[Paleopsych] CNET: Your ISP as Net watchdog

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Your ISP as Net watchdog
http://news.com.com/2102-1028_3-5748649.html?tag=st.util.print

Your ISP as Net watchdog

    By Declan McCullagh
    Story last modified Thu Jun 16 04:00:00 PDT 2005

    The U.S. Department of Justice is quietly shopping around the
    explosive idea of requiring Internet service providers to retain
    records of their customers' online activities.

    Data retention [5]rules could permit police to obtain records of
    e-mail chatter, Web browsing or chat-room activity months after
    Internet providers ordinarily would have deleted the logs--that is, if
    logs were ever kept in the first place. No U.S. law currently mandates
    that such logs be kept.

    In theory, at least, data retention could permit successful criminal
    and terrorism prosecutions that otherwise would have failed because of
    insufficient evidence. But privacy worries and questions about the
    practicality of assembling massive databases of customer behavior have
    caused a similar proposal to stall in Europe and could engender stiff
    opposition domestically.

    What's new:

    The U.S. Department of Justice is mulling data retention rules that
    could permit police to obtain records of e-mail, browsing or chat-room
    activity months after ISPs ordinarily would have deleted the logs--if
    they were ever kept in the first place.

    Bottom line:

    Data retention could aid criminal and terrorism
    prosecutions, but privacy worries and questions about the practicality
    of assembling massive databases of customer behavior could engender
    stiff opposition to the proposal.

    [6]More stories on this topic
    In Europe, the Council of Justice and Home Affairs ministers say logs
    must be kept for between one and three years. One U.S. industry
    representative, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Justice
    Department is interested in at least a two-month requirement.

    Justice Department officials endorsed the concept at a private meeting
    with Internet service providers and the National Center for Missing
    and Exploited Children, according to interviews with multiple people
    who were present. The meeting took place on April 27 at the Holiday
    Inn Select in Alexandria, Va.

    "It was raised not once but several times in the meeting, very
    emphatically," said Dave McClure, president of the [7]U.S. Internet
    Industry Association, which represents small to midsize companies. "We
    were told, 'You're going to have to start thinking about data
    retention if you don't want people to think you're soft on child
    porn.'"

    McClure said that while the Justice Department representatives argued
    that Internet service providers should cooperate voluntarily, they
    also raised the "possibility that we should create by law a standard
    period of data retention." McClure added that "my sense was that this
    is something that they've been working on for a long time."

    This represents an abrupt shift in the Justice Department's long-held
    position that data retention is unnecessary and imposes an
    unacceptable burden on Internet providers. In 2001, the Bush
    administration [8]expressed "serious reservations about broad
    mandatory data retention regimes."

    The current proposal appears to originate with the Justice
    Department's [9]Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, which
    enforces federal child pornography laws. But once mandated by law, the
    logs likely would be mined during terrorism, copyright infringement
    and even routine criminal investigations. (The Justice Department did
    not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.)

    "Preservation" vs. "Retention"

    At the moment, Internet service providers typically discard any log
    file that's no longer required for business reasons such as network
    monitoring, fraud prevention or billing disputes. Companies do,
    however, alter that general rule when contacted by police performing
    an investigation--a practice called data preservation.

    A 1996 [10]federal law called the Electronic Communication
    Transactional Records Act regulates data preservation. It [11]requires
    Internet providers to retain any "record" in their possession for 90
    days "upon the request of a governmental entity."
    "We were told, 'You're going to have to start thinking about data
    retention if you don't want people to think you're soft on child
    porn.'"
    --Dave McClure, president, U.S. Internet Industry Association

    Child protection advocates say that this process can lead police to
    dead ends if they don't move quickly enough and log files are
    discarded automatically. Also, many Internet service providers don't
    record information about instant-messaging conversations or Web sites
    visited--data that would prove vital to an investigation.

    "Law enforcement agencies are often having 20 reports referred to them
    a week by the National Center," said Michelle Collins, director of the
    exploited child unit for the [12]National Center for Missing and
    Exploited Children. "By the time legal process is drafted, it could be
    10, 15, 20 days. They're completely dependent on information from the
    ISPs to trace back an individual offender."

    Collins, who participated in the April meeting, said that she had not
    reached a conclusion about how long log files should be retained.
    "There are so many various business models...I don't know that there's
    going to be a clear-cut answer to what would be the optimum amount of
    time for a company to maintain information," she said.

    McClure, from the U.S. Internet Industry Association, said he
    counter-proposed the idea of police agencies establishing their own
    guidelines that would require them to seek logs soon after receiving
    tips.

    Marc Rotenberg, director of the [13]Electronic Privacy Information
    Center, compared the Justice Department's idea to the since-abandoned
    [14]Clipper Chip, a brainchild of the Clinton and first Bush White
    House. Initially the Clipper Chip--an encryption system with a
    backdoor for the federal government--was supposed to be voluntary, but
    declassified documents show that backdoors were supposed to become
    mandatory.

    "Even if your concern is chasing after child pornographers, the
    packets don't come pre-labeled that way," Rotenberg said. "What
    effectively happens is that all ISP customers, when that data is
    presented to the government, become potential targets of subsequent
    investigations."

    A divided Europe

    The Justice Department's proposal could import a debate that's been
    simmering in Europe for years.

