Your ISP as Net watchdog

[Lochloosa]

Your ISP as Net watchdog
Published: June 16, 2005, 4:00 AM PDT
By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com


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 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.

http://news.com.com/Your+ISP+as+Net+watchdog/2100-1028_3-5748649.html

UH OH


Edit: to add link

[rodeodance]

1. oh my gawd!!!

[MadHound]

2. They keep trotting this out every year

And while it is slapped down every year, each time it gets a little more support. If this goes through, freedom of speech on the 'net will be a quaint memory of America past. Why do you think Gates was so damn eager to help the Chinese with their censorship program? Practice run for doing the same thing over here.

[FreedomAngel82]

25. Yep

Especially now with the blogs.

[Triana]

28. 'Practice Run'...

EXACTLY. I've posted here on DU several times that the US guvmint is chomping at the bit to get control of and to censor our internet experience JUST LIKE THEY DO IN CHINA.

A well-informed public is their #1 enemy - that's why the have such a stranglehold on the other media (print, radio, television). They intend to do the same on the internet.

Our only hope is to use the internet NOW to get those bastards out of office before the only bastion of democratic free speech we have left is confiscated by them too.

[WLKjr]

3. They would be amazed at the amount of porn they would see

;-)

This is a bunch of horse shit, and I can't believe that the government thinks this is a good idea to help protect citizens from 'terra'.

There are other ways to monitor activities, trust me...

[Gormy Cuss]

7. Yeah, especially among the Young Republicans

It's not about protecting us from 'terra,' as we both know. It's about stifling dissent. No better way to control us than to assure us at every move that we have no right to privacy.

It is charming the way these schemes always involve authorizing private companies to carry out the surveillance. Rarely is there mention of any limitations on nongovernmental use -- in this case, ISPs would be free to mine the logs for marketing purposes and sell lists of targeted customers. I would imagine that AOL, Earthlink, and MSN would love the opportunity to do so.

[dkofos]

14. Maybe AOL & MSM

Earthlink used to have scruples

[Twist_U_Up]

4. The walls of "freedom" are closing in around us.

[Occulus]

26. That's truly wonderful wording. n/t

[Melynn]

5. Besides being invasion of privacy

the cost of being online would go through the roof. It would cost the ISP's a enormous amount of money to keep logs of every users online activities. The only people who could afford to be on the Internet would be wealthy people.

[Deja Q]

17. Bingo. No poor, no dissenters, they would regain media control.

We'd better remember how grassroots campaigns used to work then.

[FreedomAngel82]

27. Another point to this

Right now my dad is paying around $30 for the internet (comcast). There's tons of information out on the internet that you don't get here (like BBC and whatnot). They would love to be able to keep as many people as possible from finding this information out since our press is controlled. And as another posted pointed out people do grassroots work online and sending money to support them as people did with Dean's campaign then Kerry's and now the DNC and DU does fundraisers to keep the site going etc.

[brainshrub]

6. Microsoft helps the Chinese enforce it's violations of human rights,

Microsoft helps the Chinese enforce it's violations of human rights, why shouldn't we expect them to do it here?

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?feed=FT&Date=20050610&ID=4884671

[1776Forever]

8. Feds Checking Our ISP Records - Freedom???

Check out Computerworld - 2002 article -

News Story by Dan Verton

SEPTEMBER 02, 2002 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Washington

As the White House last week (2002) began putting the final touches on its long-awaited National Plan for Protecting Cyberspace, administration officials took issue with a press report that suggested the plan would include provisions to expand the government's data collection and surveillance.......

A Work in Progress

Although "sworn to secrecy" about the specific contents of the administration's plan, Harris Miller, president of the Arlington, Va.-based Information Technology Association of America, said last week that the plan remained "in a state of flux" and that any information made public to date "may or may not still be in the document when it is released."

The Bush administration also plans to release a revision of the forthcoming plan as early as January (2002), Schmidt said during a recent press briefing at the White House. The revision will include details on "definitive programs," he said. In addition, plans call for another seven town hall meetings to be held around the country after the Sept. 18 release, to gather more feedback from both the private sector and the general public, he said. (Anyone hear about this?)

Officials underscored the voluntary nature of the public/ private partnership, noting that the White House isn't legally capable of forcing any sort of data-sharing agreements on the private sector. What the government can and plans to do, however, is "create government as a model," said Schmidt.

In an interview with Computerworld last month, Clarke said the plan may include a governmentwide policy that requires all IT purchases to be independently certified for security prior to approval. Such a policy, which is currently in effect at the Defense Department, was being "looked at carefully," but at that point no decision had been made, he said.

