Casino Hotel Internet Access: Big Brother?

Finn Dog

Finn Dog

Well-Known Member
Here's one for you IBMer's:

When you hook your computer up to the internet in your hotel room, provided by casino you're staying at, can they monitor your emails on Yahoo, see if you've visited sites like this, etc?

Best regards,

FD
 
daddybo

daddybo

Well-Known Member
Finn Dog said:
Here's one for you IBMer's:

When you hook your computer up to the internet in your hotel room, provided by casino you're staying at, can they monitor your emails on Yahoo, see if you've visited sites like this, etc?

Best regards,

FD
Click to expand...
It's possible and not too hard to do... But it would be a violation of several federal statutes to do so. I doubt they want to gamble that much. Do you think one may be doing that?
 
J

johndoe

Well-Known Member
It's trivial to do, but very risky from a PR (and maybe legal) standpoint. To play it safe I either don't use their internet, and just tether (saves $ too), or use VPN, Tor, or something similar.
 
daddybo

daddybo

Well-Known Member
Finn Dog said:
No, just always wondered--now that we're in full-blown Orwellian times.

FD
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LOL... I've wondered occasionally too. I'm More worried about Big Brother than
Big Pitcritters. :laugh: I, like johndoe, do other things to thwart snoops when it's important. :eyepatch:
 
S

shadroch

Well-Known Member
I just assume anything I post on the internet will be read by the worse possible people and post accordingly.
 
W

winr_winr_chicken_dinner!

Well-Known Member
Yep!

When you connect to the internet using someone else's network they have the full capability (and right) of seeing every site you visit in real time, and they can read any email sent received through their network at any given time unless it is encrypted. Encrypted email and secure (https) websites can protect you and sensitive data to some extreme, but if the ISP wants to badly enough, they can see all.

CALEA was passed in 1994 - Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act
and it requires all ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to have equipment/software in place to allow the Feds to monitor internet traffic of any subscriber in real time if they warrant it to be important to law enforcement.

Sooo... can the pit critters see us talking on the chat site? Probably not under CALEA, and most of the hotels don't own their internet service for legal, ethical, and support reasons - forget about the pit critters and surveillance on your internet that way then (not saying a few enterprising individuals may not be above logging in to a chat now and then or visiting a forum or two to see what's going on though...).

On the other hand, if you are suspected by law enforcement of trying to pull a Danny Ocean and you have internet access at the hotel, I would definitely recommend a VPN, anonymous proxy server and some pretty strong encryption because you are probably being watched...
 
JulieCA

JulieCA

Well-Known Member
Finn Dog said:
Here's one for you IBMer's:

When you hook your computer up to the internet in your hotel room, provided by casino you're staying at, can they monitor your emails on Yahoo, see if you've visited sites like this, etc?

Best regards,

FD
Click to expand...
Yes, they can see everywhere you go. I'm not sure how valuable that information is to them. You should be more worried about what Google knows about you.

Besides, I have yet to stay in a casino that didn't charge for their internet access, in spite of the fact that so many hotels now include it.

I have an air card. What I pay for it, I save on not having to pay hotels, casinos, airports and anybody else for access to the internet when I'm not at home. If you travel much and require access to the internet, bring it with you and don't rely on someone else. Then, you only have to worry about what your air card provider knows about your browsing history. :joker:
 
JulieCA

JulieCA

Well-Known Member
Finn Dog said:
Curious about the aforementioned--please fill the Smith Cornona generation in :laugh:.
Click to expand...
Who doesn't use Google?

They know what you search. They know what you click on. They know your buying habits. They know how long you stay on a site, what pages you look at, what links you click on. Even if they only have your IP address (and not your specific name and address, but I wouldn't put that past their data mining capabilities, either), they probably know more about your likes and interests than your family does.

Most web sites use Google Analytics to track traffic and analyze visitor statistics. Then there are Google webmaster tools, which provides even more information. There are probably very few web sites any more that have absolutely no Google tracking of any kind on them. Add in Google advertising, Picasa, Google Groups, Gmail, Blogger, Chrome, Google Desktop, Google Documents, Feedburner and YouTube - more data for Google.

I own multiple domain names and given the level of information they share with me, a webmaster, I can only imagine the amount of information they have stored away in those megaservers in Mountain View and elsewhere that they don't share.
 
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