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FBI Head Wants Strong Data Retention Rules
KevHead writes "Speaking at a conference of international police chiefs, FBI Director Robert Mueller called for strict data retention guidelines for US ISPs. Echoing DHS head Michael Cherthoff's assertion that the Internet was enabling terrorists to telecommute to work, Mueller went further and said that the US needs stricter data retention guidelines. '"All too often, we find that before we can catch these offenders, Internet service providers have unwittingly deleted the very records that would help us identify these offenders and protect future victims," Mueller said. The solution? Forcing ISPs to retain data for set periods of time.' If that happens, how long before the MPAA and RIAA start asking to take a peek at the data too, as they have in Europe?"
I know of people who recieve cardboard boxes from FEDEX filled with 20 lbs of weed... I think the internet is the least of our problems.
A broken solution for a non-existent problem.
I used darkstat once on 2 T1's for a 24 hour period just the URL log was over 500MB, no packet captures, no session data.
Just imagine an OC-3, you are talking about a lot of storage space.
Mueller went further and said that the US needs stricter data retention guidelines.
With the AT&Ts "collaboration" with the NSA, and CARNIVORE, one would think the government already has all the tools they need. Are they now saying that's not enough? That's kind of pathetic, don't you think?
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Database poisoning, ie. entering information that is not only bogus but also harmful, making previously useful lookups turn back so much garbage that real info is hard to find. In other words, some kind of proxy program on client side that loads pages from given list of addresses. That list can be composed of all sites possibly under surveillance. It randomly loads pages in the background, makes google searches with offending words, but doesn't bother user with the data it loads.
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
Add stopping this to the list of "things to do after the Democrats take over Congress".
Don't forget to vote, everybody.
And remember, as one leading Democrat has said, if Democrats control either house, there's going to be "oversight, oversight, oversight". Look how much has come out with the Republicans in charge: everything from the plan to divide up northern Iraq amongst oil companies to the CIA's torture program. There has to be more stuff we haven't heard about. Look forward to people like the FBI Director testifying under oath before Congress. Coming soon to a C-SPAN channel near you.
You might also want to volunteer to be a poll watcher, especially if you're in a state with Diebold voting machines.
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him"
-Cardinal Richelieu (French Minister and Cardinal. 1585-1642)
However, by one tiny chip of compromise after another, one infinitesimal shift to accommodate a "reasonable response" after another, a group of people can turn into "The (choose ethnic group) Problem" and suddenly it's okay to treat people as things, the only capital crime there is. You never quite know where you cross the line and suddenly you have become the enemy your grandparents fought war, bloody war to prevent from turning the future into a long night of horror.
Will you have the courage to say "NO" to the new Gestapo? They're just nice guys like you who have a job to do, y'know? Or will you draw a line somewhere and say "At long last, Mr. McCarthy, have you no shame?"
(*Title refers to the short story in The Last Whole Earth Catalog. Find it and read it. Was a school experiment designed to show how good people could turn into black, black Nazis and why there were no Nazi's in Germany after the war. Scares the tar out of me, more so as the days go by.)
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Despite all the statistical evidence that this does NOT work to PREVENT any "terrorist" acts ... they will attempt to use this to intimidate people into voluntarily restricting their actions.
... but you will not have access to their's. Asymmetrical. And because they are the government, they can release only the information they want from your records. Only the information that shows that you are really a wannabe child molesting, America hating, terrorist loving, Communistic, gay atheist.
When every search / posting / IM / etc from you is available to elected officials (and may be accidentally "leaked"), they hope that most people will self-censor their activities to only items that would be "appropriate".
Should you ever take a stand against the elected officials, they will have access to your records
It's all about maintaining power and control.
Since the terrorists will be using encrypted messages or coded messages which don't appear to be anything special (you know those -1 Slashdot comments are for something), this will help retrace the terrorist's online activities after people have died in a terrorist attack. My guess: lots of porn and a few messages to E-mail accounts which no longer exist.
It's just that there are so many disposable E-mail accounts available and the easy access to Internet cafes. If someone is using a disposable E-mail account and an Internet terminal which is paid for in loose change (usually used in airports), how are you going to track that person down one month later? What if the terminal is outside the United States?
Not to mention free Linksys brand wireless Internet access which is available in most areas.
Any government fighting terrorists needs to setup its own terrorist propaganda websites which make use of Microsoft Internet Explorer's many vulnerabilities. Spyware for the spies. Microsoft's poor security practices not only hurt you, they also hurt the terrorists. Of course terrorists using Firefox screws us all.
Here's the trick. Don't scare your population with too many moves at once. Take away their freedoms one by one, starting with the ones no-one really cares about. Let other countries take one step too far, and if their populations don't squeal, make a further step yourself.
