Swedish ISPs Nuke Logs; Protects Users
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: Swedish, Law, ISP, block | Themes: The Internet
Swedish ISPs Bahnhof and Tele2 are scoffing at the new Swedish law by nuking IP address logs in order to protect client anonymity.
As reported back on April 1st, the new law--based on the European Union's Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED)--actually allows copyright holders to force internet service providers into coughing up IP addresses of users sharing copyrighted material via a court order. According to the BBC, internet traffic dropped 30-percent, from 120 Gbps to 80 Gbps, on the very day the law went into effect. Many heralded Sweden's attempt to thwart piracy; others grinned and said pirates would only pursue different methods.
However, Monday Tele2 said that it would join Swedish ISP Bahnhof and choose not to retain IP address logs; Bahnhof announced its intentions earlier this month. "We will erase the IP addresses after they have been used for our internal use, starting today," Niclas Palmstierna, Tele2's managing director for Sweden, told AFP. Currently Tele2 serves over 600,000 clients, and may gain even more once consumers learn its intentions to protect consumer anonymity. However, as it stands, deleting IP data isn't illegal in Sweden, but that may change in the future if more ISPs begin to follow suit. Without the data, local authorities remain empty handed, unable to crack down on Internet pirates.
"In certain cases, this will make an investigation impossible," said Stefan Kronkvist, the head of Swedish police's internet crime unit.
Europe's Data Retention Directive, passed in 2006, may eventually come into play, requiring both companies to retain user data (traffic metadata) for six to twenty-four months. When the directive was originally approved, EU members had to pass the directive in local countries before the September 16, 2007 deadline. However, Sweden is one of many European countries who ignored the directive (although the country is a member of the EU Parliament). Fortunately for copyright owners, that may very well change in the near future, as Swedish law makers are currently working on a new legislation based on the directive.
As for the new IPRED law set in place, it was assumed that ISPs would automatically jump on board and provide the necessary user information. When Bahnhof announced its intention earlier this month, the company said it would be happy to provide information when requested, however the data wouldn't be linked to any specific user; the announcement was not expected.
"It’s about the freedom to choose, and the law makes it possible to retain details," said Bahnhof CEO Jon Karlung. "We’re not acting in breach of IPRED; we’re following the law and choosing to destroy the details." Karlung also mentioned the new legislation in the announcement, saying that if the state does indeed decide that everything has to be handed over to various private organizations, then Bahnhof would comply even though he felt it was unfortunate and hopes that public opinion will push "the matter in a different direction."
While it may seem that Swedish ISPs are defending end-user rights to privacy, their actions may push anonymity in a different direction. Nations will probably sit back and watch what unfolds over the next few months to see what happens in terms of consumer rights, copyright holder rights, and what actually works in protecting both.
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Yay
Nice move.
And I thought the Swedes would never nuke anything......
Good thinking, they got a lot of free publicity by doing effectivly nothing, and even more, there is a percentage of people that will switch to Bahnhof due to their "concern for privacy", new laws will take effect in 6~12 months and voilá, Bahnhof won people that won't switch back to their old ISPs
Kudos to them
I hope the US is taking notes here, since those ISPs are probably getting much more business.
Good for them.
Keep up the good fight !!!
Good work.
Way to stick it to the man! Gotta love em.
I think its too early to celebrate - lets see how the government reacts to this. Perhaps they will yet pass a data retention law...
Sweden: Ground Zero for the internet. Who know's who will win? Regardless it's fascinating to watch.
P.S. Great job! I'd switch to them if I lived in sweden.
Love ISP protecting their business against government meddling.
They shouldn't have publicised this. All this does is make this ISP look like its thumbing its nose at the law. If I was running the show I'd do it on the sly and slip something into the privacy agreement saying that logs of any activity will be deleted when no longer needed.
This kind of thing will just get the law makers attention and spoil it for everyone.
god i love the swedes!!!
If only there was a single American corporation willing to stand up to big brother...
I see Time Warner doing this, except with Time Warner, instead of nuking the IP logs, they would hand deliver them to law enforcement on a daily basis, even when not asked to, just to kiss the govt's ass.
god i love the swedes!!!
much better than the parsnips !
And when they get forced to Keep the Data, then the ones WANTING the Data should have to PAY for it. US$ 1000 for Each IP Adress would be fair.....
Meh. The next step for government is way too obvious. Revoke the block of IP addresses granted to those ISP's. The ISP's win the battle but lose the war (and their jobs). After the companies who use that ISP find out their internet access has been cut off because of a decision made by their ISP, I think the cheering over the protection of their anonymity will die down quite a bit.
I hope the US is taking notes here, since those ISPs are probably getting much more business.
ummm...the US ISP's are run by the same companies that run all the media companies. I don't think they give 2 shits about protecting customer's anonymity.
su
rm -rf /var/log
ln -s /dev/null /var/log
*thumbs up*
Data retention logs should be outlawed.
Does anyone even remember what privacy was?
surm -rf /var/logln -s /dev/null /var/log*thumbs up*
Awesome.
Holy crap, a company looking out to protect it's company instead of selling everything it possible can for a quick buck?! Now if there was only 1 single American company that would do the same... but lets get real America lost it soul in 1913 when the "Federal" Reserve help America hostage and completely took it over.
Couldn't this result in more serious problems? For instance, don't they currently use IP/Account tracking in order to trace people who commit cyber crimes much more serious than pirating? I'm all for protecting privacy, but I don't want to protect the child molesters either.
@cerulean: There are much better and easier ways to bust people like that, is it better to invade the privacy of everyone because somebody MIGHT be doing something like that, or just to setup a sting operation and see who takes the bait, then meet them in person? Besides, how many people have ever pirated a neighbors WiFi to do something like that?
This is the only thing from sweden in the past few days that has made me happy.
Nice.
(I'm part swedish, so this really angers me that my own blood is trying to screw themselves up so bad, internet wise..)
However, this would also be a godsend for Pedophiles and I think that that is too high a price to pay.