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Bill Would Require ISPs, Wi-Fi Users To Keep Logs
suraj.sun notes CNet reporting on bills filed in the US House and Senate that would require all ISPs and operators of Wi-Fi hotspots — including home users — to maintain access logs for 2 years to aid in law enforcement. The bills were filed by Republicans, but the article notes that the idea of forcing data retention has been popular on both sides of the aisle over the years. "Republican politicians on Thursday called for a sweeping new federal law that... would impose unprecedented data retention requirements on a broad swath of Internet access providers and is certain to draw fire from businesses and privacy advocates. ... Each [bill] contains the same language: 'A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least two years all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user [i.e., DHCP].'"
Does that mean we will receive a stipend for storage in order to keep said logs for two years? If the government is going to require me to keep them, then they need to enable me with at least 3 terabytes of storage!
"My immediate reaction is "WTF? What kind of moron doesn't make things 64-bit safe to begin with?" Linus
Most people don't know how to turn on WEP or WPA encryption on their wireless routers let along find how to turn on logging and setting a backup routine to keep years of data. Heck most people/governments/companies cant keep years of data on their own PC.
I wonder how many of these lawmakers are in compliance of this purposed law.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The unintended consequence of this is that every user on a system is going to get a fixed ipv6 ip and ipv4 traffic would be gradually phased out. Why bother with the administrative burden of issuing an IP address via dhcp and tracking it, when, you could have an ipv6 theoretically assigned to a customer for the life of a device.
This is my sig.
Wonder if this measure as proposed would apply to wifi networks restricted/encrypted and thus obviously not intended for public use (cracks or the like notwithstanding).
Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth Act
Internet SAFETY Act...
Well, you can't really blame them. They have a pathological need to make their bills acronym friendly.
No doubt some dickwad came up with the "Internet SAFETY Act" and gave it to some peon to work out what SAFETY should stand for.
Nevermind that your cheap Linksys router only outputs the logs to an IP address. It's up to you to hook another machine up to the router to actually capture and store those logs (unless you only want the last 25 or so records that the router keeps in memory).
Same happens in Germany just now, they're introducing an Internet censorship archtitecture by proxy of vetting it "against child pornography" even though the majority of researchers and experts tell them it's useless.
... unfortunately most people are uninformed hysterical douchebags that cry "think of the children" and then burn down the house next door because allegedly a pedophile used to live there ten years ago.
The people have grown tired of that invisible threat of terrorism and since no one is scared enough by that anymore they need something new
I'm starting to get reeeaaaally fed up by all this lying political bullshit.
Legitimate question: why is the Libertarian party so marginalized in America? Their platform basically represents everything that most Americans will claim to believe in, so why do they have so little support? Is it them? Are they just bad at marketing themselves to the American Public? Are they so idealistic as to be completely impractical? Is it that Americans are actually pretty hypocritical? They say they love freedom and liberty, but then when they realize how much responsibility it takes they say to the government "ew, you take care of everything".
If it's the case that the Libertarian Party is essentially too uncompromising on ideals in order to function in the real world, isn't there a middle ground somewhere? Some party that says "yes, we really do love liberty, and we recognize that it requires responsibility, but here are some concessions that we recognize must be made for the real world". Who is that party? Is that kind of thinking what gets us Democrats and Republicans?
I've just never understood why "Libertarian" has become such a joke of a thing to be, when it essentially encompasses everything that Americans are "supposed" to cherish.
"... anybody who values liberty should be willing to spend some time in jail...."
So you can get butt raped, oh, and have a permanent criminal record that will stain your credibility with every employer you will ever try to deal with for the rest of your life, all for the sake of defending an ideal that you going to prison isn't going to make a whit of difference for because lawmakers aren't about to change the laws just because a few pussy little nerds (who, by the way, are the only people that are remotely likely to care about this) might spend some time in jail for "civil disobedience".
My liberty means plenty to me. My life, and my future, means more.
Get some perspective, dude.
they self destructed. The problem is that the news media takes great joy in showing us the pot smoking side of the party and the anti-war wing looked straight out of the sixties.
