U.S. Pressures ISPs on Data Retention 221
packetmon writes "According to Wired's Declan McCullagh 'In a private meeting with industry representatives, Gonzales, Mueller and other senior members of the Justice Department said Internet service providers should retain subscriber information and network data for two years ... A more extensive mandate would require companies to keep track of e-mail messages sent, Web pages visited and perhaps even instant-messaging correspondents.'"
Do they realize the scope? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to mention that all that extra has to be pored through. The FBI had gotten information on a case from homeland security, unfortunately they did not parse it down and the FBI agents lamented that they spent a majority of time chasing down pizza deliverys instead of spending more time on the actual case.
Image the uproar when (not if) a cracker gets into the database and abuses all that information.
The information gathered from users can also be used(abused) for blackmailing.
You might be asked to testify against someone, if not then well your employer and spouse might accidently find out about your surfing habits.
All in all, this sounds like a lose-lose situation for almost all involved.
Constitutional Amendments? (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, from a technical point of view, why isn't Linux and other Open Source software using encryption by default? If emails are hard to encrypt as a matter of course, perhaps it's time for another system which handles messages strongly encrypted. I've heard about TOR from the EFF, and I remember the short-lived Triangle Boy system - it really sounds like this sort of thing needs to be made up and running sooner rather than later.
log size (Score:3, Interesting)
Multiply that by 100s of thousands of users and you're looking at warehouses full of tapes and/or hard drives. That's if you're conservitive.
Log size and a full time person to manage it (Score:3, Interesting)
Should something like this actually happen, it would take not only a large amount of space, but for us, probably a full time person just to manage backing up the logs. For a large ISP it would take probably a couple of people or more. Not to mention the fact of the cost of the network monitoring software it would take to record all of this information.
We are already on the edge, something like this would just do us in.
But maybe that is an intended result, as having a few AT&T's that give you a straight pipe right onto their backbone, is a hell of a lot easier to monitor than a whole bunch of mom & pop ISPs who could not possibly to even begin to comply with these monitoring requirements.
Let the cry be heard: V for Vendetta
Usurper_ii
Enough (Score:2, Interesting)
How you can you not think Bush is Evil? (Score:3, Interesting)
The Bush administration is eroding our privacy rights through warantless wiretapping of American Citizens phone calls, and we dont know if its only international phone calls because there has been no investigation of this, we only have the people who are violating the FISA statue's word on this. FISA was set up for exactly this purpose. Not only that, they have a database of nearly every phonecall made in America, and they are using it to monitor phonecalls made by reporters to find leaks in their own administration without warrants.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=83880 [thenation.com]
As for our legal protections, this administration wants to be able to detain indefinitely without trial anyone suspected of terrorism, Jose Paddilla is a American born citizen and though he will now be tried as a criminal due to the threat of his case going to the supreme court. This administration wished to detain him indefinitely without trial prior to that threat. That is scary and unprecedented. Were not talking about legal resident aliens, or people who illegal gained entry into the country, this guy was born here as a citizen and under the constitution he deserves a trial, every citizen deserves a trial, thats a fundamental right.
As for increased government secrecy and decreased accountability we have documents being reclassified under the freedom of information act, and non-compliance for freedom of informaiton act requests. Its not just security related concerns, but corrupt things like whether a power plant is up to code and is likely to have an accident, hand outs to his industrialist buddies. Another nice tidbit hidden from the public for a long time by Bush's rewritting of the Freedom of Information act is a memo from Exxon mobil to the Bush white house demonstrating the influence of oil companies on this administration's global warming policy's. All of this having nothing to do with national security but being withheld from the public just because it protects monied interests or can embarrass elected officials.
Re:wow (Score:1, Interesting)
Lots of people assume this, this is why I keep pointing out that this idea predates 9/11:
I guess this won`t be the last time I point this out, but some help would be appreciated, so feel free to bookmark these ans slap them around the ears of anyone who argues this is only for terrorist..... (fineprint:and some other criminals) And If the EU decision surounding these plans is any guide, then do not expect these plans to be pushed trough as Democratically as possible. The only thing diffrend in the US might be a strong industry lobby that may ensure this is paid for with tax dollars.
Watch For Follow-Up Laws To Ban Things Like... (Score:4, Interesting)
Until then, consider contributing to these kinds of projects, as they soon may be the only things standing between you and governments being able to track and parse every communication you make.
Does anyone else find it ironic that some of the most "free" countries are some of the former Soviet Unions' 'client' states?
Cheers!
Strat