Are they 'end users' when they email their friends but 'edge providers' when they switch windows to check their business metrics?
and that right there sums up why people who don't know how networking works, shouldn't write news articles about it.
In both cases in this example the user is consuming data. A better example would be once the user is hosting data locally, like a webpage... And then, in fact, they'd be required by nearly every ISP in the county to have a business account.
The author acts like he's come up with some novel argument that questions the basic foundations of the ISPs business model, but in fact, it's a question that was asked and answered over 20yrs ago. You want to host a website from your house? Get a T1.
I'm not voting because the system is rigged and the choice between OldWhiteguy#1 and OldWhiteguy#2 that pretty much agree on everything isn't really a choice at all so I refuse to participate. So where's my button?
If an EMP or Nuke went off close enough to knock out this system, the loss of computerize navigation would be the least of your concerns. I'm pretty sure ship captains would turn around and avoid England irreverent of the state of navigation.
or... The US decides to use the power it has with GPS to manipulate global markets by encrypting the signal or otherwise making it hard to use unless you comply with whatever nonsense the US wishes at the time. But hey, we'd never manipulate the global economy unfairly like that would we?
I've used these sorts of things extensively before. They all fail for the same reason.
Programmers often assume that the hard part of programing is the obscure syntax of languages, because to them when learning a new language, that's what's hard. And while yes, the syntax is difficult at first, the novice does get it eventually. The real problem with the novice is often the counter-intuitive logic often presented in programming.
For example, take the typical problem of "If they chose Yes, I don't want the program to do X. But if they don't, I do what them to do X" The novice often has a hard time even articulating that condition in the English language, much less a programming one. How would simplifying the syntax make it any easier? The solution to a programmer is simple: If "yes" then X and the novice asks in alarm "Greater than or less than?!!? WHAT?"
So then you have your "easy" programming language that's similar to English. That's great, how do you articulate that previous statement in that language now? It's not any easier. On top of that, because you've dumbed down the language to make it more user friendly, you've likely also taken away a lot of its power. The archaic syntax of languages is often for a very good reason. And when that user does start to get somewhere, they'll end up in a forum asking how to do it, and the programmers will flat out tell them the logic at which point they'll find out that they can't apply that logic because of the simplified syntax.
If you're just starting out, I'd recommend this: http://www.autohotkey.com/ The syntax is about as user friendly as you'll ever get. You can write the applications in notepad You don't even have to compile them if you don't want to. It can do just about anything any major language can.
You're picking apart one point. You're right, they could have been from a male.
But... There's also many other coincidences there. All have equally plausible explanations. But everything combined? That's when it becomes implausible.
You could tell me that in your life, you've rolled double sixes ten times. I'd believe that, that sounds reasonable. In all the times you've rolled dice? Sure! Then you tell me "All 10 of those times were in the past 5min" and I have to stop and say "No, that's not possible." See the difference?
You're assuming she was healthy and able to move when the landed. Or even still alive.
There are giant crabs on the island big enough to drag human body parts around. They assumed they ran off with the rest of the corpse. It's assumed the parts they found were where she died because the other objects were there and there's no reason the crabs would have drug them there.
In this particular case it's impossible to distinguish between evidence that was lost, evidence that was misinterpreted and then lost, or evidence that was made up and never existed in the first place. We really have nothing to go on but hearsay.
No, it's not Hearsay. It's "circumstantial" Meaning that any one of these facts could be plausibly explained in another way. But combined, they become very very unlikely. People get convicted on circumstantial evidence every day.
There was a study done a few years ago where the researchers found that if they simply sent people a grade showing how their voting compared to their neighbors, and then assured them that they'd do a followup study afterwards, they could increase voter turnout by something like 30% I can't remember who it was or anything...