That and much of what they propose is totally against the entitlement state we have now the press has to go find the kooks and make America believe that Libertarian stands for "white selfish racist pig"
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I'll support this as soon as they pass legislation requiring all legislators to record and video all conversations they have - 24 hours a day - in order to make sure they don't do any backroom dealing not in the public's best interest.
The government's job is about maintaining and growing power over the citizens.
A party opposed to that (in theory) is not going to be welcome at the table, so they have to be removed. You can't do that by convincing citizens that more power over them is better than less power over them, so you have to do what any weak organization does which is start lying about the other guy.
The reason they are margenalized is because of propoganda, which tries to constantly equate libertarians as either people hiding in the woods like "militias" (that wasn't always a bad word) or head-in-the-sand isolationists who are terrified of the world.
Just as the bandwagon technique in marketing is used, you have to use the reverse psychology technique of making you guilty by association to even be part of the libertarian party, and convince people that they'll be thought of as a nutjob if you join with them.
American's are somewhat unique in which unlike most countries, they have a great cultural fear of discussing politics in public (unless its an "official" news source or talk radio) or with friends in private. There's a big fear of talking about politics (or professing an opinion) in restaurants or bars (unless everyone is on the exact same side). American's haven't hung out in a German beer hall and loudly discussed politics or been in other countries where there is a less fearful feeling of discussing politics.
This of course is by design, because there is an ideology of "well, if we have too many political parties than there will be problems because of..." The two party system works great to keep power over citizens while giving them a "choice" by playing one side against another. A multi-party system decreases the power they can hold, and would cause them to have to fight among themselves for control, and would prevent many horrid pieces of legislation from being passed, because the truly stupid and evil laws would be brought to light before they are snuck in.
I'm a satanic clam.
Next thing the gov't could do is to set up a centralized syslog server. Then they'd announce something like, "Well, if you can't keep logs for 2 years, just enter 'syslog.gov' into the syslog portion on your routers. Sure, we might see a few 'extra' unnecessary pieces of log files, but we PROMISE to ignore them." OR better yet, REQUIRE (by default), that router manufacturers include it by default in their firmwares.
Sounds like the US is already turning into more and more of a police state every time I hear something like this.
Yeah, the buggies the Amish use don't have headlights. The govt makes them put reflectors on their buggies, that the Amish hate.
I can assure you, if this goes into effect (And just to be clear, I hate this idea), you won't get away with "My equipment is not capable of meeting your requirements"
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
I disagree. It has been well-known since the start that liberty is not free. Thomas Jefferson said the people must, from time to time, revolt and shed blood. (Or spend time in jail.) People must be willing to stand-up for their freedom, not just buckle under, and if that means spending a little time in jail because you refuse to comply with an unconstitutional law, so be it.
And to answer your other question, I don't keep logs and never will.
Fuck them.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
1) Does the proposed bill provide that all manufacturers who have sold networking equipment in the last 10 years in the US be required to provide free, mandatory firmware updates to enable this sort of logging for home users? What about companies that are no longer in business, so the end-users are unable to get a patch to enable this functionality?
I don't think your typical 'home gateway' router or 'home wireless router' currently on the market actually has any logging capability built in. So, that means that you would need a firmware update to add such functionality. Not to mention that most of them don't have any significant amount of non-volatile memory to save the logs to, which means that users would have to regularly backup the logs to their PC hard drive, then clear the routers built-in memory.
Besides that, I don't think the Constitution allows for the government to *require* me, as a private citizen not engaging in commercial activity, to keep records, does it? Whatever happened to freedom? I mean, the Constitution does allow for the government to seize my records (with a warrant) *if I have any records*, but I see nothing in the Constitution that provides for the government to be allowed to *force* citizens to create or retain records (the situation might be different for businesses, because Congress is granted "Interstate Commerce" regulation authority, but what I do at home, when I'm not making any profit on the activity, does not seem to fall under that Authority)?
