European data retention
p2p news / p2pnet:- European Union (EU) interior ministers have caved in to corporate demands to have phone calls, email and Net use logged and stored.
Phone records must be kept for at least 12 months, and e-mail data for at least six, they say, using the “fight against terror” as an excuse.
UK home secretary Charles Clarke must now negotiate with the European Parliament, which has already said such a law would violate civil liberties, to get its agreement.
Ireland and Italy already compel telecoms to hold data for three and four years respectively, and regulations vary with the other 23 EU members, 15 of whom have no data retention laws whatsoever.
But, as Email Battles points out, the US leads them all.
In The Impact of Regulations on Email Archiving Requirements, Oesterman Research concludes, "nearly everyone who powers up an email server is required to archive mail to satisfy some government agency.
If that’s not enough to, "make you shut down your mailserver, check out Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) and the mountain of state requirements (like the Child Protection acts of Michigan and Utah)," says the post. "So far, courts have been doling out non-compliance judgements at US$10,000 and up, up, up."
And Canadians are similarly strapped down, says Email Battles, adding:
"Those whose baby-kissers have thus far missed the bandwagon have no room for smugness. Every message they send to the outside world is dutifully stored for later retrieval by somebody somewhere.
"Your archiving options mirror those for spam and virus filtering. You can archive email at the network border, the mail server, the desktop, or you can outsource it. Just make sure that whatever option you choose meets the regulations for your industry, today and tomorrow.
"Now that government has discovered email, your job’s only going to get tougher. And until this moment, you thought you were a law-abiding citizen. Silly you."
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
- Mohandas Gandhi
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local political representatives. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance.
See:-
Email Battles – Email Privacy Whacked By EU Vote, October 13, 2005
October 15th, 2005 at 5:19 pm
Time to start using GPG encoded email, WASTE/PadLockSL for P2P, Tor for web browsing, SSL for IRC and the Gaim-encryption plugin for instant messanging.
October 16th, 2005 at 12:44 am
Millions of people downloading gigabytes of data every seconds. How are they going to store all that data. Not to mention *torrents*.
October 16th, 2005 at 3:20 am
The terrorists have thought about these things long before you did my friend.
October 16th, 2005 at 5:18 am
Hahahaha think of all the spam mail lol
October 16th, 2005 at 8:24 am
That’s a really good point.
I think everyone impacted by these laws should deliberately get themselves onto every spam list they possibly can. Spam containing pictures and movies are especially good choices as the files are already compressed meaning the isp’s won’t save much space by trying to further compress everything.
Maybe those ppl with email accounts that have large storage allowances like gmail could start emailing free linux distro’s back and forwards to each other. After all, each and EVERY email is gonna have to be retained, even if they’re essentially identical. ;o)
The more onerous the burden of complying with this legislation is, the more the isp’s will jump up and down about it, and perhaps, the sooner we’ll be rid of it.
October 16th, 2005 at 8:31 am
Am i right in that if you used a webmail account based outside the EU, that this law, becomes kinda useless?
October 16th, 2005 at 10:54 pm
All these extra storage requirements isn’t going to come out of the ISPs pockets. It’s going to come out of the user costs, what it costs you the user to use the service. All the ISPs are going to do is say that it is now law and they must do so. That will be the most likely notice you get when the price goes up to provide this internet service. So long to cheap internet prices as this requirement will be on going and in need of steady increasing needs on the part of the ISP to continue to hold these records. Until they reach the point of being able to delete hds containing the past data, they will need to continue to purchase equipment.
Once subscription prices are as high as the market will bear then they will look at other revenue producers to continue to support their service. Increasing the membership also increases the burden on the ISP to provide the data retention. Look for more ads in the future on the ISP home page. For my part, I see far too many now on the home page and wish for less, not more.
October 17th, 2005 at 1:54 am
I am already studying different ways to create a worldwide mesh network. Right now, I guess I have to be satisfied with FreeWan Cells. When we have our own equipment and infrastructure, only then can we force the government cartel alliance out of it. Screw their laws, data retention requirements and such. It is time for people all over the world to rise up and defend our freedom. We do have rights, and these rights are given by the creator and not some political hack. Let’s force governments, cartels, as well as the courts to abide by our rights.
Make Governments: Prepare to resist
Make Cartels: Stop supporting them and don’t buy their products ubnless absolutely needed. If possible, make your own product.
Make Courts: If you live in a country where their is a jury system, Check out sites like http://www.fija.org If not, Prepare to resist!
October 17th, 2005 at 1:58 am
I guess I found the only good thing about spammers.
October 17th, 2005 at 2:12 am
This is why it is so important to build, hack, and get FreeWan cells up to speed. Let the ISP’s tell us that they have to continue to raise prices, add more ads, and spy even closer because it is the law. With FreeWan, we can tell them scew the law and we do not want your services any more…. We have our own service. Yes, FreeWan Cells are local at the moment, but computers located in two different cells can pass traffic.
I wish to tell hackers that building our own Internet is the ONLY way things are going to improve. Creative caching, Sneakernet, and mobile computers are good ways to get around bottlenecks in infrastructure. I have designed my own cell, but unfortunately, I live in a rural area with very few users. However, I plan to go mobile in the near future in order to demonstrate the capabilities of a FreeWan Cell. IPV6 is something that should be studied very carefully.
October 17th, 2005 at 3:48 pm
only need one copy of email and a list of receivers…. is it retention of everything received or sent?
October 18th, 2005 at 5:04 pm
There are currently campaigns (which I hope grow) where groups of people are sending bullshit emails to each other.
These include fairly worrying keywords about a “stash” of “chemicals” that will be used to “destroy Bush”.
Others send fake plots to “Kill Cheney” and shit like that.
–
The chances are these systems will retain emails, sms, phone conversations (probably as a low bitrate mp3) but not your p2p transfers.
And the only communications that will raise any alarm bells are those with certain keywords in them.
The rest are just archived so that if you protest or stand-up against your government or piss them off for any other reason… they can dig up every pissy little misdemeanour against you and make you serve consequetive sentences for each petty crime… it could add up.