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U.S. Pressures ISPs on Data Retention

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the because-they-needed-more-to-do dept.

packetmon writes "According to Wired's Declan McCullagh 'In a private meeting with industry representatives, Gonzales, Mueller and other senior members of the Justice Department said Internet service providers should retain subscriber information and network data for two years ... A more extensive mandate would require companies to keep track of e-mail messages sent, Web pages visited and perhaps even instant-messaging correspondents.'"

1 of 221 comments (clear)

  1. Preserving ALL of your data IS possible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative
    I've worked at one startup which actually WILL preserve all of your data. You are misleading people by thinking that there's just too much data to capture. It just isn't so. Furthermore, the technology is here right now to report, in real time, what you are doing.

    If you don't believe me, just look at the technical specs of the device which AT&T is using for the NSA. Also look at packetmotion.com. And, from looking at the job openings at dice.com, there's at least another startup on it's way to do the same thing in this market.

    Right now, they can't keep all of your packet data for two years. But they CAN keep all of your connection data, and tell not only what sites you are connecting to, but also what type of connections you have. It's pretty useful for identifying Kazaa (et. al.) types of connections.

    If you don't believe me, just ask the IT staff at UC Berkeley. They actively pursue this type of snooping on both faculty and students. They, and other Universities, are a preferred testing ground, since they throw such a load at the devices.

    Now, why Universities encourage outside spying on the faculty and students is beyond me. But yes, this stuff is happening right now.

    The current goal for all of these companies is to preserve ALL data for at least two years. They aren't there yet, as the disk space required is extensive. But they CAN do it for shorter periods of time, if one spends the money on filers.

    What's more, it will only be a matter of time before they can preserve this data for at least two years, and longer. There are companies which make use of cheap fast SATA storage for about 1/5 the cost of a NetApp filer. 50 Terabytes is affordable; in 5 years, you're looking at affordable Petabyte storage.

    The point here is that the Government is ahead of the curve, as they know it's only a matter of time before the disk storage required to keep all data is afforable. So they want this snooping in there now, as it will be a lot easiler to mandate that ISP's keep ALL data once they have these hooks in place.

    So please quit misleading people into thinking that there's too much data. Snooping, reporting and storing this stuff is possible now, and is only going to get easier and cheaper in the near future.