I never saw it amount to much until this year. There's a governors race here in Wisconsin and the Democratic challenger Marry Burk is specifically and very heavily targeting women. They're sending activists around to our house every other day or so where they ask "Can we speak to your wife please?" which gives me ample opportunity for one liners like "She's busy mopping the kitchen, she's not allowed to talk to other women until shes done, come back later."
Anyways, one other tactic has been them to send these "Grades" regarding her voting habits and veiled threats to tell her friends about her. The ironic thing is that there are apparently mutiple groups sending them and not communicating because her "patriotism grade" is floating all over the place.
Long story short, If you're voting (D) or (R) You're the problem.
The goal was "privately funded spaceflight" so that eventually, everyone could go into space instead of just fighter pilots.
And I do take offense to your statement... The men that died building the empire state building were in fact heroes. I'm sure their loved ones would take issue with your opinion. They were dedicated steel workers that risked everything because they had pride in their work and knew they could get it done. They built one of the greatest buildings ever designed, it's still stands today because of their unquestionable skill. They knew exactly what the risks were when they started that Job. Even today construction workers risk their lives to build masterpieces. Any of them could easilly get a job building ranch style houses in the Midwest for about the same pay, yet they chose no to.
Those of us sitting in chairs with our lumbar support and wrist protecting keyboard trays have no business declaring anything about the goals and risk of men that do real work for a living.
I went to a state college (twice!) and the graduation rate was bellow 33% That's a scam... flat out scam. You have to go, they know you have to go, and they abuse you to squeeze as much money out of you as possible.
Yes, there are those that just drink themselves out. But the colleges offer absolutely no help with anything at all.
You're paying a fortune for classes, and the schedules make little to no sense at all. I'd go to a 30min English class, then have to wait an hour and half to take a 4 or philosophy class, then wait 2hrs for my 1 hour programming class. There were thousands of students studying for the same degree I was! What's the point of having these nonsense schedules?? Can't I just get into the 8am-5pm compsci course and be done with it?
On top of that, what's with the books scams? I'm required to buy a book my professor wrote but we never open it in class? Really? I was so broke I'd literally go without eating some days, but my professors ripping me off for $89.95?
Then the campus police... Constant unending harassment. Granted, I was a long hair... but, for example, they decided to raid the door rooms over xmas break and leave me a ticket for underage drinking for having an empty wine bottle in my room. It took me 2 months and 2 visits to court to get it cleared up that I was 23 I had enough going on, I didn't need to be dealing with them.
I will be steering my son towards one of the well established local community colleges we have around here when the time comes. They seem to be the best value, and the least likely to rip you off. I'd stay away from any "online" schools, TV offers and State colleges. They are the worst. The only difference between those and the state collges is the State ones only rip off maybe 80 to 90% of their students as apposed to 100% for the university of Phoenix and the like.
Sure you can. Just slip the projector girl $20 and you're golden. They're paid so poorly, they're probably let you set the theater on fire for another $10.
So the most invasive, anti-privacy business on earth, doesn't like the fact that governments are using the very same tactics to prevent people from using it's site so they now support Tor?
With a few trillion planets in orbit, makes me think that if life is a 1 in a million chance, we've got millions of planets with life just in our galaxy....with at least trillions of planets of life across the universe.
You've got some scale wrong there... Based on the latest physics, the universe is flat... meaning it does not end. Therefor there are an infinite number of planets, and also an infinite number of plants with life. ergo, there really is a Luke Skywalker somewhere out there.
It took a Semi truck filled with Ammonium nitrate, parked a few feet from the building to do that. Concrete is a heck of a building material. Attackers would have much better luck storming the building with rifles and planting much smaller devices inside the reactor itself. You can't do this job with drones.
They're driving us out We're closing up shop Lonely is the mom-and-pop Where are the protestors? Where are their slogans and signs? This will be a swift decline
Actually, quite the opposite is happening. My best friends father is basically despises Obama to the core. He runs his own insurance resale shop. He complained that Obamacare was going to destroy him. Well, it didn't turn out that way. Because the law made the old policies illegal, the insurance companies had to create new policies and everyone had to re-sign up for their health insurance. He gets a commission on every single one of those changes and is making a fortune. He still doesn't like Obama but he certainly loves the government teat.
