The Sludge

ISPs Now Spying on Users
As governments all over the world step up the pressure for internet surveillance, we lift the lid on the shady world of ISP enforcment and uncover the international pressures that will be forcing them to work with police and mysterious other bodies.

The regulation of ISPs in the UK was originally a matter for a voluntary Code of Practice, established back in 2003 presumably as a mechanism to allow the Echelon eavesdropping project time to catch up with intensifying internet usage. It included a requirement for ISPs to maintain comprehensive records of customer activities for 12 months, with the stark warning that if ISPs refused to comply, then the law would be changed and they would be forced to. Hardly voluntary, one might say. The rationale of the time was to help law enforcers stay ahead of the game when tracing pedophiles and their ilk.

That was back in 2003, and the EU now plans to compel all ISPs throughout Europe to keep records of internet activity for 12 months, with telephone records being retained for "at least" 6 months. Their rationale as we approach 2006? To actively pursue terrorist activity and aid ?other law enforcement agencies?. Either pedophiles have ceased to exist or they felt it suited their political agenda to milk the threat of terrorism.

An unidentified UK ISP Blueyonder employee let slip to one of our readers that they routinely receive lists of IP addresses that are to be monitored for various ?law enforcement? purposes, and that the resultant data was processed and provided to those requesting it. According to the information received, the Business Software Alliance and the BPI are amongst many requesting such information, although requests for any data identifying their clients go unanswered. Obviously if this is the case, it is likely to alter dramatically with the introduction of planned new legislation. They will simply have to comply.

Dan

Fookin hope not!

Dan B

Paranoia, pure and simple...

If ISPs were forced to purchase equipment that would ALLOW them to monitor every single packet of data that flows through their networks, I can categorically guarantee that 90% of them would go out of business overnight. Do you know how much equipment would be involved in monitoring the sheer amount of traffic going through a single ISP network, generated by thousands of customers? I can quite easily estimate it in the millions of pounds......where is that money going to come from, if such a claim was true?

What's the source of that article, anyway?

essexrsturbo

its all bullshit to scare people

Dan B

Precisely......the storage-media costs alone would bankrupt most ISPs.

To give you an example, I've got a program here that can monitor traffic just connecting to/from my own machine (Ethereal, for anyone who's interested in trying the program out). If I set it to monitor for 60 seconds, it may pick up anything from 100 to 5,000 packets, depending on what I'm doing during those 60 seconds (browsing is quite low-load, gaming would be medium-ish, P2P would be high-load).

So, imagine those 5,000 packets displaying ALL packet-information, assuming you're talking about 1k of info for each packet, there's 5MB of stored information for one computer on one network for just 60 seconds of information. So, extend that 60 seconds to an entire day, and you have a touch over 7GB of information, for one computer on one network. Extend that to the 12 months the above claims the records need to be stored for, and you have roughly 2.5TB of storage required. Now, that's just one computer on one network. Assume (very very roughly, for example's purposes) that an ISP has 100,000 customers, and that (again, for example's sake) they all use a uniform amount of bandwidth over those 12 months. That now makes 250,000 TB of data that needs to be stored.

So, using current prices and assuming a hefty ISP discount for buying in bulk, the cost of buying enough suitable media (for this example, I'm using Sony S-AIT 500GB tapes, quite widely used) to store this information on would cost in the region of Ł50,000,000.

Seeing the point yet?

Big G

So around Lee Porkie's monthly wage then

DanRSturbo

In a nutshell, don't panic

Unless your sharing 3000+ mp3's lol

Smit

iTrader: (5)

Think i agree its all to scare you off!

Think half the P2P network and large server data storage like torrents etc etc n are abroad anyway......

Think if u hammer your connection 24/7 n i mean hammer you might get a email or something.

The Sludge

bullshit or not it is still worrying if they random pick you. Here is where i got this info from

http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=978

aduz

let em do what they want..whatever they do aint enough

The Sludge

aduz

i had a mail of my isp about the "considerable" amount ive been downloading so i just reminded them that im paying for a unlimited service and id take my business elsewhere..they didnt say fook all afterthat..

Im going to become invisible soon as ive just received some new software that im itching to try

Rick

Use a program which blocks the IP's of any of these so called agencies. I'm currently blocking over 9000 MILLION IP adresses....

Dan B

I'm assuming that includes IPv6 addresses, then, considering there's only 4000 million IP addresses in the IPv4 system!

My IP-blocklist currently stands at 659,258,093 addresses...

Smit

iTrader: (5)

Do tell................

Dan B

I'd imagine it's a firewall that drops your computer into "stealthed" mode, but I'd be interested to hear what this software is aswell!

aduz

will do later top gear is on

The Sludge

cool- i;d like to know as wll. seeing as i have 9gb of music..........

aduz

basically a associate of mine is well into lets say pc issues ..

and he's given me a disc where once the software has been installed i will be in stealth mode and no fooker will even know im there

and untraceable ..i thought it was all bollox until i saw it in action

andy_st200

ive got software that does that but its pretty crap as it kills your connection speed.. can change your ip addy every few seconds. it does work but surfing becomes slower than dialup

oh and the riaa cannot touch UK citizens doesnt matter how many times they email you and tell you to stop sharing

aduz

this doesnt effect ur connection in the slightest

Rick

Dan B


Yes mate It's very intersting to see the IP's connecting, or trying to connect to your PC!

A sample:

Dan B

Peerguardian 2, then, I run the same here......good little program, isn't it!

UDP Port 6881, I see you're a Bit Torrent user!
TCP Port 10777, looks like a form of either UnrealTournament or Devastation, online gaming!
TCP port 4662, pretty sure that's eDonkey/eMule!

And I see you're also using Pipex ADSL...

How far wrong were those "guesses"?

Dan B

I had a free download that did that aswell, it was called ZoneAlarm Firewall......what was yours called, out of interest?

aduz

it isnt a firewall mate..its a lot better than that...bascially my associate is like the guy of the film wargames

Smit

iTrader: (5)

So you gonna share the wealth then my boy?

Trollspeed

Hide IP Platinum also works like a charm

althrough its not freeware

Rhys

Yus share it about boyo!

SS1

iTrader: (3)

WE WANT IT NOW

its nice to share

mgstu

its impossible to make your self untracable, if you were nothing would work as for example how would a web server send a page to you, if It cant find you...
it may make your machine non accessible from the internet, but by no means untracable...everythings tracable if you want to put the effort in.

SS1

iTrader: (3)

cheers for your view on the topic

Poom

I am with NTL and I think this month I have downloaded around 200GB! I haven't got a letter or anything!

I think most of it is to scare people as most of the P2P users like the 14 year olds will get scared and stop! P2P isnt very good though IMO it is all aboutthe newsgroups!

PS. Any help with that Peer Guardian program would be lovely?

aduz

fook off find ur own hacker associate

aduz

agreed but it makes u as invisible as possible .....my mate has used it to explore loads of "things"