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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.'"

4 of 221 comments (clear)

  1. Do they realize the scope? by mentatultima · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Considering that more email is generated every year then snail mail; nevermind that just logs alone can overflow hard drives (happened to quite a few systems I encountered). Not even counting the privacy considerations this will create traffic jams and increased costs for internet usage (The extra hard drive space has to come from somewhere).

    Not to mention that all that extra has to be pored through. The FBI had gotten information on a case from homeland security, unfortunately they did not parse it down and the FBI agents lamented that they spent a majority of time chasing down pizza deliverys instead of spending more time on the actual case.

    Image the uproar when (not if) a cracker gets into the database and abuses all that information.

    The information gathered from users can also be used(abused) for blackmailing.

    You might be asked to testify against someone, if not then well your employer and spouse might accidently find out about your surfing habits.

    All in all, this sounds like a lose-lose situation for almost all involved.

  2. Constitutional Amendments? by Threni · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sadly I'm not American, but this seems like the sort of thing that would be pretty early on in the list of rights you guys have - freedom of speech, not incriminate yourselfs in court etc - so is there any possibility that you could have a new amendment - the right to have private communication with people without having to tell - or without the carrier having to tell - the government? It sounds a bit much to me.

    Also, from a technical point of view, why isn't Linux and other Open Source software using encryption by default? If emails are hard to encrypt as a matter of course, perhaps it's time for another system which handles messages strongly encrypted. I've heard about TOR from the EFF, and I remember the short-lived Triangle Boy system - it really sounds like this sort of thing needs to be made up and running sooner rather than later.

  3. log size by alzoron · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Based on logs i've seen of similar information 2 years of logs would easilly be 26 gbs for a single person. That's just a conservitive number for the types that check their email a few times a week and look at the Lost forums every now and then.

    Multiply that by 100s of thousands of users and you're looking at warehouses full of tapes and/or hard drives. That's if you're conservitive.

  4. Watch For Follow-Up Laws To Ban Things Like... by BlueStrat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ..Anonym.OS http://kaos.to/cms/content/view/14/32/

    Until then, consider contributing to these kinds of projects, as they soon may be the only things standing between you and governments being able to track and parse every communication you make.

    Does anyone else find it ironic that some of the most "free" countries are some of the former Soviet Unions' 'client' states?

    Cheers!

    Strat

    --
    Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.