If someone were so morally bankrupt enough to create a drone army to infiltrate certain gaps and structural weaknesses in the plant and detonate significant payload to disrupt cooling/power/containment, surrounding area is going to be uninhabitable for a looong time.
Also, Amelia Earharts crash site was never a mystery in the first place. They found her body in 1940, on this very same island http://news.discovery.com/hist...
A woman's shoe, an empty bottle and a sextant box whose serial numbers are consistent with a type known to have been carried by Noonan were all found near the site where the bones were discovered.
So what are the odds that a white woman of earharts build, along with western womans shoe, and a sextent would be found on an island a few hundred miles from where earhart went missing and a piece of aluminum that would fit the window of her plane?
This has absolutely nothing to do with Net Neutrality. The ongoing calls for it highlight how you and people who argue similarly do not understand how networking works. Netflix moved all of their content to a tier1 peering service that these companies did not have large contracts with. Then demanded that they to move there. These companies run their own tier1 networks and have absolutely no reason to move to these other peers.
Netflix moved to a peer, then expected these networks to follow, they did not. The networks did not have to break net neutrality to throttle Netflix, Netflix did it to themselves and the linked story flat out states that, though trys to word it as if the ISPs had some obligation to comply. They treated the traffic "neutrally", Netflix did not have peering agreements with the correct Tier1 networks to support the amount of traffic they were attracting. Why is it Comcasts problem that Netflix peered with the wrong company?!?!
If you and this story are correct, and the ISPs have an obligation to connect to wherever their customers favorite destinations are... lets take that to it's logical extreme conclusion then. Lets say Netflix gets an awesome deal on storage space and bandwidth from Star Joint Venture Co. North Koreas premier ISP. Should comcast be required to then trunk all the way to North Korea to handle the traffic? Seriously? Because that's what you're arguing.
Since the dawn of the internet, ISPs have controlled how peering works. Netflix tried to change that, and lost. If you think peering agreements should change (I certainly do) that's fine. But Netflix's plan was even worse than what we already have. But most importantly: This has nothing to do with Net Neutrality. So stop saying that it does!
All true to a degree, however in AU at least, there's a couple of caveats.
First, all physical endpoints must be identifiable. There are some exceptions, but the ACMA carrier licensing regulations around voice and data mean that in 99% of instances, much of the data you're describing must already be logged and made available when presented with a warrant. Much of the infrastructure is already in place. For example, it is illegal to activate a mobile SIM without providing ID (drivers' license information). Your phone number is bound to your SIM identity so when you're making calls, it doesn't matter what the cell infrastructure or backhaul is doing, the CID and IPND data is traceable through all the carriers involved. All services hooking into the PSTN are required to provide valid endpoint location and responsible person data, even IP voice.
Correct. And when presented with a warrant, those plant records are reviewed by hand for changes over time. This means the person reviewing the data checks for trouble tickets on every piece of equipment between the customer and the switch and verifies they were indeed the person on that equipment during the time frame in question. Often it's NOT, and you then have a scooby doo mystery on your hands figuring out which calls and such were related to what when and where.
A report is typed up and forwarded on to the legal authority about a week or more later. I know, I used to handle that at a different company about 7yrs ago. How well do you think that system would work for logging IP traffic? Granted, you could log everything separately and worry about linking it up later... So, I suppose if authorities are willing to wait weeks/months for the data, sure. But if you want network traffic tied directly to customers name in a format that's queryable? no. Basically what I'm saying is, if they want to know "Who was on IP 192.1.1.1 at 3:30pm 10/31/14" and the police are willing to wait a while for that data, then sure. If they, however, want to know "Every site that John visited last month" Yea... good luck.
