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Sonic.net's CEO On Why ISPs Should Only Keep User Logs Two Weeks
Sparrowvsrevolution writes "Dane Jasper's tiny Internet service provider Sonic.net briefly took the national spotlight last October, when it contested a Department of Justice order that it secretly hand over the data of privacy activist and WikiLeaks associate Jacob Appelbaum. But Sonic.net has actually been quietly implementing a much more fundamental privacy measure: For the past eighteen months it's only kept logs of user data for two weeks before deletion, compared with 18 to 36 months at Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner and other ISPs. In a lengthy Q&A, he explains how he came to the decision to limit logging after a series of shakedowns by copyright lawyers attempting to embarrass users who had downloaded porn films, and he argues that it's time all ISPs adopt the two-week rule."
excellent good sense, what more can one say?
-wb-
It is truly shocking that some people resist the idea of the police state! If for your own good! Think of the children! The only people with anything to hide are terrorists and criminals!
Face it, folks. The bottom line is, our governments and the corporations that control them, want a police state. They are afraid of freedom, and they will go to any lengths to limit freedom. Badmouthing the president is cause for the Secret Service to put a bullseye on you, and your communications channels. Exposing fraud in the corporate world is reason to haul your ass through the court system, and to take everything you own, along with everything that you might ever hope to own. And, cheating an author out of a dollar of royalties? Phht - ten years in prison sounds about right - to the police state, anyway.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
European law forces ISPs to retain traffic data for half a year. Germany is the only state currently refusing to implement the law, but I don't have any illusions that this will last.
And if more ISP's jump on the 2-week "band-waggon" you'll quickly see one of the next "Defence Appropriations Bill" (or something like that) have a little addition sneaked in by someone in Homeland Security to legally require ISP's to hold 12 months of Logs/Emails.
Just like what's happening in the UK...
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
Someone always want to be able to ask if a particular person has read "Steal This Book", or "How to Build an Atom Bomb". Librarians get that kind of demand all the time, and have successfully fought it at the personal and also at the technical level.
I once worked on library software, and it was a prerequisite in the business that, as soon as a book was returned or the non-return fine was paid, the record that "user X borrowed book Y" was deleted, and a counter of completed transaction was incremented. The latter was necessary for funding and statistical purposes.
This was a norm because the library community actively went out and found a number of states, Germany among them, that protected library patrons from snooping without a warrant. They then made that know to their software suppliers. As the software had to be legal in all the countries where it was to be sold, it was written to meet the highest legal standards, which included the highest privacy standards.
If a legitimate investigation needed to track a library patron's reading, and the investigator could convince a judge, then the library could put a watch on a patron in exchange for a warrant. The watch could not start in the past, of course, but a daily sql query could find out the books a patron currently had out.
There is at least one DHCP program around, written by an ex-librarian, that behaves just this way...
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
Because a government that can search any person at any time can falsely incriminate anyone, and motives for doing so are abundantly self-evident.
"During a routine anti-terrorism sweep, civil liberties activist John Doe was found to be in possession of methamphetamine, child pornography, explosive-making material, and pirated ABBA songs. He was immediately taken into custody and is being held at an undisclosed location for the public's safety..."
Right now we have an important check in the form of a search warrant. Before searching me, a law enforcement agent must demonstrate to a judge probable cause that I have committed, or will commit, a crime. It's not perfect, and there are notable loopholes, but at least there is some documentation and accountability.
Cynicism, like dogmatism, can be an excuse for intellectual laziness. - Susan Shirk