So the EU enacted its spy state law last year, while people said, "even the states does not go that far". The EU Data Retention Directive wants (it needs to be ratified by individual countries) to track every phone call made, every email sent, every web site visited, every cell phone location, and hold this data for over a decade. The data would be available to non-governmental organisations (private firms). Anonymous internet usage would be banned. Anonymous prepaid mobile phone cards would be banned. All this, of course, to save us from terrorism and organised crime.
And the UK has constructed a surveillance system that beats anything ever built by the soviet spy states. Every public urban space is monitored, recorded, tracked. The only privacy you have is in your home, where you are safely under house arrest, unable to do anything to damage the interests of the state.
It was just a matter of time before the FBI asked for the same powers. What police force would not? It's a copper's wet dream. Every one of us stinking criminals-in-waiting tracked like cockroaches in a pen. No more crime. No more disorder. No more rebellion.
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There are 2 questions, really:
If you're looking for a guess, I don't have it. All I know is that it bothers me when the government's fear of people they can't even identify is enough reason for them to start "monitoring" the 300 million people in our country that they can identify. I don't know how much liberty one has if they are aware that everything they type, or every call they make, is "monitored". Is that liberty? Does that make anyone feel safer?
-- I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous
The summary does right in pointing out that retaining this stuff attracts copyright holders like flies round shit, but, thankfully for the moment, they're not allowed access to this data [in fact, it would be a criminal offence if they were granted such access]. Part of the fighting between the EU commission and the EU parliament was that the parliament wanted access locked down to ultra-specific cases (things that could be prosecuted under the European Arrest Warrant only). They didn't get it, but the compromise was that access could only be granted for serious criminal activities, defined by each member state's law.
Civil torts (ie, copyright infringement) are way outside the ballpark by anybody's measure, so it'll be a long while before they wheedle their way into this. They will try, but Big Content doesn't hold quite the same disproportionate influence in the EU that it does in the USA. So, from a US point of view, I think that you have much more to fear from data retention that EU citizens have, given that AG Gonzales explicitly mentioned copyright infringement in his reasons for pushing this turd of an idea.
Not saying that the data retention doesn't suck - just that the existing fears of abuse are more than enough the scare the bejesus out of me without imagining what *AA snooping would be like. I've yet to be convinced that it's not the usual government trick of "let's spend lots of money (better still, other people's money) on a problem, and rely on the traditional public belief that the government is tackling something because it wouldn't spend billions to accomplish nothing".
--Ng
The terrorists are broadcasting communications with steganography embedded in all those viagra and stock option emails. Please filter and retain all spam for further detailed and ongoing analysis.
thank you,
everyone
First, the practical:
:p
I'm sorry, but I am not going to waste my resources storing every email every one of my customers has received from now until kingdom come. Unlike Google, I don't have the spare cash sitting around for that kind of storage space. Make it a law and I bet you see a surge of ISPs basing their servers offshore to protect their investment (customer privacy mainly).
Secondly, the privacy concern
So the FBI reading my sarcastic emails to friends and family is going to help us catch a bunch of terrorists who, last I heard, had one webmaster who was stupid enough to get himself arrested in Germany? I've got news for you guys: Teenagers, CEOs, and computer enthusiasts coordinate things through the internet. I imagine terrorists prefer suicide bombing training camps or mountain hideaways for their secret conferences. Besides, we haven't heard anything of Al Qaeda declaring Jihad on Microsoft over Netmeeting or even MSN Messenger, so it is highly doubtful that they have tried to use them.
As far as 'terrorist websites' go, the FBI just needs to get some of their buds at the CIA to break into the server and plant a basic hit reporter. Figure out who is logging in and making changes, and you've got your man.
The connection logs are often all you need to paint a strong picture of who's in contact with who.
Let's say, for instance, that the logs for my telephone show a number of calls to a satellite phone in Afghanistan. Suddenly, I'm a suspect the next time a bomb goes off within about 150 miles of me. What am I saying to this person in Afghanistan? Well, actually, it's my sister who went over there as part of a red cross relief effort, but the local police don't know that and while they're holding me to confirm it, my employer is asking questions.
Questions like "What sort of a person is this who was arrested last week and hasn't been heard from since? Best replace him."
After that happens, it's rather hard to get another job. A common interview question is "Why did you leave your last job?" and the honest answer ("I was arrested and held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act owing to poor evidence") tends to put off prospective employers - chances are they stopped listening after the word "arrested" and now just want me off the premises as quickly as possible.
I hope one day you post similar feedback to Google over "data kept forever, mail is never really deleted, analysed for advertising purposes"...
You know.. Gmail..
No no - just drugs and terror.
See, poverty, illiteracy, AIDS, pollution, hunger, disease - and those you didn't mention like genocide, etc., are too hot politically to be fought, for they provide no gain to the government.
Drugs and terror... and let's go ahead and add child porn... allow the government a "war" that can be used to justify reductions in personal privacy, massive amounts of data collection, and emboldening of the Executive.
Those other "wars" are just hippie rally-cries. Duh.
Excuse my speling.
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