Regarding the rest of your post... Yes, Australia has a different... newer network. PPoE would make this a lot easier. I've never worked outside the US and we obviously have the oldest network in the world. I should have clarified that at the start. I sometimes forget that other countries have mono-cultures of networking equipment (Canada for example) so if pretty much all of Australia has PPoE then this is technically fesible, though I suspect there will still be some ISPs this would drive out of business. In the US we have PPoE in some areas as well. But the big thing with the network here is that it's completely different from city to city, even from neighborhood to neighborhood. That's what makes these records such a pain. You can't make a blanket statement about the network at all.
Lastly, my example of a ping bot that just hit random IPs all day would still kill this with fire. Get any small fraction of users doing such a thing? The ISPs would be doomed.
No... think of it this way, the network between your DSL modem and "the internet" is not an IP network. It's all hardware.
Okay, but isn't it keeping track of which MAC the IP was given to, anyway? So ultimately, isn't there a mapping of IP to CPE?
No. This network is almost entirely analog. Even the bits that traverse Fiber/microwave/etc... are converted from analog to digital and back again.
If you could do what you're suggesting, it would be great. Imagine a tech support agent being able to query the remote card from his desk while talking to you. You'd be able to diagnose the circuit remotely! That'd be great. But in reality, the way it works is the guy at the desk can query your modem and maybe the DSL card, but everything between those 2 devices is transparent.
Slashdot Mirror
Are they 'end users' when they email their friends but 'edge providers' when they switch windows to check their business metrics?
and that right there sums up why people who don't know how networking works, shouldn't write news articles about it.
In both cases in this example the user is consuming data. A better example would be once the user is hosting data locally, like a webpage... And then, in fact, they'd be required by nearly every ISP in the county to have a business account.
The author acts like he's come up with some novel argument that questions the basic foundations of the ISPs business model, but in fact, it's a question that was asked and answered over 20yrs ago. You want to host a website from your house? Get a T1.
Because doing that would never massively backfire.
When did our government ever think beyond the next election?
I'm not voting because the system is rigged and the choice between OldWhiteguy#1 and OldWhiteguy#2 that pretty much agree on everything isn't really a choice at all so I refuse to participate. So where's my button?
.For example, take the typical problem of "If they chose Yes, I don't want the program to do X. But if they don't, I do what them to do X"
...
The solution to a programmer is simple: If "yes" then X
Shouldn't it be: If "Yes" then pass else do X"? Buggy code indeed.
Slashdot filtered out my code... sorry.
there are supposed to be "greater than / Less than" symbols in there.
If an EMP or Nuke went off close enough to knock out this system, the loss of computerize navigation would be the least of your concerns. I'm pretty sure ship captains would turn around and avoid England irreverent of the state of navigation.
or... The US decides to use the power it has with GPS to manipulate global markets by encrypting the signal or otherwise making it hard to use unless you comply with whatever nonsense the US wishes at the time. But hey, we'd never manipulate the global economy unfairly like that would we?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
I've used these sorts of things extensively before. They all fail for the same reason.
Programmers often assume that the hard part of programing is the obscure syntax of languages, because to them when learning a new language, that's what's hard. And while yes, the syntax is difficult at first, the novice does get it eventually. The real problem with the novice is often the counter-intuitive logic often presented in programming.
For example, take the typical problem of "If they chose Yes, I don't want the program to do X. But if they don't, I do what them to do X"
The novice often has a hard time even articulating that condition in the English language, much less a programming one. How would simplifying the syntax make it any easier?
The solution to a programmer is simple: If "yes" then X
and the novice asks in alarm "Greater than or less than?!!? WHAT?"
So then you have your "easy" programming language that's similar to English. That's great, how do you articulate that previous statement in that language now? It's not any easier. On top of that, because you've dumbed down the language to make it more user friendly, you've likely also taken away a lot of its power. The archaic syntax of languages is often for a very good reason. And when that user does start to get somewhere, they'll end up in a forum asking how to do it, and the programmers will flat out tell them the logic at which point they'll find out that they can't apply that logic because of the simplified syntax.
