Still thinking of ways to spend your business’s Stimulus money? How about a new server dedicated solely to tracking every bit of Internet traffic your company does for two years?
That’s the intent of proposed federal legislation requiring all Internet providers and Wi-Fi access points — that means your local coffee shop, your hotel, and yes, even possibly you — to keep records of all Internet traffic so you can turn them over to the police in the event of an investigation.
Bills introduced last week by Republicans in both the House and Senate state: “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.”
According to CNET, that means anyone with Wi-Fi access points or routers using the standard method of dynamically assigning temporary address (what we know as DHCP). It includes millions of homes as well as the big guys such as Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and the like.
Why even consider such a potentially costly and invasive requirement? One of the Senate bill’s sponsors, U.S. Sen. Johh Cornyn of Texas, said: “While the Internet has generated many positive changes in the way we communicate and do business, its limitless nature offers anonymity that has opened the door to criminals looking to harm innocent children.”
If you’re interested, the legislation is Senate Bill 436 and H.R. 1076 in the House. Click here for a CNET News article.