    In Europe, a data retention proposal prepared by four nations said
    that all telecommunications providers must retain generalized logs of
    phone calls, SMS messages, e-mail communications and other "Internet
    protocols" for at least one year. Logs would include the addresses of
    Internet sites and identities of the correspondents but not
    necessarily the full content of the communication.

    Even after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush
    administration criticized that approach. In November 2001, Mark
    Richard from the Justice Department's criminal division [23]said in a
    speech in Brussels, Belgium, that the U.S. method offers Internet
    providers the flexibility "to retain or destroy the records they
    generate based upon individual assessments of resources, architectural
    limitations, security and other business needs."

    France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Sweden jointly submitted their
    data retention proposal to the European Parliament in April 2004. Such
    mandatory logging was necessary, they argued, "for the purpose of
    prevention, investigation, detection and prosecution of crime or
    criminal offenses including terrorism."

    But a [24]report prepared this year by Alexander Alvaro on behalf of
    the Parliament's civil liberties and home affairs committee slammed
    the idea, saying it may violate the European Convention on Human
    Rights.

    Also, Alvaro wrote: "Given the volume of data to be retained,
    particularly Internet data, it is unlikely that an appropriate
    analysis of the data will be at all possible. Individuals involved in
    organized crime and terrorism will easily find a way to prevent their
    data from being traced." He calculated that if an Internet provider
    were to retain all traffic data, the database would swell to a size of
    20,000 to 40,000 terabytes--too large to search using existing
    technology.

    On June 7, the European Parliament [25]voted by a show of hands to
    adopt Alvaro's report and effectively snub the mandatory data
    retention plan. But the vote may turn out to have been largely
    symbolic: The Council of Justice and Home Affairs ministers have vowed
    to press ahead with their [26]data retention requirement.

References

    5. 
http://news.com.com/U.K.s+data-retention+proposal+dealt+blow/2110-1017_3-958132.html?tag=nl
    6. http://news.search.com/search?q=ISPs+logs
    7. 
http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usiia.org%2F&siteId=3&oId=/U.K.s+data-retention+proposal+dealt+blow/2110-1017_3-958132.html&ontId=1023&lop=nl.ex
    8. 
http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usdoj.gov%2Fcriminal%2Fcybercrime%2Fintl%2FUSComments_CyberCom_final.pdf&siteId=3&oId=/U.K.s+data-retention+proposal+dealt+blow/2110-1017_3-958132.html&ontId=1023&lop=nl.ex
    9. 
http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usdoj.gov%2Fcriminal%2Fceos%2F&siteId=3&oId=/U.K.s+data-retention+proposal+dealt+blow/2110-1017_3-958132.html&ontId=1023&lop=nl.ex
   10. 
http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usdoj.gov%2Fcriminal%2Fcybercrime%2F2703_CSEA.htm&siteId=3&oId=/U.K.s+data-retention+proposal+dealt+blow/2110-1017_3-958132.html&ontId=1023&lop=nl.ex
   11. 
http://news.com.com/My+brief+career+as+an+ISP/2010-7355_3-5089267.html?tag=nl
   12. 
http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.missingkids.com%2F&siteId=3&oId=/My+brief+career+as+an+ISP/2010-7355_3-5089267.html&ontId=1023&lop=nl.ex
   13. 
http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.epic.org%2F&siteId=3&oId=/My+brief+career+as+an+ISP/2010-7355_3-5089267.html&ontId=1023&lop=nl.ex
   14. 
http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.epic.org%2Fcrypto%2Fclipper%2F&siteId=3&oId=/My+brief+career+as+an+ISP/2010-7355_3-5089267.html&ontId=1023&lop=nl.ex
   15. 
http://news.com.com/Video+content+set+free+on+Web/2100-1025_3-5746034.html?tag=nl.caro
   16. 
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+looks+to+extinguish+LAMP/2100-1012_3-5746549.html?tag=nl.caro
   17. 
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+meets+the+hackers/2009-1002_3-5747813.html?tag=nl.caro
   18. 
http://news.com.com/Your+ISP+as+Net+watchdog/2100-1028_3-5748649.html?tag=nl.caro
   19. 
http://news.com.com/Open-source+maneuvers+for+Sun%2C+Microsoft/2009-7344_3-5748223.html?tag=nl.caro
   20. 
http://news.com.com/Will+computing+flow+like+electricity/2100-1011_3-5749968.html?tag=nl.caro
   23. 
http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usdoj.gov%2Fcriminal%2Fcybercrime%2Fintl%2FMMR_Nov01_Forum.doc&siteId=3&oId=/My+brief+career+as+an+ISP/2010-7355_3-5089267.html&ontId=1023&lop=nl.ex
   24. 
http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.statewatch.org%2Fnews%2F2005%2Fmay%2Fep-data-ret-alvaro-report.pdf&siteId=3&oId=/My+brief+career+as+an+ISP/2010-7355_3-5089267.html&ontId=1023&lop=nl.ex
   25. 
http://news.com.com/Europe+to+push+ahead+with+ISP+snooping+law/2100-1028_3-5739292.html?tag=nl
   26. 
http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.eu2005.lu%2Fen%2Factualites%2Fcommuniques%2F2005%2F06%2F02jai-comm%2Findex.html&siteId=3&oId=/Europe+to+push+ahead+with+ISP+snooping+law/2100-1028_3-5739292.html&ontId=1023&lop=nl.ex
   27. http://www.cnet.com/aboutcnet/0-13611-7-811029.html?tag=ft



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