Slashdot Mirror
Law Requires Italian Web Cafes to Record ID
Armadni General writes "CNN is reporting that a new Italian law requires that all businesses offering public internet access, such as web cafes, to identify and record all customers. While supporters of this law trumpet its anti-terrorism potential, still others see no such advantage and bemoan this invasion of personal privacy. 'They must be able, if necessary, to track the sites visited by their clients. [...] Contents of people's e-mail is, however, supposed to remain private and can only be made available to law enforcement through a court order. Italy also obliges telecommunications companies to keep traffic data and European ministers agreed last week to require the carriers to retain records of calls and e-mails for a maximum of two years. The European Parliament's two largest groups endorsed the data retention initiative on Wednesday despite complaints from privacy advocates and telecoms, and the full body is expected to adopt a bill next week.'"
If the cops really think that ID should be required, why aren't they stepping up and doing something more effective, such as a computer login or swipecard?
Good luck securing all the open wireless access points by law enforcement.
But probably the ones with open WLANs wil be 'guilty' of anything accused. Someone simply *has* to go to jail!
Perhaps one or two virus authors could have been caught. Maybe, and then probably not. But today, with all those open wireless networks, the law is pointless. It only affects the poorest people, those who need email, or are trying to find a job online, but don't have a computer at home.
It seems to have an out of proportion effect on our lives for the damage it currently causes. This is not to belittle the victims, but we are letting something that has miniscule effect on the populace as a whole CONTROL US.
Or at least let the politicians control us through FUD. Any politician that utters the word "terrorism" along with a bill that they think "needs" to get passed to "protect" us should be voted out ASAP anyway.
But imagine if nations like the US spent their kind of anti-terrorism money on, something basic, like national healthcare. Would that have saved or benefited more lives than "fighting the war on terrorism?"
The more I see of this creeping fascism the more I realise that technology has got some people VERY frightened.
Enabling technology is exploding exponentially on a global scale. For example a friend of mine just came back from VSO in Africa where they are rolling out net technology at an alarming rate, no constraints, no restrictions, no government oversight. It's the last frontier, there's still always somewhere to run and take your economic power with you. When utterly impractical, unenforceable, stifling measures are being taken it's a sign of desperation. And it raises the not so obvious question, who really benefits? Since we all know the terrorist threat is bogus (come on snap out of that denial) one has to wonder exactly what the frightened people are tring to protect. With companies like Sony their desperation is clearly to protect their existing broken business. But what about this ID nonsense? Can it be that there is an "ID industry" that has any potential for profit? I doubt it. So who is holding governments hostage with fear? We always knew that technology would be a 'leveller', but I guess we missed the real reason why this would be. It isn't that developing countries would catch up, but rather that our own developed world would sink and suffocate under the red tape neccessary for the status quo to retain their corrupt power.
China must be very fascistic (sic) then... oh too bad it's communist! What a tool...
Well actually, you're right: China is a capitalist economy run by a fascist government. In short, it's a dictatorship open to business. China has seized to be communist (or at least stopped trying to become a true communist country) many years ago.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Don't know about you folks, but to enter the library in C.U.N.Y. you had to show valid ID. That part of the "law" does not really worry me, since good terrorists will have fake Id in any case it won't hamper their activities that way. Those in country illegally for non-terror activities will be severly hampered, but that is another issue entirely. The real story is tracking your electronic communication. We know that if done right, this con help track those that are using the internet for subversive intententions such as for kidnapping, bombings and... distribution of music files :)
At some level the ability to be able to track such activity and use it by linking it with to people that were in the internet cafe at the time is quite desirable, especially after part of your neighbourhood gets destroyed and it comes to light that those responsible used various internet technologies in public places to plan, fund and implement it. However, its going to be a lot of information to be stored and looked over to find patterns of information, etc. Who is going to do that? A beaucracy who has problems gettingout from under its own feet, or a privately contracted firm (with individuals who have interests in sharing such information secretly with others)?
This is a mess logistically, and they should know it. It sounds good at one level, but how many petabytes of info are going to be generated and scanned? They might as well just use Carnivore or whatever the USA uses and be done with it... as if it will really help before an attack, or to catch the person who really came up with the idea of the attack... or the bankers or "charitable organisations" from whom the funds came.
For every present, there is a past
This law has been around for at least one year, possibly more.
It got passed after a terrorist group who killed two Italian senior civil servants (Marco Biagi in 2002 and Massimo d'Antona in 1999) used an internet cafe at the Rome main train station to send messages to Italian newspapers claiming responsibility for the assassinations.
