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Second Swedish ISP Starts Scrubbing IP Addresses

Posted by timothy on from the you-may-borrow-the-hashed-list-though dept.

Marzubus writes "Tele2, a popular Swedish ISP, has started to remove IP addresses from its logs. This is the second ISP in Sweden to adopt this new privacy protection strategy." We discussed not long ago when another ISP, Bahnhof, started doing the same. Perhaps this is the corporate equivalent of joining the Pirate Party.

15 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. This will likely keep happening by Jugalator · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's a competitive advantage, after all. Soon enough, I imagine all major ISP's here will do this as long as there isn't new legislation against it. These are also all very good signs of just how aggressive and poorly thought out the IPRED law in reality was.

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    1. Re:This will likely keep happening by Bios_Hakr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It also makes pretty good business sense. You never have to spend a few hours chasing backups of logs for investigations. There just isn't anything there for the police to want to look at.

      --
      I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
    2. Re:This will likely keep happening by SausageOfDoom · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Never going to happen in the UK though - it's now a legal requirement that ISPs log all IPs. And all e-mail headers. And soon all web requests. And no doubt keyloggers shortly after that.

      And a good thing too! Let's stop those damned terrorists, criminals, paedophiles and other sexual deviants! Living in the UK is awesome - just look how much our government cares about our well-being!

    3. Re:This will likely keep happening by Jurily · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It also makes pretty good business sense. You never have to spend a few hours chasing backups of logs for investigations. There just isn't anything there for the police to want to look at.

      Not having to be a snail for the next life is also a plus.

  2. Actually there are a few more than two. by ckret · · Score: 5, Informative

    here you can see a few other ISP's that erases logs.
    This behaviour is not a circumvention of the IPPRED law but an enforcement of law of electronic communication that states that customerinformation that is not needed for daily operations must be erased as soon as possible.
    This law in itself nullifies the IPRED law.

  3. Didn't Bahnhof do this all along? by Bromskloss · · Score: 3, Informative

    As opposed to starting just recently. At least that's what one Slashdotter told us last time.

    And it's "Bahnhof", not "Barnhof". Hehe.

    --
    Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
  4. Incorrect.2 by Meneth · · Score: 5, Informative

    Tele2 is not the second Swedish ISP to scrub IP-customer records. More like the thirteenth. It's a big ISP, though. I suppose that's why people could make the mistake.

  5. ISPs and law enforcement by BigHungryJoe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Could ISPs get away with this in the United States without facing legal issues or retribution from the cops?

    I love this idea - I don't trust law enforcement at all and would pay a premium to know that I wasn't leaving logs with my ISP for the cops to read.

    America is such a "law and order" country though, the cops wield so much power that I doubt such an ISP would be allowed to exist.

    1. Re:ISPs and law enforcement by SwedishPenguin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Oh they will "correct" this here as well soon enough. The data retention directive will be implemented this fall, and all the ISPs will be forced to keep logs for at least 6 months.

      Swedes: vote for the Pirate Party in European Parliament election on the 7th of June, early voting begins on the 20th of May
      Other EU citizens: vote for whatever party has the most integrity friendly platform.

      We're facing a big problem in the EU. Corruption is rampant among our politicians and the eagerness of politicians to control our society's access to information and surveil our activities has never been higher.

  6. Simply Economics by nathan.fulton · · Score: 3, Interesting

    FTS: "Perhaps this is the corporate equivalent of joining the Pirate Party."

    Sorry, but no. The pirate party is politically motivated. The motivations of ISPs are purely economic. People don't like the government spying on everything they do, so they will choose services that say "fuck you" to the gov. This is simple business decision making, and should be seen as nothing more or less. Should the government make these actions punishable by fines that exceed new revenues (or if the *AA found a way to create economic incentives,) ISPs would switch back in a heart beat.

    1. Re:Simply Economics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Most, if not all, of politics are motivated by economics so I fail to see your point.

  7. Eight ISPs and counting(?) by djonsson · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually, eight different ISPs have vowed not to keep these records, instead promising to respect the integrity of their users. They've set up a small organization for this purpose at integrity.st [in swedish]. Tele2 is by far the largest ISP to join so far, though.

  8. Data retention time is also interesting by Slyswede · · Score: 4, Informative

    Another interesting aspect in this whole IPRED mess is the amount of time the other ISPs save their IP-address data.

    According to the IPRED law it is up to the lower court to order an ISP to turn over the subscriber information, but only after examining the evidence of possible copyright infringement.

    This means that if the data is saved for a shorter period than the time it normally takes to investigate an infringement, any order to turn over the data would also eventually fail.

    I've heard from at least one ISP that they normally save data for three weeks, so that should be sufficient, unless the courts suddenly decide to start prioritizing these cases. :(

  9. Re:I asked this on the Bahnhof story... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Bahnhof does. No idea about the price of a VPN as you have to contact their sales department. But you can rent a server for ~145$/month and set up your own VPN.

    But if you are looking for a anonymous Swedish VPN service take a look at www.relakks.com. They don't keep any logs either.

    Hope that answers your question.

  10. Europe by kinnaz · · Score: 3, Informative

    There was some initiative made by EU some time ago, that all ips need to be logged for some x amount of time, so i doubt we will see this kind of actions in other countries.