You jest, but the PA State website says one of the signs of domestic terrorists is a copy of the Constitution, or quotes of the Founders.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Now if someone started a political party with positions more similar to those of the editorial line of The Economist newsmagazine, I could see voting for them. That is, support free-market economies with regulation and/or costing of negative externalities (pollution, systemic risks, etc.), a moderate social safety net, and liberal positions on social and civil liberties issues.
I guess that's the sort of thing I'm looking for. I just wonder why nothing has yet filled that need, if the Libertarian party has diverted so far from that completely reasonable path. If the answer is "no one really wants that", then I suppose that answers the question about Americans and the things they really cherish, as opposed to what they claim to cherish.
Don't forget playgrounds made of metal and concrete, lawn darts, and tree forts. I remember, for one of my early birthdays, getting a hand saw as a gift... Used it for making tree forts, cutting off branches, and generally being desctructive...
I know you have come to kill me.
Shoot, coward. You are only going to kill a man.
[U]nless if they are continually pushed to a secure location you could alter them the second that you receive a notice from law enforcement to provide them with logs.
Well, there's an obvious solution to that. Just require that all log data be instantly transmitted to a government repository for archiving. This would also eliminate the need for home wifi users to purchase expensive storage devices to hold the logs. Instead, we'd just have a government agency with funding to buy a few terabytes of disk space per day to store all the logs.
Think of the economic stimulus from the huge purchases of storage devices by this agency ...
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Law or no law, if my router doesn't capture it I am not capturing it. I don't know how to do it, nor will I pay someone to do it.
Actually, I'd sorta like to know how to do this. We've had a couple of wifi gadgets in our house, and none seems to have any (documented) way to collect such data. Right now we have an Apple Airport. I've asked around a bit, googled, etc, but I haven't found any way to make it tell any of our computers who's connected or how much data they're sending. I'd like to be able to monitor this myself, but if it's possible, Apple isn't telling. Or maybe they would, if I knew the right magic words to ask about.
In general, this could be useful information for people using wifi. We probably won't get it without some way of pressuring the vendors to tell us how it works, which is probably different for every one of them.
(Yes, I know about SNMP. I've implemented SNMP agents and clients. I know where the info should be in the MIB. I also know how vendors can make SNMP quite incompatible if they want to; I've worked on projects where management ordered us to do that. The Airport has those four letters in its config stuff, but I've never got it to respond to a query from a client. Similarly for other brands. If I can't make it work, I can't imagine that your typical home user would have any chance at all. ;-)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
While superficially I agree with you, I'm still intend on writing my Rep and Senators and plan to include points made by this article. Who knows, it could be a Democrat proposing such a thing next time.
No sig for you!!
Yeah, let me know when such a party exists. If there were a party that preserved individual liberties but didn't try to tear down legislation designed to protect the citizens from corporate abuses, it would be a great choice to vote for. Unfortunately, the Libertarian party's notion of liberty includes freedom from government intervention in business as well.
The problem is, the Libertarians fail to grasp a fairly fundamental truth: that corporations with billions of dollars can afford to run roughshod over their customers and cause extraordinary levels of harm, while individual consumers are nearly powerless to prevent it except through legislation. As a result, voting Libertarian in more than trace quantities would shift the balance of power in a very negative way towards a very corporate-controlled, anti-consumer society.
Indeed, their "the markets will sort it out" economic policy is incredibly naive. We had that sort of laissez faire economic policy for a long time in the U.S., and sure enough, large swaths of the economy rapidly collapsed into monopolies and stayed that way until the government intervened. It just doesn't work in practice.
All political parties suck from what I'm seeing. The best that can be done with the ones we have thus far is to elect enough members of enough parties to create complete gridlock to ensure that the only laws that ever get passed are those laws that pass muster with people who hold a wide range of opinions....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Lord Bitman, Master of all:
The bill is NOT "to maintain access logs for 2 years to aid in law enforcement". The bill is meant to make it difficult and expensive for small operators. The entire intent is for the big ISP's to be able to make more profit.
The U.S. government is EXTREMELY corrupt.
Since it's not illegal to go drinking in Canada, what does it matter?
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.