more on Gonzales Pressures ISPs on Data Retention

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: bensons () neohaven net
Date: May 27, 2006 7:21:24 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Gonzales Pressures ISPs on Data Retention


> Via C|Net News.
>
> [snip]
>
> U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller
> on Friday urged telecommunications officials to record their  
> customers'
> Internet activities, CNET News.com has learned.

This could easily become a downward spiral... If ISPs are required to
record their customers' actions online, doesn't that impede the argument
that they are a "common carrier" unaware of their users' actions, and  
more
importantly not responsible for their users' actions?

Today, a commodity Internet connection offers a port on a router and a
link to the network, and usually doesn't involve any detailed  
awareness of
traffic flows on the provider's part. Taken to an extreme the  
requirement
for ISP recording could imply active monitoring where none exists today,
affecting network architectures and costs... and ultimately changing the
common carrier argument so that your ISP, in order to avoid liability  
for
your actions, has to become an informant who proactively notifies
government officials of any suspicious activities.

Even in the most minor implementation, customer monitoring would require
logfiles to be retained for longer than their useful life. Some  
equipment
generates enormous logfiles or database tables with the intent that they
will be distilled into some smaller set of useful data and then deleted.
If these files are to be retained then every network provider will  
have to
invest in costly storage arrays throughout their networks, additional
network capacity will be required to support the transfer of these files
into the storage arrays, and equipment vendors will be required to  
modify
their products to support this environment. (perhaps to make logfile
backups easier, or perhaps in some cases to remove logging entirely  
so as
to reduce the impact on the provider...)

I think this is a terrible idea promulgated by focused lawmakers who are
ignoring or unaware of the collateral consequences. I'm interested in  
your
thoughts, if you care to share them.

-Benson



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