[Moderator: Something about 'keeping all e-mail for a week' seems a BIT out of line to me.] Forwarded From: Nicholas Charles Brawn <ncb05t_private> 22Oct98 UK: PERSPECTIVE - POLICE SHOULD STICK TO THE RULE BOOK. By Colin Barker. In a series of meetings with Internet service providers (ISPs), the police have proposed ways in which ISPs could give police better access to various electronic communications, including email and bulletin boards. For example, the police would like the ISPs to keep all emails for a week. That way, if the police want to check on an email that may or may not have been sent at a particular time, they can - providing it was sent in the previous week. The police are worried about criminal behaviour that they, and the media, call Internet crime. This is a ragbag of offences, of which the activities of paedophiles is the best known. Internet crime also includes fraud - people allegedly moving large sums of money from someone else's bank account into their own; extortion - hackers demanding money backed by the threat of 'information terrorism'; and espionage - whether it be hackers infiltrating defence systems or professionals searching for industrial secrets. These are well-known, well-established crimes. The fact that the perpetrators now often use computers to execute their crimes does not create a new category of criminal. What is worrying the police is that criminals have been faster, when it comes to exploiting the technology, than the police forces of the world. Rather than let the criminals get away with it, the police want to gain access to the technology to use it themselves to track criminals. Is there anything wrong with this? Well, try this for size: what if the police proposed that all telephone calls should be taped and kept for a week - just in case they wanted to listen to some conversations that could help them with their enquiries? Quite apart from the physical problems - the cost of millions of tape drives or thousands of terabytes of digitally stored and compressed voice data - there is the question of privacy. If the police want to tape telephone conversations they need a special order. Why should the regulations be any different for email? And that's the point. The police and the ISPs are meeting because the police want to talk about a 'code of conduct' for ISPs to keep information and store it, when necessary, while at the same time maintaining the balance of personal privacy. But I suspect there is no need for any of this. When the police follow the correct procedures they already have the resources to intercept 'snail mail' or listen in on telephone conversations. There is nothing different about the Internet. It has not created a new category of crime or criminals, nor has it created a special category of communications. It is just new and different, a combination which often invokes panic in government and police. Police representatives will put their case in Computing next week. -o- Subscribe: mail majordomot_private with "subscribe isn". Today's ISN Sponsor: Repent Security Incorporated [www.repsec.com]
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