View Single Post
  #1  
Old June 16th 08, 04:54 PM posted to rec.aviation.piloting
Larry Dighera
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,953
Default Sign Up to Receive NASA Flight Safety Newsletter E-mail, Surrender Your Privacy


Sign Up to Receive NASA Flight Safety Newsletter E-mail, Surrender
Your Privacy

Hey, at first glance it looks like NASA/ASRS are moving into the 21st
century by distributing their newsletter via e-mail:

ASRS CALLBACK GOES ONLINE
(http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#198111)
The NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) has gone online.
Now from the ASRS website, pilots can receive CALLBACK in their
inbox by signing up online
(http://visitor.constantcontact.com/e...73741327&p=oi).
The monthly safety bulletin includes excerpts from ASRS incident
reports with supporting commentary as well as occasional research
studies and aviation safety information. The ASRS website
(http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/) also offers an online database and
Electronic Report Submission portal that accepted 45,000 reports
from pilots, controllers, mechanics and flight attendants last
year.


But then things get a little murkier:

Email Privacy Policy
http://ui.constantcontact.com/roving...vacyPolicy.jsp
Use of Web Beacons

When we send you emails, we may include a web beacon to allow us
to determine the number of people who open our emails. When you
click on a link in an email, we may record this individual
response to allow us to customize our offerings to you. Web
beacons collect only limited information, such as a cookie
identifier, time and date of a page being viewed, and a
description of the page on which the Web Beacon resides (the URL).

Web Beacons can be refused when delivered via email. If you do not
wish to receive Web Beacons via email, you will need to disable
HTML images or refuse HTML (select Text only) emails via your
email software.

Why would ASRS, the folks that offer ananymity to pilots reporting
deviations from federal regulations, elect to collect data on the
readers of their e-mial newsletter?

Well, at least it's possible to opt-out of NASA's e-mail tracking by
not visiting the URLs in their newsletter, but that may require users
to reconfigure their e-mail client software (MS Outlook,...) so that
it doesn't support HTML content.

This appears to be the firm providing NASA with e-mial tracking data:

http://www.constantcontact.com/index.jsp
Look what you can do today!
With Email Marketing & Online Surveys.

Whether you're looking to send an email newsletter, a high-impact
email promotion, an email event invitation, an online survey, or
build your email list, discover how Constant Contact can help you
get it done.

Email Marketing and Online Surveys from Constant Contact make it
easy and affordable for you to connect with your customers or
members.

With SpeakUp! Email Marketing you can:

* Get started fast with customizable HTML email templates
* Create email campaigns in a snap with our easy-to-use Email
Wizard
* Build, manage, and secure your email marketing contacts
* Send email marketing communications and be confident they'll
get delivered
* Get results fast with instant tracking and reporting
* Extend the life of your email marketing when you add Email
Archive


Personally, I'll stick with reading Callback on-line:

http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/publications/callback.html


Or not:

http://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html
NASA never collects information for commercial marketing. We will
only share your information with another government agency if it
relates to that agency, or as otherwise required by law. NASA
never creates individual profiles or gives your information to any
private organization.

Automatically Collected Information

We collect and temporarily store certain technical information
about your visit for use in site management and security purposes.
This information includes:

1. The Internet domain from which you access our Web site (for
example, "xcompany.com" if you use a private Internet access
account, or "yourschool.edu" if you connect from an educational
domain);
2. The IP address (a unique number for each computer connected
to the Internet) from which you access our Web site;
3. The type of browser (e.g., Netscape, Internet Explorer) used
to access our site;
4. The operating system (Windows, Unix) used to access our
site;
5. The date and time you access our site;
6. The URLs of the pages you visit;
7. Your username, if it was used to log in to the Web site; and
8. If you visited this NASA Web site from another Web site, the
URL of the forwarding site.

This information is only used to help us make our site more useful
for you. With this data we learn about the number of visitors to
our site and the types of technology our visitors use.

Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, no attempts
are made to identify individual users or their usage habits. Raw
data logs are retained temporarily as required for security and
site management purposes only.

Information Collected for Tracking and Customization (Cookies)
....


NASA Officials for Privacy Related Matters

NASA Senior Agency Official for Privacy
Jonathan Q. Pettus (Acting)
Chief Information Officer

NASA Agency Privacy Act Officer
Patti F. Stockman
NASA Privacy Act Officer
NASA Office of the Chief Information Officer
NASA Headquarters
Washington, DC 20546-0001

Contact: 202-358-4787
Email:

Date of publication: March, 2007.


Another choice:

http://www.youhide.com/
Anonymous proxy server is a routing communications between your
computer and the Internet that can hide or mask your unique
address to prevent unauthorized access to your computer over the
Internet. An address is your computer's digital ID while you are
online. By masking this, it helps pervent other web sites that can
gain access and gather personal information about you through your
unique address. Any anonymous proxy server can diquise your online
ID by using its own address in place of yours in every outgoing
request. Therefore, helping protect your privacy while you are
online.