Personal IP Address?

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Watching an news bit on the Vizio data-mining efforts where they track your viewing habits and combine those data with other data from other snoopers and sell them to advertisers and so on. On the one hand clearly invasive but on the other don't we expect that and haven't we basically accepted it?

OK that's a different point. My point is this: how much difference is there between your IP address and your name?

Obviously if you are part of a family or some other shared living arrangement, there is a difference. But while your IP may not be uniquely tied to your name, it's still pretty accurate as a "family" name. You and your dormitory roommate may not be linked by blood, but in many ways you are functioning as a family, so it isn't all that far off even when we aren't talking about a traditional family.

So what if we made internet access a "right" and everybody got a unique IP address that they kept for life unless changed by law.

Benefits? Problems? I mean if we are already being treated that way, why not formalize it?

How would it work? I don't know. Think of your checking account (if you still use such things). Your check has 2 routing numbers - one for the bank, one for your account. I imagine that sort of thing in other arenas. You would have an IP address. When connected, your total "name" would be a concatenation of the ISP IP address and yours. The first part of that might change as you move from home to Starbucks, but the last part uniquely identifies you. You could bank by IP, vote by IP, shop by IP, file taxes by IP, and so on.

I know the common reaction will be negative. But we're heading that way. So maybe we should think about taking control of the process.

 

[The Tradition]

Watching an news bit on the Vizio data-mining efforts where they track your viewing habits and combine those data with other data from other snoopers and sell them to advertisers and so on. On the one hand clearly invasive but on the other don't we expect that and haven't we basically accepted it?

OK that's a different point. My point is this: how much difference is there between your IP address and your name?

Obviously if you are part of a family or some other shared living arrangement, there is a difference. But while your IP may not be uniquely tied to your name, it's still pretty accurate as a "family" name. You and your dormitory roommate may not be linked by blood, but in many ways you are functioning as a family, so it isn't all that far off even when we aren't talking about a traditional family.

So what if we made internet access a "right" and everybody got a unique IP address that they kept for life unless changed by law.

Benefits? Problems? I mean if we are already being treated that way, why not formalize it?

How would it work? I don't know. Think of your checking account (if you still use such things). Your check has 2 routing numbers - one for the bank, one for your account. I imagine that sort of thing in other arenas. You would have an IP address. When connected, your total "name" would be a concatenation of the ISP IP address and yours. The first part of that might change as you move from home to Starbucks, but the last part uniquely identifies you. You could bank by IP, vote by IP, shop by IP, file taxes by IP, and so on.

I know the common reaction will be negative. But we're heading that way. So maybe we should think about taking control of the process.

I can think of one problem. There are times when you'd like to change your provider. Would you be able to keep your IP address, like how you can keep your cell phone number? And what if you'd like to change your name? Are you allowed to do that?

 

[KitingHigh]

Why?

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Why?

It's sort of happening. But it's happening only to benefit those who are snooping on us. I'm not sure we can stop that even if we want to, but maybe we can make it more beneficial to us as individuals if we take control of it and demand that we also benefit.

 

[gusto79]

Would some sort of single sign on be easier then redoing how networking works?

 

[moral_victory]

With how many devices are used per person now each person would need a subnet to prevent IP address conflicts. I would think that a /27 or /28 would work.

Or maybe you register new MAC addresses on the government and corporate overlords databases to get internet data mining usage access.

 

[KitingHigh]

It's sort of happening. But it's happening only to benefit those who are snooping on us. I'm not sure we can stop that even if we want to, but maybe we can make it more beneficial to us as individuals if we take control of it and demand that we also benefit.

What's the benefit?