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DOJ Wants ISPs to Log User Traffic UPDATED

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the call-your-congressman dept.

Anonymous Coward writes "Kevin Poulson writes in an article in SecurityFocus that in an early draft of the White House's "National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace", the DOJ proposes that the US enact European style 'data retention' laws, which force ISPs to log and retain all of your email headers, as well as your Web browsing history." Nothing worse for the DOJ to be upstaged by Europe in oppressive lawmaking, they must feel like they're losing their edge. Update: 06/19 23:04 GMT by M : The SecurityFocus article has been updated with this note, saying that the U.S. denies having any plans for data-retention laws. Guess we'll have to wait until the plan is released to see.

4 of 335 comments (clear)

  1. A Replacement for C++ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Hello Gentlemen,

    I'm a first year programming student at an Ivy League school and I've just finished my Visual Basic classes. This term I'll be moving onto C++. However I've noticed some issues with C++ that I'd like to discuss with the rest of the programming community. Please do not think of me as being technically ignorant. In addition to VB, I am very skilled at HTML programming, one of the most challenging languages out there!

    C++ is based on a concept known as Object Oriented Programming. In this style of programming (also known as OOPS in the coding community) a programmer builds "objects" or "glasses" out of his code, and then manipulates these "glasses". Since I'm assuming that you, dear reader, are as skilled at programming as I am, I'll skip further explanation of these "glasses".

    Please allow me to make a brief aside here and discuss the origins C++ for a moment. My research shows that this language is one of the oldest languages in existance, pre-dating even assembly! It was created in the early 70s when AT&T began looking for a new language to write BSD, its Unix Operation System (later on, other companies would "borrow" the BSD source code to build both Solaris and Linux!) Interestingly, the name C++ is a pun by the creator of the language. When the first beta was released, it was remarked that the language would be graded as a C+, because of how hideously complex and unwieldy it was. The extra plus was tacked on during a later release when some of these issues were fixed. The language would still be graded a C, but it was the highest C possible! Truly a clever name for this language.

    Back to the topic on hand, I feel that C++ - despite its flaws - has been a very valuable tool to the world of computers. Unfortunately its starting to show its age, and I feel that it should be retired as COBOL, ADA and Smalltalk seem to have been. Recently I've become aquainted with another language that's quite recently been developed. Its one that promises to greatly simplify programming. This new language is called C.

    Although syntactically borrowing a great deal from its predecessor C++, C greatly simplifies things (thus its name, which hints at its simpler nature by striping off the klunky double-pluses.) Its biggest strength is that it abandons an OOPS-style of programming. No more awkward "objects" or "glasses". Instead C uses what are called structs. Vaguely similiar to a C++ "glass", a struct does away with anachronisms like inheiritance, namespaces and the whole private/public/protected/friend access issues of its variables and routines. By freeing the programmer from the requirement to juggle all these issues, the coder can focus on implementing his algorithm and rapidly developing his application.

    While C lacks the speed and robustness of C++, I think these are petty issues. Given the speed of modern computers, the relative sluggishness of C shouldn't be an issue. Robustness and stability will occur as C becomes more pervasive amongst the programming community and it becomes more fine-tuned. Eventually C should have stablity rivalling that of C++.

    I'm hoping to see C adopted as the de facto standard of programming. Based on what I've learned of this language, the future seems very bright indeed for C! Eventually, many years from now, perhaps we'll even see an operating system coded in this langauage.

    Thank you for your time. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

    Egg Troll

  2. fp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    first post aww yea

  3. In other words: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    ISPs wanted to derail this thing even if it is not being planned. Their loud complaint leads to immediate denials, and now it is unlikely (though not impossible) that such a thing could be forced on them.

  4. Windows XP much easier/better than Linux - 0003 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic


    Buy computer from walmart with mandrake installed.
    Buy another computer from walmart with Windows XP installed.
    Buy a nice PDA, Palm or PocketPC.

    Now, plug in PDA to Windows XP box. Xp finds new hardware asks for the pda's cd and everything is installed for you
    Now, plug in PDA to Linux Box. Nothing Happens. Press the sync button, oh oh your computer turned off.

    Windows XP once again much easier to use than Linux.