Full article at this link:

http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/policy/story/0,10801,73922,00.html

[Lone_Wolf]

19. Check out the Freenet Project

http://freenetproject.org/

"Freenet is free software which lets you publish and obtain information on the Internet without fear of censorship. To achieve this freedom, the network is entirely decentralized and publishers and consumers of information are anonymous. Without anonymity there can never be true freedom of speech, and without decentralization the network will be vulnerable to attack."

[Pallas180]

9. Can you say: POLICE STATE ?

:mad:

[gulfcoastliberal]

10. They're probably already doing it, at least internationally.

With or without the ISPs knowledge. Project Echelon. The NSA has tapped every trans-oceanic fiber optic and copper cables and their satelites pick up the rest. Where do our little packets travel along? The tapped cables. However, I do not know if they have all domestic cable systems and telephone COs tapped. Thus the above may not yet have come to pass, but it indicates they're working on it...

[DrDebug]

11. Don't forget Inslaw/PROMIS either..

With Echelon and Inslaw/PROMIS they already have the top flow of the .com and .net domains. Only the traffic to the national domains (like .us) and other domains (.org / .info etc.) are not within the direct link.

So if you ever accidently delete some stuff they probably have a backup somewhere :rolf: On the other hand, it is some much bollocks that it'll take forever to find something.

Nothing Is Secret By Kelly Patricia O’Meara [e-mail]

Insight uncovers a spy probe in the United States by the Canadian government into the theft of computer software that allegedly allows surveillance of top-secret government computer systems.

EXCERPT...

But the keystone to this RCMP investigation is PROMIS, that universal bridge and monitoring system, which stands for Prosecutor’s Management Information System — a breakthrough computer software program originally developed in the early 1970s by the Hamiltons for case management by U.S. prosecutors. The first version of PROMIS was owned by the government since the development money was provided by the Department of Justice (DOJ), but something went awry on the way to proprietary development.

SNIP...

Seymour’s involvement with PROMIS began more than a decade ago while working as an investigative reporter on an unrelated story about high-level corruption within the sheriff’s department of the Central California town of Mariposa, near Yosemite National Park, where deputies reportedly were involved in illegal-drug activity. The dozen or so who were not involved repeatedly had begged the journalist to conduct an investigation. When she learned that one of the officers had taken the complaints to the state attorney general in Sacramento and within weeks was reported missing in an alleged boating accident on nearby Lake McClure, she launched her probe.

SNIP...

Within a week the Mountie had arranged to meet Seymour at her home to discuss aspects of his own secret investigation and begin the laborious task of copying thousands of documents Seymour had collected from an abandoned trailer in Death Valley belonging to a man at or near the center of the PROMIS controversy, Michael Riconosciuto, a boy genius, entrepreneur, convicted felon — and the man who has claimed that he modified the pirated PROMIS software. The documents provided specific information about Riconosciuto’s connections to the Cabazon Indian Reservation, where he claims to have carried out the modification, but they also painted a clear picture of the men with whom Riconosciuto associated, including mob figures, high-level government officials, intelligence and law- enforcement officers and informants — even convicted murderers.

SNIP...

“I sat there with my mouth wide open and my eyes practically popping out of my head — you know, that deer-in-the-headlights look,” Seymour recounts. “I couldn’t believe what this guy was telling us. It wasn’t anything I anticipated or even was prepared to hear.” She says, “McDade told us his investigation had to do with locating information on the possible sale of PROMIS software to the RCMP in the mid-1980s. He had found evidence in RCMP files that PROMIS may have been installed in the Canadian computer systems, and he said an investigation was initiated by his superiors at the RCMP.”

According to Seymour, “McDade said that the details of his findings in Canada could conceivably cause a major scandal in both Canada and the United States.… He said if his investigation is successful it could cause the entire Republican Party to be dismantled — that it would cease to exist in the U.S.” Hyperbole, perhaps, but bizarre stuff from a professional lawman.

CONTINUED...

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/octopus3.htm

More stuff at http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/index.php/Inslaw/PROMIS_Affair

[hemp_not_war]

22. really?

can you email me any information about the .com and .net domains going through PROMIS?

[Cleita]

12. Mine just asked me to download an upgrade, but when I

went to do it my security software warned me against downloading certain parts of it. So I said no thanks.

[jamesinca]

13. Ok, will Skinner and the boys tell us

If they are following chat rooms and such, will the guys here at DU tell us if somebody is being watched? I would like to know if I am being followed.

[dkofos]

15. Don't worry

As long as no one replies to your post with words bomb, crash & burn, infidel, or b*sh is an ignorant c*cksucker.
You should be safe

[ConfuZed]

16. You forgot "allah" :) n/t

[baron j]

18. Just make sure they notice in your logs that you are frequently

reading web pages regarding the French Revolution, and How to Construct a Guillotine..