If you're just starting out, I'd recommend this: http://www.autohotkey.com/
The syntax is about as user friendly as you'll ever get.
You can write the applications in notepad
You don't even have to compile them if you don't want to.
It can do just about anything any major language can.
You're picking apart one point. You're right, they could have been from a male.
But...
There's also many other coincidences there. All have equally plausible explanations. But everything combined? That's when it becomes implausible.
You could tell me that in your life, you've rolled double sixes ten times. I'd believe that, that sounds reasonable. In all the times you've rolled dice? Sure! Then you tell me "All 10 of those times were in the past 5min" and I have to stop and say "No, that's not possible." See the difference?
You're assuming she was healthy and able to move when the landed. Or even still alive.
There are giant crabs on the island big enough to drag human body parts around. They assumed they ran off with the rest of the corpse. It's assumed the parts they found were where she died because the other objects were there and there's no reason the crabs would have drug them there.
In this particular case it's impossible to distinguish between evidence that was lost, evidence that was misinterpreted and then lost, or evidence that was made up and never existed in the first place. We really have nothing to go on but hearsay.
No, it's not Hearsay. It's "circumstantial"
Meaning that any one of these facts could be plausibly explained in another way.
But combined, they become very very unlikely.
People get convicted on circumstantial evidence every day.
There was a study done a few years ago where the researchers found that if they simply sent people a grade showing how their voting compared to their neighbors, and then assured them that they'd do a followup study afterwards, they could increase voter turnout by something like 30% I can't remember who it was or anything...
I never saw it amount to much until this year. There's a governors race here in Wisconsin and the Democratic challenger Marry Burk is specifically and very heavily targeting women. They're sending activists around to our house every other day or so where they ask "Can we speak to your wife please?" which gives me ample opportunity for one liners like "She's busy mopping the kitchen, she's not allowed to talk to other women until shes done, come back later."
Anyways, one other tactic has been them to send these "Grades" regarding her voting habits and veiled threats to tell her friends about her. The ironic thing is that there are apparently mutiple groups sending them and not communicating because her "patriotism grade" is floating all over the place.
Long story short, If you're voting (D) or (R) You're the problem.
I've never met someone working in a theater making more than minimum wage. Are you including what you make in tripod fees?
The goal was "privately funded spaceflight" so that eventually, everyone could go into space instead of just fighter pilots.
And I do take offense to your statement... The men that died building the empire state building were in fact heroes. I'm sure their loved ones would take issue with your opinion. They were dedicated steel workers that risked everything because they had pride in their work and knew they could get it done. They built one of the greatest buildings ever designed, it's still stands today because of their unquestionable skill. They knew exactly what the risks were when they started that Job. Even today construction workers risk their lives to build masterpieces. Any of them could easilly get a job building ranch style houses in the Midwest for about the same pay, yet they chose no to.
Those of us sitting in chairs with our lumbar support and wrist protecting keyboard trays have no business declaring anything about the goals and risk of men that do real work for a living.
I went to a state college (twice!) and the graduation rate was bellow 33%
That's a scam... flat out scam. You have to go, they know you have to go, and they abuse you to squeeze as much money out of you as possible.
Yes, there are those that just drink themselves out. But the colleges offer absolutely no help with anything at all.
You're paying a fortune for classes, and the schedules make little to no sense at all. I'd go to a 30min English class, then have to wait an hour and half to take a 4 or philosophy class, then wait 2hrs for my 1 hour programming class. There were thousands of students studying for the same degree I was! What's the point of having these nonsense schedules?? Can't I just get into the 8am-5pm compsci course and be done with it?
On top of that, what's with the books scams? I'm required to buy a book my professor wrote but we never open it in class? Really? I was so broke I'd literally go without eating some days, but my professors ripping me off for $89.95?