Generally, this law was ignored, partly because the terrorists mentioned above (the last survivors of the Red Brigades, a major communist group thoroughly defeated during the eighties) were quickly rounded up and arrested.
But when it turned out that the Islamic terrorists responsible for the 2004 Atocha Station bombing in Spain (over 200 dead) also used internet cafe's to co-ordinate their actions, policemen started to go round internet cafe's threatening them with closure and prosecution if they did not keep records of the people visiting them.
Needless to say, this law is completely useless. If you want to preserve your anonimity when in Italy, go to the smaller places. Most do not bother checking your ID card and have no CCTV, contrary to the big places (which are usually run by Telecom Italia). But make sure you have a Knoppix bootdisc because very few use any antivirus and their PC are full of malware.
Sadly, my country is not famous for its respect of civil liberties. The state and the police often abuse their power and do not miss the opportunity offered by someone abusing the system to further extend their powers to intrude into people's privacy.
And instead of protesting and ask for a more just society, people take the easy route and try to get around the law whenever possible. It's all screwed up.
After recording your information you get a plastic card (the chain of cafes in question is Internet Train). With this card I can surf away at any Internet Train in Italy. And how exactly does that thwart terrorism?
For starters: I didn't try to read the magnetic stripe, which can be done with any 30$card reader, but I can't imagine that it's very hard to make sense of it and alter it appropriately. But I wouldn't even have to be technically savvy. I could just pay a junkie 20 Euros that he obtains such a card. The card can be lost or stolen and how exactly do you monitor such a vast amount of data?
Italy is turning into a nation of fucking Fascists under Berlusconi and it ain't a pleasent sight.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
I agree that if this or similar laws are effectively enacted and enforced, we're pretty much done for.
However, I'm afraid there's not necessarily a need for further trusted computing initiatives in order for the big telcos to make a buck out of this legislation. Right now in Italy and many other places, if you sign up for regular Internet service, you're asked to identify yourself for billing purposes. Throw in a little bit more data at sign up, such as the serial number of your ID card, passport or driver's license and you might actually fall within the law's requirements.
If they ask you for this kind of ID proof, the big telcos may entice you to sign up for their wireless plans, and grant that you're a registered user whenever you connect to their APs. Thus, they can actually pass on the message that you may only have legal WLAN access around town if you sign up for paid access, because after sign up they can claim they checked your ID at sign up. The law doesn't mention the very simple fact that you could lose/lend your account to someone else or use someone else's ID to register - who's going to check the serial numbers? Only the police can, and will they build the infrastructure to do that in real time? Don't think so. So it's not a real security measure, it's just propaganda ("No illegal immigrants on the 'Net, here!") plus a big push for large-scale wireless operations by the big (or at least, commercial) ISPs.
But what about the small guys? Or the non-ISP entities (local authorities, educational, shops offering free Internet)? They won't be able to afford the cost of ID checks, not even at sign up, and/or users won't bother with registration. They will either be kicked out of the "market" (i.e., won't be able to offer free Internet on their own), or will be forced to sign up for WLAN offerings by big telcos.
This could be the end of the small-scale, free Internet access that is making the US ever more connected in universities and public venues -- and before the ubiquitous wireless phenomenon has even started in Italy!
will be subverted, in time and to varying degrees. The Internet is no exception.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
>Think about this for a second.
I have been thinking about this for many years.
>So you want to go into a private business, rent computer time and an internet
>connection, conduct whatever behavior you want on their systems and then leave, totally
>anonymously,
Yes, that is exactly what I want. And I let other do the same on my connection.
>with no accountability for what you did on their systems?
I am always responsible for what I do. That does not mean that I want everything I do recorded.
I also want to go into a bar or hotel room without being recorded by hidden microphones.
Still not getting the pattern... soon, open networks will be illegal. Very soon.
Terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, the answer to ever dictator's dream for total control of a free society. When they were using Russia as an excuse, they used nukes and communism as the basis for militarizing "the free world". That's out the window, now, and even tho China is technically communist, they are the nation principally funding our tax cuts, so we can't use them as the boogieman. They own us. Now, it's an eternal war against a common noun that by definition is unwinnable. How do you defeat "terror"? To keep the war going, all our new masters have to do is go "wooga wooga wooga" and everyone handcuffs themselves to a railing and tip off the new lords about all the suspicious brown people they've noticed.
1938.