[thegreatwildebeest]

20. By now...

I think everyone should understand that anytime you are online you are at risk for privacy invasion, be it by hackers, government, or businesses. You can do various things to prevent it, but at the end of the day the internet is vastly unsecured.

[nolabels]

21. They probably banned the WATCHERS from checking DU anyway

Wouldn't want any converts to the other side would they :shrug:

[longship]

23. Extremely difficult proposition

Technically, this would entail capturing network packets all over the network using an unprecedented level of technology. Now we've all heard of the NSA having such things; they probably do. But the analysis of packets and tracing them to their origin might prove to be a near impossible task.

Also, they're not going to be able to get full cooperation. I run my own services. I have no intention with cooperating with such a thing. I just don't see them getting very far with this. Plus, anybody who wants to communicate securely can use high level cryptography.

This stupid idea must be opposed.

[yowzayowzayowza]

31. Otoh, look at the amount of data...

on your usage telecomm carriers already maintain for long distance billing. They could prolly get ISPs to keep access logs, but actual "conversations" seems to be pretty invasive, even for conservatives.

Otoh-otoh, a simple encrypted proxy from a non-ISP service provider to tunnel thru would bypass the snooping easily.

[longship]

32. There's a problem there, too.

Well, telco billing information is fairly simple. Call time, originating number, destination number. It's fairly simple to construct a protocol to share such information.

The Net is a different story altogether. We're not talking about audio but a huge number of public and private protocols layered on top of multiple packet communication protocols. Like you wrote, many of the client protocols are completely encrypted and tunnel through the network.

I just don't see how anybody could put together a plan to spy on everybody's net activity.

[nolabels]

33. or even a fractional part

Tapping the phones is hard, tracking someone that wanted to hide on the net would be ten times harder, multiply that by a few million and them crafty critters with opposing digits might overwhelm your already taxed infrastructure. Computers are only as good the people who put the gibberish in them. Not to be dismissive because if they did do such a stupid move or proceeded with such a tactic (or battle plan) it could be the straw that pushes the camel over :hi:

[longship]

34. If people start asking for logs,

I'll shut down syslog on all my machines and I won't have any of them. That will be the end of that.

[FreedomAngel82]

24. They're trying to control the internet

And watch the "terrorist" be left-wing groups. I remember watching something where a general guy was on fox or cnn or one of those networks saying how he got information on a "terrorist" group they were searching from their website! :crazy: I couldn't believe that! Do they honestly think a terrorist group would put all their secret plans on a website honestly? For all they know they could be pulling their leg and everything.

[longship]

35. Controlling the Net is much easier than monitoring it.

All one needs to do to control the Net is control some critical pinch points. But even then, there are ways to get around things. But if the top level domain DNS servers were put under control of a government (like in China) one could control things, to some extent.

Monitoring is an entirely different animal, much more difficult and likely impossible to do. There's just too much traffic and not a single shread of infrastructure in place to allow the monitoring. There's always a way to wrap your packets in a very secure encryption protocol before transmitting them.

[NMMNG]

29. Guess I'll have to stop surfing those "hot lesbian porn" sites now

:rofl:

Seriously, never visited one.

While I think the idea of being able to track down child molestors is a noble one, I don't like the other directions this might take, e.g., snooping into the private lives of any other people the reich-wing considers a threat. That could be practically anybody and everybody--democrats, non-Christians, environmentalists, pro-choicers, the ACLU, PETA, you name it.

Things could get pretty scary :scared:

[Nothing Without Hope]

30. The free internet has become a real annoyance to them. They want to

control ALL information so that their propaganda goes unopposed. It's just a question of how and when the attacks on the free internet will come. I have expected it as part of an updated "Patriot" act - sneaked in under cover of "security for the country againsst terra-ists."

[ngGale]

36. Although I'm pretty sure they already know ...

most of what we all do. I'm also sure they will try to have more control by the '08 election, especially if they lose seats in '06. We were in a kind of 'stealth' mode until the last election fiasco, then they became aware of how 'free' we really are. With Galloway and the 'DSM' we are most likely not looked at kindly by the opposition.

[Alpharetta]

37. Offshore ISPs would take over the business

We'd have one ISP to give us a local connection and encode our data and then we'd use a tunnel (this software already exists) to reach a 2nd ISP for our private browsing.

It would be just like offshore gambling. The US can't stop it, they can only make it slightly more expensive.

[BlueStateModerate]

38. Not a chance

The public uproar would be enormous. Of course, I've been dissapointed before.

[classof56]

39. As Wendell Burke said, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty"

And another good quote to keep in mind:

“There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.” -- Edmund Burke

Welcome to DU, BlueStateModerate. As a fellow Blue Stater, I'm glad to have you on the board.

Tired Old Cynic