is that the penalties for failing to safeguard PII are a joke, and that grey or black market trading of PII is, in reality, silently encouraged.

Remember Equifax? The CEO sold his shares before the leak was disclosed, and he left his cushy job with a golden parachute.

[Trigonoceps occipitalis]

Re: Or, ya know, just issue people a government digital ID?

During WW II the UK issued a national ID card and it was an offence not to produce it when requested by a person in "authority", police, military etc. In 1954(?) someone refused to produce and his conviction at the magistrate's court (summary justice) was appealed to the House of Lords (now The Supreme Court) who basically said that the needs of a war were not applicable in peace.

I wonder if a Covid Vac Cert that morphs into a form of national ID, de jure or de facto, will have the same problem?

[Imhotep]

ROI

$ 4.2 million for 8.5 million bogus comments versus one college student with 7.5 million.

One more student would have turned it around.

[JassMan]

Re: ROI

$ 4.2 million for 8.5 million bogus comments versus one college student with 7.5 million.

They should demand their money back. They could have got the student and one of his mates to be on their side for just the cost of a years worth of pizzas.

[Jim Mitchell]

Re: ROI

I'd insist on pizza and beer, not just pizza.

[Alan Brown]

Re: ROI

8.5 million bogus comments using identity theft vs 7.5 million using simple fake identities

This rabbit hole goes pretty deep

[ecofeco]

To badly paraphrase...

Cyber-war is hell.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, will the people involved be arrested for identity theft?

Hello? Can amyone hear me?

[David Roberts]

Confirm email address?

When joining most online sites, purchasing or fora, you are asked to confirm your email address by responding to an email.

I assume that this simple measure was considered too complicated?

Or perhaps too limiting?

Of course, automated generation of emails from a small number of privately owned domains gives the chance to automate the confirmation, but that might look suspicious.

Although suspicious doesn't seem to be a factor here.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Confirm email address?

I think you mistake the point of the exercise.

Pai already knew what he was going to do – he had his instructions from his bosses at Verizon. The whole public-comment process was just a show to make it appear some sort of deliberation had taken place. As such, it was useful to have a large volume of comments, but not at all important that they be genuine.