[OPLIN 4cast] OPLIN 4Cast #242: ISP logging and libraries

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OPLIN 4Cast

OPLIN 4Cast #242: ISP logging and libraries
August 10th, 2011

<http://www.oplin.org/4cast/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/sheriff-badge1.png>In 
the last week of July, a congressional subcommittee took time out from 
arguing about government debt to approve a bill know as H.R. 1981, or 
the "Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011" 
(PCFIPA of 2011). This bill, if passed by Congress and signed into law, 
would require Internet service providers (ISPs), the companies that 
provide people's Internet connections, to retain the personal 
information of Internet users for up to 18 months. This information 
would include names, IP addresses, phone numbers, physical addresses, 
credit card numbers, bank account numbers, websites visited, and 
messages posted on the Web. Wireless service providers would not be 
affected by the bill, ostensibly because it would be more difficult to 
distinguish individual wireless users.

    * Police: Internet providers must keep user logs
      <http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20078653-281/police-internet-providers-must-keep-user-logs/>
      (CNET News/Declan McCullagh) "Michael Brown, sheriff in Bedford
      County, Va., and a board member and executive committee member of
      the National Sheriffs' Association, is planning to argue that a
      new law is necessary because Internet providers do not store
      customer records long enough. 'The limited data retention time and
      lack of uniformity among retention from company to company
      significantly hinders law enforcement's ability to identify
      predators when they come across child pornography,' according to a
      copy of Brown's remarks."
    * Is Congress's ISP-logging bill a violation of the Fourth
      Amendment?
      <http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/is_congresss_isp-logging_bill_a_violation_of_the_f.php>
      (ReadWriteWeb/Dan Rowinski) "Essentially, if the government wants,
      it could track everything you have done online for the last year
      and a half without a warrant or user consent. The debate over
      mandatory data retention has been evolving for nearly a decade and
      has caused a ruckus among privacy groups that claim it is a
      violation of civil liberties and the Fourth Amendment to the U.S.
      Constitution. The Fourth Amendment states that people should be
      protected from unreasonable search and seizures."
    * What you need to know about the Internet snooping bill (and how
      you can protect yourself)
      <http://lifehacker.com/5825746/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-internet-snooping-bill-and-what-you-can-do-about-it>
      (Lifehacker/Adam Dachis) "Finding a needle in a haystack is hard,
      but it gets to be pretty close to impossible when that haystack is
      the size of a country. There are too many people /not/ downloading
      child porn to easily locate an offender and too few policemen to
      thoroughly look through the information. Like we've seen when the
      RIAA prosecuted music downloaders with little success
      <http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/10/five-years-of-failure-eff-says-riaa-must-embrace-new-model.ars>,
      you get nowhere going after the consumers."
    * Unhappy meal: Data retention bill could lure sex predators into
      McDonalds, libraries
      <http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/07/unhappy-meal-data-retention-bill-could-lure-sex-predators-into-mcdonalds-libraries.ars>
      (ArsTechnica/Christopher Soghoian) "If this legislation passes
      with the wireless loophole intact, residential broadband providers
      will be forced to retain identifying records that can be used to
      link users' online activities to their authenticated identities.
      Mobile phone carriers will continue to retain data voluntarily,
      and public WiFi networks will remain one of the last places where
      people, whether angels or devils, can browse the Internet
      anonymously."

*/Numbers fact:/*

The /Lifehacker/ article cited above calculates that there are about 
272,100,000 Americans connected to the Internet, and about 10,000 known 
child pornography consumers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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