What's In Your ISPs EULA?

Do you know what your Internet Service Provider's End User License Agreement says about activity like this?

Stealthy Government Contractor Monitors U.S. Internet Providers, Worked With Wikileaks Informant

A semi-secret government contractor that calls itself Project Vigilant surfaced at the Defcon security conference Sunday with a series of revelations: that it monitors the traffic of 12 regional Internet service providers, hands much of that information to federal agencies, and encouraged one of its "volunteers," researcher Adrian Lamo, to inform the federal government about the alleged source of a controversial video of civilian deaths in Iraq leaked to whistle-blower site Wikileaks in April.

According to Chet Uber, director of Fort Pierce, Fl.-based Project Vigilant, one of Project Vigilant's manifold methods for gathering intelligence includes collecting information from a dozen regional U.S. Internet service providers (ISPs). Uber declined to name those ISPs, but said that because the companies included a provision allowing them to share users' Internet activities with third parties in their end user license agreements (EULAs), Vigilant was able to legally gather data from those Internet carriers and use it to craft reports for federal agencies. A Vigilant press release says that the organization tracks more than 250 million IP addresses a day and can "develop portfolios on any name, screen name or IP address."

"We don't do anything illegal," says Uber. "If an ISP has a EULA to let us monitor traffic, we can work with them. If they don't, we can't."

Now that is startling.

Thank you for informing me about Project Vigilant.

Other people should hear about this one. Just goes to show ya, we are being watched lol.

Of all the people watching me that sniveling former criminal hacker Adrian Lamo is the last person I want watching ME.

I had one choice for an ISP in this area when I want broadband, and I did NOT have a chance to even READ a EULA that I read a EULA that I recall, and I certainly didn't have a chance to NEGOTIATE one.

EULAs themselves are pieces of crap. IF we were a nation that protected consumers, I don't think they'd stand up. But we aren't - right now our nation's corporations main interest is in screwing people every which way they can.

If they fail to have you read it, you are not bound by it.

You cannot enforce a contract that someone never even knew existed. That is not how contract law works.

And a EULA is just that a "licence agreement".

If you did not ever agree to anything, it's not a valid licence agreement.

It's a scam or fraud at that point. And will never win in court.

reply to post by muzzleflash


that is why all EULAs are presented with a check box " question " that reads something like :

` i have read the EULA and accept its conditions `

and a " yes / no " button - and unless you click yes you get no further

they cannot force you to read it - but they do force you to state that you have

now if you claim to have read something you didnt read - you deserve everything you get

Hmm.. Yeah, but how many people would agree to a EULA knowing it gave some third party private spooks the right to monitor and "profile" everything they do online? How long till these groups start up an extortion and blackmail racket on the side?

I have serious concerns about this for a couple of reasons:
* They don't say which ISPs they are using.
* Corporate entities assume a certain level of discretion from their ISPs, trusting that they do not have to encrypt all traffic point to point because the ISP is not necessarilly going to be watching unless they ask

Let the Net Wars begin.