Proposed law- need to keep internet user records for police

Cap'n Jack

Cap'n Jack

Final Approach
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Cap'n Jack
Did CNN get this right?!

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/20/internet.records.bill/index.html

Republican politicians on Thursday called for a sweeping new federal law that would require all Internet providers and operators of millions of Wi-Fi access points, even hotels, local coffee shops, and home users, to keep records about users for two years to aid police investigations.
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The same people who brought us the TSA? In all fairness, a democrat had a similar bill a couple of years back.


Translated, the Internet Safety Act applies not just to AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and so on--but also to the tens of millions of homes with Wi-Fi access points or wired routers that use the standard method of dynamically assigning temporary addresses. (That method is called Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, or DHCP.)
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Two bills have been introduced so far--S.436 in the Senate and H.R.1076 in the House. Each of the companion bills is titled "Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth Act," or Internet Safety Act.
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Yep- we're saving the kids- you can't be against that unless you're a child molester- right?
 
There are a lot of things that happen at the cost of many under the guise of saving someone. Essentially, it happens at the expense of the ignorant by those playing for votes and saying, "I'm fighting crime so vote for me."
 
Oh good.... another bureaucracy. And how do they plan to sort through all this data? A new cabinet level office of internet activity - the ISA, as useful as the TSA only bit-ter.
 
This is not only intrusive it's a useless concept. Anyone with an intent to use the internet in a criminal manner can surely learn how to spoof their ID. All this will do is shut down many free hot-spots and add significant cost to anyone providing internet access. And I don't see why the police should have any more access to this kind of private information than they are supposed to have with domestic phone calls. What's next, requiring all cell providers to record all calls made on their systems and keep the recordings for a year?
 
Comcast was keeping these records voluntarily.....until they got subpoenaed for them and had to turn them over to the RIAA.

After that, they stopped. It would be easy enough to turn back on, but I bet Comcast fights this bill and resists its implementation too.
 
I can't WAIT 'til they bust down the door at every publicly-accessible WiFi network named "LINKSYS" and ask for their access records. What a freakin' joke! This will NEVER stop child pornographers from doing their thing - Any city in America, you can find a wide-open wi-fi network in seconds; easily-accessible "sniffers" like NetStumbler even let you go "war driving" and keep GPS coordinates for all of the open networks.

What a frickin' joke. Clearly a case of "those who manage what they do not understand."
 
flyingcheesehead said:
I can't WAIT 'til they bust down the door at every publicly-accessible WiFi network named "LINKSYS" and ask for their access records. What a freakin' joke! This will NEVER stop child pornographers from doing their thing - Any city in America, you can find a wide-open wi-fi network in seconds; easily-accessible "sniffers" like NetStumbler even let you go "war driving" and keep GPS coordinates for all of the open networks.

What a frickin' joke. Clearly a case of "those who manage what they do not understand."
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Don't you think it would mean the end to open free Wi-Fi?

A couple of years ago I was worked on fighting a similar law that was proposed in California. The main point of that law was not only logging but also mandating security. Had it passed it would have meant that all those free WiFi spots would have had to add some level of closed security and anyone not closing their WiFi APs, including you neighbor who did not realize you were warchucking his signal, could be fined. IOW it really did nothign for the user except make thing more difficult, less user firendly, and possibly opened the door to a revenue stream. Thankfully the industry got it changed enough that the bill eventually died.
 
smigaldi said:
Don't you think it would mean the end to open free Wi-Fi?

A couple of years ago I was worked on fighting a similar law that was proposed in California. The main point of that law was not only logging but also mandating security. Had it passed it would have meant that all those free WiFi spots would have had to add some level of closed security and anyone not closing their WiFi APs, including you neighbor who did not realize you were warchucking his signal, could be fined. IOW it really did nothign for the user except make thing more difficult, less user firendly, and possibly opened the door to a revenue stream. Thankfully the industry got it changed enough that the bill eventually died.
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I don't think the gov't has anywhere close to the resources needed to enforce such a law, so no I don't think it would be the end of open free wi-fi. Joe User is just not going to care, or even know about it. :no:
 
flyingcheesehead said:
I don't think the gov't has anywhere close to the resources needed to enforce such a law, so no I don't think it would be the end of open free wi-fi. Joe User is just not going to care, or even know about it. :no:
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I would be more concerned with Joe the large corporation, that currently run 10,000 hot spots than about Joe the guy who can't configure his own AP. If there was such a law the corporations running free Wi-Fi would be more inclinded to shut it down. They do not want to risk litigation. The Wi-Fi model is already very tenuios from a revenue generating proposition that just about anything could shut it down.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
I don't think the gov't has anywhere close to the resources needed to enforce such a law, so no I don't think it would be the end of open free wi-fi. Joe User is just not going to care, or even know about it. :no:
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If they make the consequences bad enough (big fines etc) just the threat of enforcement would be enough to convince most to shut down.
 
lancefisher said:
If they make the consequences bad enough (big fines etc) just the threat of enforcement would be enough to convince most to shut down.
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Ah, but that assumes Joe Sixpack actually watches the news. ;)

Just getting the word out to every single wide-open wifi operator is probably impossible...
 
smigaldi said:
I would be more concerned with Joe the large corporation, that currently run 10,000 hot spots than about Joe the guy who can't configure his own AP. If there was such a law the corporations running free Wi-Fi would be more inclinded to shut it down. They do not want to risk litigation. The Wi-Fi model is already very tenuios from a revenue generating proposition that just about anything could shut it down.
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I would worry about such places (Panera, Starbucks, Holiday Inn, Staybridge Suites, Hampton Inn, etc).

My colleagues and I preferentially visit these places due to the WiFi since we can do a quick e-mail check during lunch, coffee, etc. We do spend money for the service- either buy lunch, coffee, or stay at that hotel since these places all have a reputation for reliable internet access. We will often choose them over a "nicer" hotel since the expensive hotels add the internet access to the bill. In fact, there has been a trend away from Starbucks in our group since they started some kind of subscription (areas where I visited).

It's not just my company- I often see competitors at the local Starbucks or Panera near a key account for the same reason.

These companies will lose money if they decide they need to close their internet access since the business people will spend their money (or the company's money) based on other considerations.

This may kill internet access at the local public library too.
 
smigaldi said:
That was my point. The Commercial operators would not risk breaking that law.

That would be sure bet.
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And the end result would likely be that this law would push the illegal internet activity away from public portals where the enforcement folks could monitor if they had a reason to track a specific person's use and ultimately make their job more difficult in addition to ruining it for the law abiding users.
 
gismo said:
And the end result would likely be that this law would push the illegal internet activity away from public portals where the enforcement folks could monitor if they had a reason to track a specific person's use and ultimately make their job more difficult in addition to ruining it for the law abiding users.
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If private internet access is criminalized then only criminals will have private internet access (with apologies to the NRA)
 
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Not sure how similar this is, but, any time I've used the internet in Italy for instance (meaning internet cafe) I've had to provide identification which they have then photocopied. It's the law in Italy - no ID, no surfee.
 
woodstock said:
Not sure how similar this is, but, any time I've used the internet in Italy for instance (meaning internet cafe) I've had to provide identification which they have then photocopied. It's the law in Italy - no ID, no surfee.
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Maybe that's why it seem all hotels charge 20 euros per day for internet access over there.

In India, they log who used the public access internet (you have to sign in, they log the type of ID you use in a book). I don't know about hotels.

Switzerland ~3 years back- just buy a card for internet access or find the public park where you can sit.

Italy- I got my ID photocopied when I checked in. Same in Portugal 2 years back, Germany 1 year back.
 
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