Slashdot Mirror
Michigan May Outlaw Anonymity Online
John Q .Public writes "The Detroit Free press is reporting in this article attempts by Law enforcement in Wayne County and the Michigan State Legislature to require ISP's doing business there to verify all e-mail addresses with valid phone numbers or credit cards. One free ISP already is willing to log all phone numbers for access by the police." That free ISP is K-Mart's BlueLight.com, which is just, in their words, "being a good corporate citizen." I'm sure they'll be very successful at identifying everyone except the criminals.
I wonder... is this really that much different from someone using an anonymous postal dropbox, and paying cash for it? If the MI police force gets their way, where will it end? I'm simply at a loss for words.
The Misanthropic Bitch has an interesting essay about why laws against child pornography are exactly like 1984 . Unfortunately, I feel that it's nearly impossible to have a civilized discussion about child pornography since emotions tend to run so high on this issue. "We have to do this for the children! Save the children! Won't somebody please think about the children?"
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We have fought the AC's, and they have won.
In other anti-liberal alarmist news: Ban streets! They're used, every day, by child pornographers to seek out underage prostitutes. Even now, as I write this, at least two child prostitutes are being abused via the medium of the public roadway, where they sell their service. Since the new "road" technology was introduced, a couple millennia ago, pedophelia has boomed, adopting the (not particularly informational) "superhighway" as its home. Unless we eliminate all roadways and sidewalks, there'll be no way to stop pedophiles from seeking out new victims. Advocation of free, anonymous access to roads is advocation of pedophelia, itself. Road and Sidewalk licenses will make America a happier, safer society. When the police take your mugshot, finger prints and name every time you walk outside your house, you'll know that your safe from the scourge of pedophelia, that public walkways so readily propagate.
> "These free services can be a haven for child pornographers."
I'm bad at math. Can someone please help me? Have I transcribed a digit wrong in the following equation:
Free e-mail = child pornography
I've done some simple regression analysis based on the above and have derived some more formulas that may be of interest to the population at large. They include:
cars = drunk driving
parents = child abuse
video games = 13-year-old killing machines
Please, spread the word. The math just works!.
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The radius protocol allows the logging of the CSID (calling station ID - your phone number) along with the IP address you are given and your username. This information is sent to the radius servers after you have been authenticated and are connected to a dialup session, and then logged. Collecting and logging this information is the default configuration for most radius servers and NAS's (network access servers - modem pools.)
It is important that most ISP's collect this information because it is the only way to track you down if you are doing something illegal or against their usage policy (such as spam.) We whine about spam enough on slashdot, but the only way for ISP's to cut off the users is to prove from these logs that they were the ones that did it. Yes, this information could be used for more sinister purposes, but so could your phone records, credit card purchases, etc.
Free ISP's have an even tougher time though because if they cut off a spammer, the spammer will just create another free account and continue with their game. The only way to stop this is to require some identifying information from the user so that it is more difficult to create multiple accounts when one is shut down. A credit card is a natural choice because it can be verified.
Once again, the potential for abuse exists, but most ISP's these days also have your credit card information (from when you paid) which they can easily match up with the other information I mentioned previously. So, in the end, is it that different than what is already going on? And what do you expect from a FREE ISP? You need to pay for it somehow, and often that is through your demographic information. If you don't like it, go to another ISP and pay cash, you have a choice.