ISPs, Wi-Fi, HOME users keep logs for police

Hell US can't even get people to use security on their PC's.

Thereby Allowing Huge Bot farms.

This is the same congress that passed the "Stimlus Bill", without 

reading it all, no congressman read the whold thing.

Now they want home users to keep records on their routhers?

And I am concerned about :

U.S. Justice Department's position is that any service "that provides others with means of communicating electronically" qualifies.

I know right now some poor sob is going to get busted

for not keeping "complete records".

ISP's keeping IP's is ok but home users? NO.

I suspect that is an invasion of privacy and 

the potential for abuse is too great.

Home users don't keep track of their own IPs.

Welcome to "Burger King" please show your ID

and thumb print to access our WIFI.

What about War driving?

Ill concieved, but well meaning.

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Bill proposes ISPs, Wi-Fi keep logs for police

(CNET) -- 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.......

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.

Each contains the same language: "A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least two years all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user."

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.)

"Everyone has to keep such information," says Albert Gidari, a partner at the Perkins Coie law firm in Seattle who specializes in this area of electronic privacy law.

The legal definition of electronic communication service is "any service which provides to users thereof the ability to send or receive wire or electronic communications." The U.S. Justice Department's position is that any service "that provides others with means of communicating electronically" qualifies.

That sweeps in not just public Wi-Fi access points, but password-protected ones too, and applies to individuals, small businesses, large corporations, libraries, schools, universities, and even government agencies. Voice over IP services may be covered too.

SOURCE:

hAT TIP TO "BARTENDER ON DUTY"

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