Then the campus police... Constant unending harassment. Granted, I was a long hair... but, for example, they decided to raid the door rooms over xmas break and leave me a ticket for underage drinking for having an empty wine bottle in my room. It took me 2 months and 2 visits to court to get it cleared up that I was 23 I had enough going on, I didn't need to be dealing with them.
I will be steering my son towards one of the well established local community colleges we have around here when the time comes. They seem to be the best value, and the least likely to rip you off. I'd stay away from any "online" schools, TV offers and State colleges. They are the worst. The only difference between those and the state collges is the State ones only rip off maybe 80 to 90% of their students as apposed to 100% for the university of Phoenix and the like.
Sure you can. Just slip the projector girl $20 and you're golden. They're paid so poorly, they're probably let you set the theater on fire for another $10.
So you go through Tor to access Facebook, where you immediately have to log in, and...
What's the point again?
Some countries block facebook. I think that's the point.
So the most invasive, anti-privacy business on earth, doesn't like the fact that governments are using the very same tactics to prevent people from using it's site so they now support Tor?
We're through the looking glass now for sure.
With a few trillion planets in orbit, makes me think that if life is a 1 in a million chance, we've got millions of planets with life just in our galaxy....with at least trillions of planets of life across the universe.
You've got some scale wrong there...
Based on the latest physics, the universe is flat... meaning it does not end.
Therefor there are an infinite number of planets, and also an infinite number of plants with life.
ergo, there really is a Luke Skywalker somewhere out there.
Tell that to the people who used to live around Fukushima.
Here's the Oklahoma city bombing:
http://img.timeinc.net/time/ph...
It took a Semi truck filled with Ammonium nitrate, parked a few feet from the building to do that. Concrete is a heck of a building material. Attackers would have much better luck storming the building with rifles and planting much smaller devices inside the reactor itself. You can't do this job with drones.
They're driving us out
We're closing up shop
Lonely is the mom-and-pop
Where are the protestors?
Where are their slogans and signs?
This will be a swift decline
Actually, quite the opposite is happening. My best friends father is basically despises Obama to the core. He runs his own insurance resale shop. He complained that Obamacare was going to destroy him. Well, it didn't turn out that way. Because the law made the old policies illegal, the insurance companies had to create new policies and everyone had to re-sign up for their health insurance. He gets a commission on every single one of those changes and is making a fortune. He still doesn't like Obama but he certainly loves the government teat.
If someone were so morally bankrupt enough to create a drone army to infiltrate certain gaps and structural weaknesses in the plant and detonate significant payload to disrupt cooling/power/containment, surrounding area is going to be uninhabitable for a looong time.
That's not even remotely true.
The linked article sucks, doesn't even show it.
Check this out:
http://news.discovery.com/hist...
Looks pretty good to me.
Also, Amelia Earharts crash site was never a mystery in the first place. They found her body in 1940, on this very same island
http://news.discovery.com/hist...
A woman's shoe, an empty bottle and a sextant box whose serial numbers are consistent with a type known to have been carried by Noonan were all found near the site where the bones were discovered.
So what are the odds that a white woman of earharts build, along with western womans shoe, and a sextent would be found on an island a few hundred miles from where earhart went missing and a piece of aluminum that would fit the window of her plane?
Once again, a call for net neutrality will ensue. All we really need is for the FCC to call them Common Carriers and apply the age old law.
It has already been applied to Telecoms and Utilities, just apply it to the ISP's and be done with this crap.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
This has absolutely nothing to do with Net Neutrality. The ongoing calls for it highlight how you and people who argue similarly do not understand how networking works.
Netflix moved all of their content to a tier1 peering service that these companies did not have large contracts with. Then demanded that they to move there. These companies run their own tier1 networks and have absolutely no reason to move to these other peers.
Netflix moved to a peer, then expected these networks to follow, they did not. The networks did not have to break net neutrality to throttle Netflix, Netflix did it to themselves and the linked story flat out states that, though trys to word it as if the ISPs had some obligation to comply. They treated the traffic "neutrally", Netflix did not have peering agreements with the correct Tier1 networks to support the amount of traffic they were attracting. Why is it Comcasts problem that Netflix peered with the wrong company?!?!
If you and this story are correct, and the ISPs have an obligation to connect to wherever their customers favorite destinations are... lets take that to it's logical extreme conclusion then. Lets say Netflix gets an awesome deal on storage space and bandwidth from Star Joint Venture Co. North Koreas premier ISP. Should comcast be required to then trunk all the way to North Korea to handle the traffic? Seriously? Because that's what you're arguing.
Since the dawn of the internet, ISPs have controlled how peering works. Netflix tried to change that, and lost. If you think peering agreements should change (I certainly do) that's fine. But Netflix's plan was even worse than what we already have.
But most importantly: This has nothing to do with Net Neutrality. So stop saying that it does!
All true to a degree, however in AU at least, there's a couple of caveats.
First, all physical endpoints must be identifiable. There are some exceptions, but the ACMA carrier licensing regulations around voice and data mean that in 99% of instances, much of the data you're describing must already be logged and made available when presented with a warrant. Much of the infrastructure is already in place. For example, it is illegal to activate a mobile SIM without providing ID (drivers' license information). Your phone number is bound to your SIM identity so when you're making calls, it doesn't matter what the cell infrastructure or backhaul is doing, the CID and IPND data is traceable through all the carriers involved. All services hooking into the PSTN are required to provide valid endpoint location and responsible person data, even IP voice.
Correct. And when presented with a warrant, those plant records are reviewed by hand for changes over time. This means the person reviewing the data checks for trouble tickets on every piece of equipment between the customer and the switch and verifies they were indeed the person on that equipment during the time frame in question. Often it's NOT, and you then have a scooby doo mystery on your hands figuring out which calls and such were related to what when and where.
A report is typed up and forwarded on to the legal authority about a week or more later. I know, I used to handle that at a different company about 7yrs ago. How well do you think that system would work for logging IP traffic? Granted, you could log everything separately and worry about linking it up later... So, I suppose if authorities are willing to wait weeks/months for the data, sure. But if you want network traffic tied directly to customers name in a format that's queryable? no. Basically what I'm saying is, if they want to know "Who was on IP 192.1.1.1 at 3:30pm 10/31/14" and the police are willing to wait a while for that data, then sure. If they, however, want to know "Every site that John visited last month" Yea... good luck.
Regarding the rest of your post... Yes, Australia has a different... newer network. PPoE would make this a lot easier. I've never worked outside the US and we obviously have the oldest network in the world. I should have clarified that at the start. I sometimes forget that other countries have mono-cultures of networking equipment (Canada for example) so if pretty much all of Australia has PPoE then this is technically fesible, though I suspect there will still be some ISPs this would drive out of business. In the US we have PPoE in some areas as well. But the big thing with the network here is that it's completely different from city to city, even from neighborhood to neighborhood. That's what makes these records such a pain. You can't make a blanket statement about the network at all.
Lastly, my example of a ping bot that just hit random IPs all day would still kill this with fire. Get any small fraction of users doing such a thing? The ISPs would be doomed.
No... think of it this way, the network between your DSL modem and "the internet" is not an IP network. It's all hardware.
Okay, but isn't it keeping track of which MAC the IP was given to, anyway? So ultimately, isn't there a mapping of IP to CPE?
No. This network is almost entirely analog.
Even the bits that traverse Fiber/microwave/etc... are converted from analog to digital and back again.
If you could do what you're suggesting, it would be great. Imagine a tech support agent being able to query the remote card from his desk while talking to you. You'd be able to diagnose the circuit remotely! That'd be great. But in reality, the way it works is the guy at the desk can query your modem and maybe the DSL card, but everything between those 2 devices is transparent.